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Bit by Bit We Get Better and Better
A thread
http://bigtexbri.com/2021/04/24/bit-by-bit-we-get-better-and-better/
A thread
http://bigtexbri.com/2021/04/24/bit-by-bit-we-get-better-and-better/
This morning as I was getting ready for the morning walk, I noticed a little muscle soreness in my backside, no doubt due to the daily walks. I was half expecting this, it has to happen as muscles that haven’t been used in a while are called back to work.
This is easy to fix and here is how. Since there is some discomfort I only did one mile and afterward I used airsquats to stretch the muscles involved to keep the blood flowing and allow healing.
Your quads and glutes, the backs of your legs and your ‘sitter’ are some of the largest and strongest in your body and they also recover faster than most.
To do an air squat you stand erect with your feet a bit more than shoulder level apart, arms forward and parallel to the ground, tighten your abs and push your butt back while sitting down and then stand back up.
If this is too hard then simply bend at the waist and try to touch your toes, ten times will do it, your done.
If you have been weighing yourself every day you may have noticed that there is a substantial difference during the week. This swing has nothing to do with fat loss, it is all about water weight. Once you get really regular with your hydration, that will settle down.
Remember, if my calorie intake matches my BMR and I walk 1 mile a day it will take me 8 months to lose 10 pounds, this is a long game, changing bad habits and developing life-long good habits.
Once I get to my goal of walking 3 miles a day, doing just that while maintaining my BMR will burn off 30 pounds in 8 months and keep it off because I have made positive changes in the way I eat to manage my weight. The best motto I have for that is, “Well begun is half done.”
All of that may seem a like a bit of a wet blanket but that is because you are looking at a number on a page. To get an idea of what weightloss really looks like lets take for example an 8 pound fat loss. What does 8 pounds of fat look like?
Look closely at a 1 gallon milk container, that’s the size of 8 pounds of fat, almost exactly. Now losing a pound or so a week begins to look much better.
Having changed my second meal of the day to a salad, a bowl of greens doesn’t sound too attractive after 3 or 4 days of the same. I get creative, use 3 or 4 ounces of chicken or tuna, add a spiral cut zucchini, avocado, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, etc.
Spicy Italian dressing is my go to, only 60 calories per serving, 2 Tbsps doesn’t sound like much but you would be surprised. Spinach, onion, Zucchini, a can of tuna, sunflower seeds and dressing runs about 400 calories, can’t go wrong.
Starting next week I will be starting a food journal to keep track of the calories I eat, showing changes that I make to vary my energy intake.
Fight the urge to do too much at once. Every change you make should be in a positive direction, things that get started and then left by the wayside are distractions from the direction that you are trying to go towards.
Small steps repeated over and over are the key to good habits that will serve you well going forwards. The first week I planned to walk a mile a day and I did exactly that, 7 miles for the week, total calories 1050.
My second week I was tempted to just double it and I didn’t because I wanted to keep my goal small and achieveable, as a result I walked about 2 miles only half of the time but never less that 1 mile a day, the result, 1600 calories burned in the second week.
I believe that continuing success is much better in the long run than trying to exceed your current capacity and risk injury or frustration in the beginning of the process.
Monday is the start of Week 3, I will outline the whole journal process and things will start to take shape.
This thread can be read here: http://bigtexbri.com/2021/04/24/bit-by-bit-we-get-better-and-better/
