Things I’ve Learned Post Hurricane

Hurricane Michael did a number on my world.

Don’t get me wrong, now. Others got it far, far worse than me, but it did a big enough number that I had to learn a few things about myself and trying to achieve my goals.

Today, I’m still out of town but will be heading back tomorrow come hell or high water (no pun intended) and we will have to deal with the harsh reality we left behind for more comfortable climates.

But, with that in mind, here’s what I’ve learned…

I need to learn how to eat out more

For someone trying to lose weight, this probably doesn’t make much sense. However, I’ve also been sort of forced to eat out most of the weekend. My diet has kind of been shot to hell because, well, it’s really difficult to eat the way I want to in a lot of places.

It can be done, though, and I know it can. However, I apparently suck at it. I need to learn how to do it so if I find myself in this unfortunate position again, I can deal with it.

That’s not an excuse to eat out a bunch, though. Which is fine, because I actually hate eating out. Restaurants are something you deal with when you’re either too tired or can’t cook a given food well. It’s not a way of life, so there’s no danger of that from me.

But stuff happens, too, and I need to learn how to adapt better. Part of the beauty of flexible dieting is the ability to adjust to things, and I’ve sucked at it this week.

I also need to plan better on my workouts

I have a very simple routine. It shouldn’t be difficult to deal with. My plan for training out of town had been to find a nearby gym and use it for my training needs while I was there.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a gym nearby that I could really make use of. All of them were either Planet Fitness or CrossFit boxes with set hours for classes and few open gym hours.

That meant I was relegated to the hotel’s fitness center, which had some dumbbells and a couple of benches, but that was about it.

I seriously need an alternate plan for training in such a situation. I’m thinking a bodyweight routine to serve as a backup is ideal, and that means I need to work some bodyweight movements into my training. That way, I have some practice doing them should I need to.

Having a plan “B” is a good idea.

It’s also a good idea if I expand my food tastes

When it comes to food, I tend to not be overly adventurous. Not only that, but I’m something of a reverse snob. There are some foods that are presented to me in such a pretentious way that I have no interest in it whatsoever, no matter what.

A prime example of this is quinoa.

When I first encountered it, it was something of a hipster food, and the way it was praised just annoyed the hell out of me, so I have refused to try it. This, however, isn’t really rational. After all, maybe quinoa is tasty as hell. Maybe it’s not. I honestly don’t know.

This is a personal problem for me, and one that I probably need to deal with. I’ve been working on that one too. After all, I’m away from home, so I’ve been insisting on hitting restaurants that we don’t have at home. It’s a baby step, but it means not stopping at the comfortable Longhorn’s and hitting chains we don’t normally have.

It’s not a big step, but it’s still an important one.

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All in all, these aren’t major things, but they’re things I feel like I need to do. After all, if I’m using the Viking as an archetype, I need to have some flexibility. Vikings were travelers, after all.

I’m a homebody of sorts, but that’s something about myself that I want to change, too.

Luckily, if nothing else comes out of this whole fiasco–something I’m not prepared to put money on–at least it spurred me onto making these changes now rather than some undefined point in the future. So there’s that.