One step at a time.

One of the guys in the office has suggested we do a "1 million steps" challenge. Essentially it's a challenge where a team of three attempts to do 1 million steps in a month. That's 333,333 steps per person, or 11,111 steps a day, at least. 

Bear in mind that my current average for last year is 3837 steps, then that means I need to do 3 times the number of steps that I'm currently doing.

I've said that I'll take part if we can get a full team. The goal is tough enough with having to increase it by 50% if there's only two of us.

Zzz.

I bought a new smartwatch at Xmas because I was planning on trying to up my exercise and lose some weight this year. I've also started keeping it on at night to track my sleep. I've been convinced that my sleep has been awful for a long time - years, in fact.

So over the past 2 weeks, apparently the average sleep I'm getting is just shy of eight hours a night. But it doesn't feel like that.

I'll need to dig into the details a bit more to see what the quality is like, and how exactly the smart watch is recording my sleep. There are still a lot of days where I wake and I feel awful. Today was one of them. Yesterday was not. But yesterday I supposedly got 9 hours.

Let's gooooo!

I spent this morning walking around a retail park trying to find a new mattress. I was successful, but good mattress are expensive! I'm looking forward to hopefully better quality sleep. The only downside is waiting four weeks for it to be delivered.

Another positive to take away from this morning is that I walked over four miles with no foot issues. This means that, if it continues like this, I can think about doing a walk at lunchtime. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, but the foot was an issue. A couple of weeks of that, and I'll move on to something else: more walking, return to my yoga or something else.

And I should also ponder returning to our original route the next time I'm out with Nerdy Girl. It's six miles. Maybe that's for a few weeks' time though.

Looking good.

Whisper it quietly, but I think that I am only a few weeks away from the Plantar Fasciitis being pretty much healed. It's been significantly less painful over the past week or so. If that continues, then I should be in much better shape, post-Christmas (well, into the new year) to make a proper effort to undo the damage of this current year in terms of fitness and weight gain.

Baby steps

I'm meeting Nerdy girl tonight for a walk. The plantar fasciitis seems to be gradually easing, but not enough for me to try our long route. But I definitely need to get my arse in gear and do something given yesterday's shock to the system.

JFC

I tried on my suit today for the first time since around this time last year and it wasn't a pretty sight. I had to go and buy a new one and ended up buying two sizes bigger than my last suit.

That's not good. I know I've put on weight, but actually how much I'd not really considered. A lot of my clothes still fit me, if a little tight around the stomach, but this was something else.

And it was fucking depressing. But I have done little to no exercise this year and my eating habits have been awful. I've been staving off boredom and stress with food. And I've been awfully bored and stressed this year.

Sigh

I had promised myself that I'd get back into the yoga today. It's been like four weeks since I last did it and while the back pain from my injury (I can't remember if I blogged about it, but I missed a stair at home and jarred my back) is mostly gone, I can feel the other back pain returning. It was busy in work and I wasn't able to do it at my usual time at lunchtime, so I'm hoping I can still motivate myself to get a short session in once I log off.

Let's get going.

Technical issues today with the yoga, but I eventually got those sorted (heart rate monitor not synced to my app). So I recorded 23 minutes and 316 calories, but I think there's about 4 mins and roughly 50 calories unaccounted for due to the technical error.

The workout was much more intense than the demonstration/beginners workout, so the first while will definitely be a case of practicing the moves. And I missed out on the exercises that required me to be on my knees. By Tuesday (Amazon deliveries tend not to get delivered here until mid-afternoon), I should have my new yoga mat, so hopefully that will help a great deal, otherwise I'll have to figure something out.

Today's workout introduced a couple of stretches that aren't in the demo and they're really going to help with my hips. 

So yeah, the nerdy part of me is wondering why a more intense workout that jacked my HR well above the demo workouts and roughly the same duration clocks in a lower calorie count. Not a complaint, just inquisitiveness.

Oooft.

It struck just now that this past week or so is easily the  most active I've been in a long, long time. Since Tuesday of last week, I've logged seven different workouts (i.e. exercise or walking). On top of that, there were another two days where my step  count was significantly higher than usual. It might only be like 9 days, but that's a damning indictment on how lazy/inactive I have been since Covid and the first lockdown.

Urgh.

So, yeah, I'm thinking my current aches and pains are movement related. Or lack of movement. I woke up this morning feeling the worst I have in a long time. My back, my foot and even a couple of twinges in the hips, too.

I can't put this off. I need to be more active. I want to do Yoga, but I am paranoid the damage to my back is severe. But getting to see a GP these days is a fucking journey of telephone queues and gatekeeping receptionists. I'll maybe try one of the introductory sessions and see how I go.

Ouch

I was hoping that today would be the start of getting some exercise in. I had somewhere to be and that would involved a mile-long walk either way, plus the weather was nice.

It was kinda rammed home by the fact that my clothes (my suit) was a lot tighter than I recall, so that was an added incentive to doing some more exercise.

And it was going well until I was approaching the end of the return journey when the plantar fasciitis flared up again. It has been easing, though slower than I would like. I'm pretty sure the formal shoes didn't help matters.

So all this afternoon, the PF has been quite sore. I am meant to be meeting Nerdy Girl tomorrow evening, though the weather isn't guaranteed, but we'll see what happens.

Forward thinking.

I was thinking about seeing if Nerdy Girl fancied a walk this week, but then I remembered that I have a habit of finishing our walks in a little pain and with blisters. And I wouldn't want that to put an end to my challenge with Randon Internet Woman seeing as that's currently going quite well, and there's just over a week to go.

I did send her a message to see if she wants a walk early next week. She suggested Tuesday which is pretty much ideal. And even if my feet do hurt and get blisters, I'll have more than done enough to achieve the secondary goal, which is to average more than a mile per day.

Now that I'm getting near the end of the challenge, it's time to think about what my next steps might be (no pun intended). My thoughts from earlier in the month were to try and keep up the walking. It's not a huge distance though it has been difficult at times to motivate myself into going out. But my back pain has eased and my sleep is better. And to build on what I have achieved, I thought maybe about getting back into my yoga. 

USHW, who sent an email just as I started typing this post, suggested easing into that with some stretching first. That's a good idea because while the yoga that I like does involve stretching, I have felt some tightness in my legs as well as some actual pain (shin splints I think) when I try to walk at my normal, natural pace. So maybe that's the plan for December, to start stretching with a view to progressing into my old yoga programme by the end of that month.

Absolutely perfect.

A few days ago, I was chatting with an online friend about the US Open golf. Specifically, my decision to stay up late to watch Rory McIlroy. I moaned about my own stupidity in staying up late when I had work on Monday morning. He laughed and agreed and moaned that he didn't even see golfer Ricky Fowler's wife for a bit of eye candy.

The eye candy in question is someone that I've mentioned before on this blog: Allison Stokke. For reasons that I can't remember, my friend posted a couple of pictures of her.

"Looks at the traps on her!" he exclaimed.

"I don't see an issue there, tbh. Athletic women float my boat."

"I don't like my women having bigger muscles than me, tbf."

"Not a problem for me!" I replied.

While I have dated some women with great figures, I've never dated someone who's as athletic as Allison Stokke, though I would love to. I'd have to get off my fat ass and join her occasionally for some proper exercise, though I'd not be against that. USHW always said I was a sucker for a pretty face, though CH was unable to get me to join her for a run. I'm also a sucker for abs too, and a figure like those pictured in this post is pretty much my ideal. It reminds me of a conversation I had with USHW years ago around boobs vs abs.

Ouch 2

All day Tuesday and Wednesday, my Achilles continued to be very painful. I recently bought a foam roller for when I start back into my yoga (now that the Covid symptoms are all but gone), so I gave the calf muscle a bit of a going over. I do remember when I went to physiotherapy all those years ago that the sexy physiotherapist told me that a lot of Achilles issues are down to tight muscles, so I stretched a bit once the roller had done its job. There didn't seem to be any let-up in the pain levels.

Until this morning, that is! Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near fighting form, but the pain is almost all gone. There is definitely an underlying issue that needs to be identified and sorted though. That means a trip to my GP or another physiotherapist.

Ouch

I was out last night with Nerdy Girl for one of our walks. I forgot to track it via my fitness tracker, but it was a similar route that we usually take so, distance-wise, it must have been around 6 miles. Even walking at a leisurely pace, towards the end I felt my achilles starting to give me grief. I definitely need to start stretching those out before it gets too bad. I had to get physiotherapy about ten years ago for a similar issue.

Additionally, the promised phone calls from both KfW2 and FP never materialised. I'm not chasing FP on this. He has some news, so it's up to him when he wants to call and chat, but KfW2 was meant to confirm our arrangements for the Saturday after Valentine's Day, which she still hasn't done. My gut says she wasn't able to get the tickets required.

Body of evidence.

There's a woman who pops up on my Tinder feed every now and again. She's attractive and has piercing blue eyes, possibly even more so than the attractive blonde minor celebrity that I've seen from time to time. She's clearly a gym bunny and has a great physique, but this time around she's posted something else... she's gone much more extreme this time around. Now that I think about it, she looks as if she's prepping for a competition.

I love athletic women and I find abs sexy, but there's something in the way these people look at competition time that just puts me off. It's too extreme for me, I think. I admire the dedication that you need for this, but I simply don't find the end goal that appealing.

Urgh.

I've been feeling really off today. Like I can't put my finger on it, but I've been operating at about 60% all day. It's part fatigue, part unshiftable headache and a couple of other things that I can't quite put my finger on. Some of it is definitely related to the Covid or 'flu that I had prior to Christmas, but a lot of the other stuff is new... within the past 24 hours.

Here we go.

I'm not going to go into a list of New Years Resolutions for this year. I have two simple goals, though I've not worked out the details as yet. the first is to get out and about more - leave the house, see friends etc. I need to break this habit of not leaving the house that I've gotten into over the past three years due to Covid. 

The second is to increase my fitness, which is partly related to the first point - I've pretty much not left the house in three years. I have half an idea to go back to my yoga and maybe even upgrade to Caroline Girvan for some basic strength training. However, those are details I'll start contemplating next week.

Apart from that, I have no real goals.

Goals (Part 1 - Health)

Obviously with it being the new year, I have goals on my mind. I've been considering my health, especially after last year.

I need to start looking at my mental health. The issues I faced late last year are still present, and I have contact details that will hopefully kickstart some kind of resolution.

I also, as you may well have guessed by now, need to consider my physical health. I've started and stopped little things over the past few years, but since the pandemic, I've really fallen off the wagon as I'm not even doing my usual walking (when I'm in the office, I can easily do 9000+ steps per day, now it's about 300).

My main thought is to get back into my Yoga, which I've loved in the past, but I've also recently discovered Caroline Girvan who has a series of FREE workout programmes on YouTube. That might be a little much for me right now. I think the best idea is to get the yoga up and running again and then consider other options, once my body is used to doing some exercise again.

Back in the saddle

I didn't do a check-in deliberately last week. I was on holiday and my schedule was all over the place. The numbers today are not bad: 232.4 lbs.

While that's a slight increase on the last check-in (0.2 lbs), there has been a fair bit of alcohol taken over the past few weeks due to the good weather, guests etc. so I'm not particularly disheartened with that.