Welcome to WalkEveryday

Category: December 2024

  • Day 2 – Struggled to get up this morning

    Weight = 108.5 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12913

    It was a struggle to get up and get moving this morning! I went back to sleep until 5:10 then I kept trying to make excuses to go back to bed but I managed to get in the shower and get moving and went for my walk as planned but I set off late at about 5:48 am. I also did my weigh-in and I am up 0.1 kgs heavier than yeaterday ( 108.5 kgs from 108.4.kgs yesterday) but considering how much I ate yesterday that was pretty good 🙂

    I walked for 50:57 this morning so about 3 or 4 minutes faster without the dog but not as fulfilling! I covered 2.73 miles, climbed 342 ft and dod about 6054 steps. I am on 6132 steps on fitbit at the moment so about the same as yesterday.

    I am currently sat in the flat with all the windows and doors open doing my Lüften for the day then thats 4 things ticked off of my daily todo list already 🙂

    I am amazed how much better the flat feels after being aired out for 10 minutes early in the morning. I am definately going to carry on with this and add it to my growing list of daily morning habits!

    I am feeling a lot better after just 2 mornings walking so setting that as my goal for the year is definately a good call.

    I am still amazed at how much better my knee feels when I do my 10 minutes on the backwards treadmill so I am also glad that that is my only other goal other than walking first thing every day and walking 12000 steps a day every day!

    Basically my goals for the year are:

    1. Wake up and walk every day
    2. Do 10 minutes on the backwards treadmill
    3. Walk 12000 steps a day

    My side quests are:

    1. Drink salt water first thing
    2. Air out the flat for 10 minutes a day Lüften
    3. 1 hour on the rollers in the evening
    4. Do max number of chin ups a day
    5. Go to the track at lunch times during the week

    My side quests are nice to have habits that I want to build but I will not waste a lot of engery or focus on them and I will focus on the big 3 this year over everything else.

    After my walk and airing the house I woke my son up and drsgged him to Patchway for a bit to play on the BMX’s but his bike got a blowout as soon as we got to the track so we had to share my bike so we didn’t stay too long but had a bit of fun!

    When we got home we emptied the shed and put everything to go to the tip in one ton bag and put it back in the shed to keep it dry and filled another ton bag up with things to keep to sell on ebay and put that in the garage until we go to the tip next Saturday. Once the shed is a bit emptier I will make space for the ebike in there then it has a home. I am off work from the 7th-10th Jan so I will get the garage sorted and take as much stuff to the tip as possible so that I can get the bikes that are currently hung up in the lounge into the garage so I can organise my life a bit!

    After we finished the shed I cleaned the ebike and the DK and put them in the flat again.

    At about 16:30 I did my 10 minutes of backwards walking but managed to forgot to put my fitbit in my sock until I had 3 minutes left so I had to get the last 1000 steps of the day done cleaning the flat and putting washing away! I got there pretty easily though by 18:00 and then chilled out after cleaning the kitchen!

    I drank 1/2 a can of Guatana that my brother brought over for my xmas present and my son left when I took him home to his mums house to not lt it go to waste and also to make tomorrow my first day without fizzy drinks again so that I know the exact date that I gave up fizzy drinks even though it has been 4 or 5 months now that I have not drank fizzy drinks for!

    I seem to have lost my new hoover so I will have to fully tidy the flat tomorrow when I get the hoover back from my parents house where I think that I left it!

    By the end of the day I got to 12913 steps so pretty good getting almost 2000 steps around the flat this evening 🙂

  • Day 1 – Started walking early 30/12/2024

    Day 1 – Started walking early 30/12/2024

    Weight = 108.4 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12229

    I decided last night that I may as well start my challenge early as its Monday today instead of starting in the middle of the week on the 1st as planned!

    I woke up at 4:30 without an alarm and got up and did my salt water and my weigh-in (108.4 kgs again this morning) I then got dressed and did all the recycling before getting the lead on the dog and heading out for a walk.

    We did my uphill route that I do when I am rucking but I didn’t use the weight vest this morning as my knee is still not 100% at the moment and I didn’t want to mess it up any more than I have already! I have decided that I will hold off on walking in the weight vest until next week to let my knee heal a bit first! The uphill route is so much easier than it is with the weight vest but its still much better than walking on the flat!

    As you can see from the image above I walked for 53:40 minutes and covered 2.74 miles gained 343 ft (mostly in the 1st mile) and walked about 6222 steps.

    By the time I was home I was on 6518 steps on my fitbit so the real number of steps was somewhere in between the 2 I guess.

    I think the morning walk broke the dog too:

    The walk was also slower with the dog as she kept turning around to go home wever 10m for the first mile or so which slowed me down a fair bit but it was nice walking with the dog as its way better in my opinion walking with a dog instead of just walking as you feel like you have a purpose to walk 🙂

    Its odd but ever since I got up this morning I have felt way more motivated to get up and do stuff than I usually am and I haven’t really wanted to look at my phone or turn on the TV since I got up which is unusual to say the least!

    I have just messaged my friend that I was planning to go on a road ride with today to see if he fancies going to the track instead as its actually dry today so I have to make the most of it as its going to be wet and cold again tomorrow 🙁

    My knee is less painful now than it was when I got up so I think that the walk has helped with that so a week of walking will hopefully get it back to 100% ready to start rucking next Monday morning.

    I have been thinking how easy the walking was today and I’m not sure if its due to not having the weight vest on or due to the fact that I am super well rested from basucally a week of not moving 🙂 Even my fitbit was calling me lazy this morning saying that my activity was well down last week compared to the past month where I have been getting 12000 steps in at least!

    DateDayWeight (kgs)Steps Done
    23/12/2023Monday108.512802
    24/12/2023Tuesday107.95044
    25/12/2023Wednesday108.84433
    26/12/2023Thursday109.11571
    27/12/2023Friday108.75150
    28/12/2023Saturday1094727
    29/12/2023Sunday108.44384

    As you can see from last weeks step totals I haven’t been doing even 1/2 of the 12000 steps last week other than last Monday which was my last day in the office before the xmas break.

    As I have started the challenge early I have started my 2025 training log early too so that I have all of my training for the 2025 challenge in the 2025 training plan. I have added a column for Morning walk now too so that I can easily see if I am doing the morning walks or not as that is my main goal this year to do it evey day so I need to make sure that I am.

    The dog is definately tired as I have just gone into the kithen to get water and she has stayed in bed! She is usually glued to my side so thats good that she has had a good work out this morning 🙂

    I have also decided that when I get home from my walk I will open all the doors and windows in the flat to do Lüften to try and combat all the humidity and mould in my flat and reduce the need to have the de humidifier on all the time. Swapping the damp stale air for drier fresh air is also supposed to reduce heating costs too so that will be good too!

    Doing Lüften when I get home makes sense as I am used to the cold from walking for 45 minutes or so so having the windows open will not be so much of a shock then! It will be interesting to see if doing this reduces asthma too as my bedroom window hasn’t been openined in well over a year so the air is pretty stagnet in there now 🙂 Doing Lüften after my walk means that most people will still be asleep so I don’t look like a complete nut case while doing it 🙂

    Basically my morning routine for now will be:

    Wake up

    Make salt water

    weigh-in

    Drink salt water

    Walk

    Lüften for 10 minutes while I do my morning triage for work (15 mintutes or so)

    Shower

    Get dressed

    Ride ebike into the office.

    I have just gone around the flat and opened all the windows and the back door and I am now sat with a hoodie on freezing as the flat airs out. Once the dog goes back to my parents I will also be able to open the front door as well to increase the amount of air flow which will hopefully sort out the mould issues around the front door too! It is amazing how much fresher the air is feeling in the flat after only 5 minutes so I think that this is a really worthwhile habit to add to my daily routine too! The temperature in the flat has dropped 2 degrees already so that should help too,

    I have updated my goals board in my bedroom to show the 5am walk, Lüften and 12000 steps goals on there.

    It looks like crap at the moment but I will print off some stickers later and clean the old sticky off with alcohol and it will look much better 🙂

    To be honest the make the bed can probably be removed from the board now as I have done it every day for the past year or more so its a habit now so I don’t need to be reminded to do it any more so I will move Weigh-in to the top of the board and then re-arrange the tasks in order so it will read:

    Weigh-in

    5am walk

    Lüften

    BMX

    Chin ups

    Walk 12000 steps

    Rollers

    Cleaning 1/2 hour

    Learning hour

    At 5 pm I fed the dog them we went for a walk around the block and that got me to just under 11000 steps. We then loaded the dog in the car and too her back to my parents house and got a roast thrown in too 🙂

    We got home about 8:30 and I cracked on and did my 10 minutes backwards walking which took me over the 12000 goal for the day so I chilled and watched TV after that.

    I finished the day on 12229 steps for the day but it took until 9 pm to get them done so I need to try and get the steps done earlier if possible going forwards.

  • Going to try the 30/30/30 diet

    So while I have been basically bed bound all weekend I have been researching weight loss and stumbled on the 30/30/30 diet which is basically eating 30g of Protein in the first 30 minutes of waking up followed by 30 minutes of light exercise (Heatrate below 135 bpm) and that is basically it!

    The idea behind the 30/30/30 diet is that the 30g of protein kick starts the metabolism then the 30 minutes of exercise boosts the metabolism and then that level is maintained hours after the exercise.

    I am going to try this during January and see how it goes and then maybe continue for the rest of the year if it works.

    30g of proten is basically 3 scrambled eggs topped with some cheese which is quick and easy to do and easy to eat so I will start that tomorrow morning before taking the dog for a walk as she is staying with us this weekend!

    I am also going to try and get back into doing chin ups so I will do my maximum number of chin ups a day every day next year too. That will not be hard at the moment as I can’t do any chin ups at the moment 🙂 I just want to see how many I can do after 1 year of trying. I have a chin up bar in my bedroom doorway so it will take no effort at all to get it done each day either!

    So after sleeping on it I have decided to hold off on the 30/30/30 until a couple months in to next year to see how the waking up at 5:00, drinking salt water and then going out and walking and then intermittent fasting until about 11:30-12:00 every day does before making things more complicated and eating before walking.

    I will break my fast every day with 3 scrambled eggs with cheese on so that I get into the habit of eating eggs again as when I was doing that I felt a whole lot better and ate a lot less than I usually do so I think its a good idea! Other than that I am not going to change my diet too much other than cutting out takeout and I have a lot of food to be used up like Heinz chicken soup so I will get that eaten with pasta and try and clear all the food in the house then I can restock with healthy foods instead 🙂

  • Hurt Knee

    Hurt Knee

    So yesterday I tweaked my knee getting into bed and it felt OK so I thought it would be fine but this morning it was really sore so I have decided to rest until I start the 12000 step challenge next week. I will do some backwards walking until then to try and build up the knee as quicly as possible.

    As I am not going to be walking for the next few days I have decided to add drinking salt water every morning when I wake up as it is supposed to be really good for you and it is recommended as part of a sucessful morning routine.

    Yesterday I bought a 1kg bag of Pure Pink Himilayan Salt which was delevered same day about 8 pm last night.

    This morning when I woke up I did my weigh-in then hobbled to the kitchen and added a pinch of the salt to a glass of water and drank that.

    I will start to do this every morning to build it as a habit for the next year to see how it goes! My proposed morning routine will go as follows:

    Get up

    Go to Kitchen and make salt water

    Go to bathroom and do weigh-in

    Get Dressed

    Drink Salt Water

    Go for morning walk/ ruck

    Get home and shower and get dressed

    Ride into office (go in during the week and ride home again on weekends)

    Work in office until 11:30

    Ride home

    Eat

    Get into bmx clothes

    Go to track and ride.

  • Plans for the rest of December 2024

    I was doing a 30 day 12000 steps a day challenge for december but I decided to take the 24th, 25th and 26th off so I have scrapped that challenge and I will regroup ready for the 2025 12000 step challenge to start on Jan 1st. For the next week I am going to start getting back into the habit of waking up and walking my uphill route every morning so that when I start doing it for real in 5 days time I am used to getting up and getting dressed and going out for a walk so that next wednesday I can add the weight vest to the mix and make it a bit harder again but it will not be a total shock to the system.

    I have enjoyed the rest the last few days but the aches and pains are starting to come back and my back is starting to feel stiff again so it is definately time to get back to walking tomorrow morning!

    I am off work until Jan 2nd so I am going to make the most of the time off and get my shed and garage cleared out so that I can de-clutter my flat and hopefully get a gym set up in the garage once I have sold my excess bikes to clear space for the gym equipment.

    I have a couple of 1 ton bags coming today and I will pull everything out of the shed and stick as much as I can into the bags ready to take to the tip Saturday Morning when I booked a slot.

    Once the shed is cleared out and all the rubbish has been sent take to be recycled I will then turn my attention to the garage and start doing the same as I have done in the shed so hopefully by the time I go back to work there will be enough space in the garage to get all of the bikes that are cluttering up my flat into the garage so that I can get my flat back to being a flat not a bike shop as it is at the moment!

    Once I have room in my flat again I will rip out my carpet in my bedroom and get some vinyl planking to sort the bedroom floor out then my flat should at least be livable again! I am also hoping that getting rid of the carprt in the bedroom will help sort my astha out a bit too as it will be easier to clean the floor.

    I am also going to start doing a de-clutter of the flat and get rid of as much stuff as humanly possible to start living a more minimalistic lifestryle again!

  • Welcome to Walk Everyday Online!

    Welcome to Walk Everyday Online!

    For 2025 I have set myself the goal of walking 12000 steps a day EVERY Day for the entire year. This blog is going to be used to tack my progress and record the daily struggle to make my goal for 2025 a reality!

    In 2024 I unsucessfully tried to consistantly walk everyday due to various issues including illness and injury but mainly I was not consistant because I wasn’t focused on my walking and got out of the habit of getting up first thing and walking!

    About me

    I am a 51 year old Male who is pretty active and used to participate in a lot of sport but iver the past 10 years has been less and less active due to working a lot in a basically sedentary job (IT) and the accumilation of injuries! Over the past few years I have had periods where I dropped a fair amount of weight and get much fitter from walking and doing 10000 step challenges etc and waking up at 5 am to walk before work but I have lacked the consistency to get any long lasting results from the walking.

    Because of the up and down nature of my fitness Journey over the past few years and the lack of real weight loss as a result of this I have decided that my only 2 goals for 2025 are:

    1. Wake up at 5 am and walk for 1 hour EVERY day
    2. Walk over 12000 steps a day every day!

    I am hoping that focussing on walking as soon as I wake up every day that it will make it much easier to make my goal of 12000 steps a day as I will have completed about 8000 steps before 6:30 am so it should be really simple to get the other 4000 steps in by the end of the day.

    As well as making it easier to get my steps in walking first thing has the added benfits of reducing my back pain, increasing my flexability, getting rid of aches and pains of being old and also wiping out the stress from the day before meaning that I am better prepared for the day ahead and my bag of fucks is nice and full making the day way less stressful!

    In the summer walking first thing also means that I get to see the sun rise and get some morning sunlight which is apparently super important for health and wellbeing too 🙂

    The main reason for setting these goals this year was to have an easily attainable short term goal of walking 12000 steps a day that will after a year of doing it mean that a really healthy habit has been built that I can build on in the years to come and also hopefully lose a lot of fat and get down to a healthy weight by the end of the year!

    I am going to try and Ruck (Walk carry weight) with a 10kg weight vest on my morning walks during the week as much as possible to increase the benfits from the walking and I also found that it really helps to work the core and improve posture which is really useful and sort of kills 2 birds with one stone!