It seemed doable redux: Walking across February…

~Tuesday~ 
 

January’s Challenge Entry | All Challenge Entries | March’s Challenge Entry

Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve squandered away another month, and even though Paula Deen winces whenever she hears me say it, “I’ve walked every single day for another entire month.”

Walking

Here are the numbers for February:

Background photo: The train passing by one February day on my walk around the perimeter of Pullen Park.

My last week of walking was severely impacted by a knee issue serious enough that I’m having an MRI today. On those days, I literally limped my way through my walks.

Eating

Here is my February food and exercise diary as recorded in dailyburn.com:

The calories burned by walking are included in the “Cals Burned” amount, which also includes calories burned while doing ab crunches and upper and lower body weight work whenever I did those in addition to my walking for a particular day.

Disclaimer: Today’s calorie count is an estimate. It’s what I plan to eat if I don’t end up at Cookout for dinner and Dairy Queen for dessert.

Weighing

I’m way pleased with my continued weight loss this month, reaching quite the milestone at my last weigh-in this past Monday:

Background photo disclaimer: I was never as big as the starting guy,
and I’m nowhere near the shape of the ending guy.

Reflecting

Here are some reflections about this month’s experience:

• I have moved down two notches in my belt, which is a different one than this one, even though I could probably go back and use that one now, since I could use a hole on the other side of the rip.
• I have actually started getting back into some of the clothes I lamented about in this end-of-the-year blog post: A sizing up, if you will, of 2011…
• I had my annual physical mid-month, and I was just delighted that “the numbers” reflected the amount of work I’ve done so far this year: Cholesterol, glucose, and triglycerides, oh my!
• I haven’t been to the gym every day since the beginning of the year, but pretty damn close to it. About a week ago when I walked in and started to give my membership number to the person at the desk, she said cutting me off, “Got it!” They were kind of busy, so the next day, I asked, “Did you just key in some default number because y’all were so busy when I came in yesterday, or do you actually have my number memorized? She said it out loud as she keyed it in for that day’s visit.
• I love how easy it is to touch my toes when stretching now. At the beginning of January I could only barely touch them and only after bending down about the fourth or fifth time. Now I touch them on the first bend, and by the fourth or fifth, I can even touch the floor with my finger tips.
• As I alluded to above, it was difficult getting my walks in at the end of the month, as my knee was in excruciating pain at times. One day, I put the treadmill on a steeper incline to make up for how very, very slow I was walking to limit the movement of my knee. Kneedless [sic] to say, my “distance” for that walk was way below average.
• After a couple of days of that, I created what I’ve dubbed the “Calorie-Burning Martyr Theorem”: The reduction in the number of calories burned by walking slower due to an injury is counteracted, one-to-one, by the pain endured in the duration of the walk. All that is to say is that you burn as many calories to endure the pain as you would have had you had no pain and walked at your normal pace. That’s my story and it’s sticking to me.
• On Monday, the 27th, I was thrilled to reach the 25-pound weight loss milestone, and I was a little giddy entering 2-0-0 for my weight on the treadmill that day.
• My biggest eating challenge this month was just yesterday. I attended a lecture on campus and at the end of it, they brought out about 12 boxes of all kinds of pizzas. Two of the top things I love in life: pizza and free, and normally I would be so all over that. I think my mouth started to foam while I waited for the person I was riding with who had gone down to ask one of the presenters a question. Those things smelled so damn good. At home, I had a salad with shredded chicken in it, which was actually pretty damned good.
• During the month, a few people were so inspired by my January report that they, too, got “up and moving.” I hope that everyone who did is still at it!
• I’ve had this blog post “ready to go” since Monday. Excited like a little kid.

Concluding

So, another successful month. I’m a little anxious about what this MRI on my knee might reveal, specifically that I might end up having to have some kind of surgery again.

That will really put the kibosh on my walking, and my spirits. Send positive energy my way.

---

January’s Challenge Entry | All Challenge Entries | March’s Challenge Entry