Weight Update for Jan 24

I wanted to check my weight today to see how I'm doing.  Last week I was fighting a lot of lows, and so was eating a lot more than normal to deal with them.  But the lows are slowly coming under control, so I thought now was a good time to check my weight:

weight: 213.6 lbs
fat percentage: 46.7%
hydration: 36.6%
muscle: 26.2%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2341

So this is a bit up from earlier in January but not horribly so.  Hopefully I won't be having many more lows!

Weight Update for Jan 6

This is from yesterday, a quick weight update after the holidays:

weight: 211.8 lbs
fat percentage: 46.2%
hydration: 36.9%
muscle: 26.4%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2331

Looks like I made it through the holidays alright. :)  My weight is slightly down from Dec 29.

2021 Goals

Well, here we are (albeit a little late): time to set goals for the new year.  Thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing (although vaccines are starting to roll out), the future is still a little uncertain.  So with that in mind, I don't want to set super ambitious goals for myself; I don't want to be needlessly stressing myself out should yet another lockdown happen, or worse.  So 2021 is going to be mostly more of the same:

1. Workout for 150 minutes a week.  This felt like a doable number, especially while walking to work.  And in the last month or so, I've started trying to fit in some workout videos (mainly for stretching, which I think is super important and I don't do enough of).  Like I said last year, this number seems very doable, especially with walking, so let's see if I can hit it this time!

2. Make a new recipe every month.  I liked this goal, and I was so close to succeeding last year!  I found that it got me out of my cooking comfort zone a little bit, plus I discovered some new favourite dishes that I now make all the time.  So let's see if I can succeed in making a new recipe every month this year - I'd love to hit a 100% success rate on this one, not just 80%, but we'll see!

I also bought myself The Complete Plant-Based Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen for Christmas. I flipped through it and the pictures looked AMAZING! I can't wait to try some stuff out!!!

3. Do a monthly check-in on this blog.  Looking back, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I was doing a monthly update on how I was doing on my goals.  I don't know if I'll specifically just look at goal progress, or if I'll do a more general health check-in (like how things are going, how I'm feeling, etc); I'll probably try a few things and see what I like.  But whatever that check-in looks like, I think it's important that I take some time to stop and see how things are going, rather than just winging it (and totally forgetting about goals that I set for myself, like the no junk food at work one from 2020!)

I also got away from doing the weight-updates in a timely fashion, so hopefully while doing these monthly check-ins I'll be able to keep up with them a bit better, too!

I know that things happen during the year (I don't mean like the pandemic, but like heat waves and stuff where working out might not be reasonable for a week), so a success for all of these goals means meeting them through 80% of the year (although I will strive to meet them for 100% of the year!)

2020 Year in Review

 My 2020 goals for the year were: 

1. Workout for 150 minutes a week.
2. No eating chips, chocolate, and other treats at work (with the caveat that I can eat some sweets if I go low).
3. Make a new recipe every month.

Remember, for the purposes of these goals, a success means I met the goal 80% of the time.  So let's see how I did:

Goal #1 was a fail.  I started out really strong last winter (I went snowshoeing and skiing every weekend, often skiing both Friday and Sunday, with snowshoeing on Saturday!) But then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and derailed this completely.  I spent about 4 months basically staying home with very little activity (except gardening and the occasional walk).  I picked up my activity by the end of the year (walking to and from work, on a week where I work all 5 days, nets me the 150 minutes right there).  So thanks to the pandemic, I only hit this goal 52% of the year.  

I honestly forgot that Goal #2 was a thing.  But thanks to the Pandemic, this was successful.  I wasn't at work for a few months, and when I got back, for the most part I had no intention of touching anything people brought in.  I even grabbed a donut one time, walked home with it, thought about it, and threw it out.  I felt bad for wasting the donut, but I still stand by my choice.  The only time I ate a few things was around the Christmas season, where I ate a few things that were individually wrapped and thought it was okay.  I also tried to make a point of bringing good snacks with me (this fell apart near Christmas though because I wasn't taking the time to bake anymore - I'll have to get back into making healthier muffins again!)  

Goal #3 was technically a failure, because I only made a new recipe in 9 months out of 12 (75% of the time).  But I actually made a total of 19 new recipes throughout the year, so it doesn't really feel like a failure at all (and I'm going to call it a partial success). :)  

I also can't blame covid-19 for this partial success because the months I didn't make anything new were scattered throughout the year (May, July, and October).

So that was 2020.  Tomorrow I'll set some new goals for 2021. :)

Final Weight Updates of 2020

Here are the remaining weight updates I missed posting for 2020:

October 30:

weight: 211.4 lbs
fat percentage: 48.3%
hydration: 35.5%
muscle: 25.4%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2329

November 19:

weight: 210.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.5%
hydration: 37.4%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 11.1%
cal: 2322

December 1:

weight: 210.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.8%
hydration: 37.2%
muscle: 26.6%
bone: 11.1%
cal: 2322

December 12:

weight only: 209.6 lbs

December 29:

weight: 212.0 lbs
fat percentage: 45.7%
hydration: 37.3%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2332

I credit the slow decrease of my weight since October mainly to walking to and from work every day (although I'm sure healthy eating was also part of that).  I also credit the slight gain at the end of December due to the smorgasbord that was Christmas, even during the Covid-19 pandemic!  I'm interested to see what my weight will be like by the end of the month, especially if I'm able to fit in more snowshoeing and hopefully some cross country skiing!

Goodbye 2020!

Happy New Year!  2020 was a bit of a wild ride.  I haven't done a good job of keeping up with this blog at all.  So over the next few days I'm going to do another big weight update for the remainder of 2020, plus look at goals for 2021.

But for today, I just wanted to make a note, mostly for myself, about snowshoeing.  I went snowshoeing today with a temporary basal of I believe 65%, starting two hours before I went out.  When I started snowshoeing, my glucose was 5.7 mmol/L.  It hovered around there just fine (went up to 5.8, then stayed at 5.7) until we started doing some bigger hills, at which point I went low.  So I think next time I'm going to need to do a smaller temp basal (maybe 60% or 55%?) and try to start off a little higher so I have more of a cushion in case my glucose suddenly drops like today.