Category: The Wandering Hermit

The Wandering Hermit: Justin & the 10-Day Meal Plan Plan

   30 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Justin & the 10-Day Meal Plan Plan

I’m starting to feel a bit better.  I was reluctant to wake up this morning, but I still just did it anyway.  I’ve got some yard work to do this morning, but I think I might try to get some extra sleep this afternoon.  I have a lot to do this week and I want to make sure I’m fully over whatever has been keeping me lethargic lately.

Justin has decided to do a 10 day diet.  He wants to start on the first.  I think that’s great for him.  He struggles with the permanence of a new way of eating, but he knows he can handle a 10-day diet.  And when that’s over, I think he’ll give himself a few days to go back to normal and then he might resume the 10-day plan as a more permanent situation.  I had been trying to help him do some planning that included all of the things he likes, but that wasn’t working.  He found creative ways to go around the plan and sneak in hundreds of unaccounted calories.  He needs something far more strict.  He is also working uphill a little since one of his medications causes weight gain.  It used to be easy for him to stay thin.  Now he has to work at it, and I think adjusting to that is frustrating.  I totally understand that.  Since he’s doing something strict, I’ll probably be tightening up my own eating for the month.  And I love that.  I’ve gotten a little lazy about food; I’m still basically eating the same way, but I’ve found myself forgetting to record things.  Part of that is that I had started using Cronometer, but I’m back to writing everything down.  I am far more mindful about my diet when I’ve written it all down as I eat it.  Cronometer is a great tool and I still use it for planning out Justin’s meals for the week, but for myself it quickly became a crutch and an excuse.

[Walk #106]

The Wandering Hermit: Preparing for the Rest of Summer

   29 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Preparing for the Rest of Summer

It’s entirely too warm; the next month is going to be rough if I base things on this morning.  The watch told me it was 79ºF, which is already too warm for me, but the gravel was still radiating heat from yesterday and so it felt a little like standing in front of the dryer while pulling out clothes.  It’s not exactly unbearable, but it’s a lot of heat coming from unusual angles.

Speaking of clothes, sorta… I’m in the midst of a plateau at the moment.  They happen; in fact, they happen a lot.  But I break through them eventually so I’m not stressed about it.  I wanted to wait until I was down to 250 pounds before I got some new clothes, but it seems like I’m just inching my way down to that, so I broke down and got a few shirts, a couple pairs of shorts, and some leggings.  That should do for the summer; I am still hoping to get some stuff that fits better later this year.  Some people have been bothered by my threadbare shirts and ripped sweatpants.  Those things don’t bother me, but I am honestly annoyed by the fit of my clothes.  It is definitely past the point where I like how everything just hangs on me.  That was a nice reminder of progress, but it can be annoying, especially pants that never want to stay up.

Yesterday, I went from being mildly under the weather to fully feeling sick and then better by the time I went to bed.  I’m still feeling it, but my body seems to be handling the threat pretty well.  I’ll probably spend the day hydrating and not doing a whole lot.  I always have a lot to do, but I don’t want to push myself and then end up getting sick.  That’s far less convenient than taking things a little easier for a couple of days.

[Walk #105]

The Wandering Hermit: Just Before the Sky Catches Fire

   28 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Just Before the Sky Catches Fire

I’m feeling a little bit under the weather, but I am just not interested in excuses.  Of course, if I end up being sick I’ll have to act accordingly.  There’s no point in pushing myself when it would be harmful to do so.  This morning was a nice walk though, even though I wasn’t feeling awesome.

I’ve been oscillating between feeling unrealistically optimistic and feeling the whole weight of the world pushing down own me.  Of course, my reality is probably best described somewhere in the middle, but try telling my brain that!  I’d prefer to not worry much about things; I’d love to dwell in the feeling of walking on a cloudy morning just before sunrise when everything is so dark, but then the sky starts to catch fire, burning for a few minutes until you realize how blue and illuminated everything is and you don’t remember it happening because you were too distracted by the colors of the sky.  Why can’t we live in those feelings?

[Walk #104]

The Wandering Hermit: Building Rome

   27 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Building Rome

I’ve been thinking about schedules since my walk yesterday.  I do tend to obsess over things.  I need the structure.  I have a tendency to never get something done if I’m not operating within a strict schedule, and I am never doing that!

I have a slight amount of swelling in my legs at the moment.  I don’t know if I’ve overdone things this week or if I’m having a histamine response.  I’ll keep an eye on it; I don’t want to cause myself problems by being overly ambitious.  And I’m not sure it’s unusual, but my legs have looked better for a while, so it is concerning me.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that.

I’ve gotten lazy with food lately.  Not reckless, but lazy.  I started using Cronometer instead of writing things down in a notebook and I think it has just allowed me to pay less attention to what I’m doing.  I think I need to go back to the notebook actually.  It isn’t hard to track calories; I thought an app would help by showing me nutrient breakdowns of my day.  It does do that, and I can plug that in anytime I want.  But I feel more connected to my day’s meals when I’m responsible for writing everything down and weighing it all.

[Walk #103]

The Wandering Hermit: Stupid Stuff That Doesn’t Matter & Extra Miles

   26 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Stupid Stuff That Doesn’t Matter & Extra Miles

This afternoon was much less disorienting than my morning was.  I feel a little like I really can do anything I want to do in life.  Getting in an extra mile takes very little time, but it was a bit on the hot side.  I think saving that walk for dusk is a much better plan.  It takes less than half an hour and I feel great.  Now, that means I’m taking showers all day, but I like doing that anyway so I guess that’s not really a problem.

I was thinking that I need to start making a schedule.  Having my whole life up in the air makes me want to take some control in any way I am able.  I think the easiest thing is to start making a full day’s schedule.  It has been working for mornings.  I schedule my days from 5am to 8am, but then I just let the rest of the day happen.  Sometimes I get a lot accomplished and sometimes I get hung up doing stupid stuff that doesn’t matter.  The stupid stuff that doesn’t matter is an important part of life, but not as often as I do it now.  Having a detailed schedule would be nice…. and I already enjoy overplanning, so scheduling works well with that.

[Walk #102]

The Wandering Hermit: One Step Sideways

   26 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: One Step Sideways

It’s already been a bit of a chaotic day.  Maybe that means the rest will be better.  Although, that isn’t to say my day has necessarily been bad.  It’s just been frustrating so far.  We had some heavy rains last night, so this morning everything was just soaking wet.  I could have walked, but it was so muddy that I decided to let things dry a bit.  So, I didn’t walk until 10am, and only did 1 mile then.  It was already getting hot out there.  I did do a few minutes of running on the porch, but that wasn’t really going anywhere (pun not intended), so I did my old route in front of the house to the neighbor’s driveway three times.  It was a good walk, but it has made me feel off a bit.  It was at the wrong time, it was the wrong place.  It didn’t feel like a step backward; it felt like a step to the side.  I felt like I was in a place I shouldn’t be all of the sudden.  I wanted my routine back!  I’ll have to do a walk this afternoon to make up for the missing mile, and maybe it is good that I had a difficult morning.  I was wanting to test out a split walking schedule.  Of course, I was still wanting my morning walk to be the enjoyable experience I expect it to be, but apparently we can’t have everything we want in life.

My VO2 Max number is still teasing me and just hovering below where I want it to be.  It has improved a lot this year, so I am trying to remain patient about that.  Continuing to do what I’m doing is improving everything.  My issues didn’t occur overnight; I shouldn’t expect to clear things up overnight either.  It takes time to undo a lifetime of stupid decisions.

[Walk #101]

The Wandering Hermit: Walk #100

   25 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Walk #100

This was my 100th walk!  It’s hard to believe I’ve done so many.  I decided to start doing a daily walk 1 April 2024, but it was rainy and so I officially started on 3 April, doing half a mile on a good day.  It wasn’t until 7 May that I finally started walking past the bridge that crosses over the creek and started walking up to the neighbor’s house and back.  On 11 May, I walked to the next road down, a mile away.  19 May, I crossed Fairgrounds, the cross street I live on, walking down a bit and back to the neighbor’s house.  Since 28 May, my habit has been always to walk to the next road from here, in any direction, and back.  That makes the walks 2-3.3 miles, depending on the direction I go.  This morning, I did 4.32 miles, walking East to Prairie Rd, North to Yost Rd, West to Fairgrounds Rd, & South to Burris Rd.  That is a little unusual because I was doing it to celebrate 100 walks, but I felt great afterward and was not short of breath or overly exhausted.  What I’m not trying to be cautious of is not continuing to increase the distance for no reason.  3 miles feels really good.  4 was a nice amount this morning, but I had started constantly checking my watch at about 3.5 to see when it would be over.

This is all probably painfully obvious to people who are already pretty active, but I started at not being able to walk out to the car without having to stop to catch my breath.  Being able to do any of this seems remarkable to me.  I’ve been thinking about my next steps.  Like I said, after 3 miles I was ready for the walk to be over, but it wasn’t because I was overly tired.  I was bored.  So, it might behoove me to add an evening walk as well.  That would definitely be easier on joining a gym.  I like the idea of walking 5:15am-6:15am & 5:15pm-6:15pm.  It is so hot this week, that I don’t think I’ll be able to test that out though.  Maybe I’ll try running in place with a fan blowing directly on me!  

I’m proud of myself.  I didn’t know if I could do it, but I was determined to try and feel like I finally figured out something I wish I had learned 20 years ago.  I could dwell in that regret, but that won’t actually alter the reality of my life.  Instead, I’ll take that knowledge and make a future from it.  

[Walk #100]

The Wandering Hermit: People of the Dawn, People of the Dusk

   24 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: People of the Dawn, People of the Dusk

I woke up feeling just fantastic!  I like waking up with so much mental energy, but of course it tends to fade in a couple of hours and I sort of have to regain it later in the morning.  Still, it starts strong.

Last night, I thought I might wake up and drive somewhere to do my walk.  I keep wanting to do that, but I basically burst awake ready to get going and it seems a waste to not take advantage of that energy.  I’ll definitely have to give that a try soon.

I keep thinking about how some people are active early in the morning and others are active late into the night.  Every time I talk to one of my brothers, they’ve been up too late or have a list of things planned to do late into the night.  Dad was always up until 2 or 3am, waking up for his day around noon.  Grandma Fuchs was the same.  But then Mimi, Mom’s mom, would be sitting in the family room each morning before dawn—lights still off, just sipping her Folgers coffee and enjoying the quiet of her own company.  Mom was also an early riser and I guess I’ve just carried on that tradition.  Whether there is an innate difference between people or if we are just adaptable, I’m not sure.  All I do know is that I’ll take the dawn.  It makes me happy.

I’m wondering if I should be looking forward to simplicity after moving or if that is foolish.  Maybe I should be expecting more chaos; at least then it would be more difficult to be disappointed in the outcome.  I find it challenging to not be optimistic, something I’ve seen as a shortcoming.  Optimism isn’t cool.  It’s sometimes a hinderance.  But I would rather look forward to something good and believe it will happen than be down about everything all the time.  Bad stuff is going to happen whether I worry about it or not; it feels silly to go through anything once in my mind before it happens again in reality.  

[Walk #99]

The Wandering Hermit: Careful! Don’t Bully Yourself

   23 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Careful! Don’t Bully Yourself

I was talking to my brother after yesterday’s morning walk.  I mentioned that I tried to take a photo on every walk, just as a part of my recent practice of having daily habits, but that as it was my 97th walk since I started I was out of things to take a photo of.  This morning, I decided that was a silly thing to say.  It was a silly thing to think in fact, so I found a huge number of things to take a picture of today and I didn’t go far out of my way.  I did slow my pace, stopping frequently to get a good shot of a particular plant or the right angle of the road.  And it was a nice relaxed morning.  I’m positive that not every morning needs to be about my pace & speed, but I still tried to make up for that by going a little bit longer than usual.  

During a recent video by Mike Pridgen (Mike Needs a Plan), he reminded his viewers to avoid self deprecating humor about themselves.  I’ve been thinking about that; I don’t know if I 100% agree, but I think I’m much closer to that than I used to be.  One of the traits I value most about myself is that I don’t take myself too seriously.  I think there is a difference though between acknowledging the silly things I do, an laughing about them, and taking shots at myself that are unwarranted.  It’s a nice reminder to not tear myself down.  I’m definitely guilty of that.  I find that the older I get, the more I appreciate things that are deemed corny in youth.  I like being positive.  I like being happy.  

The temperatures are going to be intense all week.  I haven’t lost my commitment to not having excuses for my daily walks, so it’ll be interesting to see how well I get on in the sweltering heat.  I do normally walk early enough that it isn’t too warm yet, but it was 74ºF/23.5ºC this morning and while it didn’t feel as bad as yesterday, it was still warmer than I would have liked it to be.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I stopped complaining about it!

[Walk #98]

The Wandering Hermit: Never “Give Up”

   22 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Never “Give Up”

I’m feeling motivated this morning!  It’s a good place to be.  I woke up a few minutes early and went ahead and did my walk.  It almost feels absurd to be out before 5am, but I like the early morning hours.  

This is a little preachy, but I was thinking about a concept that frustrate me, “Let go and let God.” What a convenient way to take no responsibility or accountability in one’s life.  It’s interesting that people who tend to adhere so strongly to this idea from the Bible (Ephesians 3:20) aren’t so generous when it comes to the lives of others.  They don’t just let God’s will be when it doesn’t align with their beliefs.  So, it strikes me that they don’t actually trust in some sort of divine order of things, but that they don’t want to grow up and take responsibility for their lives.  These are the cherry pickers who will find the contradictions and seize on them, hanging up decor with convenient quotes.  But they forget Galatians 6:5 “For we are each responsible for our own conduct.”  Or worse, 1 Timothy 5:8 “But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith.  Such people are worse than unbelievers.”  This concept already lives in the English language in the term giving up.  “To give up” was, and I would argue still is, “To give up to God.”  And I’m not interested in entertaining moral justifications for giving up.  This train of thought frustrated me in the first place.  I don’t want to spend this much mental energy on people who annoy me, but these people spend a lot of their own physical energy trying to annoy people I care about.  It’s hard to not get frustrated with them.

Today is our local Pride event.  I’ve never been, which is ridiculous and I don’t really have time to go today.  However, I’m making the time to go and at least check things out.  I’m looking forward to it and hope that next year I just make the time and go with an open schedule!

I’ve been a little more relaxed on my walks for the past couple of days.  I’m trying to not overdo anything.  When I really push myself, I feel that all day and I don’t want to create any issues that will cause genuine problems.  So, I backed off a little.  Walking 7 days a week isn’t even completely necessary from my understanding, but as long as I’m choosing to do that I’m not going to try and beat myself daily.  Steady progress is best, and that always happens within a range that just trends in the right direction.

I had started using Cronometer to track my food, but I’m far less likely to enter things in than I was to just write them down.  I may need to go back to the notebook.  I’ll give it another week and see.  I like the nutrient breakdown from the app, but I tend to remember the handwritten tracking better.

[Walk #97]