Focusing on Fitness
From like May through July I don’t think I exercised more than a small handful of times. I was in Vegas during a lot of that period for the WSOP and was just generally being lazy. I find it so much harder to remain disciplined about diet and exercise when you’re on the road a lot. I loved what Patrik Antonius said in a recent interview:
“I stopped playing tournament poker since it got too small for me and it’s a very unhealthy life traveling to play poker tournaments.”
I found that to be pretty inspirational and have focused on grinding cash games more and relying on tournaments less. I’ll get back to that in a moment.
Since I pretty much have done zero traveling since getting back from the Main Event in July, I’ve been able to focus on getting into a daily exercise routine. I’ve been taking a Bikram yoga class 2-3 times per week, lifting weights and doing cardio at 24h Fitness 2-3 times per week and taking 1-2 days a week off. In general I haven’t really changed much about my diet except to avoid eating junk snack foods especially late at night. I have a pretty good metabolism but had been carrying around probably 15 extra pounds on account of rarely exercising, eating like crap and drinking too often.
I’ve realized the correlation between my body weight and fitness level and how much alcohol I’ve been consuming is ridiculously high. Not only is alcohol in and of itself terrible for you, but in my case at least, it usually leads to some type of late night binge eating on fast food. Moreover, since you feel like crap the next day, you usually don’t wind up working out.
About a month ago I finally just got fed up with feeling out of shape and unhealthy. Since then, I’ve drastically cut back on going out and drinking. This has had the dual benefit of saving money; it’s amazing how much money you can waste just by living a fast lifestyle. I think I’ve only drank maybe 3-4 times in the past month and each time was anything but a binge fest as I’m now more in tune with the damaging consequences of such an evening.
Even just a month into a healthier lifestyle I feel so much better. My range of motion has improved dramatically and I feel healthier and happier on a more regular basis. I’ve also noticed my anxiety, which was never that much of a problem before, but still something that would creep up on me somewhat often, has diminished drastically.
Lately I’ve been focusing on grinding 6-max PLO cash games. They seem to be pretty juicy. I wrote a PLO strategy article for the PokerTips blog with a few of my observations on why I have an edge in these games for the moment.
Well that’s all for now. Regarding the fitness thing, I’m just taking it a day at a time. I know at previous points in my life when I tried to hold myself to some disciplined regimen, I became overwhelmed and threw in the towel in a moment of despair. This time around, I’m avoiding placing a bunch of expectations on myself and just taking it day by day. My goal each day for about a month now has just been to do a good job that day. Beyond that, I’m not worried about much else.
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Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
Yes