Starting on Fitness

Though I should have started getting active earlier, my heart just wasn't in it.

I was losing fantastic weight, but I was still staring out my window at people going for walks, wondering how they found the will to do it.

Finally, on September 9, I thought about how wild it is to go walking in the dead of night.  The next morning, Sept. 10, I was out there at about 05:00.

Mississauga was very quiet.  I stood in the middle of a small intersection for several minutes before a vehicle came to run me down.  I went for a walk along an unlit path along a creek near my home for the first time.  It was incredible.  I did a 70 minute walk on the first outing, and saw parts of my neighbourhood that I never knew was there, despite living here for over 15 years.

Since September 10, I've done something "active" every single day.  Walks (typically over an hour), or cycling, or at the very least, 16 flights of stairs.  I live on the 18th floor, so minus starting from ground (first floor), and skipping the non-existent 13th floor, that's 16 floors.  I will often go down to P2 though, and do the full 18 floors or more.  The day I got laid off, I did 58 floors!  Seriously, for me, this was a huge freakin' deal.

I've also found myself staying at hotels on occasion.  On every stay since Sept 10, I've used the hotel's gym.  After all these years of 50+ nights a year in hotels, I've never used one's gym before, and only used one hotel's pool!  No more!

I had a Bowflex PR3000 home gym in my entranceway for years.  I finally built it on January 6, 2021, and I've used it roughly 29 days out of every 30.

I'm also jazzed to think about my next European trip, and factor in workouts on the trip.  Start and finish is easy, as Knopftours has (or had, anyway) workout equipment available.  I typically stay at Hilton-brand hotels, so hopefully they're all lavishly stocked in gym equipment.  The lesser hotels and motels; well, we'll have to figure that out.

Around January 8 I think, a cousin created an Apple Watch challenge with me, where we were to close all 3 of our "rings" every day for 2 weeks, earning points towards the challenge.

The three rings are Active Calories Burned, Active Minutes, and Standing.  We had our rings set to 600 Calories, 30 minutes, and 12 hours (meaning standing for at least 1 minute every hour, usually requires a bit of activity to be recognised.)  

The bulk of the active minutes were walking at the time.

I'm not apologetic when I boast that I beat him.  :)

The walking was great, but I seriously wanted to get back into cycling come Springtime, and that required I start riding immediately.  But I hate stationary cycling, so I knew I had to find a way to make it fun.

I bought an Elite Direto XR interactive smart trainer, and an Elite Sterzo Smart steering sensor block.  

I signed up for a Zwift premium virtual ride account.  I also used Rouvy for a bit, but I'm really coming to love Zwift for its planned workout routines.

I use Strava to share my exercise efforts, which pulls together telemetry from Zwift, my Apple Watch, Nike Run Club (for another group's challenge), etc.

More on this later.

Next:  The Journey So Far.