My exercise, health, and weight loss posts are generally my most viewed posts, so why would I wait until the middle of November to report on how I did in October? I guess it’s basically because I don’t care that much about what happened. There, I said it, and it feels good. I made my goal weight over the summer. When I sit in those special chairs at the pharmacy that take my pulse, measure my blood pressure, weigh me, and check my Body Mass Index, I no longer get the flashing warning to stand up before I break the chair. I’m now in maintenance mode.
Maintenance mode is not very exciting, and I don’t have much to report. I may have been able to lose more weight in early October as the weather was quite good to start the month. I probably could have left my pool up and swam until mid-October, but I didn’t. I walked and biked as usual, but my steps do show a slight seasonal reduction.
And that is because good mental health is key to good physical health. In the middle of October, the weather took a nasty turn for the worse, as did my mental health. I deal with SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I had to adjust my supplements and start doing this a lot.
Light therapy does work for me. Within a week, my mental health had improved, but I lost a week with little to no exercise. That’s okay. I knew I needed to get right mentally before getting back to physical fitness. I was rewarded with a good last week of weather and workouts in October.
I made sure to weigh myself on November 1st, because I knew that I wanted to check my weight before I began the enviable task of eating all the leftover Halloween candy. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and who better than someone like me with zero self control? Before my Halloween candy gorge-a-thon began, my weight had not changed. I was still at my goal weight. Excellent! Pass me some of that Baby Ruth bar.
Despite mental health struggles, no weight loss (but no weight gain!), and a mountain of leftover Halloween candy to summit, I still consider October a successful month. I was able to get myself righted mentally as the seasons changed, and I even finished a couple home projects including this firepit and bench/firewood storage I made from an old porch swing and scrap lumber from my daughter’s swingset
I just hope I didn’t take too much lumber from my daughter’s swingset.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 