Jan 6

I did get some treadmill time today, as well as a little dumbbell work.
Yay, me.
Keeping track of my diet will be weird since I'll be up all night at one of the crisis cold weather shelters.
On the plus side, I think an afternoon/evening coffee is in order.

Tomorrow will be a trickier day. I'll be day sleeping and will need to get my exercise before going in for another overnight. I'm a pretty slow starter when I get up. I like my coffee and quiet time before doing anything else. However it works out, I'm not going to sweat it -- it's only one day. 

John

Jan 5

I think I may start doing these in the evenings. We'll see if that holds true.
Yesterday, the 4th, I took the day off and didn't do anything. Counting the days I started in December, I was on a five day streak, so taking a day off really wasn't a big deal. 

However, after a couple of light days and a day off I needed to get on the cycle today. I did 35 minutes, so that's the longest so far this year. I'll keep building up. It's going to be pretty cold the rest of the week, so I'll be on the cycle or treadmill. I suppose I could walk outside,but I'm not that big of a cold weather guy anymore. It's been a few years since I was out walking no matter what the weather was. I'm okay not doing that if I have an alternative. 

I've also decided that I'm only sharing this to social media once a week or so, but I hope to keep it as a daily diary. I'll weigh in on the morning of the 8th.

John

Jan 4

Nothing special yesterday.
Short ride on the exercise cycle. I'm going to have to do a longer ride today. I might add a few dumbbell exercises, too. We are heading into some pretty cold days and I am going to have to get used to getting my exercise time in by doing something other than walking. That's probably not a bad thing.

I ate a late night snack that I could have done without, but overall I don't think my intake was too bad-- a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast and lunch, stir fry chicken thighs and veggies for dinner. 

John

Jan 3

Short walk, with hills.
I need to do more walking before tackling hills.
Or maybe I just need to do more hills.
Ugh!

John

Jan 2

I increased my walk distance from 2 miles to 3 yesterday. It wasn't because I just wanted to walk more, it was because Chris wanted something at the Dollar General that is 1.5 miles from the house. Now I'm wondering if I need to maintain the 3 mile distance because going back to two miles seems like regression. 
For right now, I'm okay with continuing to get some daily exercise. The coming days will have sub-freezing high temperatures, so I'll either be on the exercise cycle, the treadmill, or some combination of the two.
I should be able to get an outdoor walk today.

Diet felt good yesterday. I'm not ready to go back to calorie counting yet, but I may in the future.

John

Jan 1, 2025

It's been awhile.
I haven't been doing much in the way of healthy living during 2024. 
I reached my heaviest weight ever and am now on meds for my elevated blood pressure.
Although the 278 pounds (126 kg) is the most to begin a year, it is 7 lbs less than where I was at the beginning of last month. 

Damn! 
That's a lot of weight I need to lose.

Last week I was looking ahead and considering some healthful resolutions for 2025 and I decided that I didn't really need to wait until today to get started. I realize that starting slowly with a huge task ahead of me may seem counter intuitive to some, but I know that it is what will work for me. Today will be Day 4 in a daily exercise streak -- two days of walking, and one day on the exercise cycle. With the coming cold weather, I may be spending more days on the exercise cycle and treadmill than walking outside, but that will have to do for now.
My walks will get longer (2 miles, 3.2 km) so far, as will my cycling time (30 min). I'll also add in other work using body weight, dumbbells, and our weight machine.
The goal is to be in better shape and get off the blood pressure meds.

Diet wise -- damn, I just need to eat less.
A lot less!
The goals are simple -- lose weight.
Short term -- 5 lbs (2.26 kg) per week for the first 5 weeks, then half that (recommended for long term)...
Long term -- until I weigh less than 200 lbs (90.7 kg)

I should be getting close by the time I hit my 65th birthday in June.
I'll post regular updates in hopes that posting will keep me moving forward.

Wish me well,
John
278 lbs, 37.7 BMI