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  • Day 43 – Hurt knee but still did Morning Walk

    Weight = 107.9 kgs

    Steps Done = 12868

    So last night I went outside to put some recycling in the recycling bin and stepped out of the door and my left knee hyper extended and started to hurt πŸ™ I was still able to limp to my 12000 steps on the treadmill but it hurt and was slow!

    I still managed to get up this morning at 5 am and got up and did my weigh-in and I was shocked to see that I am back up to 107.9 kgs so I am 1.3 kgs heavier than I was this time last week. Even stranger I am feeling thinner as my trousers are falling down all the time at the moment! I guess that a week of not really walking first thing and doing the majority of steps on the treadmill has taken its toll on my weight loss πŸ™ Combined with that I got back to riding BMX last week and got in 3 gates sessions so some of the weight may well be increased muscle mass from the BMX too.

    Either way I need to make an effort to walk first thing EVERY day again going forwards to get my weight in check again!

    As my knee was sore this morning still I decided that a Ruck would be a really bad idea so I put on a knee brace and hobbled my usual route where I do 1 mile of climbing followed by 2 ish miles of flat and downhill walking home. Strangely the uphill wasn’t too bad and the downhill hurt 10x more for some reason!

    The knee hyper-extension is also a warning that I have not been doing my backwards walking again this week so I will start back on it today before I head to the track!

    I was definitely a fair bit slower this morning with the walk taking 52.27 minutes when I usually do the same distance in about 48 minutes so I wasn’t breaking any speed records that’s for sure!

    When I got home I turned the laptop on and then opened all the windows and did my LΓΌften while i did my morning work tasks. After 10 minutes I closed up the flat again and then carried on with my morning work tasks.

    After the walk this morning I am now on 6460 steps so over half way to my 12000 steps so it should be pretty easy to get there today for the first time in over a week πŸ™‚

    I am now planning to crack on with work until 12ish when I will get on the backwards treadmill for 10 minutes then get into my BMX kit and then head to the track to see if I can get some sprints done and then have a play after. I also want to get the Supercross from the container so that I can take it apart and clean off the frame and get it photographed and on the internet to sell too.

    I will also have a go at converting the rear wheel back to a 10 mm hub again and build up the StayStrong with all the parts from the Supercross then it is ready to use.

    I am still mulling over if I will run it with a 24×1.6 tyre or leave it with the 24×2.1 tyre that it currently has. I am thinking leaving it as 24×2.1 like it is at the moment as it rides really well like that.

    After an hour or so working my knee is hanging so I have decided not to ride today and instead I will go get the Supercross from the track and then come home and rebuild the StayStrong then rest the knee in bed with an ice pack on for the rest of the day. I will park the car in the cycle track car park and walk to the track to try and get my 12000 steps in early today then I can rest for the evening.

    So at lunch time I drove to the track as planned and the walk to the container and back didn’t burn up as many steps as I had hoped so by 6 pm when I had to do some work out of hours I still had 3500 steps to go so I walked at 3.5 mph until I got to 12000 steps which made my knee a bit sore then I did 10 minutes backwards walking which helped a bit!

    I finished the day on 12868 steps so not too bad for a bum knee!

  • Day 39 – Slept in again!

    Weight = 106.6 kgs

    Steps =

    So this morning I woke up at 5 and got up and did my weigh-in (106.6 kgs) so dropped 0.7 kgs from yesterday so that’s good. You can also see that my legs are way more defined this morning so that’s good too.

    After my weigh in I went back to bed for a quick nap and woke up at 6 am! As it was too late do go for a walk before work when I woke up I got showered and started work a bit early instead!

    I am going to the pump track to meet a friend at lunch time so I will make up the steps on the treadmill this afternoon and I will also go for a walk after work to get my steps in for the day!

    Other than feeling tired I am feeling good from last night so I will definitely do this every Wednesday when I can!

    So I went to the pump track and back and its 45 minutes there and back so it doesn’t leave much time for riding so that is out in my lunch hour but could well be a go for my afternoons off though as the pump track is really fun and it really builds skill! I didn’t get on with the Supercross on the pump track so I will deffo puck up the Curtis tomorrow and use that from now on!

  • Day 38 – Overslept

    Weight = 107.3 kgs

    Steps Done = 16074

    So this morning my alarm went off at 5:00 as normal but i went back to sleep until 5:30 so I decided to get my morning walk walking into the office so I got up and did my weigh-in and i was up to 107.3 kgs this morning which is a bit annoying but not surprising as I ate loads of crap yesterday again!

    I then showered and got dressed then did my LΓΌften while I did my morning work tasks and then closed the flat up, packed my bag and walked into the office.

    I did about and hour in the office then walked home along the river which was busy but it was nice walking in daylight for once!

    By the time I got home I was on just under 8000 steps (7788 steps) so I am well on the way to my 12000 steps which is good because I’m going to gates tonight so have to get the steps done at lunch time to make sure that I get them done!

    I got my 12000 steps in by 14:00 so I then made some roast beef to eat before going to gates.

    I went to gates as planned and had a really good night and set some baseline times on the Supercross with a 41 x 18 gearing and flat pedals and my fastest time of the night was a 2.557 which is not fast (Fastest in my age group is 2.435 on a Cruiser) but its not too far off! I didn’t really push it after the first jumps which seems to work as my knee felt good all night and I didn’t have my knee support on so I think I will leave it off from now on!

    I also got another 4000 steps in so I finished the day on 16074 for the day so pretty good.

    I didn’t get home until 22:00 and didn’t get to sleep until 23:00 so I was super tired!

  • Day 37 – Struggling today

    Weight = 106.8 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 13122

    So I woke up this morning at 5 am with my alarm and got out of bed and felt a bit sore and like I had been 10 rounds with Mile Tyson! So I decided that I would not Ruck this morning and just walk instead! I have decided to Ruck Monday, Wednesday and Friday for now and maybe add one Ruck at the weekend too then gradually add extra days from here.

    I then did my weigh-in and I was up again to 106.8 kgs so my weight is going up not down πŸ™ Although I have a feeling that the extra weight is muscle from the way my legs and stomach are aching this morning!

    I then showered and got dressed and forced myself out for a walk! The walk was a bit of a struggle but it got easier once I was near the top of the hill so I was glad that I had gone walking as it got rid of most of the aches and pains! I was also glad that I decided not to wear the weight vest too πŸ™‚

    When I got home I turned on the laptop and then opened up all the windows and doors to air out the flat and got on with my morning work tasks while the house was airing.

    After closing up the flat I did my 1/2 pull up which is now slightly more that half a pull up but not enough to call it 3/4 of a pull up yet so I am getting better but not a lot!

    While walking I decided that I really need to work on my diet as it is being a hindrance not a help at the moment as it is basically take out crap and I need to start eating a lot cleaner than I have been or i will get caught in that exercise – get ill hell that I was in last year and I will get nothing done! I have decided not to go fully back on to the Carnivore diet just yet but I will cut out processed foods for now so I can still eat chips but just home made ones from real potatoes! I still have 24 cans of soup left so I will crack through them in the next couple of weeks and then start eating fully clean and see how that goes!

    I have also decided that I really need to sort out my evening routine as it is way less productive than my morning routine and I need to start upping my steps a bit so an evening walk should get that done and also relax me for the rest of the evening! I also need to start using the rollers after my walk too so will clean the OS20 this lunch time and then put the long seat-post on it so it’s ready to use on the rollers when I get back from my parents this afternoon.

    I have decided that my afternoon routine will be:

    4-5 pm – Finish work and make food and eat

    5-6 pm – Walk

    6-7 pm – Rollers

    7-7:30 – Cleaning 1/2 hour

    7:30-9 pm – Chill

    9-10 pm – Shower and then go to sleep

    I will not add a learning hour into my routine until the walking and rollers are habits and are not stressful any more then I will add learning from 7:30-8:30 pm then I can still watch 30 minutes of tv before getting ready for bed.

    Lunch times are going to be a mixture of things as I need to Rest on Mondays, go to my parents house on Tuesdays and get my walk in at lunch time on Wednesdays so that I can get my steps in at lunch as I am going to start doing gates at Andover again Wednesday nights so will not have time to get my steps done on Wednesdays. I am thinking that I will maybe go to my parents on Wednesday lunch time and work from their house Wednesday afternoons to make it easier to get to my friends house to get a lift to Andover and back. I can then walk the dog at lunch time which will be better than walking on my own too πŸ™‚

    Thursday and Friday I will ride up to the track and back to get used to riding there so when I start riding the BMX properly again I will be ready to ride to the track as a warmup.

    After getting back from my Parents I still had 800 steps to go so I decided to get my steps in by getting my Son’s Supercross fixed as I brought it back from my parents house and I am going to ride it tomorrow at Andover.

    I first took the cranks off of the StayStrong that I got back from the container and then fitted them to the Supercross when I checked the bottom bracket on the Supercross has seized so I swapped over the bottom bracket as well so its now smooth as butter πŸ™‚ I then removed the back wheel as it had a puncture and I swapped the tube out for a new Tubolito and I also swapped the 16T cog for an 18T as it will be running 41 x 18 now not 38×16. I also removed the chain and fitted a new KMC K1 narrow chain to the bike! I will get a new half link chain at some point so I can slam the rear wheel more as its quite far back on the dropouts at the moment! It will do for now though!

    I then put the bike back together and got it dialled in and fitted the transponder ready for gates. I then fitted the brake and cable on the Cult frame that I swapped for the dialled so that my friend can do gates on it tomorrow too.

    I then fed the Axolotls and then went to bed.

    By the time i finishes I was on 13122 steps so well over the 12000 target πŸ™‚

  • Day 35 – Up and walking early today.

    Weight = 106.1 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12198

    I woke up without an alarm at 6:45 and got up and did my weigh-in an I am up a little bit today to 106.1 kgs son nothing to worry about just yet but it shows that I need to keep doing all of my 12000 steps outside to keep the weight dropping!

    After the weigh-in I messed about on my phone until 7:45 when I showered, got dresses and then went for a walk on the 2 tunnels on my usual summer loop! By the time that I got home I was on 4755 steps so a lot of walking left to do today still!

    I am now chilling waiting to hear from my friend to see when he is heading to Bristol so I can go meet up and have a ride for the first time in ages!

    I got to Patchway at about 12:30 and had a really good time there although I am still not feeling the OS20 so it was not as much fun as it would have been otherwise. After about an hour or so we went to Little Stoke pump track and again I had fund but it would have been better on the Curtis πŸ™‚

    I have decided that for now I will use the OS20 for my roller bike but I may break it down and sell it later in the year.

    When I got home I ate and then chilled until about 19:30 when I went on the treadmill and got my steps in then I got the flat clean and then went to bed.

    By the end of the day I was on 12198 steps only!

  • Day 36 – Back to Rucking

    Weight = 106.6 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12298

    So this morning I woke up at 5 am with my alarm and got up did my weigh-in and I am up to 106.6 kgs which will in part be due to the extra BMX muscles and partly becuse I had McDonalds for breakfast and tea so I was McDonalds fueled all day πŸ™

    I felt really good after BMX yesterday apart from my shoulder being a little sort where I pulled it a bit at the pump track! Luckily I stopped riding after that so it didn’t get any worse so I guess I am learning πŸ™‚

    After my weigh-in I got showered and dressed and put the weight vest and went for my morning Ruck which felt a bit more like a workout than just walking although it was much easier than it was the last time I did it so I guess the consistent walking has improved my fitness a fair bit πŸ™‚

    I also put my step counter on before the Ruck and when I got back i was on 6445 steps for just the walk and my Fitbit is reading only 6409 steps all morning and I was on 300+ steps before the ruck! I guess that this shows that the way that the Fitbit measures steps via arm swing it a bit less accurate than the old school attached to belt method! I am going to continue sing both this week and then I will get rid of the Fitbit soon!

    When I got home i took off my coat and the Weight vest and changed out of my sweaty clothes and then opened up all of the doors and windows for 10 minutes while i wrote this post. I have just closed up the flat again and I am starting work.

    At about 7 am I finished what I was doing and got packed up and then headed into the office on the ebike. I then worked in the office until about 11:30 ish and ebiked home again.

    I then ate and watched TV all lunch time before working for the rest of the night.

    I managed to get my 12000 steps in around the house doing my 30 minutes of cleaning and putting the washing away so at least I didn’t have to use the treadmill today!

  • January Summary

    Start Weight = 108.4 kgs

    End Weight = 105.9 kgs

    Weight lost = 2.5. kgs

    Total steps = 438931

    Average steps per day = 14159

    So that is January done and dusted and the month went pretty well considering. I lost 2.5 kgs, walked 438931 step and averages 14159 steps a day for the month so I averaged 2159 steps a day more than my 12000 step goal.

    More importantly I am getting into the habit of walking first thing which makes getting my 12000 steps in much easier and i am feeling much much healthier than I did at the start of the challenge too.

    I have noticed in the last couple of week that I am way less out of breath when walking now and I don’t really notice that I am walking most of the time any more!

    I have not been able to ruck nearly as much as I had planned this month so my goal for next month is to try and ruck Monday to Friday before work to up the difficulty of my morning walk going forwards!

    I was thinking of upping my daily step goal but I think that keeping it the same and rucking more will be more beneficial and mean that I don’t have to spend any more time walking than I am at the moment.

    I am also adding riding the mtb to the track to my lunchtime training so I don’t want to increase my training intensity too much in one go and over train and make myself ill. I will listen to my body and only ride the bike to the track when I feel that I can and build up slowly.

    Adding riding to the track also means that I will build up fitness and make it easier for me to ride to the track and then ride the BMX in the next couple of months when I feel like I am ready to ride the BMX again. It should also build way more fat than just adding another 3000 steps a day to my step count. It is also something different so it should hopefully be less boring than walking more too!

    Another thing that makes it way easier to get the steps in is to work in the office in the mornings so I am going to do that as much as possible. I am trying to find some kind of meal to take to work so that I can eat at 11 am so that I can have enough energy to not bonk on the way to the track at 12ish. My house is sort of on the way to the track so I will be able to stop and get changed before riding to the track.

    I am still deciding if its a better idea to ride the mtb to the office or stick with the ebike and swap bikes when I get home. For the moment I will stick to the ebike but as I get fitter I may switch to the mtb to ride to work as well to burn more calories and get fitter still.

    As it stands I don’t really notice riding the ebike any more even though I am spinning all the way to or from work so maybe it is time to start using the mtb instead. I need to figure out how to straighten the rear disk or buy a new one to replace it (Probably the best option but still!

    I got a front derailleur for my road bike so I need to get that fitted and then I can ride that again too now that my shoulder is getting better all the time!

    I can’t wait to see how much lighter and better I feel at the end of February!

  • Day 34 – Weight is finally dropping!

    Weight = 105.9 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12212

    I woke up at about 7 am this morning and got up and did my weigh in and I was amazed that I had dropped 1.3 kgs this morning to 105.9 kgs which I guess highlights that getting my steps in outside is way better for weight loss than walking on the treadmill which i did a lot of this week due to my stomach bug! It also shows that going into the office in the mornings is better for me so I am going to start making an effort to get into the office in the mornings! I also went for a walk after eating in the evening so I burned off some of the food so I slept better too.

    As it was almost time for it to get light I decided to chill and wait for the sun to come up this morning! While I was chilling I bought myself a digital step counter as I want to get rid of the fitbit if I can going forwards as I am not sure that it is really good for my health using it all the time. The step counter will also mean that my treadmill steps will automatically get counted so no need to stick my Fitbit in my sock any more!

    I will use both together initially until I get used to using the step counter then ditch the Fitbit and just use it at night to map my sleep and use it as a silent alarm as well! I need to find a different way to wake myself up so I can ditch the Fitbit all together going forwards. I have just found THIS for Β£11 which should do the job!

    After I got back from my walk I made some stickers and walked to the post box and posted them and when I got back I was at 6666 steps and I chilled and did some washing as I have run out of clean compression shorts so had to wear some compression tights as pants today!

    I am getting the washing done then we will head over to my parents to see them and give my son some driving time as well. While there we will probably walk the dog for them so hopefully I can get to 12000 steps on that walk so I can chill for the rest of the day πŸ™‚

    So the new seat and post for my Son’s bike arrived jsut now so I will stick the seat on his bike today when I visit it and get the old seat and post off of it to go on the DK so that I can get it up for sale!

    I am thinking that I may sell my Standard OS20 as well as I have too many bikes and can’t ride them all. I am not realistically going to race 20″ anyway so I may as well just keep the Curtis and my Son’s Supercross and get rid of the rest of the bikes!

    My Friend has been looking for a steel OS20 bike for a while so I may sell it to him. I am meeting him tomorrow so I will see if he is interested.

  • Day 32 – Stomach too bad to walk

    Day 32 – Stomach too bad to walk

    Weight = 107.1 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 12584

    This morning I woke up about 10 minutes before my alarm and had to run to the bathroom or I would have messed myself! I took this as a sign that I should wait until later in the day to walk and most likely I will have to walk on the treadmill!

    I then did my weigh-in and I am down to 107.1 kgs so I dropped 0.1 kgs yesterday!

    I then went back to bed on my phone until 6:30 when I started work. I plan to start on the treadmill a bit later and also I need to go backwards and forwards to the garage today to get all these bikes out of my flat as its starting to get claustrophobic again!

    This morning while I waited for things to deploy and install I quickly pulled the BlackMarket and the Vitus MTB out of the garage and put the DK and GT back in the garage to sort out tomorrow afternoon ready to sell. I am taking the Black Market to the track to leave in the container and I have the new tyres and tubes to go on the Vitus to make it more Gravel bikie to ride around town. Here it is with the Thick Slick 29 x 2.10 tyres on that are really good for the roads but still a bit heavy so I am replacing them with Michelin wild runr 29 x 1.40 tyres and 700 x 35c tubes to try and make the bike lighter!

    I noticed that the bike could also do with a wash as its covered in cow and horse crap from riding it on the 2 tunnels and canal!

    The way my stomach is at the moment I may have to wait to ride it until the weekend

    The front tyre is now on and its a lot smaller than the thickslick which I expected and I am loving the sleeker look:

    I am now doing the back tyre as well.

    I like the way the bike looks but I noticed when I was fitting the back tyre that the rear disk is really out of shape which explains why its been feeling hard to ride recently πŸ™‚ I am getting my friend to take a look tomorrow to see if the disk can be fixed or if I need a new disk!

    At lunch time I went to the track and dropped off the Yess forks that I am selling and my Black Market 24″ jump bike and my helmet and gloves into the container. I walked them up to get some steps in as I was only on 2000 steps which was not a lot at all!

    In the afternoon I went on the treadmill and got to 7000 steps then chilled out for a bit as I am feeling really crappy still!

    I got my steps done by 19:30 and then decided not to do my backwards treadmill today as my legs were super sore so I chilled until 20:00 then did the washing up and hoovering and then fed the axolotls and then watched some you tube until 21:00 when I went to sleep.

    I have to say that my sleep has been much better since I got the new pillow and my neck and shoulder pain that I had before has totally gone so that was Β£70 well spent!

  • Day 31 – Feeling rough but back at it

    Weight = 107.2 Kgs

    Steps Completed = 13283

    So this morning I woke up before my alarm at 4:45 and felt really good and really well rested thanks to my new pillow πŸ™‚ I got up and did my weigh-in and I am still 107.2 kgs but I guess I didn’t gain wait so it could have been worse and seeing the majority of my 13968 steps yesterday were on the treadmill at 3.5 mph it should have been.

    I did start drinking more water again yesterday so I may well have lost weight but gained water weight maybe!

    After my weigh-in I got dressed and went for a walk as planned which was a struggle as I am still feeling weak and I almost pooped my pants on the way home too but I got my walk in and will work from home today to make sure that I don’t poop myself or get anyone else sick!

    By the time that I got home from the walk I was on 6122 steps so halfway to my 12000 step goal for the day!

    I am currently doing my LΓΌften as I haven’t done it for 4 days as it has been really pissing it down so I didn’t want to flood the flat! I have just closed all the doors and windows again and the flat feels way more airy and fresh than it did when I got home from my walk when it was smelling a bit mouldy to be honest! I wonder if my stomach issue was to do with eating crap or black mould allergies? Either way the less mould spores the flat has floating about the better!

    While I was walking I was thinking about this blog and I have decided that I will at a couple of headers where I add my weight and then number of steps completed at the top of the post to make it easier to find the data later on if needed. I have started with this post but I will go back and add them to all the posts so far at some point to make them all uniform!

    I have just gone back and added the weight and steps headings to the top of all the posts to make it easier to look back going forwards although I am pretty sure that I will look at my 2025 Training log not the posts to see weight and step trends but still its worth doing to make every post the same!

    I will pop up to the track at lunch time and drop off the forks for my friend and also leave my kit bag in the container so that its all there with my bike if needed when I start riding to the track next week!

    I am planning to start walking after work this evening too to try and build my evening habits a bit and also increase my steps and kick start some weight loss again as my weight loss has stalled a lot this past week or so which is not ideal!

    While I was updating my training logs I noticed worked out that I have walked 425773 steps so far this year or in the last 30 days for an average of 14192 steps a day which is pretty good πŸ™‚ So even if my weight hasn’t dropped as much as I liked I have been smashing my walking goals which is more important to me for now anyway πŸ™‚

    As I am feeling a bit better today I will try and start making 15000 steps a day during the week to try and kick start my weight loss again! I will also start eating better as I know that you can not out work a bad diet so in order to get back on track I need to stop eating all the takeout food ASAP!

    At 9 am I remembered that I had the server room keys so I had to ride into the office and back on the ebike to drop the keys off and get back before I needed the toilet again! I just about made it no thanks to the battery running out of charge on the way home πŸ™

    I am now feeling really shitty again so I may go back to bed for a bit at lunch time!

    The tyres have now arrived so later today I can fit them to the mtb then it will be a gravel bike basically πŸ™‚

    So as the day has gone on my stomach has got worse so I had to do my evening walk on the treadmill as I was only on 8500 steps when I finished work so I am going to stop at 12000 steps as my stomach is hurting a lot still!

    Once I got to 12000 steps on the treadmill I then struggled through 10 minutes on the backwards treadmill as I was feeling really bad by then!

    I then did my 30 minutes cleaning and then had a shower and then chilled in bed for a bit until it was time to go to sleep.