Last December, I had my annual physical check-up and was really not too keen on knowing how I was – don’t get me wrong, it was not because I felt sick or anything – just more likely, I did not want to confirm the fact that I had most probably gained more weight – and would undoubtedly gain more during the Christmas holidays. I was eating healthy for the most part of the year, and only indulged in social drinking, and no smoking at all. So my intake affecting my health in a negative way was never a question – the quantity of my intake… now that was probable a question. I find myself not really indulging in any food too much – but I guess, with age… and lifestyle, I had to expect my metabolism to slow down.
Age because I’m now in my late 40s – slowly creeping into the ‘50s, and lifestyle because I really had zero exercise time for me since… well, since I can’t recall for how long now (and no… that’s not Alzheimer’s creeping in too). My usual routine would consist of waking up early, getting ready for work, bringing my wife to work first, then going to work myself – which would then consist of normally having training sessions – be they whole day or less, and finally taking breakfast when I get to settle down.
When done, I’d be tired, and would just be waiting in Robinsons’ Boni (the mall where the office I go to is located) until Barbie (my wife) would arrive around 6:30 to 7pm. Then it would home for us – dinner, then rest; catching up with how the kids’ days went, then doing the usual routines before finally sleeping. That was my usual routine for the past three, maybe four years.
Weekends would normally be family-focused week-ends… either just having a simple quiet weekend at home (specially after having a hectic week at work) or occasionally visiting relatives in Cavite (Barbie’s folks), Batangas (my mom) or Paranaque (my dad). More often than not, we’d end up malling (hmm… apparently the word processor does not recognize that last word) and doing our groceries. So unless something else out of the ordinary comes up, I’d say that would be my – and my family’s routine.
Of course, I never mentioned exercise simply because it was not part of my routine… sure, there’d be a few sprinkling of a badminton game – but they were few and far between to count… so I didn’t count them. However, even before my annual physical, I would admin tot feeling sluggish. I was starting to feel tired easily – not obvious to others because I knew how to pace myself, but I knew I was tiring easily – a far cry from my college days for sure, when I’d be actively swimming and doing weights alternately. Still, I was aware that I needed to exercise again – but things kept coming up… and I procrastinated,
Then, come December, I suddenly get all the free time in the world – by way of our training contract suddenly being terminated. Exercise, however, did not jump into our vocabulary at once… guess we were still worried about how not to spend too much during Christmas, and wondering where our next pay would come from, after all… a lot of us were parents or providers for our respective families. So, life threw us a lemon.
After my annual physical – where I learned from my doctor that I had a great and healthy heart, but was just slightly better than an old man – fitness-wise. I made a resolve that I would start exercising – the questions were how, where and when? I told Barbie that after bringing her to her office, I could then go to Greenhills (a shopping center) and join the usual morning crowd of walkers and/or runners who would just go around said shopping center’s premises. That way, I’d get my exercise; then I’d just go home for a much needed bath.
It was a good idea – and a whole lot cheaper than paying for a gym membership too… but Barbie also wanted to exercise. So obviously Greenhills was out as an option, since it would not be equally viable for a brisk walk in the evenings (after Barbie’s work was done). Luckily, there was another option available – one where even at night, I noticed people either walking or jogging in a relatively open space – even if there were a lot of people shopping around or coming from / going to dinner. The place happened to be the Bonifacio High Street, located in the Fort (the now commercialized portion of Fort Bonicafio)… a large chunk of land with a whole lot of restaurants, boutiques, parking and more importantly, a fairly decent walkway where people doing their jogging or brisk walking could pass, with a lot of room for shoppers.
I remember seeing these joggers during times when I would meet Barbie in the Fort, especially when we’d meet at the High Street’s Fully Booked – a large (four-storeyed) bookstore where I could leaf through almost any book while waiting for her to arrive. Of course, if I really liked the book and wanted to continue reading what if can offer, then I’d end up buying the book – budget willing of course. Anyway, that’s another story.
As I said, I noticed these joggers – so when Barbie said she wanted to join me, we decided to set the location and time to High Street after work, which would mean around 6pm or later – but hopefully not too late, that we’d end up eating dinner at so late a time – and too close to our usual sleeping period. One advantage of ending up a bit late though would be that we’d encounter less traffic on the way home… completely avoiding the evening rush hour. And just to have a logical start, we decided to do this once 2009 came in. Well, 2009 did come, and true to our commitment, we started doing our brisk walk.
To backtrack a bit, I have a friend who happens to be among many things, a recent Nursing graduate – and during our training days, he would always become the paragon for healthy living, constantly reminding some of my colleagues to consider stopping their smoking habit (or guilty pleasure) while asking me when I would like to come up with an exercise regimen with him – he’s a cool guy named Jingo, and we talked about possibilities of boxing or aikido or any other exercise cum fitness/self-defence training. None of these, though got the green light – but when I broached the plan of the brisk-walking nights, he was happy for me, and immediately set a goal (or target) for me to reach. Where he got it, I don’t really know, but he gave me 10,000 steps as my target. So I thought about that number as I started walking.
First night of our walk, I asked Barbie to count how many steps we would make during our first round around the High Street block’s perimeter, including the parking lots. It so happened that we were able to cover 1,300 steps – after that, we just made the 1,300 as a basis for every round we made… and that night, we finished four rounds before we decided to call it quits. We both felt tired, but invigorated… and the sweat off was a good indicator that our walk was a great low intensity workout. Granted, we just had 5,200 steps… it was a good start.
As the week passed, we initially thought of doing the walk every other day – avoiding Tuesdays due to the local number coding scheme, preventing us form using the car between 7am to 7pm. Somehow, though, we just mutually decided do make the walk an almost daily activity. Backtracking once again, I remember my doctor telling me that if I wanted to lose weight, I had to at least make sure I exercised for 30 minutes a day, everyday (aside from diet)… and if I wanted to at least arrest more weight gain, then I should exercise at least 3 times a week. So… with that in mind, the almost daily routine would help me lose weight… after all, if a daily 30 minute moderate exercise would help me lose weight, then what would a near hour of moderate exercise, even if its done almost everyday (including Saturdays) do for me?
This week happens to be our fourth week of said exercise, and I’ve felt improvements with myself… first of, from 5,200 steps, we’ve moved to another additional round – so tackling around 6,500 per day since last week. Yesterday, I tried to see if I could add one more round and not kill my feet in the process, and I actually got to go six rounds, or 7,800 steps… albeit having some sore portions in my feet – but not as bad as when I first tried walking four rounds almost a month ago – and yes… there were times I felt like taking some over the counter muscle relaxants or pain killers. I’ve avoided doing this though, looking for a natural manner for raising my tolerance to pain and endurance level. Another friend suggested I take some fat-burning medicine… it may be a good idea – but I’m putting that on the back burner… I’d like to see if I can do this in as natural a manner as possible first.
So six rounds or 7.800 steps are my personal best and (hopefully) new average (as opposed to it being an performance outlier) that I shall try to equal later and the days to follow. I’m taking my sweet time in reaching my goal… as I know its just around less than two more rounds to reach such a goal – but as I said, I wouldn’t want to harm my feet in forcing myself to reach said goal. Will I reach 10,000 within the week? I wouldn’t bet on it… how about next week? That can be possible. How about before February ends? Now that would be… very possible. I even joined an online site’s ability to record one’s progress – thanks to another friend to made me aware of it (thanks Charo), and it, surprise, surprise… also had 10,000 steps as part of its name (hence my wondering if Jingo just picked it up or had a medically acceptable reason for citing the number). The site can be found in http://10000steps.org.au/ for anyone interested in looking it up.
All this will be a wasted effort, though, if I can’t get my weight down. How am I doing on that end?
All my effort has made me look slightly thinner and I’d like to think that I did lose weight… my face has certainly started to look less puffy or firmer, and though its probably not as dramatic an effect as I would have if I had been serious with my diet, or taken those fat burners or diet suppressors… but I am losing weight after almost five years of just gaining them, so that accounts for something… specially when you think that I have not used any artificial method. At the very least, I feel that I’ve lost a pound or two. I can’t really answer this because I don’t have access to my actual weight prior to the start of my walk.
Having said that, I am now trying a few more things to help with the weight loss effort like trying… and the key word here is ‘trying’ not to eat rice in my evening meal, and possibly replacing it with more greens… using a jacket to keep me sweating, rather than losing sweat opportunities due to the cold winds in the Fort and wearing a sauna strap around my stomach… both to induce more sweat and to support my stomach whenever I feel like jogging a bit. Yes, once in a while, I decide to jog – though I still feel a bit heavy for this. I’d like to hope that this exercise will eventually make me able to jog for longer than a few minutes, but I’m not putting that as a must do right now. And while I’m in the subject of exercise, I keep Sunday as a rest day – just out of necessity, no real religious practice here… while I have at one time or another, together with Barbie and my brother-in-law Ben, started to do some aerobic exercises with a DVD of “Shawn T’s Hip Hop Abs”… as yeah, I’m learning a few dance moves too.
But my main target will still be the 10,000 steps. In line with this, I wear ankle and knee support when I do my walks because I just want to be safe. Barbie said I looked like I had a lot of gadgets… well technically, I just have my iPod and cellular phone as gadgets… the rest are support (knee and ankle) and sweat inducers (jacket and sauna strap), that’s it. What about other problems that have crop up while walking? Thirst is not really an issue, we bring water and leave it in the car for after exercise drinks – but if we really need to drink, its available. Another problem I’ve been experiencing recently? Rashes in my thighs due to all the sweat, and its not purely sweat-related too… apparently my shorts’ fabric can continuously scrape against my thigh skin, and it can build up friction – nothing that some powder can’t solve, though. Guess my sweat’s a bit acidic… but then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. One other problem was felt in my early days exercising was that in one evening, I felt a strong head ache… don’t know if it’s blood pressure related, so I just decided to walk slowly – and if I got dizzy, then I would have stopped. Lucky for me, I was able to set the ache aside, go slow and just take it one step at a time until I finished my four rounds.
My real worry? If I eventually get work that may eat up on my exercise time, will I be able to find the time to continue doing this? Maybe this is why I needed to have this long break from work… it was God’s way of saying, “Butch, you need a break so you can focus on getting healthier.” There is a saying I am reminded of, “For something to become a habit – it needs to be done for at least 30 days.” I’m close to my 30 days of brisk walking, so it’s hopefully getting to be a habit – one that I will ably sustain, come ‘hell or high water’, even during heavy work weeks.
Okay. Some updates… (as of February 12, 2009)
The above article was written during that time when I had not yet had any access to the Internet – though as you can see, it did not stop me form writing. But that isn’t what I wanted to say in this update.
Remember when I said some paragraphs above that we had 1.300 steps per round? Well, first, let me mention that I proceeded to reach that mythical 10.000 steps by going not just seven… but eight rounds… I mean, simple math right? If four rounds would give me a total of 5,400 – then it would simply mean that seven would give me 9.100 – and I thought… c’mon, why stop 900 steps shy? But I did not want to do the numbers while walking, so I just did the ‘one more round’. Besides, I needed to do some catching up, since we had not walked for a few days, as Barbie was caught up in some out of town work.
Well, this particular night was also a night that Barbie would arrive later than our usual time, and since Jingo was also with me 0 we decided to walk on ahead… after all, Ben (my brother-in-law who is also turning into a regular for this nightly exercise) could wait for Barbie, and I wanted to put in some extra rounds – I had a goal to achieve and I did not think Barbie was willing to take the extra strides with me. Not that she needed them.
Apparently, I may have been mistaken in my calculations.
See, as I triumphantly finished my eighth round… I was about to tell Barbie and Ben about my breaking the 10,000th mark by starting with the basic calculations. I said ‘with every round consisting of 1,300 steps…’ to which Barbie automatically interjects with ‘1,600!’ (remember, she did the counting on our first day – so I guess, shed remember it more)
I was momentarily taken aback. I simply said ‘not 1,300?’ and she simply repeated her correction. It was then and there I did some mental calculations. Four rounds were not 5,200 steps as I had thought, but 6,400. Five rounds? 8,000… and to reach 10,000? A little over six rounds… and it was then that I vaguely remembered Jingo also saying something about 7 rounds being a target – but had thought I might have heard wrong in lieu of my calculations. So enough with the suspense… how many steps had I done that night? Simple…a measly 12,800 steps. I did not just reach 10K steps, but went way beyond the actual target.
I felt both stupid (for the math error) and proud (for accidentally exceeding my goal). I posted the numbers in Facebook via my status update – and Mon Villar asked me about it. I confided in him my mistake leading to my exceeding the target by more than 3K, and he laughed at me. He than asked why I did not use a pedometer… which would surely have helped me count my steps in the first place – and I simply said I had not seen one yet. He said he might be able to help me with that.
Last Monday, as Mon and I were together for a training, he informs he has something for me, reaches into his bag and brings out a small pedometer. I thanked him for it – and now, no matter where I go to walk, I can have a more accurate estimate of the steps I will be taking. Though it’s a very simple pedometer – with a limit of up to 9,999 in its display, this little gadget will serve its purpose… after all, my goal is 10K, so if I glance at the pedometer and it says 9,999 – well… what’s one step short of being recorded?
I have to confess to having possibly over stretched my foot muscle though… hence me need to take things slightly easy these past few days… and with work somewhat intruding into the walking regimen, I just take the time to relax my feet. I did walk again after that extraordinary 12K steps… but I just went 5 rounds – not wanting to injure myself.
But yeah… at least I know it just takes a little over six rounds – not eight… and I’ve a pedometer to keep me aware. I tried to walk yesterday, but plans changed since I had to wait for Bernice and fetch her from school – thus not allowing me to walk, and tonight I’ve got work to do… so looks like Friday (after almost a week’s hiatus) will be my first walk for the week. I’ll take it slow of course… after all, my metrics don’t seem to be as intimidating as I though – or as many as I need. Besides, I want to try my new gadget… plus get to use my new exercise clothing (I bought new shorts and a shirt for the near nightly exercise).
So yeah… the story continues – albeit with a few pauses and surprises along the way.
