The Art of Zen Living

*Note: this is a re-post of an article originally posted on my old blog on March 23th, 2008

So far this year I’ve walked 116 175 miles.  I’ve set myself a goal to continue to track my walking (or running, if I try that out) until I reach 1000.  And it all started with a single step out the front door to “go for a walk”.

I’m not tracking all my walking - just the “for exercise” walking.  At my current rate, it will take me about a year and 2 months, barring days missed for various reasons (I missed a week earlier this year due to being too sick to get out of bed, then I had to work back up to my 2 miles a day, for example) - I’ll keep you posted!

So why this goal, this commitment?  Other than the fact that I enjoy my walks?  My experience is that consistency is the single most important factor in losing weight or gaining muscle.  The weights and reps may change, but the number of times a week and amount of time you spend needs to stay the same or possibly grow slightly.

One of my “hot button” issues (sorry, all the political nonsense is rubbing off - I felt a need to “spin” some “buzz words” ;) has always been weight, weight loss, and more to the point, the way denial sets in because we think it’s “kind” and “polite”.

I wish, when I was 300 pounds, (and I used all the usual excuses about being big boned and not being able to lose weight, etc. etc.) that SOMEONE had had the courage to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I was what was called “fat”.  I really couldn’t see it.  2 events conspired to help me see it - the first was seeing myself in a picture I didn’t expect me to be in.  I was flipping through the pictures, and thought to myself “Hey, who’s that big fat guy coming in the door?”.  Since it was a digital pic, I zoomed it in, and it was ME.  Ouch.  I decided right then and there something needed to be done, but I lacked any urgency about it.  I was getting ready to leave for vacation and go see my mom, so there wasn’t a hurry.  I get to mom’s, and she had a scale!  Thought I’d hop on and see how bad things were.  The scale told me I was pushing 300 pounds!  Obviously broken.  So I asked mom if she knew how accurate her scale was.  As it turned out, she’d been to the doctor earlier that week, and when she got home, she checked her scale against the weight she’d been at the doctor’s - it was within half a pound.  Double ouch.  About 17 months later, I was at 170 pounds.

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