Bye Bye 2020 Lets Try This Again
It is not lost on me in any way that my last post was New Years 2020. A lot has happened since that post, some good, some bad, and some just the craziness that was 2020.
I have been debating starting this blog again. Several times I have considered getting rid of it. But something kept me from deleting it. And so today exactly a year from my last post and with 2020 now in the rear view mirror, I thought it appropriate to open a post and start writing again. But where to begin.
2020 was like for a lot of people, a mess for me, but aside from everything 2020 related it was also a bad year for my health and my weight. Nothing about that year I am using as an excuse, but it might be worth ripping of the band aid and looking at the issue head on. Slipping back into unhealthy habits and weight gain has been crushing. As wonderful as it was to gain more mobility, and as freeing and liberating as that all that work was. It was truly soul crushing to have it slip away under my own mismanagement of myself.
Trying to dissect what went wrong is so involved that I am not sure how to even put it into writing. I suppose I should start with small slices of where I am. And perhaps, not try to cram it all into one post. I am not sure if people read, or still read this blog, but as stated this is for me more than anything, and above all I want to be honest about the successes and failures. So I will start small, and add more posts later.
My Current Situation
So without beating around the bush the reality is my weight is back to where I begin and then some. My activity is still improved, I do resistance training including pushups, and being able to do those pushups is still a marked improvement to what I could do before. But with my weight high again, I do feel the ramifications of its stresses on my body. It has been a struggle to stay motivated to say the least.
While my strength training is going well, maybe even very well. My mobility is not so great. I struggle to walk even a single km now. It has little to do with me being out of breath and everything to do with my back pain which has returned. Although not at the level it once was. That leads me to be somewhat confused as why I am better condition then when I first began this blog even with the weight gain. It could be due to the constant strength training.
I still also continue to drink my smoothies for breakfast and lunch. I really enjoy them, and as with my resistance training I think they do help improve my health no matter my weight. The issue with the weight gain for sure is overeating in the evenings. This is my primary concern to address in the new year.
I also bought a scale that reads visceral fat levels that is internal fat in the abdominal cavity. I might go into greater depth on this in a later blog, but it has proved interesting. I do know these scales are generally not accurate, but I figure it could show changes to other levels besides my weight and those changes themselves could be noteworthy. On using the scale it shows high muscle mass, high fat and high visceral fat. All not surprising. However after working to try to lose weight this past fall I noticed a drop in visceral fat at precisely the time my back felt better. This seems to align with my suspicion of the cause of back pain. But that might be an entire blog post in itself.
Going forward
As this blog is designed for my personal improvement as well as a window for those in their own struggles some of my future posts will focus on my failures as well as my successes. I am now 10 months away from turning 40. I want to regain my life again and feel healthy. It can’t start tomorrow, it needs to start today.
So instead of deleting this blog, I will continue to write, even for just myself. Instead of stagnating in failure I will push forward. I will either succeed or I wont, so bye bye 2020 and let give this another try.
Good on you for getting back on the horse, don’t let 2020 drag you down
Would have been interesting to see the difference in body composition when you started the blog vs now, but I imagine you are right in your hypothesis….hypotheses….hypothisii? Assumptions.