My Journey With Health And Fitness – New Training Goals

Well I have done it. It is February 28th and the end of Dry February. I have gone for a total of 30 days without any alcohol and plan to do several more. I acknowledge that I feel great and am reaping the benefits of taking a break from my wine. What really continues to show for me is that my blood pressure is so good right now. I think until at least my Easter Trip to the trailer I will keep my alcohol consumption to a minimal amount and see if I can keep this going. Having said that, it is lunch at a craft brewery on Sunday so I know there will be a couple local beers consumed.

I hinted last week that I was upping my game again but I had changed my planned post to report on my health so here is what is going on. I decided it was time to go back to the level of training I was doing way back in 2020 when I got serious about losing weight and being healthy. So what does that mean? Well, it means that I am focusing a lot of time each day on training. I have broken my week into 6 days (Sunday is optional as to whether I do anything). 3 days a week I am doing endurance interval training and today I started doing 6 minutes of running with 1 minute of walking and I was surprised how easy it was to move up to that level. The other 3 days a week my main training is speed. Again this is interval training but I am now doing several intervals at about 7 kph. This is the training I have been doing for the last 4 weeks and I am happy with how well it is going.

But last week I decided it was time to add on to what I was doing. So, I have added a second 1 hour walk which is in addition to the above. I do this walk right after dinner leaving myself enough time to wind down before heading off to bed. Ultimately my goal is to be doing more than 25k steps each day and burning at least 2,500 calories. Last week went exceptionally well with me doing at least 29k steps each day. Yes, it takes a lot of hours out of my day to do this but I am so resolved to get myself back to where I want to be.

I am also working on upping my strength training. Yesterday I added additional reps to both my weights and my core training. I admit, the weights were the harder part but I know if I keep working at it within a few weeks I will be doing even more. I think my next move for weights will be moving from 5lbs up to 8lbs (though will initially drop the number of reps). I already note that my arms are back to looking nicely toned so I want to keep the momentum.

What I am finding so surprising about all of this is that I felt I had lost my drive for so many months but now I really want to do this again. There is no complaining, no trying to find excuses not to work out, instead there is just a great feeling that I am accomplishing something again. Tomorrow, if the weather is decent, I might even try a gentle 5km. Wait until Thursday when I give you the update.