Tag: <span>Walking</span>

I don’t know if it’s a side-effect from losing nearly 40 kg in weight, or whether it’s from feeling trapped at home during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, but I’ve recently been seeking out every opportunity to get outside and exercise.

Even at my most heaviest, I did a bit of exercise – even if it was to walk the dogs in the park for 30 minutes. But the concept of actively seeking chances to get outside for exercise is a new experience.

Just the other day I went for a 90 minute cycle (all within my 5km limit, of course), then I took the dogs out for a walk for an another hour, and later that day walked to the shops to pick up a few messages. It was nearly 4 hours of exercise in just one day.

In the past I would have gladly spent my entire weekend glued to the sofa, barely registering 1,000 steps on my pedometer – and most of those would have been from trips to raid the fridge or visit the bathroom.

But now, most weekends, I’m itching to get out the house and do something.

Fitbit tracking

I like to track my steps using a Fitbit, but also track the amount of time I’m doing moderate-to-high intensity activity. Fitbit records this type of activity as Active Zone Minutes, and the World Health Organisation goal for people is to get 150 minutes a week.

When I’m out walking I find it hard to get my heart rate up enough to count towards my active zone minutes. I literally can’t walk fast enough to really get my heart pumping – unless I pick a route with lots of hill climbs.

To get zone minutes I need to get on my bike or do something else equally strenuous.

Every week I’m trying to meet – and often exceed – the goal of getting 150 active zone minutes. Some weeks I do really well. For example, last week was over 350 minutes. Although a couple of weeks ago when I injured my knee, I didn’t do quite so well.

However, with the improving weather now that spring has arrived, I’m hoping to be out and about a lot more, and racking up those exercise minutes!

My Story Surgery

Since the clocks changed last weekend, I’m really starting to feel the shorter days. It used to be that it was light for an hour or more after I finished work, but this week the sun has already begun to set before I finish.

It’s tempting to be less active when it’s dark and cold, but I feel that I need to fight the temptation to skip my daily walk.

The best option would be to switch my daily walk from after work to lunchtime. That way I get to see daylight, and I can go to the park. However it’s sometimes not easy to find the time during the day to take a decent break – particularly when I have back-to-back meetings – so that might not work every day.

If I can only get out in the evenings, I need to commit to myself to do it every day. After all I have two dogs are are always keen for a walk, so I have no excuses. And even though it’s not safe to go to the park after dark, there are plenty of well-lit walking routes in surrounding streets.

I know it will be good for me to keep active over the winter months. Not just for my weight loss, but also for my mental health. I find walking a very mindful activity. I often spend the time mulling over work or personal problems.

My Story Surgery

Saturday was a glorious day in Dublin. The sun was shining, the skies were blue, and with the delicate encouragement of my good lady wife, I felt compelled to get outside and embrace nature.

In other words, it was a nice day and my wife persuaded me to go for a walk in the hills.

In fact, we jumped in the car with the dog and drove south to County Wicklow, and to a place call Crone Woods that is next to Powerscourt Waterfall (the tallest waterfall in Ireland don’t you know?) in Enniskerry.

The trail takes you through the woods and up the Maulin Mountain. It’s about 8km long, and pretty strenuous. It certainly got my heart pumping! But as it was such a lovely day – and as there were so many places to stop and admire the view – it didn’t seem so bad. I took my camera along, so I had plenty of excuses to stop and catch my breath as a composed shots.

Even so, by the end of the walk, we both felt like we’d had a good workout. And with this feeling of virtuousness came the temptation of rewarding ourselves for all the effort. After all, we’d probably burned about 1,000 calories each, so why couldn’t we have a small treat?

So that evening, when we at a friends’ house for dinner, I indulged probably a little more than I should have – both with food and alcohol. Yes, and I know I only just recently talked about the perils of the demon drink, but I’ve never been one to follow my own advice!

I did successfully side-step the plate of garlic bread that was being passed around, but my resolve broke when the cheese board appeared. I’ve always loved a bit of smelly blue cheese, and I could hear it calling to me. So I had some, and I enjoyed it. And I told myself that I had earned it, because I had done all that strenuous walking earlier in the day.

But here’s the thing… the activity and the reward weren’t necessarily equal. In fact the reward I gave myself definitely outweighed the activity in terms of calories eaten and burnt.

I guess that’s why Slimming World doesn’t give extra syns in reward for body magic – because the temptation would always be to over-estimate the benefit of the activity and grant yourself too many syns!

My Story Slimming World Walking

The heavens opened today, after quite a long (mostly) dry spell here in Dublin, and it hasn’t stopped raining all day!

The dog still needed walking however, so I reluctantly donned my waterproofs and found an umbrella, and manfully set out into the cold and wet. We managed a complete circuit of the local park, which meant that I reached my daily target of 60 minutes of walking on my Fitbit.

These Fitbit fitness trackers are really good for people like me who relish in statistics! I can count the number of steps, the kilometres walked, the calories burnt, the number of stairs I’ve climbed, and check my heart rate throughout the day!

I love the fact that I can see my fitness activity over time, and see the distances I cover.

Here’s the stats for the last 9 months:

[table id=2 /]

I like the fact that over the course of less than a year I’ve gone from walking on average 4.5km a day to 9km – doubling my distance. That’s got to be good for my health, and would probably earn me a few Body Magic stickers if I could be bothered to claim them!

Slimming World Walking

My poor old feet are feeling a bit tender this evening, as I’ve done a lot of walking today.

At the end of last week I had managed to somehow break the saddle on my bicycle. The official line is that it was defective, but I know it just couldn’t handle my weight! Either way, some metal bits snapped and rendered the saddle completely useless. And so over the weekend it went to the local bike shop for essential repairs.

It was ready for collection today. And instead of driving over to collect the bike, I decided to walk so that I could enjoy the cycle home. So that meant a 4.5km walk to the shop that took me about an hour.

On the way home, I stopped off at Dundrum to do some shopping, so that added another 30 minutes of walking around the shopping centre.

And by the way, it never ceases to amaze me the number of people out shopping during a work day. Even if you discount the hords of new mothers using up their maternity leave pushing their expensive prams between Starbucks and Penneys, there are still millions of people about. Do these people not have jobs? And shouldn’t all those kids be in school?

Anyway, when I got home, I took Alfie the dog out the park, and he had so much fun chasing after the ball that we ended up being out for an hour and a half.

And so, by the time I got home from that my Fitbit informed me that I had done over 20,000 steps, which is 16 km in walking – giving me the following award in the app…

high-tops

Of course it’s not every day that I have the time to do over 4 hours of exercise.

I just hope it shows on the scales at the Slimming World meeting tomorrow!

Slimming World Walking

The Misses has been talking for a few weeks now about us walking the Bray to Greystones Cliff Walk, and on Sunday we ventured forth.

The walk, as the name suggests, is between the two commuter towns of Bray and Greystones just south of Dublin, and it’s about 7km in length. It gives great views of the stunning coastline, and also of the DART railway line for those who are railway enthusiasts.

We drove to Greystones and caught the DART to Bray; a journey of just under 10 minutes. We decided to start in Bray because – let’s face it – it’s a bit a bit of dump. It’s the kind of place that it’s better to be walking away from, rather than towards!

After walking the length of the promenade in Bray, where I played a quick game with myself of ‘count the number of rough-sleeping homeless people’, and deftly avoiding the groups of Spanish and overly-enthusiastic American tourists, we took the steep path out of the town to start the walk.

The path starts off as tarmac, but quickly turns into loose gravel and then lumpy stones. It’s a well-maintained route, but you’d definitely want to have a sturdy pair of runners or walking shoes on. Although I did spot one woman tottering along on 4 inch high wedges. It’s also mostly flat, apart from the climb at the beginning and a set of about a dozen steps somewhere in the middle.

Me the misses and Alfie
Me, The Misses, and Alfie The Dog who decided to lick my face as I took the photo!

On the approach to Greystones, we were directed around a large redevelopment of the marina, which looks like it could be lovely when finished. There was also a market on selling lots of artworks and other tat.

My eyes were drawn to people wandering around with bags of chips from the nearby chipper. They smelled and looked amazing after two hours of walking, particularly as our packed lunch had consisted of a banana and an Aldi Fruit & Fibre cereal bar (6 syns). Then came the people carrying icecreams, and the numerous cafes selling lovely sweet things.

Greystones is a lovely place to visit, especially for us city types on day trips. And it’s good to see the town centre thriving. Indeed, we walked past one place called The Happy Pear that had a queue of people out the door and down the street. Must go back there one day and find out what all the fuss is about!

The final distance between the two train stations was just over 8km, which earned us our 10,000 steps for the day, but left us with pretty tired legs.

Slimming World Walking