It's walking and it's working - VI

What they see I don’t

Brian will say when we are on our WhatsApp video conferences that I have noticeably lost weight and so will my other friends. I, however, have not been convinced that the weight loss is that appreciable. Yet, I cannot deny that stepping on the scales in the past two mornings has given me two readings below 80 kilogrammes and my lowest weight in probably a decade.

What it signifies is I am shifting the pounds, albeit, quite slowly as it is taking a lot more exercise and effort to show results. I can still pinch a good chunk of flab in the front even if the love handles have shrunk away. Maybe, I will have to do some abdominal and leg workouts to trim the belly fat to a better frame.

The optical illusion that forms in the shadow from the light cast from behind almost suggests one is getting a figure-8 midriff, but that will be wishful thinking and the stuff of dreams. I have a lot more work to do.

A warped rhythm of the walk

Whilst it is not the goal, I am usually pleased if I get 7 kilometres done within 60 minutes, though getting it at 63 minutes which is an average of 9 minutes to the kilometre is not entirely bad. Getting 10 kilometres done in under 90 minutes is a worthwhile achievement with over 13,000 steps in it.

My pace much as it seems regular and constant in terms of body rhythm sometimes leaves me wondering how I could have slowed down when I have not stopped at all. 10 minutes to the kilometre when in the same session when I might have done it in just over 8 minutes is something difficult to fathom. I can even get 170 steps to the minute and I am not jogging.

I satisfy myself with the notion that I am making progress, the results will not be instant but show over time and I feel quite fit and happy. I enjoy the exercise regardless of the conditions, I need to plan for how I would keep it up in Cape Town. There is a count down in motion. Yeah!

Blog - It's walking and it's working

Blog - It's walking and it's working - II

Blog - It's walking and it's working - III

Blog - It's walking and it's working - IV

Blog - It’s walking and it’s walking - V

Walking to see more results

Still driven but eased

Having met the goal of doing at least 10,000 steps a day for 100 days in a stretch, there is no major achievement in sight until I make it to 10,000,000 steps in probably over a year. However, that would require keeping at the pace I was of about 600,000 steps a month, and that really is not currently happening.

I am still getting out for my walks, usually getting in just over 10 kilometres before I start work which could vary between 13,000 steps and 15,000 steps depending on my stride, but I am not as worked up about my workouts.

One thing I have noticed though is no matter how high my heart rate gets, my breathing remains constant, I neither gasp for air nor pant, it is like I am quite used to the activity or somewhat conditioned to the level of exercise.

Still working it off

The weight is not budging as much as I would like it to, I have not had a reading below 80 kilogrammes since the 17^th of October, though it is steady around that mark.

Getting out this morning into a downpour, I varied my route from the river towpath to the pavement on the road that runs beside it. It was a better walk this time as the fallen autumnal leaves had been swept away, though I was still left with wet trainers and dampened track bottom leggings. On the home straight, the weather had improved. I will not be deterred by inclement weather, once I am out, the workout will be done.

Fat, that is always on my mind, much visceral fat I have lost, the subcutaneous fat still lingers, though I am informed, keeping at the exercise will eventually yield results. I hope so, whilst I enjoy walking and feeling fitter for doing so.

It's walking and it's working - II

Getting it done early

Just over a week ago, I decided to start putting in a lunchtime walk exercise to take the burden off trying to meet my 10,000 steps in the evening into the night. At first, I was satisfied with getting about 6,000 steps in, so that whatever I did later filled up the quota easier and the extra was just a boost on my activity.

However, on Sunday morning before church, I had done over 10,000 steps that when the day was over, I was just 231 steps short of 30,000 steps, it should not have taken much more exertion to beat the most steps of 31,687 steps that I set on the 13^th of September.

Useful results to celebrate

Four weeks ago, I wrote about the fact that all my exercise was just walking and it was working, I am losing weight which has fallen from 88.2 kg to 80.9 kg today, I am sure the girth around my belly button has reduced too, the prominent and ironically named love handles are literally non-existent and I am breaking other personal records in the process.

Blog - It's walking and it's working

For instance, on Monday and Tuesday, I got my 10,000 steps during my lunchtime walk, then yesterday, I did 7 kilometres in 56’47”, this morning, having walked 11.76 kilometres by the time it was a few minutes past 8:00 AM, the first 7 kilometres were done in 58’33”, until yesterday, I had not been able to fit 7 kilometres into an hour.

The other amazing thing was I also broke the 4,000 steps in 30 minutes barrier, I stepped out at 4081. All this I did in the pouring rain and with much gusto. My goal is to bring my weight below 80 kg, though, I can’t convince Brian of taking it down to 75 kg.

 

It's walking and it's working - I

A bit on the side of rotund

I would be the first to say that it has not been the easiest activity I have undertaken in a long while. As pandemic restrictions eased at the end of last month, I booked an hour a day at our apartment village gym, but I just did not enjoy going there walking on a treadmill and doing abdominal exercises.

Within a week, I was quite off the idea but I found that walking felt better, walking streets, roads and parks for up to 3 hours without stopping, keeping my heart rate at a level that was more in the aerobic range than just the fat-burning range seems to be doing something, but there is a lot more to do.

It was 20 days ago that I stretched a tape measure around my midriff over my navel and the reading was more a shock than I was ready to register, a whole 39 inches of Mr Michelin girth sturdily creating the misnamed love handles of flab that could cook fast food for a hungry city. I had to address it.

Blog - The 39 steps from looking fit

Just a little bit off

I did not concern myself much with it until I saw the dreaded tape measure this morning. Temptation got the better of me and the news is I have shed 2 inches and I can probably shed a lot more if I do not relent. I am glad there is some progress and improvement. It shows what I am doing is having some effect and results are part of the encouragement one needs where all you have is self-motivation.

I am losing the visceral fat, the lot that clings to internal organs that I cannot see, it is likely that I am beginning to lose weight too, but that is a long term thing, shedding the pounds is a lot slower without essentially starving oneself in the process. I have never been a calorie counter, I have reduced both sugar and salt, drink more water, attempt to get more sleep and put in the walking exercise. I am even surprised that I have more strength in my stomach muscles to review Rebecca-Louise’s workout.

I am not celebrating much because the job is not only in shedding the excess, the real success is in keeping it off. This means there has to be some sort of structure and method to the activity, keeping at it without relenting. I am sure I have the resolve, but it is early days and each day is a day more.

The 39 steps from looking fit

On the length of the tape

On seeing how a lady dropped the flab to a trim look, I could not help but be a little more serious about what I want to achieve with regards to fitness. Now, I have always been concerned about my tummy though it never occurred to me how out of shape I was.

Maintaining a 32” waist has not been that difficult, though when I had cancer, that shrunk to below 30” that all my trousers looked like big brother hand-me-downs. What shocked me was when I measured my girth at my belly button, I was not expecting to see 39”, I thought it would be at least 3” less.

Science the reality

Overnight, I had decided to get a Honor Band 5 which includes a heart rate monitor, a step counter, a sleep monitor, an exercise tracker and many more features I am yet to determine. I thought it would be useful to keep tabs on fat burning and how I sleep.

After trying to install exercise apps without much success or motivation to find out their usefulness, I realised I could get good enough information first from WebMD and our own NHS. I do a lot of brisk walking and I can follow the basic fitness videos. [NHS: Exercise]

Know my vitals

I won’t be dieting or calorie counting, I would eat moderately, cut out the unnecessary, increase my intake of water and put in hours of walking before going to bed exhausted with the aim that all aching muscles recover by the morning.

Critically, I need to find out how well I sleep and if there are things, I could do to get more relaxing and longer sleep. I need to see my weight drop along with the inches of lard. I have my work cut out.

My maître d'hotel is a car salesman

Stars without class

I have stayed in many hotels some have stars and some have class – one must confess compared to the Riu Palace Maspalomas where I stayed in September and regret not getting a room there this time, my current abode – also of the Riu brand – shares the same number of stars but has nowhere near the class.

I was late for dinner on my first night; just 25 minutes into what normally runs into 2 hours at what was essentially a buffet dinner and the reception had no sense to arrange for me to be accommodated considering it was the last session rather than the early dinner schedule.

Draft cooling curiosity

Then on the second night, I was put on a table near the entrance where the draft helped cool my food before my fork touched the plate, it was also a bit isolated – I like to make conversation with people around me – so when the maître d’ came round I asked for a table more in the middle of the restaurant which he promised to resolve the next night with the assurance that the table I was on for only for the night.

Imagine my disdain and discomfiture when I arrived yesterday night to be told I had been promised the new table for Wednesday – I could only see that the maître d’ was not so much a sophisticated well-bred host but a car-salesman in a tuxedo – the thought sent shivers down my spine.

Later he tried to make amends by grudgingly offering me table from the Christmas night until the end of my holiday somewhere in the middle that I have to find when the evening comes.

Buffets and society

Buffets bring out a lot in a place that brings together all sorts of people and one would expect that no matter what standing you have in life, when you join up to a social setting like a hotel resort, the very basic middle-class values are required like queuing up, taking your turn, serving yourself just enough and not mixing the serving spoons.

I am afraid to say I observed too much; the big bluff man who put the sardine serving spoon into the egg mayonnaise having jumped the queue and piled up the world on his plate or was it the lady who after getting her cream-cake dessert then poured some milk over it – Yuk!

Beyond that, some people look like they have just come from some ordeal of chronic starvation that they have four plates of all sorts in front of them – utterly dreadful gluttons they might as well be the kitchen waste-bins and never be satisfied.

Taking half-board accommodation on holiday has its benefits, you do not have to book restaurants or search for different kinds of cuisine, sometimes you end up doing your own cooking – really, not when one is on holiday – it is all inclusive apart from drinks and there is some routine to the whole thing. Care should be taken to appreciate the quality of the restaurant before making that decision though.

It is a microcosm of the good, the bad and the downright ugly – we all have a bit of that in ourselves and what we try to do is accentuate the good, eliminate the bad and hopefully conceal the ugly and try and make it beautiful, if we can.

The bulge of the balloon

Balloons, I love Christmas balloons – all colours and all shapes – but the ones I have seen were not blown up with air for Christmas but over years of careless ill-disciplined lives or sometimes plausible medical reason are blown up with lipids and fat.

Rather than be more discrete about show it off, they pour themselves into ill-fitting tight clothes that then give them ballooning characteristics, bulges in the wrong places – sights too shocking that one is almost compelled to protest vehemently for the assault to ones viewing space.

These people are in need of a serious resolution and they should not wait till the New Year to begin to shed half that weight and they would have barely hit the mark for being the right weight – the trouble we put our bodies through, 4 paces and panting like you’ve done a marathon – life can surely be better than that.

Now, I have nothing against people with Body Mass Indices over 25, some people are predisposed to that kind of anatomical development, this particular diatribe is directed at ones who delude themselves into wearing clothes multiple sizes smaller than their frame in the hope that something fantastic is happening – such self-delusion is typical of people who spend the first one hour in a gym for years and start looking in the mirror – it is a body not plastercine.

To bring some Christmas cheer, the sun is out, it is about 24° Celsius and time to top up my tan.

Have a Merry Christmas and keep an eye on the turkey.