Hate To Exercise

December 2023, almost Christmas

Wow, in a month’s time it will be 4 years since I began this little blog and journey. But I digress from the off.

Just here to provide a quick report card. Over the last few weeks I have been slowly getting back to my reverse eating methodology – big breakfast, huge lunch, tiny dinner; and of course the obligatory late evening chocolate snack. The first few days were difficult – the funny thing is, the challenge was the result of the contents of my fridge. For some reason I seemed unable to organise myself well enough, with the amount of cooking required, to reverse my meals. But, after a week or so, once I got into the rhythm of when I do my cooking – is it early morning, or in the evening but as part of prep for the following day – things started to fall into place.

And, I’m pleased to report that my weight is slowly moving down in numbers. Slowly. Still, any reduction is a positive step towards regaining my lowest numbers.

Naturally it’s not all down to food – there is an element of exercise involved in this too. I must admit I’ve thrown away HIIT sessions. However, I am back to walking – making sure I do the obligatory 10,000 steps a day. Not surprisingly, if I don’t do the numbers, the following day, my scales are not very kind to me.

It just proves, all these articles about walking, even gentle strolls twice a day for 30 minutes – are right. It does make a difference. My walkies – are dog walkies – literally 30 minutes twice a day, maybe a bit more, combined with reverse food methodology and the scales are moving down, down, down.

The trick now is to maintain an element of reserve, when it comes to Christmas food, because my fridge and freezer and pantry, are getting fully stocked with loads of yummy yummy things.

Watch this space.

It’s December

Here I am in the kitchen, slowly getting ready for Christmas – prepping and cooking the elements of the meals and dishes that can be done days or even weeks in advance. That set up usually requires plenty of time spent in the kitchen and much less time for any meaningful exercise. So I’m unlikely to do a proper walk this evening. Whilst busying myself around the kitchen I will do my fair share of steps, I will still be way short of the 10k steps a day target.

Who wants to spend hours in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, washing, putting ingredients back on the shelf or pantry. So, I try to be efficient – carry more bits & pieces in my hands, make sure I deal with everything that’s possibly to be dealt with, in each corner of the kitchen, as I’m there.

The problem with efficiency is though, it reduces the number of steps I make, and the amount of time I use my muscles.

Isn’t that an interesting conundrum. On one hand I want to get my 10,000 steps in today, and I know I won’t have a chance to do them later; on the other hand I try to make as few steps in the kitchen as possible. So instead of taking each spice bottle back to its rack at a time, I take all 4 in one go. I just reduced my steps from 20, to 5.

It all comes back to the same thing I’ve said before – the psychology of it all.

Some running on the spot later is required, as I “stand” over the cooking pot, stirring the contents. Just got to be careful not to get burned.

Small gains

Problem with efficiency