The “Comics for Calories” workout plan

April 19th, 2009

I’m currently visiting my wife’s family in Cedar Rapids, and being away from the city has been extremely helpful in letting me take a step back from routine life and look for opportunities to do things better.

Earlier this year, I reactivated my gym membership under the theory that given my situation, exercise would be a good stress-relief tool and I could use the extra exercise regular workouts provide. However, as life got busy, my attendance dropped considerably.

On an unrelated note, I’ve also found myself treading water when it comes to expanding my X-Men collection. The last older issue that I purchased was in last November, where I picked up a significantly older issue than any I had in order to establish a new “hole” in my collection. (Holes drive OCD’s like myself nuts.) The idea was that rather than just pick up the latest issues, I’d begin work filling the gap in my collection and work towards the lifetime goal of a full run of the original X-Men series (started in 1963).

Like my exercise, my comic book collecting was pushed to the back burner as I worked to get Audacious Software up and running. Making a run to Graham Cracker Comics was something that became hard to justify when I needed to push out another software release or tweak the performance of another web site. However, the Wednesday comic book run was a nice weekly ritual that I want to resume.

So, in the spirit of getting better exercise and getting back to doing something I love, I’d like to present the “Comics for Calories” workout plan.

The fundamental idea behind the plan is that by linking workouts to comic book purchases, I accomplish two things:

1. I make my gym attendance a function of something other that simply exercising: It’s easy to roll over in bed and decide to sleep in when all that’s being neglected is a workout. I’m hoping that I can stimulate my comic book OCD and use that a motivational tool. If I miss a workout, I can’t pick up the week’s issues. If I break the long term streak, I’m no longer entitled an older back issue.

2. I give myself permission to do something that I enjoy: Lately, I’ve been arguing with myself internally about whether I should continue collecting comic books. I have to spend time going to the store to pick them up. I spend a couple of bucks for each issue. And most importantly, should a guy on the verge of the big Three-Oh still be into a hobby that he began in the fifth grade? I enjoy the hobby very much, so I think that by bundling my collecting with my exercise, I can get rid of the internal nagging.

So, that all said, here are the details of the plan.

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1. Workout streaks are measured in weekly and monthly intervals.

A full workout week consists of attending the gym 3 times a week. A workout where I spend 45 minutes on the elliptical counts as much as one where I spend 15 minutes shooting hoops. The goal is to just get out there.

A full workout month consists of four consecutive complete workout streaks. If I manage to pull off four full weeks, I’ll have completed a full month.

2. Rewards are contingent upon the current streak:

1 full workout week entitles me to pick up the current week’s new releases.

1 full workout month entitles me to pick up a back issue that helps fills the hole in my Uncanny X-Men collection. (This hole currently consists of issues from the late 1970′s and early 1980′s.)

3 full workout months entitle me to pick up an issue earlier than the current hole that I’m filling.

3. There are a handful of circumstances where I am allowed to miss a workout and not break the streaks:

a. I’m out of town.

b. The gym is closed.

c. I am sufficiently sick that I cannot go to the office.

Any absences aside from those listed constitute a break in the streak and the counter resets.

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I’m curious whether imposing this bit of structure and making progress in two activities codependent upon each other will help me become more consistent at each. I’m adapting the approach used by the Caltera School that has been successful for me thus far in learning music and how to play the piano.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 6:42 am and is filed under Comic Books, Exercise, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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