On the Road Again

This morning at Lake Artemesia

I don't exactly know how or why, but I seem to have got my mojo back on several fronts! And now, stand back, because I'm on the go!

I parked my Vespa scooter several years ago. First, I had a vertigo outbreak in the early spring, before I had put my bike on the road for the season. The vertigo lasted about a week, with two very bad days when I couldn't walk for some period of time due to total loss of balance. I totally lost confidence in my ability to deal with gravity even after the attack subsided - not a great attitude for leaning around curves on a two-wheeled vehicle! Also, the type of vertigo I had, BPPV, is likely to recur. (But it hasn't, so far.) So that took me off the road for a year. Then, no surprise, the bike wouldn't start when I tried it after sitting for a year. I bought a new battery, and last year made another attempt to get it going, to no avail. 

This spring, I determined I had to either ride it or get rid of it. I had been thinking an electric bike might be a better proposition. But I really couldn't see buying a expensive new toy while I had a very similar one parked in my driveway already. In addition, where the bike is housed is one of the sunniest spots in my yard - I was eying it as a place to put more plants if I got rid of the Vespa. A dear friend, a motorcycle maestro, came over last weekend and he got my bike to start right up! I rode around on the street and it seemed sound and appeared to be running well. At the least an oil change seemed necessary before really relying on the bike, so I made an appointment to take it to the dealer for a tune-up (no user-serviceable parts inside). 

The dealer is about 15 miles (and two states!) away, in Arlington, Virginia. I worked myself up to it riding around the neighborhood some, to get both my muscle memory and my systems memory fully back up to speed. My body seemed to know what it was doing (I first started on motorcycles about twenty years ago) but I needed to resort to the manual to remember how to work all the buttons. I really was keyed up for the ride to the dealer, studying maps and trying to memorize the routes, as I wouldn't be able to look at my phone during the trip. To get to Virginia, I would have to go into DC and across the Potomac. The District of Columbia into Virginia can be very confusing, with a plethora of roads going in very strange directions. It would be easy to accidentally end up on an expressway and be stuck there for a few miles. With a top speed of around 60 mph (and cruising capability around 50) technically I could be on an expressway, but remember, this was the trip to make sure the bike would be reliable to try to go that fast. I also certainly need more practice and confidence before doing that again!

The day of the service drop-off dawned rainy. I had scrounged through my closets and found my old riding jackets didn't fit, as the Vespa idle period coincided with my gaining 20 pounds. I scrutinized my weather apps and set off between deluges. I had an uneventful 40 minute drive, dropped off the bike to a nice Italian service guy, and treated myself to a wonderful lunch in a cafe in upscale Arlington. The DC metro has lousy service these days, with the local line closed down entirely right now, so I also treated myself to an Uber the whole way back.

I picked up the bike on Saturday ("we don't often have to remove a mouse nest from the engine!" they said in that charming Italian accent, and charged me about 20% of what I originally paid for the bike) and I had another uneventful and confidence-building ride home. So I'm ready to go! Small local errands, fun rides, perhaps even going off with the scooter gang I rode with pre-pandemic! I call it "fresh air without the exercise" and I've remembered how much of a smile this puts on my face.

But in other exciting road news, I have gone back to running! At least, I've stuck my barest toe in! 

Both knees are currently in an ok state. They hurt, but at levels I can stand. And so far, most activities have not caused them to hurt worse than they feel just sitting around. On my trip to Bellport, I walked more than four miles in sand, and I've been trying for three mile walks two or three times a week. I have a New Year's goal of making it 10 miles in one day by the end of the year. But walking takes a long time to get the miles in - a three-mile walk by itself takes me slightly more than an hour, and I have to get organized, get the right shoes on, put the dogs away, and maybe drive somewhere first. So I decided to try running again.

I've actually had a bit of a Thing about running. It seemed impossible to do again. The mechanics of running are distinct from walking, and I I couldn't make myself do it. My knees hurt, but all the muscles of my legs have been tight. Crossing the street, needing to hurry, I couldn't go into a jog. I would lean forward, then tense up and not be able to do it. I had an image of a face plant in the middle of the street from a leg collapsing under me. 

When I was running regularly, I ran intervals between walks. The length of my running intervals varied widely, from a mile of non-stop running all the way down to 30 seconds, but the technique, of running and then walking for a minute or two for recovery, is sound. The theory of very short intervals, especially for beginning runners, is that you can sustain the mix for much longer than you can sustain just running, and so your body gets more thoroughly conditioned to running. Your heart and breathing rates repeatedly go up to running levels, and then recover before you do it again. I also had a couple of sessions with a running coach who specialized in a technique known as "chi running". It is supposed to lead to fewer running injuries. The essence of the technique is to lean forward from your ankles (not your waist) and a foot will automatically lift up and move forward to keep you from falling. A fast cadence is stressed, with a faster pace leading to longer steps but the same cadence.

After hitting the turnaround point for my three mile walk one day this week, I decided to see if I could overcome this Thing and run. I leaned forward, and my foot lifted up, and then I was running! To the untrained eye, I was "just barely jogging" but to me it was everything. I could feel the muscles in my thighs waking up in surprise! "What's going on here? I remember this!" The form came back to me, and it felt good. I ran just three short intervals interspersed with walks, and then swaggered my way back home, feeling quite a bit taller and more confident. The Thing was gone.

I went out this morning to a nearby trail that makes a mile and a half loop in a pretty setting, equipped with my running watch and running playlists. I walked a lot, and ran my structured intervals for a bit, totalling two loops. I'm highly satisfied with where I am with this, even though I barely kept up with a (young) person walking while I was running. I hope to work up to doing 5K races again, but even if I don't, it's all good. My body is capable, I am capable, and if the body starts to decline, it's possible even at the advanced age of nearly 70 to recover some of the mojo.

I'll leave you with this: schedules and weather finally combined to get us out on the Bay! Yay, sailing! I'm on the go, on two wheels and four, and two feet, and by sea! Stand back, here I come!

Report Card

 The last time I published a report card was in January of last year, looking at 2022. I actually have kept up tracking myself primarily through apps and devices, and from time to time I sit down and go through the data trying to glean some meaning or insights. I haven't felt like I've learned that much recently, certainly not something worth sharing. I still haven't got any wisdom to share, and it's not that pretty a picture, but the data is what the data is, and there is a certain value in simply showing it. Keeps me honest with myself.

First, to get it out of the way, my weight is high and stable. No need to share a graph. I gained a bunch of weight in 2022 (Fuck You, Intuitive Eating!) and it's stayed on. I haven't been motivated to any kind of a big push to change it. And it's been remarkably stable - plus or minus four pounds. I do plan and track my food most days, but it's more part of planning how to spend my time than trying to morph it into fewer calories. And then, keeping me conscious of what I'm doing, to do away with mindless eating. I still weigh myself every day and it gets recorded on the internet, for whenever I feel like reviewing the history in detail. I chuckled one day recently when I got up and peed several times during the night and found the next morning I was two and a half pounds down from the day before! That's why I can't get excited about day-to-day fluctuations, the range I'm seeing is just water weight. 

First up: Activity. As always, darker is better. January was knee recovery time, and I give myself a pass for everything but workout days. My "workout days" focus on functional fitness, either in my home gym or with physical therapy (my PT experience the past couple of years has been a solid hour of working out followed by 15 minutes of massage and stretching). With PT from the knee replacement added to working out in the home gym, I was really doing a lot. It also paid off, as now my calories and steps are back to where they were last year (which was NOT a stellar year for activity, I admit). The walking mileage shown here is from taking a deliberate walk where I activate my GPS, not an accumulation of steps during the day. I'm currently pretty active in the house and garden, which keeps my steps up, but I haven't been feeling the walk as a way to spend time (and I only do short and slow training walks with the dog, not worth tracking.) I've added a new row since the last time I posted, "stand time". My apple watch tracks this - how much time do I spend on my feet all day. It seems worth looking at, since my goals involve being less sedentary. Here, I'm moving in the right direction!

Next, some health parameters. These are both controllable and uncontrollable things. The big worrying trend is migraines, which are up. I have fallen off the meditation bandwagon, and that might be a contributing factor. But my doctor thinks that perhaps allergies are acting up - and there is a connection between respiratory inflammation and migraines. So I'm trying to be more faithful on OTC allergy remedies. "Alone days" (still looking for a better descriptor) are days I don't talk to anyone. I might be texting or emailing, but it only counts if I talk to someone either in person or on the phone. I really enjoy days on my own, but I am aware it is not healthy to have too many. And besides, I enjoy my family, friends and neighbors! I continue to be a sleep champion, with a normal seasonal variation of less sleep with longer daylight hours. (These sleep hours are separate from time in bed, as the watch purports to distinguish between lying awake versus truly asleep. I am awake at least 45 minutes during the course of the night - but apparently, that is less than average for a woman my age.) Heart rate variability is meant to be an overall measure of stress, with a high number being better. I haven't been looking too much at it, but the apple watch keeps track, so I decided to add it to the list. Resting heart rate, as a reminder, measures resiliency, with a lower number better.

Lastly, how do I spend my leisure time? (Ok, it's all leisure time. I do a minor amount of volunteer work, but I'm not tracking that here.) This whole category is not necessarily "more is better", but it is what it is. I also struggle with whether the "year" column should show an average of the months, or a cumulative total for the year. It's currently a mixed bag. I've actually wanted to read fewer books this year, because I read a lot of fluffy entertainment and it gets in the way of doing more productive things. My TV watching is up recently, as I indulged myself with a season of my only reality TV show, "Below Decks". I haven't been watching movies, neither at home nor out. I have been traveling a modest amount this year, more shorter trips, which is suiting me right now. And I'm hoping for more sailing, as my partner has retired, which multiplies the number of possibilities of aligning our two schedules and the weather.

So that's the story in numbers. Looking at this does motivate me to move, so I'm off to do that now.

Excelsior!

Dead Man's Run

The 5K race scheduled for last night switched to an all virtual race because of the storm. But they opened the course for folks to do it on their own, so my girl and I headed down past Capitol Hill to Historic Congressional Cemetary, and ran it on our own. The day was absolutely gorgeous, a perfect 60 degrees for running.

This was my first 5K since the Before Times, and my girl's first ever! Her time was equal to my personal best time, but she is 22 and I was 60 when I made that time, so ok. We both are doing run/walk intervals timed by a watch. My run intervals are slower than some people's walks, but the mechanics of running are different than walking. It's always clear to me when I'm doing which. The advantage of doing these short running intervals is you can go further from the very first time out. Today, at two miles, my thought was that because my intervals are so short and I was going so slow, I'd be able to keep up the run intervals to the end. But by 2.75 miles, the rest of the course was all uphill, there was no cheering crowd, and I was done. I walked the rest of the way.

We had fun, and are signed up for an in-person Turkey Trot next month. 

I hope to train more before then. My knees are part of the limiting factor, but also my lack of cardio fitness. I'm doing physical therapy for the knees, but I've got to get out there for the cardio. Better fitness should spill over to everything else in my life, so the theory (and some of my previous experience) suggests.

In prep for this, I dug down in my drawers and closets and found some running clothes I hadn't been wearing. Some I gave to my girl and some I kept. Yay for shopping my closet!

Flamingos Spotted in the Wild on Morning Run!

 The flock was on a hillside; the solitary was under a viaduct:

In other news, I've started my first slow steps toward running again! It's been two years since I was doing any significant running. I made an actual effort in the summer of 2019, right after I retired, but it all went away in the fall after my mother died. But I'm signed up with my girl for an actual 5K race at the end of October, and I want to make an effort to train for it. This is the incredibly fun Dead Man's Race at Historic Congressional Cemetary, which I have done before.

Me in 2015 at Dead Man's Race
Possibly the most fit I've ever been

I've been walking quite a bit more recently, and when my girl took up running this summer, I got the bug again. My running is Slow AF, but the mechanics of any running are different than the mechanics of walking, so there is a distinct difference between the two. A customary Slow AF approach is to run/walk very short intervals - right now, for me, it's literally 45 seconds of running followed by 60 seconds of walking. But by putting the walk intervals in, I can right from the start of training go a reasonable distance.

I have a target of finishing the 3.1 miles in less than hour. Most of my daily dog walks are at closer to two miles an hour than three miles an hour, and very fast walking isn't comfortable for me. With the run/walk intervals, my walking is naturally much faster than dog rambles, but three miles an hour would be a challenge for me to sustain outdoors (I can do it on a treadmill, level). But interspersing run intervals gets me there nicely - I was just over an hour today.

An added bonus to running:
nerding out on my stats and performance

My goal is to run three times a week for the next three weeks leading up to the race. On the off days, I'll do walks with the dog. Maybe after the race, when I have a base, I'll try running with Bixby. Right now, I don't want to have to focus on managing him while I focus on running form.

Mid-Year Report Card

With my ambitions centered firmly on me for the next few months, it's time to check in on how I've been doing so far this year. The news is not great. First, the visual:

How to read this: Each green row is darker in the spots where it is "better".
For the red columns, I compare this year's average to last year's, red is "bad".

It may be a pretty picture, but it's a sad story.

I have been less active this year than last year by every single measure I use. I walk less, I'm not running or biking at all, and my gym workouts plummeted when the gym closed, even though I've got a terrific home gym and I continue to pay my trainer to send me workouts to do. I'm not even walking much. Our friend Chris would be severely disappointed in me.

My explanations and rationales are plentiful. "It's too [insert: cold, hot, wet, windy]. My dog can barely stumble around the block. I don't feel good. I don't want to get dressed. I don't feel like wearing a mask." 

This is entirely under my control, and I resolve to do better. The walking has already picked up. I'm doing a couple of things to motivate myself, including getting up early, indulging myself on fun things to listen to, and doing a virtual trip of the Camino de Santiago.

My weight is very slightly better than the end of the year, but the sad truth is I put on ten pounds after my mother died and I wallowed in self-pity. I am focused on my eating, and I'm not just tracking my food, but planning each day's food each morning. It definitely helps to not walk into the kitchen and ask myself "what am I in the mood for?". Instead, since I don't need to accommodate anyone else's schedule, instead I ask myself, "am I actually hungry? Is it time to eat?". The question of what I might eat is not on the table. This works for me almost every day. But evenings remain a vulnerable point for me, though I'm making some slow progress at self talk to convince myself otherwise.

The next group of measures in the report I think of as my mental group: meditation, migraine, sleep and heart-rate. These are tied together. Sleep hours are up, and resting heart-rate is down, but migraines have been a big issue and I haven't made meditation a priority.

The next group is entertainment: books, blogging, trips downtown, and days at the boat. I'm certainly reading an enormous amount, and I've taken the time to blog both here and on the garden blog. But I've cut back local travel, for obvious reasons. I don't go into town to meet folks for lunch, for example. I am, however, starting to get more sailing in. The previous restrictions have loosened, and my boat partner and I both see this as our preferred quarantine escape. So three Saturdays in a row! (We won't do any overnights where we share a cabin, just day sails for now.)

The last group, spending on certain things, is actually the area I considered hiding my numbers because I'm embarrassed they are as high as they are. The good news is I'm spending much less on food (not unexpectedly, since last year included work lunches out and hosting family for several days). Planning my daily meals in advance means I'm much better at using up my food - I'm wasting much less. I minimize trips to the supermarket - about every two weeks - and get restaurant takeout once or twice a week, usually enough for two or more meals when I place the order. Restaurants are expensive, and normally I would only go out with other people. Now, I rationalize how I have to support local restaurants, but the truth is I just get tired of my own cooking. I wonder how I'll feel about solo takeout once socializing resumes?

I was surprised to see my monthly average spending on clothes is about even with last year. My thinking behind why is tied to my weight gain - I decided I needed some clothes that make me comfortable now rather than counting on losing enough weight to fit. And my trips - the Utah trip in February and the cancelled Iceland one - tipped me into buying some cool weather active outdoor clothes that I wanted but really didn't need. They were expensive but I love them! I am ruthless these days about returning anything I don't like, but I should stick to what I have now and force myself to shop my closet for play clothes. I also have a lot of very nice work clothes and no place to wear them. I told myself to wait a year before purging. Since this year is so unusual, and I have hopes of getting my weight back down to where those clothes fit, I'm going to wait a while longer before figuring out which few nice things truly spark joy.

So there is my sad story. I an optimistic take on it: with such low scores in the beginning of the year, I should have a good shot at the "most improved" award at the end of the year! Parents: how would you react to such a spin on the dismal tally?

Exercise

My relationship with my body continues to evolve, rationally and irrationally, as a result of my conscious actions and randomly. I’ve been much fatter, quite a bit slimmer, less fit, and more fit. I’ve been debilitated by a series of physical ailments I am not going to catalogue here and now.  I am intellectually convinced that there is no underlying physical condition in my body causing these ailments that needs to be fixed by medical intervention. I’ve intellectually and emotionally found the value in both strength and aerobic exercise. I am convinced exercise is the magic bullet that is both preventative and curative. I know that mental work - meditation, visualization, emotional discovery, self-talk - is the key to minimizing, heading off, and curing physical ailments that continually derail my exercise efforts. I’ve hated and liked what I’ve seen in the mirror.

It feels to me like I should be feeling better than I do right now. It feels to me like I should not be self-sabotaging my self-improvement efforts the way I do. I’ve actively been participating in an on-line live coaching group geared towards the mental work needed to leave chronic pain behind. It feels like I have all the tools, and all I need to do is pick them up and use them.

This is all preface to the post I meant to write when I sat down: what I am currently doing for exercise. Not that much, but today makes a streak of one day of really going for it! Yay me! Go team! And, I got out there and even had a couple of short runs last week - and am trying to gear myself up for another today. (As is typical for me, I don’t write about something during its slide down, but wait until there is some reason to note things are getting better.)

Our immediate neighborhood has no sidewalks and little traffic, so we all walk in the street and are able to keep distance without too much of an awkward dance. On Friday through Sunday, the two-lane curvy parkway along the near-by creek has 1- and 2- mile stretches of road closed to car traffic. Walking is nearly a religion to me and the highlight of my old dog’s day. So I’m getting out there and getting in some miles. Most days. There are still days I crawl into my hole and scarcely leave the yard, but so far in April I’ve only had one day with less than 5,000 steps, my benchmark of the absolute bare minimum to avoid fossilization. (There are studies that suggest daily steps of less than 4,000 is an excellent predictor of old folks’ decline into mortality. My recollection is there is nearly a straight-line relationship between steps and longevity between 4,000 and 7,000 daily average steps, and a less clear relationship beyond that.)

Last week, our on-line group assignment was “play” (among other things). We talked about what is and isn’t play. I struggled with this - I am not short of enjoyable things, and self-care and self-indulgence. But play? Here is how I’m currently thinking about this: Sitting at the piano to play a well-known piece, and then improvise and riff on it for a while, is play. But it requires a level of mastery to be able to do that, and much of the time spent achieving that mastery may be enjoyable, but it isn’t play. I used to love playing catch, and that was play. But it was only fun after I worked with a friend to coach me on how to throw and catch, so it wasn’t just a bunch of my chasing after balls I missed.

I never enjoyed running until I hit a certain level of aerobic fitness so I could actually run for a while. But then, I grew to love it, not just for how I felt afterwards and knowing how good it was for me, but I actually liked it while I was doing it. (Sometimes.) Now, I am willing to set my Garmin watch to regulate very short intervals so that I alternate between running and walking in a way that is sustainable for a while. A big point of the joy from running is using the rhythm of music I love to carry me along. So last Saturday, I strapped on the Garmin, the headphones, the heart-rate strap, and went down to the closed parkway. I ran a mile down it, and walked back. I did the same thing on Sunday. It was fabulous! I had made running playlists from my own music, so by definition everything I heard was something I liked.

I set out to run on a different stretch of closed parkway yesterday, but ended up listening to a book and walking a solid four miles instead. Not so bad. I’m going to go out a bit later (it dawned rainy but is supposed to clear) but am likely to be walking. Tomorrow, Sunday, is targeted for another run. If I sustain running, it will require “training”, not just “play”, but it will build that aerobic base that will enable more and longer play.

I have been working in the garden for a couple of hours nearly every day, and I kind-of thought it substituted for a more formal strength workout. I know that is not actually true. I’m still paying my trainer, who faithfully sends me a new workout once a week. But I haven’t actually been down to my workout room and done any training for THIRTY DAYS. (I love fact-checking - I initially wrote “three weeks” but then checked. Memory is always unreliable.)

Today’s workout was a solid hour of warmups, upper body and core workouts, and a nice stretching session afterwards. This may possibly be the most rigorous workout I’ve done on my own - I faithfully followed my trainer’s notes on weight and reps. Working in my garden is tiring, but it’s clear that I avoid certain moves and positions during the course of my day. The comprehensive prescribed workout gets me using body parts I normally try to protect or avoid. I definitely felt the erosion of mobility since I stopped training, even more than strength. There’s nothing like being hit in the face with experience to correct my thinking. Training will help me garden better, and everything else, too. Again, music was a big part of the enjoyment of the experience. Today’s stream was the Grateful Dead. I find myself flashing back to the seventies, my college years, more than later periods.

So I’m writing all this here to document this in my own mind, and for accountability. This blog was originally set up for accountability purposes, as I did a good, sustained, weightloss and fitness effort.

I’ve got nothin’ but time, and I would like to keep this up.

I’m curious - for those others who are also confined - are you able to find the motivation to keep moving? Even if it’s only in place? Are people going to emerge from quarantine all buff and fit? Or is that an instagram myth?

Report Card

I updated the report card I did a couple of months ago. I was still too busy when September ended, so this adds both September and October. I added a couple of fields, and was tempted to add even more. I have plans to collect and report more data, but I decided to post this as is, and not wait.

As before, I've shrunk down the size of this to show all the months at once. Darker color is better, so if no numbers show, you still get an idea of "good" versus "bad".

First comes activity. Both September and October were mixed, with news of my mother's death coming on September 11, and her memorial service on October 12. Between the two, all bets were off. So most of my September activity is early, and most of my October activity was at the end. I also took a small cruise in October, and the two days on the small ship had very few steps. I'm not feeling the bike riding, and I'm not likely to start up again now until spring. But I do aspire to ride more.

Conclusion: August was the big month for activity, but it didn't go entirely to hell when I was derailed from my emerging routine. The Days >2,000 cal measures busy days, and I had plenty of busy days. The Days < 5,000 steps measures very inactive days, and those were up in September but stayed low in October.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Avg Calories Exp	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days >2,000 cal	6	7	7	10	16	14	12	13	10	12
Avg Daily Steps	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days < 5,000 steps	5	4	5	3	1	2	4	3	4	1
Miles Biked	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	9	-	-
Miles Walked	26	16	8	17	15	38	28	48	15	12
Miles Run	-	-	6	3	5	11	6	1	11	-

Next is weight. I wrote about this in the previous post. Not a pretty picture. But it's data. Tracking is what I can do, what's under my control. It had an impact in August, and I've started up again, with more advance planning (pre-tracking) as opposed to simply recording the sad facts afterwards.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
End Weight (week)	159	160	161	163	163	163	164	164	163	166
Days Food Tracked	-	10	-	-	-	-	-	16	-	-

The next group is kind of a report on my head. Meditation, migraines, and sleep. (I added migraines and sleep since last report.) Lots of meditation may reflect more feeling bad at the time, but I still choose to code it as more is better. But October was a terrible month for migraines. I have an app to track the migraines and try to make correlations for triggers, reliefs, and preventatives. I think I chose not to use the app at the beginning of the year, when I was all in on trying to prevent the migraine through mindwork - meditation, self-talk, expressive writing, guided visualizations. I think it worked pretty well, and part of my mindset at the time was that tracking put too much focus on migraines, granted them too much importance, so I shouldn't track. But I've had such severe heads that I'm back to tracking as well as trying to prevent through those mindwork methods. I record the actual hours of head pain, but typically the impact is for longer - a very low activity day with huge carb urges precedes the headache, and typically there is an incredible lassitude for a day or so when it's passed - no gumption, no energy, a strong need for sleep. So a big impact overall.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
# Min Meditate	439	235	178	81	143	295	215	333	229	223
# Times Meditate	42	22	20	11	15	23	21	29	21	26
Migraine Hours	-	-	-	-	20	24	11	27	13	44
Sleep Hours	7.1	7.3	7.3	6.8	7.0	7.3	7.0	7.4	7.2	7.2

Here's the money report. Spending was off the charts overall and for food, but gas stays reasonable without my daily commute. There is more to say on money thoughts, but that's planning, and this is reporting.

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Total Spend

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

Food Spend

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

####

Gas Spend

$72

$59

####

$87

$83

$84

$29

$26

$53

$50

This final group is fun stuff, and it didn't all go away in the face of adversity. I slowed down on reading - I like to think it's because I was more active. But I blogged (both here and in the garden blog), got into the city (thanks, blogger's weekend!) and did spend some time on the boat. That is nearly done for the season, though I will record trips to the marina this winter. That's why it's not labelled "sailing" - it's days with the boat, whether doing chores or sailing.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
# Books Read	8	7	4	1	0	12	11	9	3	4
# Blog Posts	6	8	7	6	3	6	8	7	10	7
# Trips downtown	--	--	--	--	--	1	5	2	1	4
# Days Boat	--	--	--	1	2	3	2	7	3	1

So if you step back and squint, August still wins overall, but I didn't allow everything to go down the drain in the face of adversity. Except weight, and we'll stop talking about that for a while.

Report Card

I made myself a report card. To some extent, the report card simply reflects what I can measure, not what is most important to me. But, because I can't control every outcome in my life, the report card also reflects what I am focusing on in the process. I can control what I do, and how that turns into important stuff is related, but outside my control.

The way to read this table is to not actually look at the specific numbers. I deliberately shrank the column size to obscure some numbers, and to make sure all twelve months will fit on a row. But I'm using the darkness of the color to reflect relative goodness. In some cases, a bigger number is better (eg, number of calories expended each day). In other cases, a smaller number is better (eg, expenditures). But I set the tones so darker is better in all things. The darker the column, the better the month was.

So first, fitness activities.  Calories and steps are from the fitbit. Averages can obscure extremes, so I also pull out active days (calories for the day were more than 2,000) and sedentary days (steps were less than 5,000 for the day). I use the Garmin for biking, walking, and running (only deliberate walks, not incidental steps during the day are counted). So as expected, August was pretty good in all measures. The surprise to me was May - as I recall, I started cutting back at work pretty heavily towards the end, and tried to get a jump start on fitness (and gardening projects). July suffered from the heat, but also possible from trying to do too much too soon in June, because I had some migraines and other bad days there.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
Avg Calories Exp	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days >2,000 cal	6	7	7	10	16	14	12	13
Avg Daily Steps	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days <5 steps="" td="">	5	4	5	3	1	2	4	3
Miles Biked	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	9
Miles Walked	26	16	8	17	15	38	28	48
Miles Run	-	-	6	3	5	11	6	1

 The next group is about my weight. I can't control my weight, only what I eat. One of the proven techniques for weight loss is to track, so I'm reporting how many days I tracked. Lack of tracking in many ways reflects lack of effort or focus on weight loss. It's clear my weight has gone up since the first of the year. Not my main focus, but big sigh anyway. Besides tracking, I vowed to enjoy more, and waste less. I don't have a report on that, but I'm feeling like I'm getting there on both fronts.
  

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
End Weight (week)	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Days Food Tracked	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	16

 The next set of measures is meditation. This is measured because I use a meditation app, for guided meditations and as a timer. More meditation is an aspiration, and the coloring reflects that. The truth is, however, that January was so heavy on meditation because I was still in a great deal of pain from my knee surgery, and because I was upset a lot during the government shutdown. Meditation is a coping mechanism, so more might mean other things are off track. Also, recently, I'm feeling that I'm more mindful in transient ways throughout the day. Pausing to breathe a few times, feel my feet grounded, check in with my body. A good thing, and not captured anywhere but in my head.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
# Min Meditate	439	235	178	81	143	295	215	333
# Times Meditate	42	22	20	11	15	23	21	29

I'm tracking my money, in total, and by categories. I'm showing food expenditures (as a proxy for reduced waste and more cooking at home) and money spent on gas, as a proxy for miles driven. Less is more! Fewer dollars are a darker, good, color.  June food reflects house guests, including liquor purchases. How nice to see the reduced driving reflected in the lower fuel bills. I only bought gas once during each of July and August. Total spending is fluctuating, as I figure out the periodic bills like taxes and insurance, formerly paid either through a mortgage payment or deducted from my paycheck.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
Total Spend	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Food Spend	####	####	####	####	####	####	####	####
Gas Spend	$72	$59	####	$87	$83	$84	$29	$26

Lastly are some miscellaneous things I can count, that maybe reflect some larger picture about my state of mind and energy. I track my books through Goodreader. Blog posts are obvious. "Trips downtown" show engagement with my peeps from work, and engagement on the culture front (museums, performances, etc.). And, being at the boat, as was explained recently, is my happy place.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug
# Books Read	8	7	4	1	0	12	11	9
# Blog Posts	6	8	7	6	3	6	8	7
# Trips downtown	--	--	--	--	--	1	5	2
# Days Boat	--	--	--	1	2	3	2	7

 So there you have my overview. If you step back and squint, more and darker green is a good thing, and in general, things are looking up!