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Friday, December 31, 2010

The Storm Approaches.

"Jizo" is a graffiti on the railroad bridge near Grant's trail.
Day four arrives and Happy New Years Eve to all. Did the Grant's trail route again Today and was happy to see more people out. I counted 22 people on the trail this time. I am sure Tomorrow there will be more even if the weather is bad being that it is the first day of the New year. The weather was a bit wet but nothing bad. Of course latter Today we had some bad storms. The tornado alarms went off but the news here on TV seem rather aware of that. I hope they are more cognizant if there is a nuclear attack and the sirens sound.

Anyway. The walk was good and I took some picture along the trail and the path I took to add to the blog. I figure a picture is always a nice thing to look at when reading the daily roll. In the past 4 days I have walked about 21.5 miles and my blood pressure and pulse seem to be doing well. I find out yesterday that the portable monitor that I have been using reads a bit high about 10 to 15 points I would say. Which is good because if I am within on that monitor my heart rate must really be doing good.

Today is a milestone. I reached the point that I used enough calories walking to burn up one pound of fat. Too bad I can't select which pound? Wouldn't that be funny? So I guess at 1 pound for four days I could look at 45 weeks to reach my goal. That isn't too bad I guess. Too bad I can have a routine like boot camp. I remember some fat guys when we started out looking like a totally different person after two months. One guy had to have his uniforms changed three times before we got done he lost that much weight.

Keep on pushing forward.
Thomas

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A warmer day!

Section of St. Louis County Grant's Trail

Today the weather was much nicer and it showed by the number of people that were out. Yesterday I commented that I had only seen one person in the past two days and Today I saw 13 people on Grant's trail between Gravois and back home. Here is a map of the path I take on the trail.




Locate a Red Cross blood donor center.


I got some additional good news. My blood pressure was 124/84 here at home and I went to donate blood at the American Red Cross Today and they read it at 122/81 with my pulse being 66. I thought that was cool. I like to donate blood as often as I can since I have O+ blood type and it is the universal donor and is always in demand. I first began donating when I was in High school at East High in Wichita. At the beginning of my senior year they had a blood drive and I went. It has changed a lot since then. It use to be the actual donation was the longest part. Now all the screening take more time. There was a very good turn out as the donor center where I went too. If you need to find out where you can donate blood please check out this link.

So Today the walk was pretty good saw more people and a couple of dogs. I went about 4.3 miles an the trail. Overall everything is going as planned.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Stepping Out

Well it has been pretty cold the past couple days. Tuesday it was nice enough but Today there was a slight mist so the trail was covered in a slight coat of ice. So I walked on the edges most of the time. But I think tomorrow should be better. So far from the first two days I have only seen one person. I have a feeling this will all change on Saturday or Sunday after the New Years begin. Just another reason why I wanted to start a little bit early to see what the before and after is on that too. I can tell you for sure that by the end of the year there is no one walking at 8:00 am on Grant's trail.
The hardest part Today was after I got off the trail and was going down Union. Where the trail meets Union Rd. it is all up hill. Which is fine normally but the thin ice coating made it interesting a few times. Plus people driving do not look for pedestrians whatsoever. I guess they cannot be bothered to look since they have to use their phones and drive in such pristine weather.
Since I began my average blood pressure has been good. The night before I started it was way too high. Here is something funny, going to the bathroom helps you have a lower number. At least it works for me. I have never heard that but it seems to make sense to me. I am going to start bringing my rain cover now on too because I was a bit wet from this mornings walk. I am averaging about a hour ten to and hour twenty minutes for the 4.5 to 5 miles.
It was nice to start my blog today. If anyone has any comments or questions feel free to put them in the comments or send me an e-mail. Keep On Trucking!

The Adventure Begins

There are many reason that I have selected to begin this process of weight loss. As many of you that are overweight know the negative health effects of being overweight not to mention the inability to wear clothes that you like or that you think look good to you. But the reasons for health are the most important ones. I have been holding steady at about 270 to 280 for several years and have tried before to reduce the circumference of my girth. Last Spring I was on a good start but I got distracted and all the weight I lost back in April, May and June came back over the past few months.
The worse part is the total knowledge that is it in my hands how I look. So I cannot really blame anyone but myself. There is always time to walk and I can decide what I eat and drink. For the most part I do pretty well but I think my main issue is not with the quality but the quantity of food. This is where my best friend Bill Wegerer went wrong, among other things. He was eating like he was still in high school and college, eating at Burger King and having the large value meals. Well it was a contributing factor to his death when he was just 39 years old of a heart attack. So I guess I have been able to get past that but now I have to start getting this weight thing under my control.
Some of the basic tools I am using are walking clothes and shoes, a iPod pedometer, and blood pressure monitor, and trying to follow some reasonable guidelines. This advise includes cutting out ALL added salt, removing as much oil from my diet as I can. Reducing the amount of refined sugar I intake. Plus I made a spread sheet to monitor my progress daily and give me a “snapshot” of where I am in my journey to lose. I still got to get a good scale.
I am not trying to lose all the weight in a month or two. That is not reasonable or safe. The main thing, to me, is to make sure I can see where my progress is. I found on line a website that a person has made a graphic of proper blood pressure levels. I am a little bit above normal but I think I should get it under control with this plan.

Some other pieces of knowledge I need to know is how much I want to weigh and how much I can reasonably expect to lose over what period of time. My goal is to lose 80 pounds. I will see where I am after that, honestly reaching 180 pounds would be a real good place to be. I would look tall.
So a pound of fat is made up of 3500 kcal. Since I am trying to lose 80 pounds I take those numbers and multiply them to come up with the total number of calories I need to burn 280,000 is the result of that calculation. So Now I need to know how many steps to equal a single calorie. This number is a bit subjective since the more you weigh the more you tend to burn because you have more mass to move but my calculations based upon the Nike website and the number of steps seem to come out to about 12.5 steps to one calorie. SO now I take the number of steps to use on calorie times the number of calories I need to use to reach my goal and get a good idea of how long it should reasonably take me. 3,500,000 steps would be that number to walk off 80 pounds. In miles, take the steps divided by 2000 to get 1750 miles. Not too bad it certainly is a reachable goal.

With this plan I should be looking at about a six pound loss average per month. Of course results will very. Most men lose weight faster than woman and being fat I should lose more at the beginning of the plan than at the end. This is my plan and it should take about 14 months to complete if all the numbers match my actions and vice versa.

Calories Per Pound
Blood Pressure Guidelines