Tag: health

The Wandering Hermit: Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

   7 July 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

While I knew there was a chance of rain today, I didn’t expect it to rain all morning.  It hadn’t quite started when I first woke up at 5am, but I checked the radar and decided to just wait for it to pass.  By 10:30, I realized that wasn’t going to happen so I did some cardio on the front porch.  If it dries later, I’ll try to get in a bit of a walk.  The temperature is so perfect today; it’s a shame to waste it.

I’m apparently doing stationary cardio incorrectly.  I just can’t seem to get my heart rate up as much as walking, even when I feel like what I’m doing is much more difficult.  I have the same issue with aerobic exercises.  They will make me sweat a lot, but they don’t really move my heart rate as much as walking.  It is possible that I need to be slightly more concerned about why walking increases my heart rate so much, but either way I’d like them to be similar.  

The Wandering Hermit: Surprising Myself

   6 July 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Surprising Myself

This morning’s walk was perfect—cool, dark, calm.  I woke up rested and felt great.  I do feel a little like I’ve been pushing myself this month, and I’m trying to be cautious about that.  I always worry about going too far.  I’ve been feeling like my whole body has built up a bit of pressure following my morning walks…I’m not sure if that makes sense.  It’s like I’m straining everything.  It’s not bad exactly, but I’m also not sure why it’s happening.  I actually might describe it as the feeling of asthma, but in my entire body, not just my lungs.  I don’t know if that is making sense.  I’m sure something is going on that explains the feeling.  From my brief research, my best guess in delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), but there is no real pain involved.  It doesn’t seem to be an injury, so for now I’m not going to worry about it.  I’ve been feeling it since my extra long walk on Thursday.  I’ll just keep paying attention to what my body is doing and act accordingly.

I’ve now lost 160 pounds.  That is wild to me.  I don’t know how much weight I have left to lose, but I can see it being anywhere from 50 to 90 pounds.  I’m just amazed at how quickly I’m talking about such small numbers I still need to lose.  It was not that long ago that I had stopped believing in my own capacity to accomplish anything, but I just don’t feel that way anymore.

[Walk #114]

The Wandering Hermit: How’s Everybody Doin’ Today? Wanna Hear About My Lungs?

   2 July 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: How’s Everybody Doin’ Today? Wanna Hear About My Lungs?

One of my favorite concepts is having the confidence to walk into a room like you own everything.  Of course, I never quite do have that level of confidence, but I think I’ve figured out a way to fake it, and faking it is nearly as good it most cases.  Recently, whenever I’ve been around other people I like to walk in like I’m the district manager; I’m not doing a walk through this week, but I am just seeing how everyone is doing.  What is surprising is how well even that level of confidence works.

I need to keep working on breathing.  I am MILES from where I started, but I do wish I could breath even more deeply.  I want to just fill those lungs up fully and enjoy the full capacity of respiration that I have lacked for so long.  Maybe it’ll take time.  Maybe it will never happen, but I’m trying.  I don’t know what would help other than what I’m already doing.  I’m willing to try anything.

[Walk #109]

The Wandering Hermit: It’s July. Now what?

   1 July 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: It’s July. Now what?

July arrived so quickly!  We had a massive cool-down yesterday, so my morning walk was very pleasant.  I worked up a nice sweat and just generally felt good about it.  

Today I start a bit of a schedule shake up that I’ve been working on for a while.  The point of this schedule is not to get bogged down by the various things I need to do, but to constantly give myself prompts to aid me in keeping up with being present.  I’ve become good at maintaining some of the routines in my life, but I did so by having something specific to do at those times.  A lot of aspects of life require structure for me, especially if I am going to make those things feel spontaneous.  I’m not very good at spontaneity, and that’s okay.  Not everybody has to be.

I’ve arrived in July without any new health goals.  That isn’t to say there is nothing at all to work on, but I have no specific thing in mind.  I’m just continuing to work on my fitness.  That seems to be going well.  I’ll be tightening my diet up a bit, but that comes and goes as well, so it’s not new.  It’s a good month for that as well.  Having a very strictly planned diet works well with the chaos I’m anticipating for the month.  Apple’s Fitness app is challenging me a little.  I need to be doing 2.77 miles of walking every day.  I don’t know if that is based on how much I walk, but it’s actually the perfect goal.  It’s just a little bit more than I normally do, and fits in well with adding a brief afternoon walk.

[Walk #107]

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: 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: 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: 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: Assessing Myself on a Thursday Morning

   20 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Assessing Myself on a Thursday Morning

I feel inspired this morning.  I didn’t get enough sleep, but I still woke up feeling great and ready to do all the things!  I’ve been focused heavily on poetry this month and it has me feeling very hyped for new projects, and I even got some writing in the other day.  I can always write.  But I have been busy with other things and so my writing has been pushed to the back until I’ve settled somewhere.  That is a trap I’ve fallen for before.  There is no settling.  Life is always chaotic in one way or another, but it is a choice to deny myself expression.  So, I resumed the writing I should never have paused.

My pace for the entire 3.39 mile walk this morning was under 20 minutes per mile!  That was incredible.  Once again, I did at times feel like I was power walking like a suburban mom on a Wednesday morning, but most of the walk felt fine.  And breathing never became an issue, but a brief exception when a car drove by and I was dealing with some dust for a few minutes.  Otherwise, my lungs seem the best they ever have.  My VO2 Max number has sort of plateaued, but I just need to keep doing what I am doing; hopefully it moves along soon.

I’m starting to get used to the slower rate of my recent weight loss.  I had been discouraged that it was slowing down, but when I started I knew that would happen.  It’s actually a good sign to not be dropping 3 to 5 pounds per week.  Weight loss at that rate was a sign that I was far too overweight.  I seem to be at 1 to 2 pounds per week, with an occasional outlier of 4 or 5.  If there’s something I could switch up to increase that, I’m just not all that interested in exploring it.  I like how I’m eating, I like my exercise routine, I’m drinking a lot of water, and most nights I’m sleeping well.  I don’t really mind this pace because everything is feeling so great.

[Walk #95]