In what can only be seen as complete universal injustice, we here at ShrinkGeek have to hold down regular old nine-to-five jobs in order to put our healthy food on the table. Fortunately, the job that I’ve got is a pretty decent one – especially when you factor in the benefits. In particular, the employee gym we have in our corporate headquarters is pretty nice. I’m down there at least once a day, and it has helped me considerably in my efforts to refocus on my weight loss in the last year.

One thing we do not have, however, is a cafeteria. We’re a decent-sized company, but we don’t really have enough staff in our main location to justify that kind of expense. The only access we have to food comes in the form of vending machines, and as someone who traditionally doesn’t carry cash, that has never been a viable option for me… up until last week, anyway. We recently switched vendors, and now all of the food dispensary units in our break room take debit cards.

Unfortunately, many of the options in those machines can’t really be slotted into the “healthy choices” category. In fact, some of the ones that seem obvious choices in that arena are far from it.

Every once in a while, it’s time to perform a +SAN check. Today, we’ll give you a peek under the hood, behind the veil, or inside the other metaphor of your choice, to see the sort of stuff we do here for our own workout routines. Not that we’re expecting anyone to decide that what we’re doing for our own fitness regimen is the cure for what ails you – but if you want to play along with the home game, that’s cool, too.

This comes up now for a couple of reasons. One, a month into 2010, a lot of the momentum from the well-intentioned New Years’ resolutions is flagging, and a kick in the pants might be in order. Two, I’m about to undertake something completely new, and am a bit nervous about it. Three, it might provide you with some ideas on how to shake up your current routine if you’re stuck.

makelessnoise via Flickr

Healthy living doesn’t come easy for many people. In fact, for a large number of us I dare say it would qualify as “work.” You have to pay attention to what you eat and how much; make sure you take your vitamins; drink enough fluids; exercise; and get enough rest. If you aren’t consciously adjusting your lifestyle to fit your needs, you can be assured you’ll gain weight as you age. (Yes, even you whipper snappers who love to rub in the fact that you can eat “whatever you want” and not gain a pound). Modern living doesn’t include the kind of rigorous activity that kept many generations before us trim, and compensating for that can really start to feel like a full-time job. Which, as most people will agree, gets old.

Sometimes you just need to take a vacation from your job, and we all look forward to one day being able to retire altogether. Retirement from the weight loss and exercise job, though, would undoubtedly lead to weight gain. With obesity being the cause of any number of health problems, one would imagine that putting on the pounds during your golden years (when your health is already on the decline simply due to the aging process) would be a bad thing.

Well, maybe not so much.

Similar to, but not exactly, the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field (© Alasdair MacDonald)

It’s hardly uncommon to run into a point in the leveling process or particular fight that kicks your butt for weeks on end (your hosts here, during one memorable period during The Burning Crusade, beat our collective heads against The Curator for about six straight weeks). When it comes to fitness, these tend to be innocuously called “plateaus” rather than “OMG WHY DOESN’T ANYTHING CHANGE?” or, as Scott called them, “Hell Levels.”

That’s probably to save on typsetting costs, but still.

Being stuck can take on a bunch of different guises, but they’re all frustrating. Of course, the easiest to identify is the whole being stuck to the couch thing. Curiously, that study makes no mention of video games, though we’ve all seen a pile of research claiming various evils stemming from those.  Mike pointed out that simply engaging in marathon television viewing sessions is actively bad for you (not to mention shortening your life), so that’s one more reason not to veg out in front of the tube.

But when it comes to busting the plateaus that happen in our fitness lives, what can we do?

About four months ago I got into a conversation with a friend of mine about the fact that I had taken up jogging. I was about three quarters of the way through the Cool Running “Couch to 5K” training program and I had signed up to participate in my first official race on Thanksgiving. Knowing that I still had a decent amount of weight to lose and that I had dealt with weight-related injuries in the past my friend asked whether or not I was worried about injuries and suggested that if I wanted to improve my cardiovascular fitness I might consider a lower impact exercise like swimming.

At the time I was a little put off by his statements, to be honest. There is nothing quite as discouraging as having someone cast doubts about the safety of an activity that you’re working very hard to master. The fact of the matter is, though, that he had a point. Running is a fantastic way to burn calories and improve your endurance, but it can cause some significant injuries if you aren’t careful (and sometimes even if you are). I’m still, by most standards, about fifty pounds overweight and I am frequently sore for a day or so after I complete a run. All of that extra weight is pretty hard on my joints to being with and jogging is a fairly high impact activity. Not only that, but some researchers now think that the fact that runners wear shoes at all makes them more likely to injure themselves.