Jan 17: Thoughts on the Scale and Other Things

We are now seventeen days into 2018 and things are progressing in the healthy living lifestyle category. I have managed to stay active every day and am growing my daily routine through a few different exercise challenges.

The indoor part uses two 30 day challenges -- one is squats and push-ups, the other is an ab challenge that includes sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts and a daily plank. I don't always set aside a workout time and sometimes accumulate the daily goal by breaking it into a few sets throughout the day.
For example -- I finished today's 120 squats while drinking my morning coffee. I broke it into 3 sets of 40 squats; did a set while the water was heating and a couple of more sets between cups.
I may or may not do any of the other exercises before evening.

The outdoor part is walking -- just and average of 2.5 miles per day. It's really nothing more than trying to get back into the habit of walking every day. I'm certain that the daily mileage will increase as the weather warms and my body becomes acclimated to the routine.

I've long been a believer in exercise for fitness; eat for weight control.
Both are essential good health.

We are eating at home more often this year (we seem to cycle back and forth) and that tends to direct us to healthier choices. We rarely buy anything processed or boxed as a quick meal prep. We eat more veggies and fewer starches (potatoes, pasta, rice, bread). I rarely have seconds.
As I begin the mindset change of eating to fuel the body rather than indulging in the less healthy options that satisfy the lusts for convenience and sweetness, the scale is starting to move.

Right now, I know that much of the weight I carry is not healthy weight and needs to come off. And although the scale helps to measure that progress, I don't want to become scale obsessed or forget about the good health part. A fitness accountability Facebook group helps to keep me motivated to do something every day (I'm probably the least active and least fit person in the group). For now, I'm going to be happy with doing a little more each day. I can't compete with their levels of fitness anyway, so I'll just compete with what I did yesterday.

Eat well.
Get some exercise.
Enjoy life.

John