My Evening Constitutional

Since giving up sugar at the beginning of the month, I have added one other health benefit; the evening constitutional - basically going for a walk before it gets too dark (although up here in Edmonton the sun sets after 10pm during the summer).  

I'm not going particularly fast, and all in all the walk takes about 45 minutes, but I have found that my kids are much more likely to come on a walk with me if I ask!

Which is pretty great really, as they get older and have more stuff to do it's kind of fun to get a little one on one time with either of them (or both of them, but then that's not one on one anymore) and as my youngest is heading off to Quebec for the better part of the summer in a few weeks I'll take whatever time I can get!

Anyway, I know it's not baseball or rock climbing or any other glamorous endeavor, but a simple walk every day has been a lot of fun for me this month.

Sugar-Free Bookmonkey at Two Weeks

I have no idea why, but I've spent the last few days fantasizing about tearing into a tin of Dutch Butter cookies (pictured right) - which is odd as:

1) The Dutch invented Cookies (even the word "cookie" is a Dutch word), and have many varieties I far prefer to these...

2) These are cookies I only eat while visiting relatives who have put them out for all to share - and I often feel it's the same tin as last year.

3) While not awful, there are all sorts of cookies or treats I would have rather had during my sugar-eating days.

But there you have it, quit sugar for a few weeks and you start thinking strongly about cookies you used to only think were okay.

On the positive side:

Two weeks in and I'm still going strong, I've limited myself to only naturally occurring sugars (i.e. fruit) and for most of the rest of my diet I'm making sure the nutritional facts promise less than five grams of sugar per serving.

Although I spent the first week feeling a little more tired than usual, and having some heightened teeth sensitivity, everything else has gone pretty well.

Also I've lost five pounds since June 1st.  (243 to 238 for those who care), and as I haven't changed much of anything except cutting out the sugar, I think that's pretty darn good!

Me and my Shine

As a convocation gift, my wife and kids got me an activity tracker called a Misfit Shine (pictured right), which works to help me keep track of my daily activity goals.

In addition, it looks really cool - it's a dark blue colour called "Storm" and wearing it makes me feel like I'm living a little bit in the future.

Although not as well known as the Nike Fuel band or the FitBit, for sheer cool factor I'm pretty impressed with the thing.

I'm still in early days as far as claiming its effectiveness, but so far it seems to work pretty well, and I'm really enjoying using it for it's secondary feature as a pretty neat little analog watch.

Bookmonkey vs. Aerobics

About two months into my healthy living and I was getting kind of frustrated; although I was still eating well and had increased my walking and stair climbing (I’m up to 50 flights a day, three times a week, eventually hoping to get that elusive 250 flights in a day badge from UWalk.ca) but I had pretty much stopped in terms of weight loss. Starting at 254 back in April, I dropped to 241 by May 5th and pretty much stayed exactly there through the rest of the month.

Talking to a couple of my coworkers about it, they informed me I had probably plateaued and would be best served by a change up in my exercise regime. So I decided to give aerobics a try, and swung over to my local branch of epl to see what they had to offer. At first I came across a lot of super-fit folks looking angry or extremely intense, neither of which is something I’m really interested in dealing with while exercising.

And then I saw this guy.

And decided, what the heck, at least he isn’t frowning, and how hard could it be?

So twenty minutes into my first run through of Sweating to the Oldies, and I was huffing and puffing and feeling the beginning of a stitch in my side.

The workout was a lot of fun (I think I was grinning about two minutes into the set – darn you and your infectious smile Richard Simmons), and by the end although I was definitely feeling it, I couldn’t help but think, Yeah – I could do this for the next month.

So we’ll see how well the program works for me in June and I’ll check back in with you at the beginning of July!

Setting Goals after Grad School

So here I am, a few weeks after finishing up my degree, and I've decided to set myself a couple of goals.

First of all I tried to think of a couple things I would like to do with all the free time I've suddenly got with school behind me; so I've decided to go for both something good and something good for me.

First the good for me - since starting Grad School back in 2011 I've put on 25 pounds (which put me up to just over 250), so I've been spending the last month increasing my general activity and nutrition (basically I'm taking more walks and keeping track of what I eat using a website called MyFitnessPal), and so far so good - I'm down 7.5 pounds from when I started, which isn't a massive amount (for me), but is still a pretty nice start considering I haven't made any major changes so far.

Next up is my fun goal - I'd like to give Netflix a try, and think a good way earn it (besides paying for it), is to finally get around to watching the stack of movies and TV shows I've been meaning to get around to for the last few years (the stack is currently about 2 1/2 feet tall, so it'll be a while), and once I'm through all of those, I can check out this fancy new thing everyone else has been using for the last couple of years.

So far that's my entire list of personal goals - just a couple, and I'm working on them in a slow and steady fashion, but hey - that's how I finished both my Bachelors and my Masters Degrees, so I know it works for me.