Trying to figure out a healthy lifestyle

[Azndude2190]

I kind of have a hectic lifestyle.I'm always in awe when some of my friends are able to find the time to be at the gym for 2+ hours on a daily basis when I can barely find enough time to for an hour without exhausting myself from the days work.

My daily process:

Wake up at 5:30 AM
First class of the day at 6:45AM
Last class ends at 2:30PM
After school activities till 5:30PM
Get home by 6 PM
Take a nap for 2 hours
Do homework for an hour
I eat dinner at around 9-9:30
I than continue to do HW and/or study till normally 11
Than I drive down quickly to the gym takes me around 7 min.
Gym closes at 12
More studying for an hour
Go to sleep at 1 AM.

1)I find that the quality of my breakfast is diminishing along with the frequency
For example, last week I think I ate breakfast (like a bowl of cereal twice)
2)I'm really tired all the time
3)In my one hour or so of time working out I feel like i'm not getting anything done...just going through the motions...I normally just do either the stair climbers or stationary bike.
4)I hate having to eat dinner so late...it feels disgusting.

Any suggestions???

 

[KoolDrew]

3)In my one hour or so of time working out I feel like i'm not getting anything done...just going through the motions...I normally just do either the stair climbers or stationary bike.

A lot can be done in an hour. Most weight lifting routines shouldn't take more than an hour to complete.

 

[Kaido]

A couple questions:

How's your motivation level? Do you have the discipline to work out at home?

What do your after-school activities involve?

Some recommendations:

First, I would recommend working on your diet. Changing my diet has increased my energy from zero to high, all day long. Although it won't help with being tired, you'll at least have the energy to push through the day. What has worked well for me is 6 small meals spaced out 2-3 hours throughout the day (small, quick meals you can eat in a few minutes), with lots of lean meat, whole grains, and vegetables. I stop eating a few hours before bed....you mentioned feeling disgusting eating so late, this will keep you fed throughout the day so you won't need to eat late. If you need need some dietary suggestions, here's a copy of my current diet:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6001510/14-Day-Menu

Next, you've got a pretty tough schedule, but anything you can do to stack the schedule in your favor would benefit you. The average adult requires 9 full hours of sleep and you're only getting 4 hours and 30 minutes - just half of what your body requires. Every hour before midnight that you sleep counts for 2 hours basically, so the earlier you can go to bed the better. I don't know what kind of after-school activities you can do, but if it's possible to cut those out and use them for study time, that'd be ideal. Stop taking naps during the day, it screws up your sleeping schedule at night.

My third recommendation is to do your exercise in the morning. From what I've read, it's really good to do cardio in the morning before your first meal. When I go to bed at 9pm on a regular basis, I wake up about 4-4:30am, so you shouldn't have a problem with that provided you can get into bed early enough. 45 minutes is as long as you should do cardio on a daily basis, and if you're doing weights, do 75 minutes 3-4 times a week. Here's a new sample schedule:

Wake up at 4:30AM
Exercise for 45 minutes, then shower and get dressed
Eat Meal #1 at 5:30AM
Free time (cook meals, study, whatever)
First class of the day at 6:45AM
Eat Meals #2-5 throughout the day
Lass class ends at 2:30PM
After school activities till 5:30PM
Eat Meal #6 at 6:00pm
Do homework for till 9:00PM
Go to bed at 9:30PM

This gets rid of your 2-hour nap during the day and the commute to the gym in the evening. If the gym isn't open in the morning, consider jogging or perhaps picking up a used piece of cardio equipment like a Stairmaster from Craigslist. This schedule will be REALLY hard for the first week because you'll have to do a sleep/diet shift and a habit shift of what you're doing right now, but you'll stop feeling tired throughout the day, have a lot more energy, and be able to focus better in school and on your homework.

So in a nutshell:

1. Nail down your diet
2. Go to bed earlier
3. Do your cardio workout in the morning, before class

You'll still be able to accomplish everything you want, but you'll feel lightyears better doing it this way because (1) you'll be getting enough EARLY sleep, (2) your diet will give you HIGH energy throughout the day, and (3) you'll be doing your workout in the morning, leaving you feeling good throughout the day instead of keeping you awake before bed at night.

 

[GenHoth]

SLEEP MORE

 

[brikis98]

1. No offense, but your schedule seems a bit exaggerated to me. I can't quite figure out what kind of "school" you go to, but spending 12 hours there (including after school activities) plus 4 hours of homework a night sounds a little, um, unrealistic. If this really is your schedule (and not just some worst case scenario to make people pitty you), then 16 hours of your 24 are already booked and you can forget about exercise. Use the remaining 8 to sleep. But really, is your schedule actually that tight every single day? The work load never changes from day to day? How about weekends? Summer? Vacation?

2. You need more sleep. It's not surprising you're tired if you're only sleeping 4.5 hours a night. I'm sure the 2 hour nap in the middle of the day is helpful, although for me, continuous sleep at night works far better. Try removing the nap from your schedule and instead go to bed 2 hours earlier so you get 6.5 hours of unbroken sleep. Then, try to cut out 15 minutes from your activities through out the day - wake up at 5:45 instead of 5:30 (does it really take you 1.25 hours to get ready?), try to get home after school by 5:45 (run/bike fast if you have to, gets you some exercise anyway), spend less time at the gym (see below), etc. It may mean you have to change your routine a bit to make things go quicker, but if you reduce 4 or 5 activities by 15 minutes each, you'll gain an extra hour of sleep, which would go a long way.

3. You should be able to get a very good workout in 30 minutes, including a warm-up. One thing you may want to look into is going to the gym at your school. That'll save you ~15 minutes of getting to/from the gym and you won't be doing it so late at night, so you'll have more energy. Additionally, you may want to look into crossfit. It's a combination of many workout disciplines: olympic lifting, power lifting, gymnastics, running, climbing, plyometrics and more. The goal is to develop a very broad level of fitness across all domains - speed, power, strength, balance, endurance, etc. It may seem extreme at first, but remember that every single CF workout is scalable to anyone's level - there are grandma's doing this stuff. The Brand X message boards lists a scaled version of each workout and if that's not enough, you can follow their example to scale even more. The vast majority of CF workouts are 20 minutes or less, and you can scale any of the longer ones to keep it within a 20 minute window. Despite their brevity, these are extremely difficult - and consequently effective - workouts. Take a look, and if you decide to do it, start real slow, scale, and have fun.

 

[Adn4n]

Originally posted by: brikis98
1. No offense, but your schedule seems a bit exaggerated to me. I can't quite figure out what kind of "school" you go to, but spending 12 hours there (including after school activities) plus 4 hours of homework a night sounds a little, um, unrealistic. If this really is your schedule (and not just some worst case scenario to make people pitty you), then 16 hours of your 24 are already booked and you can forget about exercise. Use the remaining 8 to sleep. But really, is your schedule actually that tight every single day? The work load never changes from day to day? How about weekends? Summer? Vacation?

2. You need more sleep. It's not surprising you're tired if you're only sleeping 4.5 hours a night. I'm sure the 2 hour nap in the middle of the day is helpful, although for me, continuous sleep at night works far better. Try removing the nap from your schedule and instead go to bed 2 hours earlier so you get 6.5 hours of unbroken sleep. Then, try to cut out 15 minutes from your activities through out the day - wake up at 5:45 instead of 5:30 (does it really take you 1.25 hours to get ready?), try to get home after school by 5:45 (run/bike fast if you have to, gets you some exercise anyway), spend less time at the gym (see below), etc. It may mean you have to change your routine a bit to make things go quicker, but if you reduce 4 or 5 activities by 15 minutes each, you'll gain an extra hour of sleep, which would go a long way.

3. You should be able to get a very good workout in 30 minutes, including a warm-up. One thing you may want to look into is going to the gym at your school. That'll save you ~15 minutes of getting to/from the gym and you won't be doing it so late at night, so you'll have more energy. Additionally, you may want to look into crossfit. It's a combination of many workout disciplines: olympic lifting, power lifting, gymnastics, running, climbing, plyometrics and more. The goal is to develop a very broad level of fitness across all domains - speed, power, strength, balance, endurance, etc. It may seem extreme at first, but remember that every single CF workout is scalable to anyone's level - there are grandma's doing this stuff. The Brand X message boards lists a scaled version of each workout and if that's not enough, you can follow their example to scale even more. The vast majority of CF workouts are 20 minutes or less, and you can scale any of the longer ones to keep it within a 20 minute window. Despite their brevity, these are extremely difficult - and consequently effective - workouts. Take a look, and if you decide to do it, start real slow, scale, and have fun.

SRSLY? It's called engineering. I had no sleep last night and it was Sunday because I was at school working on stuff.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Adn4n
SRSLY? It's called engineering. I had no sleep last night and it was Sunday because I was at school working on stuff.

Uh, yea, seriously. I went to an engineering school and have a BS and Masters. I've pulled plenty of all nighters. But my average day did NOT include almost 8 hours of class time nor 3+ hours of "after school activities". In fact, based on the schedule (6:45am - 2:30pm) and the language used ("after school activities") it sounds a lot more like high school. And although high school students love to pitty themselves and consider themselves busy, the VAST majority aren't. They just don't know how to manage their time and actually waste hours every day... Which they only realize when they finally hit college and find out what a real workload looks like. But even then, you can still find time for exercise and sleep a few times a week at even the toughest university - I speak from personal experience.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: Adn4n
SRSLY? It's called engineering. I had no sleep last night and it was Sunday because I was at school working on stuff.

Uh, yea, seriously. I went to an engineering school and have a BS and Masters. I've pulled plenty of all nighters. But my average day did NOT include almost 8 hours of class time nor 3+ hours of "after school activities". In fact, based on the schedule (6:45am - 2:30pm) and the language used ("after school activities") it sounds a lot more like high school. And although high school students love to pitty themselves and consider themselves busy, the VAST majority aren't. They just don't know how to manage their time and actually waste hours every day... Which they only realize when they finally hit college and find out what a real workload looks like. But even then, you can still find time for exercise and sleep a few times a week at even the toughest university - I speak from personal experience.

It really boils down to time management. My current classes are 12 hours a day, plus work, plus my wife, plus my various side hobbies, plus my fitness goals. I find time to workout for an hour a day, eat 6 meals a day, pass my classes, etc...you're right, it all boils down to good time management.

The problem is that most people aren't stronger then their temptations to eat poorly, skip exercise, stay up late, etc. because they don't have a strong goal they're committed to. Once you get committed to a plan, making the right choices becomes easy. Until then it's always a day late and a dollar short...

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: Adn4n
SRSLY? It's called engineering. I had no sleep last night and it was Sunday because I was at school working on stuff.

Uh, yea, seriously. I went to an engineering school and have a BS and Masters. I've pulled plenty of all nighters. But my average day did NOT include almost 8 hours of class time nor 3+ hours of "after school activities". In fact, based on the schedule (6:45am - 2:30pm) and the language used ("after school activities") it sounds a lot more like high school. And although high school students love to pitty themselves and consider themselves busy, the VAST majority aren't. They just don't know how to manage their time and actually waste hours every day... Which they only realize when they finally hit college and find out what a real workload looks like. But even then, you can still find time for exercise and sleep a few times a week at even the toughest university - I speak from personal experience.

It really boils down to time management. My current classes are 12 hours a day, plus work, plus my wife, plus my various side hobbies, plus my fitness goals. I find time to workout for an hour a day, eat 6 meals a day, pass my classes, etc...you're right, it all boils down to good time management.

The problem is that most people aren't stronger then their temptations to eat poorly, skip exercise, stay up late, etc. because they don't have a strong goal they're committed to. Once you get committed to a plan, making the right choices becomes easy. Until then it's always a day late and a dollar short...

That part in bold is a nice & concise way of summing up what I'm trying to say. cheers. 🙂

 

[dealmaster00]

2) Get 8 hrs sleep every night (and cut that nap out of your day). You won't be so tired after doing this. Also without 8 hrs sleep working out really isn't going to do much for you: you need sleep to give you muscles time to rebuild. stair climbers/stationary bike IMO is not much of a workout. Try picking up a beginner's strength training program made by professionals. IE I've been doing this one for 5 months: http://stronglifts.com/strongl...ngth-training-program/

 

[wheresmybacon]

Diet, sleep, wru?

Get more sleep. A lot more. At least 7 hours. Eat more regularly, and don?t eat right before bed. There are a million threads on diet in here so I won?t go farther than that.

You?re not the only one who went to college and had a hard schedule. As already echoed here, get your time management in order and decide what your priorities are.

 

[Azndude2190]

Originally posted by: brikis98
1. No offense, but your schedule seems a bit exaggerated to me. I can't quite figure out what kind of "school" you go to, but spending 12 hours there (including after school activities) plus 4 hours of homework a night sounds a little, um, unrealistic. If this really is your schedule (and not just some worst case scenario to make people pitty you), then 16 hours of your 24 are already booked and you can forget about exercise. Use the remaining 8 to sleep. But really, is your schedule actually that tight every single day? The work load never changes from day to day? How about weekends? Summer? Vacation?

2. You need more sleep. It's not surprising you're tired if you're only sleeping 4.5 hours a night. I'm sure the 2 hour nap in the middle of the day is helpful, although for me, continuous sleep at night works far better. Try removing the nap from your schedule and instead go to bed 2 hours earlier so you get 6.5 hours of unbroken sleep. Then, try to cut out 15 minutes from your activities through out the day - wake up at 5:45 instead of 5:30 (does it really take you 1.25 hours to get ready?), try to get home after school by 5:45 (run/bike fast if you have to, gets you some exercise anyway), spend less time at the gym (see below), etc. It may mean you have to change your routine a bit to make things go quicker, but if you reduce 4 or 5 activities by 15 minutes each, you'll gain an extra hour of sleep, which would go a long way.

3. You should be able to get a very good workout in 30 minutes, including a warm-up. One thing you may want to look into is going to the gym at your school. That'll save you ~15 minutes of getting to/from the gym and you won't be doing it so late at night, so you'll have more energy. Additionally, you may want to look into crossfit. It's a combination of many workout disciplines: olympic lifting, power lifting, gymnastics, running, climbing, plyometrics and more. The goal is to develop a very broad level of fitness across all domains - speed, power, strength, balance, endurance, etc. It may seem extreme at first, but remember that every single CF workout is scalable to anyone's level - there are grandma's doing this stuff. The Brand X message boards lists a scaled version of each workout and if that's not enough, you can follow their example to scale even more. The vast majority of CF workouts are 20 minutes or less, and you can scale any of the longer ones to keep it within a 20 minute window. Despite their brevity, these are extremely difficult - and consequently effective - workouts. Take a look, and if you decide to do it, start real slow, scale, and have fun.

1) I'm a senior in high school.

Why would I exaggerate this stuff?4 hours of homework and studying is not unrealistic.I think your underestimating the rigor of a AP courseload from a 18 year old perspective.I have choir practice everyday for an hour and then I tutor at the school library till 5:30 for CSF.Yes my schedule is booked every single day for the past month...with no end in sight in the immediate future. It'll probably get worse because of college applications(or at least till the end if jan).I'm not posting this for people to pitty me I just want some advice about what I can do eating,resting,and exercise wise.Obviously weekends are a bit different and obviously summer wasn't like this.My post is mainly about Monday through Friday.

2)I live 20min away from my school because I'm an interdistrict transfer student.So yeah it does take me about an hour and half from waking up to getting to class( I mope around for a few minutes in bed,get up,take a shower, get dressed)

I want you to understand that my house is relatively far away from school and the gym.Other than that thanks for advice about sleeping and the CF workout thing i'll try that tonight...I don't have much homework today so that's pretty good.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
1) I'm a senior in high school.

Why would I exaggerate this stuff?4 hours of homework and studying is not unrealistic.I think your underestimating the rigor of a AP courseload from a 18 year old perspective.

Dude, I went to high school too. Took tons of APs, applied to college, played sports, participated in clubs, all that. And like you, I used to think I was incredibly busy. Turns out that I wasn't - I just sucked at managing my time. Then I went to college and thought I was even more absurdly busy. Turns out again that I really wasn't and still needed to learn to manage my time even better. By the time I reached grad school, I was finally getting the hang of it and despite an even greater work load, had more free time overall. I'm not trying to insult you, but believe me, you're not the only person that has struggled through this. I'm not saying it's easy, but if you build a mountain out of a mole hill and convince yourself that you have no time... well, you won't. Instead of listing all the ways your life is difficult, work on finding as many ways as you can to optimize your time and create an efficient schedule.

For example, high school is not nearly regular enough to guarantee 4 hours of homework every single night and the schedule you posted is most likely more of a worst case scenario. I'm sure at least one day a week (as, for example, tonight), you have less. On days like this, take advantage by either getting your butt to the gym & to bed early, or otherwise get a head start on homework for the rest of the week.

You can also learn various tricks to optimize your homework time. For example, got any study halls? Do homework. Got extra time after lunch? Do homework. Got a seriously boring, easy & unnecessary class (most people have at least one)? Do homework. I'm sure you also get many assignments more than a day ahead of time, so if you've got extra time on the weekend... get a head start. Hell, spend 5 hours on some Sunday doing homework and you've instantly got a free hour for each weekday of the following week. Do you get to school by some kind of public transportation? Do homework while you're on it. The point is that there may be a lot of time in the day where you could multi-task and get a whole lot more done.

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
Obviously weekends are a bit different

As I said before, take advantage of your weekends. If you're so busy during the week, then you may need to cram more exercise into your weekends. Instead of going to the gym Mon-Fri, you could, for example, go Sat., Sun and Weds. You can get a lot of good exercise done in 3 days a week and that saves you 4 hours a week right there.

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
2)I live 20min away from my school because I'm an interdistrict transfer student.So yeah it does take me about an hour and half from waking up to getting to class( I mope around for a few minutes in bed,get up,take a shower, get dressed)

I want you to understand that my house is relatively far away from school and the gym.

Do you drive, walk, bike, or take the bus? If you walk or bike, consider running or biking fast. Great exercise and saves you time. If you take the bus... try to take a 20 minute nap on it 🙂

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
Other than that thanks for advice about sleeping and the CF workout thing i'll try that tonight...I don't have much homework today so that's pretty good.

Good to hear. Again, be careful with CF and start SLOW. Scale the workouts down, learn the technique and worry about times & numbers later. Good luck.

 

[Azndude2190]

As of right now I don't have the capacity to do homework or study at school,i'm surrounded by my friends and constant noise.I'm the kind of person that needs relative silence and comfort of my desk at home to get things done.I could go to the library during lunch time with relative silence but i'd like to use that time to socialize with people and actually eat a full meal.

I drive to school since there is no bus route that goes from where I live to the school.I live in an entire different city. It's definitely a "doable" with riding something like a bike to gym since it is downhill the problem is going uphill (plus I don't think my parents would be fine with me riding my bike at night).I'm gonna try to see if I can get my sleeping problem corrected than see if I have enough energy to do something like riding a bike to the gym,working out at the gym itself,and riding back...as of right now that's unrealistic.

Alright so I thought about it and my schedule isn't always like that but it's pretty darn close.I might have a day like this every week where I get less anticipated amounts of homework,but 4/5 times i'm that tight on time.I'll see if I can cut back on minutes on certain things I do...get and hour or two here and there.

 

[peckalo]

Man, you're spending your senior year the wrong way... I took AP calc and english my senior year, but was only in school for 3 hours a day. I worked in the afternoons (at Smoothie King) and goofed off the rest of the time. Average homework load was around 20 minutes. Shrug, I guess it boils down to priorities. At the time, mine was to have fun.

For you, if you want to start living a "healthier" lifestyle, you need to make time for it. A lot of the activities you have listed are voluntary. If you wanted to squeeze in excercise, something would have to give.

Rest wise, sleep as much as you can. As it's been stated 4.5 hours isn't enough. It's amazing how much regular sleep will improve how you feel. Diet can also be adjusted. Eating more, smaller meals is a good way to keep energy throughout the day but it takes planning.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: peckalo
Man, you're spending your senior year the wrong way... I took AP calc and english my senior year, but was only in school for 3 hours a day. I worked in the afternoons (at Smoothie King) and goofed off the rest of the time. Average homework load was around 20 minutes. Shrug, I guess it boils down to priorities. At the time, mine was to have fun.

For you, if you want to start living a "healthier" lifestyle, you need to make time for it. A lot of the activities you have listed are voluntary. If you wanted to squeeze in excercise, something would have to give.

Rest wise, sleep as much as you can. As it's been stated 4.5 hours isn't enough. It's amazing how much regular sleep will improve how you feel. Diet can also be adjusted. Eating more, smaller meals is a good way to keep energy throughout the day but it takes planning.

This is pretty much dead on. You need to make the time. If you can't, drop an activity or something. Choir practice does NOT affect your admittance into college. You need to be realistic about this pace. You're not gonna be able to keep it in college and 4.5 hours of sleep will kill you eventually. Make time for other things. I hate when people schedule their days completely full. It's called down time. You need it. Free up space for it. That will improve your health due to relief of stress (also increased sleep, etc).