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Day 91

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups herbal tea
S: herbal Tea
L: rice with chili
Banana
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: 46 mins walking - 5264 steps. Walked down 17 stories x 2. Total steps for day - 9832.
M: 10 mins

Felt good and strong today. Did an evening walk today. At work did my walk down 17 stories, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Stress level normal for a work day. The long weekend was definitely too short.

Dau is going into her last week of dance practice for the season. Shes excited about her recital. She has one dance on Friday evening and 4 more on Saturday. I enjoy their recitals most because we get to see all the dancers from the studio perform.

Day 92

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mex veggies with corn and salsa
banana
herbal tea
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: 46 mins - 5294 steps. Walked down 17 stories 2 times. Total steps for day - 9952 steps
M: 10 mins

Felt good today. A little tightness but no soreness. Did an evening walk and felt a little slow and tired. Walked down stairs again in morning and afternoon and that tired out my legs, but felt good. walked down the stairs a lot easier then previous days, so I can tell I'm getting stronger.

Work was a bit hectic and stressful as will tomorrowI suspect. Big project to get finished up before the weekend and tight timelines. I hate being rushed but what can you do.

In gymnastics watched my dau do some front hand springs really well and for the first time did some back flips as well. She was obviously so proud of herself as was I

Hi Geo,

You seem to be doing well on all fronts. Keep it up!

Day 93

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups of herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mixed veggies with salsa
herbal tea
banana
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: 46 mins walking - 5331 steps. Walked down 17 stories twice. Total steps for day - 9872.
M: 10 mins

Felt great today. Hard day at work though not a lot of stress. Walking down stairs is starting to get easy. I no longer need the hand rail and my pace is significantly improved. also my hips don't get sore anymore so I've climatized myself to walking down the stairs in a bit more than a week. Not bad Next week I may try walking up the stairs for added exercise.

Did a little grocery shopping today as I was out of sweet potato. I've become used to having one everyday. Love them baked plain.

Dr M as usual, responded to my request to understand my recent blood work numbers. They have greatly improved and he congratulated me. He gave me some advice on my numbers and eased my concern over some of them. I looked over the material Dr M said I should read on kidney disease. It was instructive and I will take it to heart since I have some kidney insufficiency still.
I'm determined to get my kidney completely healthy

Day 94

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups of herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mex veggies with corn and salsa
apple
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: no walking due to rain. Walked down 34 stories and up 17 stories.Total steps for day - 4532
M: 10 mins

Felt great today. It was raining all day and time was very short so did not do any walking. However, I did expand on my stair walking at work. I walked down 17 stories in the morning and in the afternoon I walked down and immediately back up 17 stories. It was a killer workout. I didn't think I would make it and had to stop 3-4 times to get all the way back up. But I made it. I was breathing very hard at the end. My legs almost collapsed under me. It was all I could do to just get to my cube and sit quietly for 15 mins. This is going to take some time getting used too

Went to dau's dance recital. She did a tap routine very well. She looked like she had a lot of fun and smiled the whole way through. I was so proud of her I believe we watched 74 different dance routines in about 4 hours. Was great fun but boy did my tush hurt afterwards...hard seats

Tomorrow we go back again and this time she has 5 routines (I initially thought it would be 4, but she will be doing the same routine again and 4 others). Should be much fun again!

Hi Geo,

I have been following your journal and I am very inspired by your steady progress. You consistently apply the concepts of this program and your health milestones reflect that.

Bravo on the 17 flights of stairs UP!! I was wondering how that was going to go when you started talking about doing this challenge. It seems like walking stairs would be such an easy exercise, but it is killer!! You did awesome. That is not an easy feat.

Check out Anna Green's stair walking. Sometimes she does over 30 flights in a day. That always amazes me.

Keep going! I know you will reach your goal and your family is so blessed to have you looking out for yourself so you can be around for them a long long time.

Thanks Nancy! I think stair walking is one of the best exercises around because its both aerobic and anaerobic, deceptively simple, and can be done quickly without spending a lot of time. Perfect for exercise when your at work. It took me less than 10 mins to walk up 17 floors of my building. But at least a half hour to fully recover. I think I will make this a regular routine when at work and I'm actually looking forward to it. Probably once in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Day 95

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
herbal tea
L: baked potato with mixed veggies and corn and salsa
D: baked potato and sweet potato
apple

E: 44 mins walking - 5217 steps. Total steps for day - 7911 steps
M: 10 mins

Great day! Felt strong during morning walk. No soreness and very little tightness in legs. It was wonderfully cool and breezey, perfect for walking in. As I get stronger the walks become much easier. I don't breathe hard at all and don't feel like I need any time to recover from it. Its simply a great movement exercise now. Keeps my blood and heart pumping and muscles limber. I really enjoy the time it gives me to clear my head and just think about nothing and everything for 45 mins.

Spent another wonderful 3+ hours at my dau's dance recital today. She ended up doing 5 routines in all - 2 tap, one jazz, one ballet and one jazz/pom. I think she did them flawlessly and she certainly looked like she was enjoying herself! A great finish to another dance season. Now she goes into a month of free dancing and then the summer session starts for the dance company. Between dance, gymnastics, swimming, bike riding, rip sticking and playing with her friends, she'll have another active summer I really don't know where she gets all the energy but I definitely envy her

Day 96

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
herbal tea
L: baked potato with mex veggies, corn and salsa
orange
D: baked potato and sweet potato
apple

E: 45 mins walking - 5343 steps. total steps for day - 8489 steps
M: 10 mins

Good lazy day. Did my morning walk as usual and felt strong. No soreness and just a little tightness in legs. Went grocery shopping right after my walk and wasn't even tired. Basically spent the rest of the day just lounging around the house catching up on TV with my wife.

Did spend an hour fixing a toilet today. Never done that before. Needed to change out the flush valve that was leaking badly. Had to take the tank apart from the base. It was pretty easy except for one stripped bolt that was a pain. In the end everything went back together quickly and works like a champ.

Also rebuilt my laptop today with a new OS.Went through several before I found one I liked and installed it with a few extra goodies. Spent a bit of time catching up on some reading from the McD site.

Wow, you got a lot done for a lazy day! I've taken your idea of counting days, and it is helping me. When I get back from Tanzania, I'm going to start journaling about exercise, which has been a little hit or miss for me lately. Thanks for your journal - it is helpful!

Thanks Laura! The day counting is part of my engineering personality, I want everything to be accurate and precise so I can go back and review progress and mistakes and make changes as necessary on the journey. There's a method to my madness, though I admit its definitely not as personable as a lot of the journals here

At any rate it does seem like a lot of folks are looking at my journal but not making a lot of comments. I hope they find it somewhat useful as well along their journey's.

Day 97 - Week 14

Its been 13 complete weeks now and here are my latest numbers:

Weight: 210.8 down from: 211.8 started at: 261
BP: 104/62 down from: 109/71 started at: 153/92
Pulse: 56 up from: 47 started at: 88
BMI: 28.6 started at: 35.4

Only lost 1 lb this week. I feel a bit bloated and probably am retaining a bit of water. I have been eating more potatoes and less rice and did have bean chili for a few meals this past week so that may account for the weight loss slowdown as well. None the less, I'm still making good forward progress.

Almost 100 days on MWL and I am down 50.2 lbs. So that's a bit more than 0.5 lb a day average. Which is really great! Its also half way to my long term goal of getting to a healthy/thin BMI of 21.9. So half way down in less than 100 days.

I'm sure the next 50 lbs will take a bit longer than another 100 days but we'll see. Maybe a few tweaks to my eating will make the journey a little easier. I definitely don't get hungry anymore and I'm eating plenty if not more than what I need.

Maybe its time to adjust my volume a bit down. I have my hunger well under control and I'm losing that fear of not eating enough and getting out of control. Plus I'm continuously adding more intense exercise all the time. Well take this slow and easy, one small step at a time...

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mixed veggies with corn and bean salsa
peach
herbal tea
D: baked potato and sweet potato
mango

E: 47 mins walking - 5298 steps. Total steps for day - 10,034. Walked down and up 17 floors and down another 17 floors
M: 10 mins

Great day. Was quite energetic and ready to get to work. Decided to try walking down and then back up 17 floors in the morning. It went better than the first time last week but was still a killer. Legs a bit stronger but still had a hard time finishing and my breathing was quick and deep. Very hard work but did it in about 10 mins for the round trip.

After I was done my lower back was hurting and continued to hurt throughout the day. I took it easy in the afternoon and simply walked down 17 floors. After work I took my walk without any back pain. However relaxing afterwards the pain came back so I took a couple aspirin which helped a lot. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Stress levels at work a bit high as I start a new position this week. Have a great deal of added work/responsibility and a lot of catch up to do. It never gets any easier <sigh>

Day 98

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
herbal tea
L: rice with mex veggies and home-made salsa
orange
D: baked potato and sweet potato
banana

E: 94 mins walking - 10950 steps. Total steps for day - 12706 steps.
M: 10 mins

Felt good today. Worked from home. Stress levels low. Walked in early morning and late afternoon. Felt strong in both walks. Lower back gave me a little pain but much less than yesterday and didn't really bother me too much.

Haven't mentioned it in a while but getting a lot more comments about my weight loss at work lately. Everybody now seems to be noticing it. I just thank them and smile. A few ask how I did it to be polite but no one is really interested in any details so I just tell them I eat real food and cut out the crap. Everyone just nods their head knowingly, smile and walk away.

Today starts Part II of my journey. I've lost half the weight I wanted too - 50 lbs. This second half will be harder I know but I enjoy a good challenge, keeps me motivated and working hard

This time I will be focusing more on exercise and meditation/mental efforts. I want to be physically and mentally fit to go along with all the health I've regained. I know how and what to eat and have put that into practice the last 3 months. The rest of this year will be focused on the fitness aspects while redoubling my efforts on diet and health.

I have a plan, now its time to execute

Day 99

B: oatmealwith flax and cinnamon
2 cups herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mixed veggies with home-made salsa
banana
herbal tea
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: no walking. Went up and down 17 floors and then down again. Total steps for day - 6795.
M: 10 mins

Felt great today. Eager to get to those stairs today. Did the usual 17 floors down and back up again in about 10 mins. Its still very hard to do and a significant aerobic and anaerobic challenge. It simply wipes me out for a little while. Its a great challenge. I absolutely hate it, which means it must be good for me

Was not able to do any walking today as I had to deal with a dead car battery after work then dau's gymanastics and then it rained all night. But thats OK as I was feeling quite tired today. The stair walking is taking a toll on me

It was the last day of Dau's gymnastics class for the next 2 weeks. We signed her up for the next summer session as she seems to really enjoy it. I don't know where she gets all the energy.

Her dance classes are all open now so she can take any class she wants for the rest of the month, which usually means she'll take 3-4 classes a night as she wants to try them all out. Then she has a couple weeks break before the summer session starts.

So once again her summer will be filled with Dance, gymnastics and swimming on the weekends and she wants me to go bike riding with her. I don't know how I can keep up

Day 100

B: oatmeal with flax and cinnamon
2 cups of herbal tea
S: herbal tea
L: mex veggies with corn and home-made salsa
banana
herbal tea
D: baked potato and sweet potato
orange

E: 48 mins walking - 5391 steps. Also walked down 34 floors of stairs. Total steps for day - 9466
M: 10 mins

Wow its been 100 days of daily posts on this journey. I've really gone from can I do it, to why did I think it was going to be so hard, to now just being routine. I know what I need to do, I know how to eat, I enjoy my food, I exercise a bit and move much more everyday, I rest and just mindlessly think and meditate everyday and I sleep well. Plus I seem to enjoy my family and life much more. I'm really happy these days and I've lost so many aches, pains, illnesses and assorted small issues that its hard to believe I once considered them just a normal part of life and aging I write these journal entries the day after the posted day, so it didn't occur to me I had hit that milestone and I didn't celebrate it at all...oh well maybe I'll do something special this weekend Now on to the usual stuff...

Felt good when I got up but after a while became tired. Hips were a bit tight and a little sore. Walked down stairs in morning and afternoon but did not have the energy to walk up them at all. I think I need to do the up stairs walking on a M-W-F schedule as they are simply too demanding for me right now. I took my walk after work and I was definitely tired. I was slower and taking shorter strides, my time/distance shows that. When I got back I sat down on the couch and fell asleep for an hour. Very unusual for me, but felt much better after that short nap.

Work was definitely stressful as my new position starts to ramp up greatly. I spent about 6 hours today with phones stuck in my ear and even longer starring at computer screens. It just drained the life out of me and I just didn't want to be there. Oh well hopefully tomorrow will be better.

My wife took dau to dance and they were gone like 3 hours. She wanted to get a bit more dance classes in so I just stayed home and vegged in front of the tv...not even sure what I was watching
Ended up going to bed a bit early.