I currently have an abundance of free time. As part of this, I’ve decided to lose some weight, and for the past month I’ve been walking at least five miles for at least six evenings a week while keeping my calorie intake stable. I’m currently at the fragile stage where the behaviour hasn’t yet become habit, but my enthusiasm has started to wane.
Some observations:
October/November was not necessarily the ideal time of year to undertake this project.
To begin with, I valued the time spent walking because it gave me time alone with my thoughts. With 90 minutes of this every day, I’ve discovered I don’t have an inexhaustible supply of thoughts. As a result, I will sometimes do half an hour or so of study before I go for my walk so I have some concepts to mull over.
Varying my route means I’m less likely to get bored. I think this has a lot to do with making mental milestones for regular routes. (“I’ve just passed under this bridge, so that means I’m only a sixth of the way there...man, this is going to be a long walk!”).
I’ve considered various forms of entertainment/education I could use while walking, such as music, podcasts, audio lectures or foreign language tapes. I’ve had some technical difficulties of late which have prevented me trying these out.
Watching TV and film with lots of fit people doing action-packed things is a surprisingly good motivator for exercise. This seems ridiculous to external observation. “Oliver Queen is a fictional character played by an unbelievably ripped actor, who carries out implausible acts of physical prowess on a TV show. Therefore I should go for a walk and become a little less fat”.
While I’m currently somewhat overweight, I used to be enormous, to the considerable detriment of my health, social life and self-esteem. I lost a large amount of weight five or six years ago, but I still have a lot of residual anger and resentment towards perceived mistreatment I experienced during this time. Thinking about this is also a powerful motivator, but I’m unsure of how healthy this is as regards my psychological wellbeing.
This walking regimen takes up about ten hours a week. While I have that free time right now, I will have a lot less free time in the new year. The obvious course of action would be to transition my walking regimen into an equivalent quantity of running, but I’m unsure of the best way to go about doing this. I’ve had a couple of abortive attempts at Couch to 5K, both of which failed because running in public is embarrassing and hilarious to onlookers if you’re not very good at it; having people laugh at your efforts to better yourself is unbelievably demoralising.
To begin with, I valued the time spent walking because it gave me time alone with my thoughts. With 90 minutes of this every day, I’ve discovered I don’t have an inexhaustible supply of thoughts. As a result, I will sometimes do half an hour or so of study before I go for my walk so I have some concepts to mull over.
I currently have an abundance of free time. As part of this, I’ve decided to lose some weight, and for the past month I’ve been walking at least five miles for at least six evenings a week while keeping my calorie intake stable. I’m currently at the fragile stage where the behaviour hasn’t yet become habit, but my enthusiasm has started to wane.
Some observations:
October/November was not necessarily the ideal time of year to undertake this project.
To begin with, I valued the time spent walking because it gave me time alone with my thoughts. With 90 minutes of this every day, I’ve discovered I don’t have an inexhaustible supply of thoughts. As a result, I will sometimes do half an hour or so of study before I go for my walk so I have some concepts to mull over.
Varying my route means I’m less likely to get bored. I think this has a lot to do with making mental milestones for regular routes. (“I’ve just passed under this bridge, so that means I’m only a sixth of the way there...man, this is going to be a long walk!”).
I’ve considered various forms of entertainment/education I could use while walking, such as music, podcasts, audio lectures or foreign language tapes. I’ve had some technical difficulties of late which have prevented me trying these out.
Watching TV and film with lots of fit people doing action-packed things is a surprisingly good motivator for exercise. This seems ridiculous to external observation. “Oliver Queen is a fictional character played by an unbelievably ripped actor, who carries out implausible acts of physical prowess on a TV show. Therefore I should go for a walk and become a little less fat”.
While I’m currently somewhat overweight, I used to be enormous, to the considerable detriment of my health, social life and self-esteem. I lost a large amount of weight five or six years ago, but I still have a lot of residual anger and resentment towards perceived mistreatment I experienced during this time. Thinking about this is also a powerful motivator, but I’m unsure of how healthy this is as regards my psychological wellbeing.
This walking regimen takes up about ten hours a week. While I have that free time right now, I will have a lot less free time in the new year. The obvious course of action would be to transition my walking regimen into an equivalent quantity of running, but I’m unsure of the best way to go about doing this. I’ve had a couple of abortive attempts at Couch to 5K, both of which failed because running in public is embarrassing and hilarious to onlookers if you’re not very good at it; having people laugh at your efforts to better yourself is unbelievably demoralising.
Thanks for the tip!