Kyle Seth Gray

Kyle Seth Gray's blog. Usually writing about tech, personal experience, but now leaning more towards health and fitness.

Where I got started

I wrote up a monologue post about what health means to me, and how I got started with my whole focus on it.

It's definitely a narrative more than anything, but it is me. And I feel like it does express my weird thought process in regards to being more healthy.

Look, I definitely was never ever a natural at this. If you saw pictures of me just a few years back, especially near the end of high school, I wasn’t the crazy athletic kid that took an extra PE class. And I wasn’t one to be involved in school sports either. When I first started college I dreaded the idea of anything sports related, and having to do yet another type of exercise class.

That’s the biggest thing with health. We all should take care in measuring it, maintaining it, and keeping it in high regard. But it can seem overwhelming. A task no one really wants to worry about. But, unlike a hobby such as reading, your favorite sports team, or keeping your morning routine simple, health is different – it’s a requirement. If you woke up tomorrow and didn’t eat, you’d feel terrible. And you’d really eventually die if you ate nothing but those nasty little pumpkins things that we get around halloween but during the rest of the year everyone realizes are a terrible idea.

I kickstarted my own personal journey into health about 4 years ago. It never was a single, streamlined process. It had its starts and stops, and times where I thought it was too much to handle, or that microwaveable dinners were cheap and convenient, and dammit I was going to take advantage of the sales Stouffer’s had.

Four years ago I got into running. Mainly because a friend of mine wanted to get back into their running habit, and, being a good friend, I said “Sure, I’ll show up at 6 am and we can go running.”

Running is what started it for me. After you run, you kind of naturally learn towards those 6 eggs or so that you eat afterwards. And while buying eggs you become curious about the avocados, decide to go to a place like Sprouts, and then suddenly you’re making protein smoothies with avocado, blueberries, and about five different types of ‘all natural’ boosters. And when your run and track it, you realize that the bag of chips you’re craving to dig into a good TV show with aren’t really worth it considering how dense they are.

This whole beginning post is somewhat of a self monologue to where and how I got to where I am, and I’ll do my best to more clearly define the actual health habits I have. Know, however, that it could very well be anything, from a new store you find, a type of food you learn to enjoy, to figuring out how many calories are really in that delicious scone at the bakery you frequently find yourself at… health can be something you find yourself focusing on just after one little habit. And that’s a good thing.

Blog Project - Kyle Health


In one of my classes this semester, we get to

Blog

about whatever topic we want. Me being me, I chose to blog about Health and Fitness and my personal journey. I thought it would fun and interesting. Especially since for the past year, the majority of my personal achievements and related topics have been buried on my Twitter, and it's not super easy to find.

For the next month I'm going to be posting health blog posts, i.e. apps I used, things I've found helpful, and my personal fitness journey, on a WordPress (😱) blog for that project.

For the sake of consistency and preservation, and because I hope that the posts are actually helpful, I'll also be posting them here.

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Addiction

Addiction.

There’s different levels. Categories. Types.

It could be a physiological, physical, or just plain obsession that’s all in your head.

It is, however, important.

A year ago, I got back in to running. I had been on and off since starting college, depending on if I had time (spoiler, you always have time), and whether I felt like it.

After getting back in to a running program again however, I got hooked.

There were days that if I didn’t get a run in, I started to feel anxious. Jitters that turned into just a crazed yearning for running. And even on days that I did plan to run, if it was going to be later that afternoon, I felt like I needed to do it ASAP.

Running is an addiction. (If you’re doing it right)

I did, however, end up pushing myself too hard.

Like a crash with any other addiction, I burned out hard when I injured myself last year. I’m still not sure what I did wrong, whether it was running nearly 30 miles in the few days after rocking hard at a Carly Rae Jepsen concert, or if my training plan was too harsh, or if I just landed the wrong way a few times too many.

I tried to run and just couldn’t - my knee was yelling at me to not.

So I ended up not running. For weeks. I tried using machines, and was able to somewhat do the elliptical, but I was bummed out. I could no longer run.

It took a bit, and experimenting, but I eventually got into spinning. I’m lucky that my gym offers free spin classes, so I went to a couple of those in April. Then over the summer, I started doing some of that on my own. I also had fun with biking about 16 miles around San Francisco when I was there for WWDC. Eventually I figured I needed a bike of my own.

Here I am now about a year later from running and getting into fitness seriously, and I’m addicted. I’m hooked on biking. As I type this, I just finished an hour of cycling in the gym. An hour. 22 miles on a Saturday after I stayed out until 2 AM. And tomorrow I’ll bike another hour or so to hit my calorie goal on my Apple Watch, and to also feed the beast that is my addiction.

I’m hooked. I love it to death, and cycling is one of the most dedicated things I’ve done for myself. I don’t know where I’ll go fitness wise from here, but I am going to keep doing it.

Personal Computer

Yes I know that everyone's writing about the iPhone today, I'm not sorry.

When Jobs intro'd the iPhone ten years ago, he called it three things: an iPod, a Phone, and an Internet communicator.

What's interesting looking back now and seeing what the iPhone has really become: a true personal computer.

This is a device where all our memories are stored, the wallet with our payment methods, a database with all of our fitness information, where we keep track of food, spending, banking, and communicate with everyone in our lives through various networks. You can order coffee, your groceries, a car, and book a trip all from this device, and it's gotten simpler than ever to accomplish these tasks. It's more of a personal computer than anything from the "PC" era could've ever dreamed of being.

Ten years of iPhone really shows how little time it has been, but how much has been accomplished. Obviously no one knew that we could be doing so much with this pocket computer, and it'll be even more amazing how much more we are able to do with this device in another ten short years.

Health Status

This year begun with me focusing on being more active, and maintaining a healthier life style. It was one of my goals to be a healthier person, alongside some fitness goals such as running my first half marathon (which I did 3 times), running my first marathon (postponed until my leg gets better).

I’m surprised in myself at how far I’ve come. Last year around this time, I was very inactive, discouraged from exercising, and ate mainly whatever I bought at the grocery store. It wasn’t super unhealthy, but seeing how I now react to different foods or just trying to hit calorie goals, I am amazed at the progress I’ve made. I'm glad I got off that route as well, because I definitely could've ended up being a 180 lb 22 year-old, going through that "oh hey... I can't eat whatever anymore" phase that everyone always talks about.

I also had started tracking caloric intake in April of this year, and have been somewhat on and off with it, but I definitely am more able to make better decisions with my diet. I’m way more active, thanks to buying a bike in August, and using it to commute to school 6 miles away, 2 times a day, 5 times a week. And I feel great.

One of the biggest thing I realized, especially when trying to keep my same Activity Goals on my Apple Watch, is how easy it can be to find places to exercise, and find time for it. I could never imagine the Me I knew 3 years ago to actively try and find a working cycling machine to use on vacation, or trying to find a gym to go to when I visit home in Arizona, but here I am. I’m trying my best, and I feel like I’ve succeeded, in not only maintaining a healthy way of living, but making sure to be consistent. And I credit a lot of that to my Apple Watch, but I’ve also made a lot of progress in my own mind and when I think about different aspects of being fit.

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