A brief health self-evaluation

Out of curiosity and partially inspired by boredom, I tabulated everything I ate and drank today and calculated my Percent Daily Values:

Calories -- 1630
Calories from fat -- 362
Total fat -- 47g (72%)
Saturated fat -- 12g (60%)
Cholesterol -- 160mg (53%)
Sodium -- 3058mg (127%)
Total carbohydrates -- 222g (74%)
Dietary fiber -- 18g (72%)
Sugars -- 92.5g
Protein -- 79g (158%)

Vitamin A -- 162%
Vitamin C -- 67%
Calcium -- 55%
Iron -- 59%
Folic acid -- 44%
Thiamin -- 34%
Riboflavin -- 8%
Vitamin B6 -- 26%
Potassium -- 46%
Phosphorus -- 5%
Magnesium -- 11%
Zinc -- 2%
Copper -- 8%
Niacin -- 26%
Vitamin E -- 5%
Vitamin D -- 25%

I had 2 servings of fruit, 2 servings of vegetables, 4 servings of grains, 3 servings of dairy, and 3 servings from the meat group. Not completely horrible, I guess.

Man, that tiny amount of soy sauce I had at dinner really raised sodium through the roof (by 38%!) Hmm, seems like I'm super low on zinc and vitamin E, and no vitamin K whatsoever? (Does it go by a different name here?) Well, at least I'm doing better on fiber and protein than I was imagining. And I lift weights, so I could use the extra protein. I also eat less than 2,000 calories a day, so some of these values aren't quite so bad.

Still, could use some help in the vitamins and minerals department. I remember taking Flintstones vitamins as a child, but I'm balking a bit at the thought of taking a multivitamin nowadays just because it seems like I'm not hopelessly deficient in EVERYTHING. And don't really want to overdo it by just taking something blindly. Supposedly, most vitamins will get flushed out fine if you get them in excess, but some don't, like Vitamin A. Maybe I should just take zinc and other specific supplements. EFAs are also supposedly pretty good to take. Well, according to somebody out there, I guess...

How did they figure out these numbers, anyhow?

Does anybody pay attention to what's in their multivitamins? Does anybody compare that to what they actually need?

Brainstorming New Year's resolutions

I think that I'll keep my New Year's resolutions list fairly short this year. Sometimes the list gets so long that it ends up looking really intimidating, and I give up within the first week. I figure that fewer things on the list means fewer things to concentrate on and therefore a higher success rate at keeping them.

Here goes a rough draft (I may or may not revise it, depending on how well it works out):

• Manage time effectively: I haven't been getting nearly as much sleep as I need in order to be fully functional and at my best. Particularly, my short-term memory doesn't seem to be working very well these days. I want to distribute my 24 daily hours more efficiently between academic time, work time, relax time, and sleep time. "Relax time" is actually a new requirement I'm making for myself this year separate from "sleep time", which will hopefully be around 8-9 hours a night. Yes, I do need that much sleep!!
  
• Get in shape: Exercising helps so many aspects of life. When I exercise, my mental facility, emotional balance, and physical well-being all improve. I feel a lot more alive and happy, and it feels good to move about and know you're doing something to keep your body from deteriorating. I'm not sure yet exactly what I want to do for exercise, but I'm going to shoot for a modest goal of 30 min, 3 days a week.
  
• Be aware of self: Something I've been dying to do for a long time is to start doing daily journal reflections. I want to see what I felt good about each day, what I didn't feel so good about, ways in which I'd like to improve, interesting or amusing things that happened, and any insights I've had about life. I want to be able to see the direction I'm heading in as a person, and I want to realize what I'm proud of and what I'm not proud of in myself. I want to believe in myself and feel good about myself, and develop a stronger self-image. I want to feel like I'm doing more than just letting life drift along.
  
• Enjoy people: There's so much more to college life than the academics. I want to be more sociable and spend more time with people that I like. It's amazing how relaxing and refreshing it can be to spend even a small amount of time catching up with friends and doing something fun once in a while. And it also makes you that much better at doing things you need to do, in my opinion.
  
• Organize finances: I've never done much budgeting with my money. I just earn as much as I can, try not to spend too much, and hope it comes out nicely. I want to do better about figuring out how much I want to save, and I want to be more careful about how and where I spend my money. My financial goal for life is to never be in debt when possible, but still live comfortably and have the resources to pursue my interests.

Hmm, one New Year's resolution that I ought to make is to actually keep my New Year's resolutions.

I'm thinking of maybe making signs for each of these and putting them up on the wall of my room. I've never tried anything like that before, and it might help me remember what I'm working on. I think it would be fun to make them kind of artsy too, so that they're nice to look at. A future Sunday project, perhaps...

Pressing the snooze button of life

Today's topic in church was procrastination. At first I thought, "Yeah, yeah... everybody does it and we all know we shouldn't." I almost zoned out. But then I started listening and thinking about it, and really so many of the worries and sources of stress in my life (and probably anyone else's) stem directly from procrastination.

What are the things I usually beat myself up about? Homework deadlines. Being late for things. Not being prepared for an audition or performance. Not being far enough along on a project. Not sending important emails or making important phone calls. Not keeping in touch with people. Not telling people how much I care about them. If I weren't such a procrastinator, all of those problems would vanish! It's not like I'm not capable of getting all those things done in the time that I have. I just get into this mode where I lack the willpower to make myself do anything.

I have a terrible time getting up in the morning. I'm the type of person who can hit snooze for over an hour and not really notice that time is going by. Funny thing is, if I wouldn't procrastinate going to bed, I'd get enough sleep and wouldn't procrastinate getting up in the morning. But that of course would require that I not procrastinate my work and have to stay up late. Which would mean that I would have to get stuff done earlier in the day, which would probably be easier if I got up on time. Which means that I would need to go to sleep earlier... etc. Endless downward spiral...

Sometimes I wish I could stop and hit the reset button and start with a clean slate. Nothing would be behind schedule, and then I could try to stay on schedule. But how do you get back to that point once you've started down the spiral? The lesson on procrastination is always to just not even do it. But where's the lesson that tells us what to do if we've already started doing it?

How do I stop when everything's already backed up like crazy? If I don't procrastinate one thing, I've gotta procrastinate something else to keep up. It's like getting caught in a pool of quicksand.