July 15, 2019

Week 3 Progress – Journey to Lose Weight

Today I felt good and I decided to try to be a bit more ambitious with my physical activity level. Currently I am down around 14lbs and I do certainly notice the difference in how I feel. I am not sure if that is due to 3 weeks of clean healthy eating, removing 14lbs of weight or as I suspect a little of both. Certainly my energy has improved and so wanting to take advantage of that I jumped in my truck and headed to a local park called the spit.

The Spot

View from my walk, what could be better

Situated on the water right beside a riptide this area is a beautiful spot at any time of the year. Seeing eagles, sea lions, orcas and even humpback whales is not uncommon on this path so it is hard to beat a view like this while exercising. It also has another positive feature that I think makes it a valuable place to work on walking more and that feature is lots of benches.

One of the many benches on my walking trail

One of the issues I face while working on getting more active is back pain. I talk a little about it in my blog “The Pain Barrier to Weight Loss”. So I will not go into details about this here but one issue that results from this pain is a certain fear of being too far away from a place to sit down. When I am faced with overwhelming back spasms while walking the only solution is to sit and let them settle. This leads to the prospect of long walks without an area to sit somewhat intimidating. If like me this is an issue for you, I highly recommend looking for a spot with lots of seating along the way. This area is really ideal for this purpose and the walkway and paths are level and well maintained. It dramatically increases my confidence and allows me to push myself a little harder than I normally would.

The Results of Today

Today was a pretty fantastic start to getting more active. I ended up walking the entire trail to the end without having to stop. In fact on the way back I felt so good to be moving freely I looped back for another circuit around the end trail area. My back was slightly sore, but importantly not in spasms and I stopped only once for about 20 seconds to stretch my hamstring as a precaution. Other than this brief stop I kept a continuous pace and ended up walking briskly for about 23minute. I am very encouraged and looking forward to future progress.