Cold Day and Low Turn Out.

After Sunday is was a bit hard to get back into the swing of walking again. But I made it fine. There were fewer people this time than in anytime I have seen since I began going to Reavis BRKS RD last week. There were only eight people Today and one of them I saw after I made my turn to go on up Reavis toward home. As a policy I don't count people I see walking on the road unless they are dressed as if they are doing exercise.

I think the reason that it was a bit harder Today walking and getting in the grove was because I had ate more than I had Sunday than I had most of the past two weeks. I made waffles for Cheryl and I then my Mom made us a nice dinner from Macaroni Grill. Then I went to Emily's birthday party and had chili and sour cream and cheese plus cake. However I did take the icing off the cake so that was a few calories I saved. Then late night I made some stew from the noodles of the meal from dinner. So that was quite a bit more food than I have ate calorie wise in a long time.

Happy sixth birthday, Emily.

But with Today's walk I used up almost 900 calories so that should take care of a lot of the food I ate Sunday. Plus I didn't walk Sunday so I think that has something to do with me not getting off to a good start Today too.

Along Grant's Trail, Gravois Creek is getting more and more frozen. I haven't ever seen it totally solid but a couple of weeks ago when we had the snow was still out it seemed a lot more frozen that it does now even though the temperature has been colder.

Some of the milestones I have reached Today include 10,861 calories used, almost 68 miles, My trend for my blood pressure is moving the systolic lower and my pulse has been getting lower too. That means my pulse is getting stronger.

Sad to say the death of my scale. It was a very old on to begin with but yesterday I got on it and it said I was at 240 pounds. I was so tempted to accept that but that wouldn't make me any thinner. So I looked at the “zero” and it was off and I tried to reset it and it wouldn't reset any more and since then my weight has been way off. In my favor but as I said a broke scale doesn't help me reach my mark. That is what a mirror is for.

Body Mass Index 

Another indicator of good weight is your body mass index. That is a guideline for the amount of fat your body should have according to your height. The standards range from less than 18.5 to 18.6 to 24.9 is normal, 25 to 29.9 is over weight. A body mass index of 30 or more is obese by medical definition. These guidelines come from the Department of Health and Humans Services website. The website also indicates the increase risk of other health problems that come along with the extra weight. I am sure many people already know that heart disease and type II diabetes and high blood pressure are three of the major additional conditions to be concerned about.

For me the on line scale says that my BMI is 37.7. This is 7.8 over just being overweight. The HHS BMI index is really strict and requires a lot of work to get within range if you are a person that is out of shape like me. For me to get within the normal range on the index I need to have my weight down to 170 pounds. That is 100 pounds from where I am Today. To be just in the normal range I would have to be about 155 pounds. That is a weight I have not been at since I was in high school.

Find out what your Body Mass Index is from the HHS.

My current goal is to reach 200 pounds with this current fitness plan. If I reach that goal then my BMI will be at 27.9 and mid-range of the overweight standard. But don't be discouraged, the websites says, "The good news is even a small weight loss (between 5 and 10 percent of your current weight) will help lower your risk of developing those diseases."

I am currently near 4% of my goal which is on the way to reaching a 30% reduction from my starting weight. The 5% to 10% standard is from 14.5 to 19 pounds to see improved health benefits. These numbers that I amusing and from the HHS website do not compare exactly but they are still guidelines. With my percentage I am looking at the total amount of weight I want to lose. The HHS numbers are difference in starting weight to goal weight.If I reach the 200 pound goal that would be a 31% reduction in my total weight. Far above the range of where the health benefits improve.

Body Mass Index Tool

Fast and Simple

Today will be short and sweet. I have things to do, my girlfriend is coming to town and I need to clean up a bit.

With that said I did 5.56 mile which comes to 11295 steps. That puts me over 100,000 steps since I began and averaging more than 10,000 steps per day, not counting Sunday. This also means I have walked 54.45 miles and that is 3 percent of my goal of 1750 miles. Also my weight is at 270 so that is at 3 percent as well from where I began. It looks like I am right on track.

I saw 11 people out on the trail Today. It was snowing a little bit and the temperature was 37ºF. I am beginning to see some regular faces, not too mention dog feces, on the trail, I am sure as I continue I will get to recognized a lot more people. Especially after it warms up a bit.

Some good advise even if your not running.

I just hope by April I can be down by about 30 pounds. That would be really good. I have this idea in the back of my mind for doing a “run” here in St. Louis. I am not sure where and when but I might ask my brother since he does them.

Plus, my girlfriend suggested that if I am able to do it, I might want to do the Chicago half marathon. Well I think I still have a while to go before I will sign up for that. But it is nice to see the slow and steady improvement.

Amazing! I lost 2 pounds in just 1 week!

Learn how you can too. It may sound amazing but the results speak for themselves. Yes, In just one week I went from 278 pounds to 276 pounds. And you can too! Tired of diet pills and shakes that only leave you hungry? Tired of having to watch what you eat? Want to get that weight off and keep it off? Here is the secret to my fantastic results.

But before I let you in on the True Weight Loss secret, what would you pay to achieve the same amazing results? $300? $500? $1000, for these incredible results?

Less food, more move is the key.

No way! By taking advantage of this limited time offer you can get the secret to the True Weight Loss system for FREE. That's right absolutely no charge whatsoever.

Do you hate having to watch what you eat? Having to consider the fat and calories of everything you put in your mouth? Well too bad. That is how it works. You have to eat better and modify your bad eating habits, what ever they happen to be, for good ones. Do you think German chocolate cake makes for a good breakfast food? Maybe if your an Olympic athlete training for long distance running but for most of us try a bowl of cereal or oatmeal.

Do you think a candy bar once or twice a week is “OK” for you? It is OK if you are walking the calories off. For example a bag of plain M&Ms has 236.16 kcal. To work that off you need to walk about a mile and a half extra from your normal routine. If you eat a more healthy Snickers bar you have 273.03 kcal. This requires about two and a quarter miles to burn up that amount of energy. So how much is that candy bar worth? If you have a goal of getting your weight down it is “weigh” to much.

Will you walk 2.25 miles to burn this?

Calorie Counts

My line of reasoning goes something like this. If I eat a candy bar after I walk four miles I just wiped out the effectiveness of half the work I just did. Granted the four or five miles is more than I have been doing in the past when I was still eating candy bars and higher calorie foods but now that I am focused on getting the results I need I see no reason to add to the struggle of my goal. 

Beer Calories

A beer belly is built.

For anyone that drinks a beer the results are the same. A Bud Light has 110 calories so if you were to consume one you would need to walk more than a half mile just to work off the calories? If you have a six pack of Bud Light you are looking at more than four miles to work off those calories. Miller Lite is 96 calories and so with that one you have a slight advantage but the results for a six pack comes to just over3.5 miles to burn up those calories. Of course those are the more popular light beers if you drink any others it will only increase the distance plus shots and drinks will similarly increase your distance to burn those calories.

So the secret to my Amazing weight loss is simply this. Eat less and move more. Use up the number of calories that you want to lose. Granted this is not a one to one correlation because there is the baseline metabolic rate to consider and the additional benefits you get due to the work of your body becoming more active. Your bodies increased heart rate, the increase in respiration and the digestion processes and the healing of muscles that are damaged during such increase in activity also add to the over all burning of calories by the body.

This is Grant's home at Grant's Farm. The fence in front was made from the barrels of Civil War guns.

With that said, There were only nine people on Grant's Trail Today. I hope that people have not already gave up on only the third day of the year. It was a bit colder but that is fine. The only day I didn't go out was Sunday. But Today I went ahead and walked to the Grant's trail and Reavis intersection. It didn't take much more time and it did add about another mile so I think I might go ahead and keep doing that. I hope everyone is doing well that is following this blog. It has been good to see so many people reading it so far. It has been useful to me as well to make me keep focused on my goal. So for that I thank all of you that have took the time to read my journey.

I also began tracking a new statistic on my walks; miles per hour. This is done by recording the time I start and stop. I convert that into minutes and then divide my distance by that and then multiply that to produce a miles per hour total. So far I am averaging about 3.5 miles per hour.

New Years Goal Already Underway

A section of Grant's Trail looking west toward Tesson Ferry Rd.

The temperature was a bit colder than yesterday. According to the stltoday.com the temperature was 25ºF at about 11:00 this morning. The walk sure started out cold though. It seemed even colder to me than the second day I went. I think that was because there was more wind and no snow to insulate us more. But after the first section I was warm enough that it didn't matter than much. That is the main deal it isn't so much how you start but how you finish.

So the number of steps from where I begin at Musick to when I get home must be really close to 8850 steps. Because the past two days I hit that number almost exactly. Soon I am going to go on down to the fitness trail office on Reavis Barracks. That should add almost two more miles to the trip. Eventually I want to go from Musick to the end of Grant's Trail and walk back on Union to home. That should about double my current walking trail. But I may wait until I am back to jogging at that time because that will take a bit of time too.

Future plans include walking to Reavis.

Happy New Year to all. I did see about 12 people out this morning and for as cold as it was that seems pretty good. We will see how it goes over the next few days. Oddly enough our of the 12 I would say 6 were fat men like me. So maybe they are starting the new year out right. The real measure will be if they make it to DEC 31, 2011. I sure hope that I do.

Also on the trail I saw a cardinal. A bright read one. He looked like he was looking for some food. But he had a nice red beak and very red markings for his feathers. I wish I could have taken a picture but it was a nice thing to see for my first walk of the year. GO CARDINALS!

A few stats, I have gotten over 25 miles so far. I am averaging more than 10000 steps per day. My BP was 139/89 which was a bit higher but I was having some trouble with my phone so that could get my pressure going for sure. And my pulse was a good 76. I think this is a good way to begin the New year right. However I did notice at the beginning of the walk my shins were a bit painful but I am thinking that is due to the cold because I don't walk faster than I normally do.The hardest part, of course, to losing weight is the slow long process of actually doing it. The results seem to take forever even after all the effort you have put out. That is one of the main reasons that I want to use this blog as a tool to help me keep going and maybe a source to encourage others to keep going as well. 

Again, Happy 2011 everyone.

Thomas