Walking the Walk

I've been walking fairly regularly lately, missing the odd day here and there but no often. The circuit I walk is a distance of 2.3 kilometers and today I timed myself, roughly, at 26 minutes. This gives a walking rate of 5.3 kilometers per hour which is regarded as a brisk pace.

I completed this walk early in the morning, about 7am, but felt fatigued for the rest of the day. I just had to lay down on several occasions. Perhaps I'm walking a bit too fast. I can ease off the pace a bit and still achieve an acceptable speed of 5 kilometers an hour. I need to experiment a little.

I weighed myself this evening and came in at a hefty 76.1 kilograms which is the heaviest I've weighed since my teaching days. It wasn't all that long ago that I weighed in regularly at about 66 kilograms. This translates to a BMI of 23.99. I don't feel overweight but I am nudging the edge of the healthy BMI range:

A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered a healthy weight range for adults, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, a BMI of 23.99 falls within the healthy weight range.

My recent regular intake of freshly prepared fruit juices fortified with oak milk may have contributed to my weight gain. I should perhaps just add water to the juices. I really would like to get back down to about 72 kilograms and this should be achievable if I start weighing myself regularly again.

I'm regularly completing my hand strength exercises and leg exercises and have added some balance and flexibility exercises as well. My suspected thymoma has been playing up a little lately but this is normal whenever I exhaust myself like I've been doing. 

I need to add more exercises to my daily routine without overburdening myself. Posting regularly to this blog is a way to reflect on my progress. As I've said before, this should be the blog to which I post most regularly but such alas is not the case. So let's include the above data points:

Date: Friday, May 12th 2023

Weight: 76.1 kg at 9pm

Walking speed: 2.3 km in 26 minutes --> 5.3 km/hr.

Resting pulse rate: 66 beats per minute

Weighty Problems

First post of the year 2022 to my most neglected blog. Let's compare the number of posts for 2021 against the tallies for my other blogs:

• Mathematical Meanderings: 101 posts
• Alternative Media: 38 posts
• Pedagogical Posturing: 27 posts
• Astrology: 13 posts
• Astrowatch: 10 posts
• Staying Healthy: 7 posts

This meagre tally for Staying Healthy is odd since I spend a lot of time thinking about "staying healthy". I was shocked a few days ago when I climbed on the electronic scales and found my weight to be a hefty 73.3 kg. This morning however, I weighed myself and came in at 72.4 kg. It might be best to weigh myself at the same time each day: just after arising and before consuming breakfast. I don't want to regain the weight that I was before retiring, which was in excess of 77 kg and sometimes nearing 80 kg. I'm happy to be a little about 70 kg.

For this morning's weigh in, the result from this source indicates:

Height: 178 cm

Weight: 72.4 kg

BMI: 22.9 

This indicates your weight is in the normal category for adults of your height. For your height, a normal weight range would be from 58.6 kg ≡ BMI of 18.5 to 78.9 kilograms ≡ BMI of 24.9.

In the bad old (working) days, I was thus nudging this upper limit of 24.9 but soon after retiring my weight plummeted to a little above 63 kg at its lowest. Even this was far too thin and at 58.6 kg, with a BMI of 18.5, I would have looked skeletal. A weight of around 72 kg is ideal for me.

My resting pulse rate is a little above 60, usually 61-62, which seems fine. I haven't had my blood pressure measured for a while but that's never been a cause for concern. Figure 1 shows where I stand in the heart beats per minute game:

Figure 1: source

Exercise-wise I go for a brisk 20 minute walk with my granddaughter most mornings. I complete a sequence of 4 x 40 repetitions of leg exercises with my "elastic" band (which is actually just a piece of pantyhose that continues to stand the test of time). My reasoning is that it's important to keep the base strong in order to support the rest of the "structure".

Most days I also do around 300 partial sit-ups in which I lie on my back and attempt to sit up but don't actually go through with the manoeuvre, instead I just tense (and thus strengthen) my abdominal muscles. I sometimes do a set of 10 full squats but I've been neglecting this of late. I certainly do a lot of neck stretching and rotations in an attempt to maintain flexibility against the encroachments of ossification.

My thymoma, now of three years duration, doesn't cause me too much bother. I'm back to drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and sometimes another cup if I go out during the day. I don't drink tea at all now. I'm careful not to put too much stress on my upper body for fear of exacerbating the discomfort in my sternum. My granddaughter has been doing some psychic healing of the area and this has proven very effective.

Hopefully I will post more frequently to this blog during the coming year.