This is the fifth and final part of my Setting Effective New Year’s Resolutions for Poker Success series. If you haven’t already, please check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Today’s goals are smarter and not particularly similar to each other, but this has gone on for long enough, so I’m posting them both.
Goal 5: Lose Two Pounds Per Month
I’m not fat, but I’m bigger than I should be. I’m just shy of 6′ and weigh in around 200 lbs, probably a little more since Christmas. 180 is about as small as I’ve been in my adult life, and I don’t see any reason why I can’t get back there. I don’t know enough about weight loss to know whether resolving to shed pounds is like resolving to win money, not entirely under my control. So I’m making it a goal and resolving to do a lot of productive things more consistently than I do now. If I do those things, I’ll be happy whether I actually lose the weight or not.
Average 1 Hour of Deliberate Exercise Every Day
This can include working out, playing sports, walking, taking a class, etc., but the activity has to be built around exercise. I often end up doing a lot of incidental walking when we’re camping, but I’m not counting that, because it’s not deliberate and sustained. Basically I want to be picky about this for the sake of making myself do more of it. At the end of every month in which I accomplish this, I get a massage and I get to count the massage towards this total!
Get a Gym Membership and Average 2 Visits Per Week
I know this sounds like the most stereotypical resolution ever that nobody ever keeps, but when I was living in Boston I was walking distance from a gym and was definitely going more than twice a week for several years. I actually want to go more than twice a week this year as well, but since I haven’t actually joined yet, I’m going to have to in order to average out over the time now when I don’t even have a membership.
Take a Yoga Class
Obviously this is another one that my yoga-teaching mother bugs me about a lot, but it took Travis Steffen’s ringing endorsement of yoga in Peak Performance Poker to inspire me once and for all. Hopefully this will also result in my doing some independent workouts between classes.
Eat Healthier
Living nomadically resulted in a lot of eating out. I’m not going to lie: it was fun to roll into a new city, spend a few days visiting all of the best restaurants there, and then move on. Hopefully having my own kitchen again will result in healthier and less expensive eating habits. This is more vague than a resolution should be, so I’m trying to think of some specific ways of accomplishing this: keeping healthy snacks around, planning meals in advance and shopping accordingly, consulting with a nutritionist (though I once had a free consultation with one and she was totally worthless so it didn’t give me a good impression), and possibly even taking a cooking class or something.
Goal 6: Study Poker
The better I get, the harder it gets to get better. Just maintaining an edge against stiff competition in high-stakes games is an effort. Hopefully blogging and such will help, but I need to make sure that I take advantage of the other resources available to me.
Learn PLO
I finally feel like I’m starting to get a feel for this game. I believe my resolution to play more poker will give me more of an impetus to practice. It’s also a good impetus to read and review books, since I don’t get too much from the NLHE books I read these days.
Watch 3 Poker Videos Per Week
I do still learn from NLHE videos, because that’s the forum that most of the game’s best players choose to teach in nowadays. I also plan to watch a lot of PLO videos, as I know there is a ton of good material out there, and I need the help.
Learn Chess or Go
For the most part this is just something I’m interested in, but I also feel like studying non-poker strategy games will stretch my mind and generally make me a better/smarter player. Obviously I already know the rules of these games, but I want to get to a point where I can play them more seriously and at least comprehend the more complex strategies that underlie each.
Phew… that was exhausting. Thanks to everyone who’s offered to help with individual items. I always appreciate hearing your compliments and your suggestions.
I want to hear more about your resolutions, too! What are you trying to accomplish in poker this year? What do you want to learn more about? How can I help you?
The only weight loss program that has worked for me is to make a wager with a buddy who’s also trying to lose weight. This fall we were going to Mexico with our wives so we both set goals. The wager included a dollar amount for reaching the goal if the other didn’t, plus a penalty per pound short for the one who didn’t. As is we both reached the goal, so no one paid. Now in 2011 we’ve made it a straight up race, so the first one to get there wins (value = a buy in to one of the larger local weekly NLHE tournys).
I know I should eat letter, but food is so damn tasty that only my competitive nature can over come the flavor of potato chips!
FWIW I’m 6″1″ and aiming for 185.
Good luck! I’m looking at this as essentially a wager with myself. It’s scary how easily motivated I can be to hit target numbers on a spreadsheet.
I’ve never had a weight problem, but my weight does fluctuate quite rapidly with the amount of physical activity I do at work. I do foundations and framing. Alot of the fluctuation has to do with the liquids a person takes in. Count your calories of liquid intake per day and reduce that number without changing your eating diet. I would bet the pounds come off fast. When my work gets real physical, I usually stick to straight water with the odd gatorade. I drop my weight fast. Just an idea.
Much appreciated, although if what you’re talking about is replacing sugary/caloric beverages with water, that’s pretty much where I am already. I don’t drink much beer and even less soda. I’m down to 1% milk. Girlfriend is trying to get me on skim, but I just can’t stand the stuff. Some pleasures are worth it.
I was scared humid summers in NYC.
The past experience and visualization me with extra fat and waiting in NYC underground subway station was motivation Nr 1.
I did not try induce the visualization.It was natural process of recalling past experience and a realization the benefits of staying fit.
Now I live in different place but the recall still motivates me.
Haha visualizing myself as a sweaty fat bastard does sound like it would be helpful!
Depending on how ‘hardcore’ you want to approach weight loss…I’d highly recommend P90x. It is generally a 6 day a week program that incorporates a variety of different workouts. Most workouts are under 1 hour. The program plus nutritional guidelines is an incredible way to get in shape. Personally I really enjoy having a plan laid out for me. Helps to know what you’re shooting for. It doesn’t require a gym membership, but you do need some workout items at home.
I’d understand if one wasn’t interested in it because it does seem a bit daunting. It really isn’t too difficult once you get going however. Workouts like Yoga X and Kenpo X are actually a lot of fun too!
Otherwise the best workout tip is to make sure you hit your peak heart rate, regardless of what you’re doing.
Good luck with your goals Andrew!
Thanks, John! I’m actually not trying to be hardcore about it at all. A lot of what I counted towards an exercise goal last year was just walking/hiking. It’s just important to me that I avoid getting sucked into a totally sedentary lifestyle of playing/writing/recording in front of my computer and never moving around. I may look into the programs you suggest anyway, though, if they’re fun!
Learn go. It’s a great inexhaustible game. You can play free on-line over KGS (Kiseido Go Server), which also offers an inexpensive professional lecture program. http://www.gokgs.com for info. There are also a number of professionals/semi-professionals offering on-line lessons at varying rates. The literature on the game is enormous. At a recent US Congress a visiting Korean professional commented that he had a go library of some 3,500 volumes. Web-sites: http://www.usgo.org, http://www.justplaygo.com, learngo.world-go.org. The last is the web site of my on-line teacher, Mirel Florescu, a Romanian 6-dan who teaches on KGS under the screen name Tsurukame. Very patient, very acute, and very reasonably priced.
Thanks, Robert. I was actually more interested in Go but leaning towards Chess just b/c I had a better idea of where to start. I think now my first step will be checking out a few of these resources, and hopefully that will get me started in Go!
Hi Andrew,
I am a long time reader of your blog/articles/videos.
About your “losing weight” resolution, you should take a look at the “4Hour body” book by Tim Ferris. Although not everything in this book is to be applied, you’ll find some very good and counter-intuitive advices, and trust me, it works.
I am also a long time break-even/small winner in middle limit NLHE, but i have quit playing poker for a year and a half because i was too busy quitting my company and starting my own web design and photography freelance activity. My own resolutions for 2011 include going back to poker, but this time in a serious way. Taking lessons with you is in my plan, hopefully by the end of this year…
So good luck with your resolutions and happy new year!
Thanks, Fabien. Is he the same guy who wrote “4-Hour Work Week”? I did take some interesting stuff away from that book, but something about him just rubs me the wrong way. Sounds like it’s been helpful to you w/ your own business, though, so congratulations on that! Good luck with the poker, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from you before the end of the year :-)!
As a big 4HWW fan I actually almost got that for Andrew for Christmas, but held off after reading as many negative reviews as good ones on Amazon.
Hi Emily,
I’m certainly not a Tim Ferris “fanboy”, not everything he writes is useful or even accurate, and i understand that he can be irritating to some people, but i have to admit this guy knows how to “trigger” action and motivation, at least as far as i’m concerned.
I’m not saying i decided to quit my big company last year to launch my web design and photography freelance activity because of him, but 4HWW definitely was one of the reading that made me think: “ok, stop being afraid, you can do this, take your chance, do your job well, and it’ll be fine”. Also my girlfriend and i are planning a “mini-retirement”, as we will be leaving Paris(where we live) in march for 2/3 months to visit Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. I didn’t read Andrew’s blog for several months last year because i was too busy, but i think you guys were on the road for several months, right? Was it a good experience?
Anyway, about 4HB, i think it’s like 4HWW, some of it looks a little like crap, but some of it looks like really good advices and like something you can take and really use, specially the part about eating and exercising. It also talks about behavior changes, and how baby steps work better than big changes, and how to spot and control “bad behavior triggers”. Anyway, again, i am not his salesman ;), but i took some good things away from 4HB.
Wow, this answer is getting too long. Good luck with that, and happy new year.
Fabien
Totally agree, I didn’t buy into a lot of the detailed tactics in 4HWW, and sometimes his perspective seemed pretty out of line with mine, but I definitely did find the overall bigger picture outlook to be good (step back and think about where you want to go, take actions to get there, don’t just stick with status quo for no reason, what would you do with your time if you didn’t have to work etc), and the cheerleading to be well-done; very motivating.
Indeed we have been traveling for some time, we still don’t have an apartment right now, but we’re working on transitioning back to a more settled existence after 16 months without a home base. Here’s the summary map of our driving since last October: http://bit.ly/eG5Vv9. We also did a quick flying trip from Maryland to Vegas last year for the NAPT Venetian with side trip after to San Diego so I would be willing to go 🙂
We kinda embarked on the trip, both halves, with less than a month pre-planning, so it was more expensive and hectic than it would have been with a little more advanced planning. Seems like most people either RV it if they are going to travel the U.S. or visit less expensive countries to keep costs down, probably a smart move over all, but especially b/c I’m into US History and politics it was very interesting to see so much of the US. Would change some particulars, but definitely recommend overall.
http://www.slideshare.net/captology/stanford-6401325
When I go through my healthy phases, I cut out grains and add some good fats. Then I fall of the wagon because bread tastes good. For beverages, try tea. I’m in the south, so I prefer iced tea.
GL