Some good news some bad.

More people are hitting the trail with warmer weather.

This is for a couple of days since I have been pretty busy. The good news of the start is that even though I have not been posting daily I have still been doing my walking. So far this week I have walked more than 57 miles. This puts me over the 20 percent mark for reaching my goal of 1750 miles. I have walked 364.61 miles since December 28^th. This also means I only have 1385.39 miles left to go.

Some more good news is that I have lost more than 40 pounds since I began. I hit 256.4 yesterday and that is 40.6 off my beginning weight. The bad news is that I got a new scale to replace the old spring one that I had and I found out that the old scale was off [light] by about 7 pounds. Because of this I have adjusted my starting weight from 290 to 297. It may be more because there isn't a direct linear comparison. But that seems to be fair. More than likely I was over 300 pounds. SO that is the bad news part.

The trail has really seen the number of people go up with the warmer weather. Seems that Ground Hog may have been onto something after all. I always had faith in him. Never wavered a bit. Over the past three days we have 151, 147 and yesterday there was 197 people. It is odd to see them out there. Some of the people I have seen many times and some I have only seen one time. But there are only about four or five I have seen even in the coldest weather. I am so glad I started when it was cold because I have a feeling the heat is going to wipe me out. I am already in shorts and t-shirts. This is with the temperature being in the 40's and 50's.

Let's see what this look like in a couple weeks.

I am going back to Chicago for a few days to see Cheryl and will do some more walking from there. Though it has only been a couple of days since the snow has melted, there is green grass and some leaves beginning to grow on the trail. Get ready for pollen if you have allergies.

While my stomach is still pretty huge it is at least much softer than is has been in a long time. Not long ago when one would poke my belly it was hard and you could poke it in. Now it is soft and I giggle when that happens. Like the Pillsbury dough boy.Too bad I can't lose weight like how the snow melts. Or can I?

More birds and squirrels are around the trail now too. Dang squirrels.

Keep on Track,

Thomas

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.