Walking Challenge 2012: May put the challenge in Walking Challenge 2012

~Thursday~

April’s Challenge Entry | All Challenge Entries | June’s Challenge Entry

This month put the challenge in Walking Challenge 2012. The executive summary is:

I had to abandon my daily walks for a good portion of the month.
I ate out so many times eating things for which counting the calories was nearly impossible and would have amounted to mere guesswork.
I didn’t lose any weight this month.

Walking

I had to stop walking, because my post-surgery knee pain was not getting any better. It hurt like the dickens while walking—every time, the entire time.

After saying about a hundred times how much it hurt while doing my walking, my nurse friend, Joe, essentially reminded me of the old, “It hurts when I touch it, doctor,” response: “Then don’t touch it.” Finally, he talked me into taking a temporary hiatus.

I decided to stop for two weeks, which I extended to three, as progress was being made, and I didn’t want to risk a relapse. Trying to see the forest for the trees.

Here are the numbers for the days I did walk in May:

[Click to enlarge] Chart showing a walk on the first six days of May and the last three days.

Background photo: At the beginning of May, I spent a couple of days at Myrtle Beach and tried to walk on the beach, but it hurt my knee too much. I was on it long enough to snap this picture of a beached jellyfish, though.

Eating

My days at the beach at the beginning of the month, and three (Three, count ’em!) cookouts over the Memorial Day weekend, made it a tough month to track my calorie intake as diligently as I have to-date this year.

You can also see on May’s food and exercise diary as recorded in dailyburn.com that since I wasn’t walking every day, there were some days when I didn’t go to the gym, so didn’t get any exercise in at all:

Dailyburn May calendar showing calories eaten and calories burned

Weighing

Again, to no one’s surprise—least of all mine—there was no weight-loss progress this month. Frankly, I’m happy with not having gained a ton of weight back.

Chart showing a weight loss of a total of 30 pounds since starting in January through the last Monday in May.

Background photo: It’s not really accurate to say that I’ve reached a “plateau” in my weight loss quest, as I’m not at the point where I’m dieting and exercising like crazy, but still not losing weight.
I’m just a sucker for a beautiful plateau picture.

Reflecting

Here are some reflections about this month's experience:

I can’t even begin to describe how distressful the process was of finally deciding to give up my daily walking and break my streak of walking every day for at least 30 minutes since January 2nd, and the desire to not miss a day the entire rest of the year.
In retrospect, I’m probably the only person who cares, and my knee might have been totally healed by now had I taken such action right after my surgery, instead of waiting until it was obvious that it was hindering my healing.
At the point in time that this blog entry represents, there is still not one step that I take that I don’t think about my knee, because every step I take still hurts.
Having chronic pain seriously f#cks with your quality of life perceptions and thoughts about mortality.
Thankfully, my lower back pain and sciatica pain have both subsided, which I attribute to the stretching and strengthening exercises I do each every time I go to the gym, which is 5-7 times a week.
I am now doing my 300 ab crunches with 15 pounds of additional weight added to the bench, which still blows my mind every time I do them.
It is truly frightening how easy it is to get off track on eating, but this is the first time that I’ve nipped it in the bud, and got back on track before gaining back 20 or 30 pounds.
A second Planet Fitness employee has memorized my membership number, such that when they’re working I don’t have to say it when I check in at the front desk. We just nod and they say, “You’re all set. Have a good workout.”

Concluding

I’m happy to see this very challenging month come to a close.

And while I’ve started my walks back up, I still have pain when I walk, but it’s clear and away less intense than it used to be. I’m going to force myself to walk near the minimum of 30 minutes for the entire month of June, no matter how much better it starts feeling.

It is still my intention to walk every day, for at least 30 minutes, for the rest of 2012. Wanna hear the deity laugh? Tell herm your plans.