Fast Food Farewell Tour - Chick fil A fried sandwiches (and fries, they're not my favorite)

Every year I envision sweeping changes to my lifestyle. I see myself eating better, sleeping more, and finding more time for exercise. I find ways to maintain what I've been doing for the last few years by getting in my morning runs and making trips to the gym, but my diet never really changes and I still stay up too late to squeeze in a few more pages of reading or a few more minutes playing some game. The details may change, but the pattern stays the same. 

Our return to Disney World is in a couple of weeks. I'm very much looking forward to it. I like the food and the escape from the monotony and tedium of life. That places is all about escaping the trappings of normal life. It's an artificial world free from all the bad stuff that devours our attention and monopolizes our energy. It's a few days in an alternative space where there are no chores, everything is clean, and the future is bright. At least everything the park has control over glistens and gleams. The people walking around are a different story. Big guts spill over almost every waistband. People carrying around vast excesses of caloric energy spend their time in the park gobbling down even more energy while complaining about all of the walking and standing around. 

We've been looking at the pictures from our last visit as we make plans for this next trip. Seeing how much is similar in my life two years after our last visit hints at why big changes are so hard. Life has a momentum. I live my life with a certain direction and pattern. Those are very difficult to change. I like what I like and what I like is fairly stable and constant from one year to the next. Getting fit and trim will require shifting very powerful equilibria from comfort and contentedness to dissatisfaction and a struggle to achieve something different. 

Sleep and food are the biggest challenges. I'm doing this farewell tour to fast food as a small ceremony to remove places like Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A from my list of acceptable places to get lunch. I need to pack my lunch, everyday, if I'm going to lose weight. I have very little extra time for more exercise. The nice thing about rowing is its small time requirement. I only need 20 minutes for a very solid workout. I need to find those times and stick to them. I must establish a bedtime and adhere to it with an unsurpassed commitment. This sleep thing is critical to everything else. 

Sleep is critical for three reasons (at least, I'm sure I could come up with more). One, energy is critical to achieving everything else. A good night's sleep sets the tone for the rest of the day. It's hard to workout when you wake up feeling less than rested. It's easier to give into temptation and have that cookie or cut back on a workout when all you really want to do it go to bed. It's hard to read when you're tired. Two, I need to sleep to recover and heal. All the work that I put in during the day is captured and put into my body while I'm asleep. Cutting that recovery period short robs me of gains that I work hard to realize in the gym, in my garage, or out on the roads. Three, more sleep means healthy testosterone levels. There are many important aspects of my life dependent on doing all that I can to keep my testosterone levels up. Sleep is one of the big things I can do to keep all my parts in proper working order. 

So farewell to fried chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A. I will get the grilled stuff when I eat there with my kids (which I will be doing tomorrow, I expect).