by Ethan Johnson
July 12, 2007

Another 30 days has come and gone. Since I'm at the controls, and since we were on a 9-day vacation break, I decided to "pause" the tracking spreadsheet and finish out the final 5 days of the block starting on the first full day after we returned. That seemed to work fairly well, however I do have to note that summer is our winter, in that there is a pretty tight window for doing anything outdoors before major problems can occur. The least of which being sunburn. Let's do the numbers:

Concluded cycle: June 3 to June 27, pause, July 8 - July 12, 2007

• # of treadmill sessions: Zero! BUT, I did use the treadmill twice while out on vacation. I figured any walking was good walking after all of that driving.
• YTD miles walked on treadmill: 41.6 (Feb 3 - Apr 3 2007)
• (Outdoor) Miles walked during last reported cycle: 75.8
• (Outdoor) Miles walked during freshly concluded cycle: 60.2
• Average miles walked/time spent walking per day (MM:SS): 2.01/30:54
• Miles traveled by bicycle during freshly concluded cycle: 33.6
• Average miles biked/time spent biking per day (MM:SS): 1.12/6:16
• Weight loss/gain since Feb 3, 2007: -35 lbs (295 down to 260)
• Number of floor exercise sessions held during freshly concluded cycle: 12 (approx. 15 minutes per session)
• Starting/current hip width in inches (sometimes called the "Texas waistline"): 45.5/42.5 (Loss of 3 inches)
• Starting/current belly width in inches: 47/43.5 (loss of 3.5 inches)

Alrighty then!

Here's what all of that means. Walking and biking were way down versus the previous 30 days. There were days on end where I didn't bike at all. Partly, this is because we have been having an unseasonably high amount of rain, and I refuse to ride my shiny new bike in the rain. (I have an electronic spedometer/odometer attached to it and I don't want to wreck it with heavy rains like I did to my old stopwatch.) It's easier for me to walk in a storm, despite the annoyance of coming home sopping wet. But the heat and cement work in concert to dry the sidewalks up enough to make them passable mere minutes after even the heaviest rains.

The other factor (as mentioned above) is the heat. I have to crawl out of bed earlier and earlier, which means there is really a safe window for either walking or biking, but not both. Plus I do have a day job, and can't be out all morning roaming the streets. Due to a really annoying (and at one point, scary) power outage last night my routine was a mess this morning and I speed-walked to get in my 30 minutes before I baked in my own skin. Not fun.

On the up side, I bought some Adidas "ClimaCool" clothing last month, which wicks away moisture in such a way as to make you actually feel a freezing sensation in the slightest breeze. I have some funky lycra (?) pants that I call the "evil Spider-Man™ pants" that really add some spring to the ole step, and especially help me crank out the miles on the bike. As I like to say when I have them on, "my legs are brought to you in stunning high definition." It helps to actually have high definition legs, but if you're close enough, these pants will really add a little somethin'-somethin'.

I have to add here that I am super proud of Marlena, who has been steadily cranking along on the treadmill every day, and is making more progress than I was anticipating. There's a lot to be said for momentum, as well as persistence. Hooray!

As for the vacation trip, we had lots of fun and covered a lot of ground. We also ate a lot of so-called "bad" foods, on the grounds that it was stuff that we couldn't get at home, such as omelettes made correctly, or edible pizza, and that we both had established enough of an exercise foundation to "be bad" for 9 days. After multiple instances of italian beef, some deep-dish pizza, swanky steaks, and 59-egg omelettes, I gained... wait for it... 2 pounds.

Here's (probably) how: We pushed ourselves to be on the go far more than at home, out of necessity. We drove way too far to not try and cram in as much on the trip as possible. This included food, BUT, our "road food" in the van were those LäraBars. Disgustingly healthy, and filling. Normally we would have brought crapola like Twizzlers and Wheat Thins. Not to mention drive-thru meals to save time. I managed to get in 2 floor exercise sessions toward the end of the trip, 1 treadmill session, and a full-on assault on the exercise room (hardly a mini-gym) at our hotel in Memphis on the final ful day before driving home. Despite being carefree vacationers, I stopped eating when full, and I made sure we got in some sort of physical activity (walking through an entire casino looking for one's spouse is a great idea) each day. Seems to be working. Maybe my metabolism sped up too, who knows. I predicted a small gain, and expected +/- 2 pounds when I finally mounted the scale back at home (no scale use while gone). I nailed it!

I'm also happy to report that despite being kicked out of the 250s by virtue of those 2 pounds being tacked on, I have officially lost as much weight since February 3 as the largest bag of dog food that Bil-Jac makes (35 lbs). Looking at the bag at the pet store last night was pretty mind-blowing. I'm not in any way advocating crash dieting or starvation, but seeing that monstrous bag on the shelf drove home how much extra baggage (ha ha) I was carrying not that long ago. I figure I have one more of those to go before I'm in the neighborhood of a reasonable weight. Note that this would still keep me firmly in the over 200 lbs club, and I'm cool with that. I figure my body will regulate that reality means weight-wise, and if less is possible, then fine. If more, OK.

To close, I want to again address all of you who are thinking about exercise and dieting and are confused about what works and what doesn't. Here is one simple fact: Nothing works in and of itself. My car doesn't drive itself around town, I do. Your diet/exercise plan isn't going to work either unless you work it. But besides my usual insistence that you discuss all of these lofty plans with your doctor before you hurt yourself, I'm here to say that nothing is going to work diet-wise without a solid exercise foundation. Look through my previous fitness updates, and you'll see a trend: "Solid" for me means 30 minutes a day, every day. Lots of people watch 30 minutes of lousy TV a day. Or sit in boring meetings for at least 30 minutes a day. Or sit in traffic jams. Or stand in line. The point is, you can find 30 minutes a day to develop that foundation. And IF your experience is anything like my own, you may find that there are minutes more to borrow away from one activity in favor of another. 30 minutes walking outdoors is 30 minutes not spent in front of the TV, or the computer.

And for the love of God and all that is holy, ignore and avoid that "Alli" diet drug crap. I take a multi-vitamin every day, and an allergy pill. That's it. (I understand that other people take different pills for different reasons, and that's fine.) Spaulding Gray once wrote about trying to avoid retinal surgery and telling his doctor that he wanted to try all sorts of "alternative" remedies for his macular degeneration problem. "Go ahead, try them all," said the doctor, "and then we will operate." Sooner or later, you're going to need to establish a solid exercise foundation that really means walking 30 minutes a day. Is that really more physically and financially taxing than dodgy weight-loss pills and supplements?

Here's my challenge to anyone who has been putting off starting up a diet/exercise plan (but has been meaning to start one): I want you to walk for 10 minutes a day, every day, for a week. (7 days, not a 5-day work week.) You don't have to go fast, I don't even care how far you walk. Send me an email privately or post a comment here and let me know how you felt after those 10 minutes. Were you wiped out? Did you feel like you could do more? Did you do more? Did you give up? I'm not going to judge you or make an example out of anyone, I'm just saying that talk is cheap, so is inspiration, and progress takes effort. Sometimes we just need someone to walk with, and through the magic of the internet we can do that. I sincerely hope to hear back from even one of you. As Alex Trebek would say, I'm on your side.

See you on the walking trail! <EM>