Long story short, I had my first physical in years sometime in early 2018. Results were my blood pressure was high and needed to be on medication to reduce. I said I'd try walking/exercising. At the time, I was not exercising, always thinking I was in decent shape, being on my feet all day at the MS store and walking fast, etc. Also, at the physical, they weighed me and I was around 165 lbs or so? Maybe 170, as I seem to remember having my jacket, belt, phone, etc, all on me when I weighed in.
Anyway, to try to reduce the BP, I tried walking and such. At the time, we only had Bella, so she got a bunch of extra walks. Over time, I started wanting to run, so I'd walk, then run from where I was to the next corner, take a break, walk, and then run to the next corner, etc.
Eventually, I started to run only, and bring Bella on those with me. She loved it. We'd run to the dog park down at Ringdall and I'd let her run around there, but she'd be tired too. There and back was about 2.5 miles.
I can't remember if I bought a Garmin watch then or what, but starting in March of 2018 is when I started tracking my activities. Looks like I was doing about 20 minute miles. I was running in some Asics shoes Alison gave me back in the day. After a few weeks of that, I do remember my knee starting to hurt, at which time I started wearing a knee brace. But then I had Ali get me some real running shoes (it helps that she's a shoe rep), and the knee problems went away.
Once I started getting into a running routine, I tried to go every 2-3 days, so 2-4 times a week. I started tracking everything through Strava and after a few months, I was starting to enjoy it. Looks like for 2018, I averaged 4.7hrs of activity every month from March to December. I continued running through the winter and though I felt pretty good about it, I think my weight was still in the 160s, which I wasn't crazy about. Actually, looking back to when I started weighing myself on the daily, it was mid-April 2019 and I was around 166.
Because of that, I started tracking calories with the MyFitnessPal app, which allowed me to do just that. I was pretty strict about it and before long, I started dropping weight. It was pretty cool to see. In two weeks, I'd dropped about 4 pounds and by August, about 4 months later, I was down to 147, so nearly 20 pounds!
I was pretty proud of myself, having stuck with it. I was fitting into clothes different, my face looked leaner, everything felt pretty good. My BP was still high, though, so I did finally start taking the meds, but because the meds always made me pee (diuretic), I ended up being inconsistent about them.
Anyway, after stopping the MFP app, I found my weight would fluctuate a pound here and there on the daily. I continued running year-round, but once COVID hit in March of 2020, that's when I started to try running every other day.
Weight-wise, when COVID started, I was around 152-153lbs. That was pretty consistent, especially as I tried running more. I also cut out eating too much after dinner, if at all, as well as trying not to snack all the time.
But, as time has gone on, though I continue to run, I have found myself snacking more and more and most recently, my weight is back around 159-161 on any given day now, so I've started tracking my food on MFP again. I'm using it more as a guide than a strict rule, but it's tricky. Working from home, having constant access to food makes snacking easy.
I'm running anywhere from 3.65 miles (my usual) to 5 miles or more on weekends. As of this week, I'm nearly at 500 miles ran/walked for the year. For comparison, I did 578 miles in total last year. I should exceed that this year at the current pace.
Through it all, I've listened to every episode of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, as well as Smartless. Sometimes I through in a Scott's Bass Lessons podcast. I also burned through all of the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul Insider Podcasts, which I loved. Every once in a while, I'll throw on This American Life, or the Noel Castler Podcast. Love listening to all of those on the runs.
Do I want to go every other day? Admittedly, it is harder some days than others, but I figure 30-35 minutes of running beats not doing it, and it is something cool to hang my hat on, for sure.
