During this heatwave, so called, I haven’t been able to stick to my normal routine,which is to stop whatever i’m doing every few hours and just go for a short walk up and down the lane outside of our shared drive. During the heatwave walking was fine if it was done before 0600 and after 1800, given that I regarded my post dinner walk as the most important walk of the day – my understanding of the science is that the evening walk needs to be started no more than 15 minutes after eating – and we tend to eat our main meal at around 5.
At the same time I had to accept that my weight was increasing rather than steadily falling : what I quickly realized was that weight gain that fast could only be water retention. Most days I was telling myself to ‘just trust the process’ ; knowing that as soon as it cools off i’ll start dumping all of that water. My experience with that is twofold ; first as a sailor working in the heat and humidity of south Florida and secondly as a long distance hiker in California. When we sailed back from the Carribean we spent the whole day peeing on around the third or fourth day ; and that as the temperature dropped.
My normal,everyday process though had become routine and predictable. When I saw my lovely GP for a medicines review one of the things that she wanted to do was start me on Statins again in the lead up to my next round of surgery. She had to admit that I was the first patient she’d met that could recount in almost nerd like detail how statins had affected my walking ; weirdly I had noted that a short time after starting statins I not only had a DOM’s like effect but that my pace length had shortened to such an extent that my pace count per route was up by as much as 25% which demonstrated to me a shocking effect on my stride length.
While forcing my way breathlessly up the steep lane that I regularly walk was hard going when I was overweight to the point of being actually obese (but only just) it’s now easy and most days I lengthen my stride as the slope increases rather than change gear and shorten it as though I was walking a steep trail. When I record my step count now it’s reduced for each route because I stride out a lot more although iv’e had to change my cadence to walk effectively with two squishy knees and weak balance. As of halfway through the year i’m striding up that hill while carrying 35 pounds less weight than I was at the start so of course it’s easier but somehow less satisfyingly challenging.
The Monday morning principle.
This Monday morning it had cooled off a bit so I chose to give myself a walking challenge ; instead of trying to do one long walk though I decided to go for a different route every other hour between 0500 and 1900. As it happens I was still sleepy and groggy at five and didn’t get going until seven and that largely down to Jackie bringing me a coffee before she headed off for her long working day.
As I woke up a bit, and realizing that it was a cool start to the day, I wondered what to do ; the kind of thing I had in mind was what Australian runner and outdoor educator did as personal challenges. His most well known was to run a marathon over 24 hours but filling most of the time between hourly runs by completing projects that he set himself. In another one he ate his weight in beans and only beans – maybe I should eat my weight in dark chocolate digestives I thought – only kidding !.
I can lurch along but I definitely can’t run and i’m at the stage where iv’e had my fill of projects : aside from my new screw arriving this week I felt like leaving the workshop alone for a few days. Instead I thought about all of the other stuff I could do – spring cleaning the house and yard would be a good start as would fighting my way through the twin jungles of our front and back gardens. What to do as a physical challenge to give a working structure to the day though ?
For several months iv’e been self limiting my daily walks to 7500 steps per day as I found out that 7500 steps is the sweet spot for cardiac health. For sure I beat that every day we were on holiday – usually 10.000 or so and I wondered what kind of step count I would get if I went out for a half hour walk every alternate hour – and how I would be at the end of the day.
The shape of the day.
As I write, it’s early evening and iv’e walked on every alternate hour and not only that iv’e walked a different route each time apart from the first and last. Iv’e doubled my normal day so instead of my regular 7500 steps iv’e done just over 15.000 – and I feel it !. For the record I also cleaned the house from top to bottom and made 3 neat piles of junk in the yard for the man with a van to pick up next week. I also made another assault on the jungles such that as I look out of the window onto the back garden there’s enough debris to build a viable overnight shelter. It’s been a tiring yet playful day as I alternate between starts up the hill – which is my usual – and walks down the steep hill which give me the ‘benefit’ of even more climb out of the valley ; one thing I can’t record is my height gain per walk which I suspect adds significantly to the workload.
A playful day for walking in that I chose my routes almost randomly and a fast one in that I did the whole thing during a day that I fasted : that’s a regular part of my routine now. One of the outcomes is that I finished the last walk with a bit of a struggle and had to use my crutches a lot. The eventual result of that was me having DOM’s in my neck and shoulders when I tried to get to sleep. Another strange outcome is that I was very out of sorts the next morning such that I really didn’t feel like walking ; during the day I had the enthusiastic idea that I might try for 50.000 steps completed during the week although the next day I had doubts about that.
Conclusions ; why so negative ?
I wouldn’t say that it was a bad experience, I felt that it was well past time to break routine and shake things up a bit but it might have been a paradoxically poor one in terms of my health and weight loss project. The paradox goes back to something that iv’e come across several times ; that a hard exercise session that is followed by a longer period of lethargy in a kind of workout inspired, self satisfied glow isn’t great for health, fitness and weight control as overall work output is reduced – especially when diet isn’t addressed. The day after my minor burst of enthusiasm iv’e not only got a dose of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMs)but a big dose of lethargy as well. If I don’t or can’t keep up my normal exercise routine because of all that then the day was definitely a fail : as it is today’s much shorter walk was really hard going and the place I really wanted to be was at home on the couch.
Maybe my stale routine needed a kick up the bum and/or maybe what I need more is a better plan for the next few months but wearing myself out in one long day isn’t the answer. Sometimes it’s only by pushing at the boundaries that we can see the problems and potential solutions and I certainly did that so maybe I should consider the day as a useful and effective learning experience. A new plan yes but in the meantime i’m still trying for a 50.000 step count week while I work out that plan.
Best wishes Y’awl.
Dirty Wet Dog, the great adventure. 