RT @SciencePorn: Brain activity after a 20 minute walk http://t.co/RnhhvLZY0i
Category: Walking
Running tally of people who se…
Running tally of people who see me walking the neighborhood at lunch reading my Kindle and ask if I am checking the gas meters: 3
I'm walkin', yes, indeed, I'm talkin'
Walking is good for you. Which makes me glad that it's the one significant exercise I'm managing to maintain these days. #ddtb
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
Yeah, I need to walk more.
Embedded Link
Why Walking Is the Best Exercise [Health]
Scientists have known for a while that merely walking more can massively decrease the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but they haven't really known why. But now, by forcing healthy people to act like slobs, they're starting to reveal why walking is the best thing you can do for your body.
The reason it's tricky to work out why walking is so beneficial to those who live a sedentary lifestyle is because inactivity is tied up with other factors: poor diet, overweight, and plenty of ot…
You Say You Want a Resolution (2011-2012 Edition)
Continuing the annual tradition on from Last Year.
2011 was a heck of a year, a highly stressful bundle for the whole family. My job ramped up its work level about 70% from Busy Enough to Insanely Busy for most of the year, and that had a number of effects … that I propose to change with 2012:
1. Physical Fitness
My fitness / weight maintenance took a major hit this year. In May, Kay and I stopped our karate training, between vacation travel, other commitments, her new middle school schedule, and my discovery that I kind of liked not losing two of my evenings. Between that and just a stress-related impulse to nosh more, my weight has crept up quite a bit (more figures to follow, once I’m home from the holidays, but essentially I’ve gone from a 38 waist struggling to fit into 36 to a solid (heh) 40 again).
The obvious things to do are to reduce caloric intake and increase caloric outgo. So two things I’m going to do related to that are
(a) yes, once again, take up the mantle of the Geek Diet (tracking calories with some online tools), with a goal of being down to 200 by the end of the year, and
(b) I’m going to do the Eowyn Challenge to track my walking, taking the walk from Bag End to Rivendell, and then to Lonely Mountain, with a goal to make it to Lorien by the end of the year (963 miles). I was going to do LoTR milestones, but given the new Hobbit movie coming next December (huzzah!), this makes the most sense. I’ll figure out reporting back here as I go.
And, yes, that’s pretty much what I resolved last year, but let’s have another go at it.
2. Pictures, pictures, pictures
We took a lot of pictures this last year, especially on the Italy trip, and I simply flubbed getting them sorted, labeled, and posted, much to my chagrin (and unstated but understandable chagrin from my fellow-travelers). I got a few days, but bogged down in Pompeii.
So I resolve to have the Italy pictures done by the time we get to the 1 year anniversary of the trip in late May.
3. Writing, writing, writing
I did in fact finish my NaNoWriMo novel.
Now I need to do some serious revisions. I’m trying to get started with a regular writing group post-1/1, and my goal here is to have a “finished” version (at least three or four full revision passes) by the time November rolls around. (By “finished” I mean “able to be shared with folks with minimal embarrassment.)
Looking at the other resolutions from last year, I did get 3 of 5 done, which I pre-judged a win: finishing my NaNovel, staying in touch with my daughter, and supporting my lovely wife (who also had an insanely intense year). I’m going to keep those last two in mind as the year progresses — without them, the rest don’t mean a lot to me.
Tweets from 2010-08-27
- RT @bpeace69: Drop Fox News. Just watch Jon Stewart and read ***Dave. You’re welcome. http://bit.ly/dpNasw #
- Wow. Star Trek TNG was damn frickin’ preachy. Entertaining, when character-driven, but relentlessly moralistic. #
- I’ve been pretty good about taking walks at lunch time this week, but, oddly enough, the burbs feel a lot hotter than downtown usually does. #
- Star Trek TNG first aired … 23 years ago? Crikey. That’s longer than it was from when TOS first aired. #
Weight check, software changes, and zero-basing for the trip
Walking
: So I’m still doing the pedometer thing, “1500 Miles to Nowhere.” I’m averaging about 4 miles/day, a scosh below where I need to get to hit the goal.
I’m zeroing out the pedometer this morning, and we’ll see what sort of walking we get done at Walt Disney World. If I’m diligent, I’ll take some daily notes, to see what sort of walking we’re doing at various parks.
Calories: So I’ve shifted everything over to using the LiveStrong.com site, which should work out well as a replacement for my beloved (but out-of-business and non-Blackberry-enabled BalanceLog).
I don’t care for the LiveStrong “Daily Plate” web interface (waaaaay too busy), but the database of food is pretty extensive and it has a spiffy BB tool that syncs up with it. I may be making a lot of use of that while at WDW, as I’m unclear what the WiFi situation is at the lodge (pretty certainly available, but not sure of the cost).
As part of my “transparency” initiative, I tracked at below max calories all week — sometimes significantly so. LiveStrong says I should be consuming 1,966 calories/day net in order to lose a pound a week. I’m doing a fair amount less than that. Hence …
Weight: It’s not the officially the end of the month, but as a base point before we head off to WDW, I’ve been below 200 for a week and a half now, and on Friday morning weighed in at 196.
We’ll see what life at the park is like. On the one hand, big meals and snacks. On the other hand, a lot of walking. It will be interesting. I’ll let you know next weekend (which is the end of the month).
1500 Miles to … Nowhere?
So I’ve been continuing with the (this year) 1,500 Miles to Nowhere challenge, courtesy of Marn, though I haven’t been posting the milestones here (or at the site). I’m…
So I’ve been continuing with the (this year) 1,500 Miles to Nowhere challenge, courtesy of Marn, though I haven’t been posting the milestones here (or at the site). I’m probably going to fall short this year … I’ve gone almost 1100 miles, but have 410 miles left, 89 days to go, am averaging just under 4 miles per day but need to be doing 4.6. I suspect that my pedometer earlier in the year was underestimating, but, whatever — it’s something I’m tracking and doing, huzzah.
But next year, I might tackle things a little differently. The Eowyn Challenge site — originally set up leading up to the last LotR movie, offers some annotated “trips” you can track. Based on the work of Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of The Atlas of Middle Earth, you can do things like walk “with” the Hobbits from Bag End to Rivendell (458 miles). That could be kind of fun (“On This Day in My Walking …”)
I want to poke at the site a bit more at the end of the year, but it could be a pleasant way to track my ongoing walking habit.
WDW07 – Keeping the Pace
For the record, the vacation as a whole took up 78,628 steps. At 2.5 feet per step, that works out to 37.2 miles of walking….
For the record, the vacation as a whole took up 78,628 steps. At 2.5 feet per step, that works out to 37.2 miles of walking.
I hear you want a Resolution (2007 Edition)
Let’s start off with a review of last year. 1. Spend more time with Kitten. Managed to do this, actually. Continued the tradition of driving her home from after-care on…
Let’s start off with a review of last year.
1. Spend more time with Kitten.
Managed to do this, actually. Continued the tradition of driving her home from after-care on the couple of days of the week she was there. Went with her to karate. And spent more time (the both of us did) assisting with homework.
2. Try to cut back on external commitments some. Family first.
Didn’t do nearly as much stuff outside the house. Continued to spend time with Margie playing CoX, etc. Tried to prioritize even my work schedule around Katherine’s needs.
3. Write. Edit. Write.
Fell down more than a bit here. While I did the April Storyball, and even set up my own Writing blog, my attempts to prioritize working on existing works, and extending into others, didn’t go anywhere (heck, even . Even resolutions to do the next best thing, GMing, never really gelled. An “activity too far.”
4. Keep the weight off, and walk 1,500 miles to nowhere.
When all was said and done here, I felt pretty good in this category. Weight went up during the year, but since October (and, ahem, excluding any tracking over the last week or so) I dropped about 15 lbs to go under 200. So huzzah there.
I’m probably going to be about 20-25 miles short on the 1,500 miles — too many times I just didn’t get the walking thang done. But I managed to really stick to the walking at lunch, and that helped a lot in a lot of ways. And Margie and I walk together a mile or two on the track while Katherine’s in karate, so it was all pretty good.
And what about next year? Well, I don’t know as I’d call these “stretch goals,” but how about
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Spend at least as much time with Kitten. Preferably more “quality time” — getting her involved with stuff at home, and being more involved in some of her other activities. She’s growing up into a fine young lady that I want to spend time with.
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Keep the house in a bit more order — a bit tidier, pursue projects and maintenance a bit more diligently, etc. This is going to mean (gasp) maybe doing a bit less of other activities. These sorts of things work better as routine, so I need to figure out how to do that in a flexible fashion.
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Write. Edit. Write. Yeah, yeah. Need to think of some good strategies here, though, that don’t involved Daily Stuff — because my Daily Stuff queue is pretty much full.
- Be fit. Keep the weight off, exercise more, and walk 1,500 miles to nowhere. Heck, how’s this — drop down to 185 by the end of the year. There’s an (un-)stretch goal for you! Or, more precisely, for me. But one I believe I can reach.
Happy New Year, all!
Weighty matters
Well, I took what was probably my last official weighing of the year (for various logistical and metrics reason), and came in solidly (so to speak) under 200, at 197….
Well, I took what was probably my last official weighing of the year (for various logistical and metrics reason), and came in solidly (so to speak) under 200, at 197. A nice way to end the year, especially given my diet over the last week-plus. That I’m headed off to Faerie and its sumptuous feasts there for the holidays doesn’t fill me with optimism about how I’ll actually cross the end-of-year line, but …
And, as of last night, I’m just 57 miles from my 1,500 for the year. We’ll see how that goes. Again, going off to Faerie is going to knock my walking schedule all to heck, but there’s plenty of periods of intense activity there, so there’s a good chance I’ll make it.
Walking to Nowhere
As we plunge into December, I have a bit over 95 miles left to go in my 1,500 Miles to Nowhere, and 20 days to do them in. It’s going…
As we plunge into December, I have a bit over 95 miles left to go in my 1,500 Miles to Nowhere, and 20 days to do them in. It’s going to be tight — my YTD average is 4.09 miles/day, and I needed to be doing 4.11 miles per day to hit the mark. At this point, I’ll need 4.74 miles/day until the end of the year — which is doable, but it will be tight.
Meanwhile, weight-wise, I’m right at 200 lbs. (or was before the weekend — didn’t weigh this morning). I’d love to get down another few pound persistently — we’ll see how it goes.