Forty-eighth weight progress report and 2020 year-end report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

I’ve poked into the “overweight” territory for the first time in my life—it is not where I want to be.

There is a clear pattern of New Year’s resolutions over the past few years, but this year there was not a big dip.

My exercise has been very limited, but I don’t know how limited, as my bicycle computer failed—even replacing the battery did not revive it.  I’m going to have to buy a new bike computer, I guess.

I got my lawn mowed today—well, almost.  The lawn mower failed just before I finished.  It’s different from the failures I’ve reported on before (and here and here) in that this time it tripped the circuit breaker every time I tried to restart it.  So I’ll have to take the mower apart to find the short circuit.

Forty-seventh weight progress report and 2020 year-end report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

I’ve been putting on weight since my big diet of 2015, with occasional attempts to correct course.

This year has been a particularly bad one, with my weight reaching the highest value ever—touching the “overweight” range. I was doing ok in the first quarter—gradually dropping towards my desired weight, but once the pandemic started and I was staying home snacking instead of bike commuting up the hill to my office, I packed on the pounds at an alarming rate.

It probably did not help that I spent a good chunk of the summer and fall experimenting with bread recipes. A few of the experiments are recorded on this blog, but a lot of the more recent baking has not involved any recipes to post to the blog (making whole-wheat sourdough using minor variants of the bread-machine recipe), and I’ve been too lazy to photograph.

My exercise has been very limited—I averaged only 0.85 miles a day of bicycling in November and December and probably not much more in walking (about 80–87k steps per month—way down from 230k in January). Because bike commuting was my main source of exercise, I remain concerned about how I’m going to get fit again—exercising at home does not seem to happen, even when I promise myself that I’ll do some today.

I did get in some recreational bicycling today—bicycling up Empire Grade to see the dozer line at the top of campus (not really very visible any more, as the grass has sprouted) and even higher up to see the edges of the CZU burn.  I’m out of shape enough that I turned around after only 7 miles and 1150 feet of climbing.  There was not much to see—if I want to see the burned areas, I’ll either have to go further up Empire Grade or choose a different part of the burn to look at—perhaps taking a flatter, but longer, route up Highway 1.

Other milestones for the year: I got all the videos done and the closed captions edited for BME 51B, and I’m almost finished with the videos for BME 51A for Winter (only 10–12 more to go, or about 3 hours worth of videos), though the caption editing has barely started.  The videos are available on YouTube as two playlists: Part A (for BME 51A, 108 videos totalling 24 hours so far) and Part B (for BME 51B, 49 videos totalling almost 12 hours). I did get a new release of the textbook out on December 28th, in time for the new class that starts on Jan 4.  The book is available (as always) from https://leanpub.com/applied_analog_electronics, and anyone who has bought it in the past (even with a free coupon) can get the latest edition free by logging in with their LeanPub account.

I’ve also managed to keep my backyard mowed this summer (it used to always be a jungle of head-high weeds). I’ve almost finished clearing the ivy and blackberries from the area behind the garage—I’ve only got about 25 square feet left to clear—about one more week’s greenwaste can, though the rain may bring back a lot of the blackberries, as I can’t remove the roots from under the concrete. In March, I didn’t think I’d be able to get this far. 

My son and I acted together for the first time, doing a short promo video for Santa Cruz Shakespeare.  I’ll post a link to it when they finish adding the title and donation info at either end.

When compared to my to-do list from September 2019, my accomplishments for 2020 don’t seem so great—a lot of the stuff on that list is still not done.  Oh, well—something to do after I retire in June.

Forty-sixth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

My weight has not stabilized as I thought in August, but has continued to go up.

I’m now at the heaviest weight I’ve ever been, getting dangerously close to a BMI of 25 (the threshold for being overweight).

My exercise has been very limited—I averaged only 0.79 miles a day of bicycling in September and October and probably not much more in walking (about 90k steps per month—way down from the 150k in July). I think I’ve only cycled up the hill to campus twice all summer—I haven’t even ridden the newly repaved bike path. Because bike commuting was my main source of exercise, I remain concerned about how I’m going to get fit again—exercising at home does not seem to happen, even when I promise myself that I’ll do some today.

Forty-fifth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

My weight has finally stabilized—I’m not packing on the pounds like I did in March, April, and May.

I’m not quite at my highest weight ever, but I’m about 15 pounds heavier than I want to be.

My exercise has been very limited—I averaged only 0.97 miles a day of bicycling in June (slightly better than the 0.75 miles/day for April and May, but less than a fifth of January), and probably not much more in walking (about 115k steps for the month—again, slightly better than the two previous months, but less than half of January). I have not cycled up the hill to my office for several months now—and bike commuting was my main source of exercise!

Forty-fourth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

My weight has stabilized a bit lately, but at about 6 pounds more than a year ago. All my losses during Winter quarter have been regained.

I’m back to my “Christmas weight”—what I usually acquire at the height of the holiday season after 6 months of not commuting.

I  averaged only 0.75 miles/day of bicycling in April and May—way below my long-term average of 3.5–4 miles/day.  My walking is also down: my Verily study watch from Project Baseline reports about 2600 steps/day for April and May, well below the 3900/day for March, 6600/day for February, and 7700/day for January.

I said in my last report, 2 months ago, “I’m also going to have to come up with some way to motivate myself to exercise more—not just for this cower-in-place period, but longer term, so that I can continue even after retirement.”  Obviously I have not succeeded in doing that.  I have been doing some gardening once or twice a week (mowing the lawn every 2 weeks and clearing blackberries and ivy from the back patio), but that is clearly not sufficient.