Nicer Weather is Coming

While it's been a long time coming, nice weather IS on its way to my little corner of the world. That's a good thing for me for a number of reasons, both mental and physical. I tend to have a harder time being active and productive when the weather is cold and gloomy. I wouldn't say that I get depressed when the winter comes along but I definitely have the urge to hibernate and do the bare minimum I need to do to get through the day.

It's also good because I can get out and be more active outside. I love being outside. I have dogs that need walking, a kayak that needs paddling and a bike that needs riding. While I know that hopping in my kayak at this point in the year would likely mean hypothermia all the ice is off the river now and the water is calling me.

I plan to start running outside as well as using my elliptical. I do love the elliptical but I know that it doesn't translate into functional fitness the way a treadmill would. I want to be out on the road chugging up hills and trekking along paths. It's going to feel good and I know that I will enjoy seeing the results.

Going to and from work means traveling about 5km a day. I had started walking it last spring instead of driving and it is a nice walk. It doesn't take a massive amount of time and when the weather is nice and dry it's a great way to relieve stress before diving into the fun world of retail. I plan to start that up again in the very near future.

As for my dogs, they've been pining for the open road. One is large and really strong which makes walking him on icy roads a super bad idea if I don't have a broken leg fetish (which I don't). My other dog couldn't pull a mouse in a cart but she doesn't do well with cold. Or snow. Or wetness. She IS happy to chug along behind the big dog if we hike trails and she is capable of walking long distances without seeming sore or unhappy about it but winter walks are NOT a thing she loves.

My weight has bounced around a little. I've been trying to eat better but I do tend to love comfort food and am an emotional eater. I also have kids that love to bake cookies which wrecks havoc on my midsection. Now, though, I'm down to 180 and am looking forward to being down in the 170s for the first time in probably 6 months.

Signs of Progress

So, I recently saw an image online that kind of made me rethink how I have been approaching things. It was basically a picture of P!nk and the caption said that she, by conventional medical standards, would be considered obese. She is 5'3" and weighs 160 pounds but is definitely NOT obese by any stretch of the imagination.

It got me to thinking. I know that I tend to obsess over the numbers that show up on the scale but is that really doing me any good? Is the fact that the numbers are going down slowly or see-sawing back and forth something I should be getting upset about? It has in the past. In the past, I have found it incredibly upsetting that my weight fluctuates as much as it does. It seems like the instant I take a day off of the elliptical or eat something that is less than completely healthy that my weight pops right back up again.

So, I've decided to start tracking things a different way. Yeah, I'm still going to keep an eye on my weight because I do have a goal in mind but I'm going to try and put less importance on it. I AM choosing to focus more on how far I can go on an elliptical in a certain time frame. Right now I am capable of doing about 15 laps of 400m each in juuuuuust under half an hour. That's about 6km or like three and some odd miles.

My goal is to be able to go further in that time frame. I've been tracking my weight lifting and the length of time I am doing things like planks and want to see those numbers improving as well. All of these things are real, measurable, and impacted less by my choosing to eat a slice of pizza or an extra cookie once in a while. I DO need to keep weighing in just to make sure I'm decreasing my body mass but I am also planning to focus on other things as well.

Numb Toes

In my last post, I talked about the fact that using the elliptical ended up leading to numb toes on my left foot. I was hoping that by getting new shoes that I would be able to feel every one of my toes when I was done. Well, apparently that's not a thing I get to enjoy. The last couple of times that I have gone on the machine I have ended up temporarily losing feeling in parts of my feet.

It's not as bad, mind you, and the numbness goes away pretty quickly after I get off the machine. I do think the new shoes have made a big difference and now am going to try and pay more attention to where my feet are on the foot beds in case that's making a difference.

I've also found a new way to track what I am doing exercise-wise. I ended up getting a bullet journal which is basically a cool way of saying a book that has nothing but dots on each of the pages. What I like about it is that I can customize pages to record the things I want to keep track of. It makes the analog-lover in me sing with joy.

I have a weight loss tracking page.

I had a bit of a run in with some pizza and emotional eating so sadly, I have to wait a bit before I get back down to my start weight. But when I do I'm going to start using the weight loss tracker.

I also have a way to track my elliptical use, since at this point that seems to be the main component of my exercise strategy.

In each of the boxes, I am writing how many laps I did, when I did the workout and how long it took me to do it. This should make it easy for me to look back at what I'm doing and see my progress. And, of course, I've added in rewards at the end of 5 workouts.

I'm planning to increase my distance slowly over time. I learned from my sudden urge to go 8kms that I need to take it easy.

I'll show what the pages look like as I fill them in or if I add in any other workout type pages which I am planning to do. As it is, it's kind of neat to be able to have it recorded this way. I think that the positive reinforcement will help keep me in a fit frame of mind.