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If you had asked me how it was going on the 17th, I would have said I was roughly on track to repeat
last October's weight loss success.
That's not the way it worked out though. I managed to give myself two blisters on my feet (new hiking shoes and pushing my luck with a 6 mile walk) on the 15th. It doesn't end there though. Several days later I caught a head cold that pretty much shut me down entirely for the next 10 days (3 bottles of NyQuil). You can certainly see the effect in the chart.
Feed a cold, starve a fever.
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The good news is that even when sick (with blisters on both feet no less), I still managed to climb the extra 20 flights per day. The habit is permanent. There's not a doubt in my mind. When broken into 4 climbs of 5 flights of stairs each, they are trivial to do and fit well within a TV commercial break. I tend to do far more than the minimum of 20. This once again confirms to me that 20 makes a good minimum though. There were certainly many days in October that I did the bare minimum.
I'm directly on the long-term trend lines and I can't complain. I'm hopeful that I won't gain weight like I did last winter. I walked 9 miles over the previous 3 days. It rained every day. My new hiking shoes combined with actual hiking socks has made walking around in Puget Sound's fall weather a lot more enjoyable. I assume it will carry into winter as well. Hat tip to Mr. Slippery for suggesting the change in footwear.
I gave a gluten free diet a chance for the first 4 weeks of October. I saw some initial success in the first few days (placebo?), but there didn't seem to be any follow-through. I do not appear to be gluten sensitive and am therefore back to eating whatever I like. Hey, at least now I know.
On the one hand, I had hoped to see a huge improvement. No such luck. On the other hand, I enjoy many foods with gluten in them. For example, my girlfriend made pound cake a few days ago. That's really hard to pass up.
I think November is getting off to an excellent start. There's leftover Halloween candy but I don't really have much of a candy appetite. I ate about a dozen PayDay candy bars in October. What can I say? They're gluten free! I'm kind of burned out though, and that's a good thing more than likely.
The head cold gave me some cabin fever and I'm therefore looking forward to walking outside a lot more in the next few weeks. I might even try doing an actual hike soon. I'd like to try out the new shoes on something other than pavement. I just need to break them in a bit more first.
And lastly, I'm only a few pounds lighter than I was this time last year. However, I really do think some of it is increased muscle mass. My legs are in much better shape than they were last year. Put another way, perhaps I should have been measuring inches around the midsection instead of pounds on the bathroom scale. In any event, I am confident that the long-term weight trend is in the right direction.
I just keep plugging away each month. There's no hurry. It's a long-term change. All it took to get me started was baby steps. Literally.
See Also:
The "Free Lunch" Weight Loss Plan v.000
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