It’s time for yet another update on my progress in losing a bunch of pounds off my hulking frame.   This month I have been frustrated at the progress just like last month.  I have been seeking some motivation in the form of a community for a while now.  I’ve looked at SparkPeople and Traineo as well as places like dailyburn and dailymile.  They were all places which were useful for recording what types of exercise I did and following along a bit more.  Some of the later ones like dailyburn and dailymile are more like “twitter for exercise”, which were better but not very good because I don’t know anyone local who is exercising, and also I am usually exercising alone.

Sometimes I wonder why I exercise alone.  My usual excuse is that I don’t know anyone who exercises in the same way that I do.  Actually I fear that it’s because I’m not as good as others at exercise.  I’m a quite large guy, so that means that it doesn’t take as much to get my heart rate into the fat burning, or aerobic range.  Usually just a brisk walk will get me into it, although I’ve been told that I walk at faster than most (usually 4 miles an hour).  Sometimes I wonder if I had an exercise buddy, if I would do better.   The problem now is that I have worked into my exercise a number of solitary activities. like listening to podcasts and watching television or anime.  Even if I had a partner to do exercise with, I feel like I would just be exercising alongside them, not really as a group activity.

Anyway, let’s look at the progress over the last month, shall we?

This month I really got into the stagnation as you can see.  In the last month I’ve actually GAINED almost a quarter of a pound on average.  It looks like a rollercoaster but it felt like a bad time every time I was weighing myself.   Part of me wants to let myelf off for this month, because during a good part of it, I was on vacation and totally skipping my exercise, but it means that even if I just give up on exercise and stop watching my diet as closely as I am, then I am going to be gaining all of the weight back.  I was hoping that at some point, my body would adjust to the changes and I would naturally want to eat fewer calories.  I’m not going to be happy if I can’t make some permanent progress.

The yearly graph looks better, but it now looks much worse at the end of course.  More red at the end means that I should work even more at my exercise.  This month I’m going to keep track of my calories as well, trying to maintain the calories in / out deficit that has worked well for me in the past.   I really want to go below that elusive 300 mark.  Seeing the first digit of the scale change would be a big motivator for me.

I’m also thinking of switching up some of my exercise for the winter months, because of course I won’t be able to work outside anymore.  There is a exercise room in my complex, which I used when I was exercising and it was raining outside or when there was something that prevented me from exercising until it was some ungodly hour and didn’t want to go outside.   I don’t want to exercise in the snow, although it might be a bit of fun.  Maybe I’ll try it once or twice.  Does anyone else exercise in the winter?  What gear would I actually need?