Walking

I have really been enjoying my walks these past few weeks and think I am nicely falling into a consistant routine, My goal is to  walk for 1 hour or more 5 days per week, I hit this goal last week and plan to do the same this week (providing it doesn't rain!) I weighed this weekend and was up a few pounds, which was a little discouraging, then i took some measurements and realized that I had lost an inch in each calf! and a few inches in some other areas too! also tried on my "goal" capris and was able to zip them up a little easier, I  wore them for about an hour or so, they are still a little too snug to be real comfortable, so I hung them back up in my room where I see them everyday to remind me, that i want those pants to be my comfy summer capris!  I will be on my trip 2 weeks from today! and hope to get a full 2 weeks of eating right and exercise in that time, oh one more thing, got an excellent book, called "Eat this and Live" by Don Colbert M.D great info and it was just what I needed to motivate me in my eating plan again! easy to read and lots of colored photos and interesting facts about the Standard American Diet (sad) like this one, Did you know that the average American consumes 3,770 calories PER DAY! no wonder we are a nation that is obese! our family went out to dinner on Sat night and now that the calories are listed in the menus, its no wonder, some of these meals had up to 1,900 cal, FOR ONE MEAL! crazy! anyway I highly recommend this book, I have started reading a little bit of it to our family at dinner time, my kids are 11,9 and 4 and the book is friendly enough for them to get it too, well maybe not so much my 4 year old, but she will get it as she grows! have a great week everyone!    

Good for you for getting yourself out the door ever day! It's hard, but worth it, isn't it?

I'm not getting in as much as you, but I'm working on it. I took the dogs for a 45 minute walk one day last week and it was funny to watch them - by the end of the walk they were both dragging behind me. I was thrilled to discover that thanks to a year of aquasize 3 times a week and a pair of good shoes (men's 7 wide from Walmart - now I know what to shop for!) I managed just fine, with no pain at all.

Other days were either aquasize or riding my new bike. Lovey and I even did the grocery shopping by bike on Saturday, and yesterday we rode 2.7 kilometers to where I go to knitting group to see if there's a bike rack, had iced coffee and shopped a bit, then rode home. Today we plan on biking around a small lake near us - with bread to feed the ducks when we need a rest.

I'm going to see about booking a session with a personal trainer at the Y where I go to aquasize and setting up a program of progressive resistance training to build some muscle.

If the doctor is right and I can't lose much more weight (without eating way less than is sustainable) I'm going to do my very best to become the fittest and healthiest I can be at whatever weight I end up at.

day 1: successful, just got back from a 60 min walk!

Yeah you!!

Well, who knew that heavy exercise one day could plant Lovey and me on the sofa? We managed some shopping today, and were both grateful that it's raining, since we were both ready to fall over with even that bit of walking. Early bed tonight, then I'll do SOMETHING tomorrow, even if it's just peddling on my recumbent exercise bike. (or a walk in the rain with the wee doggies?

How long did it take you to build up to being able to go on a long walk every day? I really want to get to an hour of something every day.

On the plus side, the 2# I'd gained back are gone again.

Kelly-Anne

Kelly-Anne,

To be honest its really hard to say how long it took me to build up to this amount of walking, back before I lost the majority of this weight I would walk about 45 min on the treadmill at the gym at least 3 days per week, A friend of mine and I started walking together this past March on a regular basis, at first we would walk for about 30 to 45 min and then we just got real serious about distance walking and went for it, I cant say how long it took to build up, not long though, the first time we went for a real long distance it was about 4.8 miles and witin the next week or so we were doing 6 miles then a month or so later 8 miles, last week we even talked about possibly going for 10 miles! I have to tell you though after 8 miles I am pretty tuckered out! so i think it may take some time still for that full 10! We have talked about adding some jogging into our routine as well, like every time we cross an intersection jog through it instead of walk, we kinda started to do this on our last trip! I just got the book walk yourself thin by David Rives yesterday, though I dont fully agree with all of his teaching I do agree with his approach to walking, he says walk as far as you can as fast as you comfortably can for a minimum of 1 hour per day, he also talks about this how this changes the fat in your body to lean muscle so what you really want to be looking for is size lost inches, clothing etc... not so much weight, because of the amount of lean muscle you will be building while simultaniously buring fat!