On February 25th of this year, I stopped smoking (again). It’s definitely not be an easy road. Now that school is out for the summer, I’ve started walking again. I figured the smoking cessation would be easier if I replaced that bad habit, one that was harmful to my health, with a good one. I’m pleased and proud of my first week’s results.
Now that summer break has officially started, I know that there are quite a few things I need to be doing. Housework, getting my finances organized, and establishing a summer routine, are just a few of the things on my list. I’ve noted over the past several months that I’ve seemed to be gaining weight and knew that I needed to get more physical activity to keep my weight at a reasonable level.
I weighed in a little over a week ago at 226 pounds. I figured I probably had gained more weight than that, but it’s still not what I’d like to be at. That weight is going to serve as a baseline for my renewed summer habit of walking each day. Two summers ago, I had gotten into an excellent regimen of walking at least two times per day. I figured it would be too difficult to pick back up where I left off.
I’m pleased and proud to say the first week is over and done and I was able to log 18.94 miles of walking. I walked at least once each day and several days I walked twice. The weather was quite cool most all of those days and that made it much easier. I’m blessed to have several places in my area that are great for walking and that’s a big plus.
I know as the summer begins in just a couple of weeks that the temperature is going to get much warmer and it may be a stretch to keep up my currently weekly level. But I’ve at least gotten off to a good start. I’m going to set as a goal for this next week to walk twenty miles. Yesterday, the first day of the week, I logged 4.6 miles, so I’m off to a good start.
I’ve also found that once I got through the first several days, I’m feeling more motivated to walk each day. I pushed myself on several occasions to go a bit farther than I had originally planned. Even though I have some soreness associated with the first week of walking, it’s not so bad that’s it’s kept me from continuing. The added benefit of not smoking has also been a big plus. Two years ago when I did this, I was smoking and I’m thinking the fact I’ve been able to put those down will give me better results.
I’ll try to keep everyone up-to-date with my progress and I’m feeling good about this new habit.
David Lee
David Lee 