17 December 2017

Doing new (old) things....

As I look back on all previous times I've lost a significant amount of weight, there is generally one common thread. Walking. Back around 1995, I lost a lot of weight training for the marathon and, you guessed it, I walked it. Around 2001 I lost a significant amount of weight again. You guessed it, I was leading hiking tours so I was walking a lot. This was the time I was in probably the best shape of my life. This is also when I started running and doing triathlons. I was in amazing shape and so freaking active. One of the things I loved doing then was hiking. I would park at the Pali lookout and hike through there. I would also go to Waimanalo and hike there a few days a week. It was awesome. I loved it. Then I started Crossfit and everything changed. I can't completely blame Crossfit for everything that happened to me, part of it is genetics and part is just basic biology. But when doing Crossfit I was constantly aching. Constantly tired. Constantly injured in one way or another. Also, I gained weight. Not just weight, but fat. I saw it happening and thought it was because I wasn't being faithful to paleo. When I reached a point that no matter what I ate or how hard I worked out I still kept gaining weight, I gave up. For a while, I tried to watch my macros with the help of a coach, but that didn't work either. It was difficult a freaking nightmare and I hated every second of it. Plus I felt like I had to eat so much food. I hated it a lot. Anyway, as you can imagine I was off 'dieting' and sick of the thought of having to live like that for the rest of my life. Then in September, I started AltShift. I've written about AltShift before so I'm going into it now, but I do want to talk about things that are happening because of it.

Walking is an important, basic component of AltShift. You are supposed to walk as much as you possibly can every single day. The goal is 10,000 steps a day. That is not a hard and fast rule, but a goal to work towards. The idea is to walk as much as humanly possible in a day. I started walking to and from work and that is awesome for work days. The weekends were killing me. Absolutely killing me. Then I realized HIKING!! I live 10 minutes from a great mountain that has some awesome hiking trails. So I started hiking. Okay, I did it yesterday and today, but I have every intention of keeping it up. Over Christmas, I plan on hiking some different places. I love it. Yesterday I took Lola with me:


Today I went again, but I didn't take Lola. I knew that it would need to be quick due to other engagements and I wanted to stop at Big 5 and get a hydration pack. They were on sale. I plan on going every day next weekend and on into the future. I love hiking and seeing things and exploring new areas.

So, yeah, that's where I'm at now.


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