Fatman To Fitman: Update 3

I can’t believe that this is post number 100 of my blog! Not sure where the time went but thanks to all of you who have followed along and I promise to keep going!

Today’s update is going to be a little different from update 1 and 2. In those first two updates I focused a lot on scales and weight and body fat. Today I am going to take the advice of Melissa Masters. Melissa is the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist that helped me out with my Fad Diets and Exercise blog.

One thing that Melissa said really stuck with me. She said,

 I always encourage people to think less about their outward appearance and more about their inner health. Focus on improving your health, quality of life, and longevity. If you only focus on the outward physical aspects of changing eating and exercise habits, you will make poor choices and fall off the wagon really quickly.

What an interesting and amazing concept. It is easy to get hung up at the image that looks back at you in the mirror each morning. (apologies to vampires who cast no reflection) I am sure that in a survey most professional supermodels would rate my outward appearance as perfect of near perfect. (survey results unavailable at this time) So why was I hung up on trying to change it?

The last few weeks I have really tried to focus on what was happening on the inside. Last year while I was on medical leave I compiled a list of all of the streaming entertainment that I watched. I watched 65 movies or series in about 6 months. 65. That is a lot of couch time.

This year in roughly the same 6 month time frame (March through August) I have hiked 342 miles. I have walked up 58,116 feet of elevation gain (Mount Everest twice!). I have burned 76,000 calories and been moving for 146 hours and 57 minutes. This over the course of 52 hikes that I recorded on Alltrails.

Two hikes I would especially like to point out are the Ben Tyler Trail and the Cheyenne Mountain Trail. As you can see below, these hikes were very similar except for the date.

Hikes			Ben Tyler Trail	Cheyenne Mountain
Date			June 17th	August 18th
MIles			13.6 Miles	15.77 Miles
Elevation			3,419 Feet	3235 Feet
Steps			38, 732	41, 993
Time			7 Hours 11 Minutes	7 Hours 23 minutes

These are the two longest hikes that I have done and they were both extremely difficult both mentally an physically and I was proud to finish them both. Now going back to Melissa’s point about improving on the inside.

After I did the Ben Tyler Trail in June, I could barely move for three days. My legs were sore in muscles I didn’t even know I had. I was in so sore I had tried Epsom Salts for the first time in my life looking for some relief.

After I did Cheyenne Mountain my legs felt great (except for 2 large blisters on my feet). There was no DOMS. There was no being laid up for 3 days not being able to get off the couch. The recovery time was down to hours instead of days. The tears were just normal and not from pain.

That is a huge difference, I have been lucky enough to be hiking pretty consistently and while there are aches and pains, there is not the prolonged downtime that can discourage people from continuing a program.

The Important Inside Stuff

A year ago when I was watching every tv show known to man while recovering from surgery I could definitely feel the difference in my body. I was somehow tired from sitting on the couch. If I did get up and move around it was nap time soon after. I guess for irony I continued to wear my Fitbit most of the time and my Fitbit measure’s my resting heart rate. While I know this is not the same as a medical test I feel that data can still have value so I’ll share it now. Here is my resting heart rate from the first week or September in 2019.

Not great but within the American Heart Association’s recommendations. Now here is a look at what my resting heart is this week after 6 months of hiking around 3 days a week without much else as far as diet.

Olympic athlete I am not but I will take about a 10 beat per minute improvement for just getting out in nature and walking.

This is an improvement I can’t see in the mirror. The supermodel’s still aren’t sliding into my DM’s on the Instagram. (I’m not sure what that means) My lower heart rate has nothing to do with the way my pants fit, although I have noticed my dryer doesn’t shrink as many clothes these days. I guess I’m trying to say that overall I feel good on the inside even if it doesn’t show just yet on the outside.

So this is what an update looks like without a scale. I kinda like it. If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me at fatmanlittletrails@gmail.com or you can follow me on one of the below social media platforms.