I’m loving (most of) the Fitbit reports that I get now I have wasted money on the premium service.  My current favourite is this graph.  Never thought I would see something that tells me I am 1356% better than average when it comes to activity.  This is “very active minutes”, and I am not entirely sure what makes one minute “active” and another “very active”, I’m sure there is a FAQ about it on the Fitbit website.  I should take a look . . . well, now I know.  It is when you are exercising at 6+ MET .  Active is only 3-5 MET.  1 MET is your body at rest.

Now you know.  Comment if you feel your life was enriched by that knowledge.

This past week has actually been pretty good.  I got up to the Botanical Gardens 4 times.  I would have made 5 but had to take Friday off with “gastrointestinal issues” (the less you know the better for you).  And I’ve started taking the steepest street to get to the gardens, which really gets my heart-rate going.  It’s been really good.  Even on Friday I still managed to get out and do a 6 km walk around the neighbourhood in the afternoon, so was very pleased with myself.  All up last week was the most active week I have had since I have been on The Plan™, I managed to walk a total of 59.57 km which is nearly double what The Plan™ says I should have done.  I’m a machine.

So at the end of the 18^th week on The Plan™ I have walked a total of 411.9 km in 97 hours and 43 minutes.  That is clocking in at 113% of what I have planned to do.  Not too shabby.  Oh, and I’ve lost 23 kg in the past 6 weeks.  So nearly 4 kg a week.  At this rate I should reach my weight loss goal sometime in mid-September.  Oooo, in time for my trip to Rarotonga!

At the Thorndon Lookout in Wellington Botanical Gardens

Here is a photo I took of myself last week up in the gardens.

I have been back in contact with the lovely people at Earth Sea and Sky around some of the details for my custom made shirts from them.  So am looking forward to getting those. They have made me an official ambassador for them, so go buy their stuff.  I suggested the best ambassadorial work I could do for them was to dress in their competitors clothing so that people are put off wearing them.  They laughed.

On more clothing news I have had to retire my old suit because it is just too big and baggy for me now, I can barely wear the trousers they are so loose.  I popped into Harford’s where I have my suites made up (because I needed updated chest measurement for Earth Sea Sky) and while there it was pointed out how bad my suit was fitting.  So I am getting new trousers made up (I will hold off the jacket because if I continue to shrink at the current rate it won’t be cost effective).  Luckily I tried on an ‘old’ suit I had in the closet, and it fits me again (it isn’t really old, it wasn’t worn much before I expanded beyond its confines).  I can also wear my dinner suit again which was made for me in 2007, so I am going to wear that to a work function this week; because I can.

This week I have seriously started to up the ante on both diet and activity.  In addition to the near on hourly walks around the block, I have also started to take lunch time walks (weather and schedule permitting) up around the Wellington Botanical Gardens.  I managed to do two walks up there this week on Monday and Tuesday.  Work and life interferred the rest of the week.

I used to walk around the Botanic Gardens a fair bit in past years, so it was really nice to get back up there.   There are alot of meandering paths around the hills there to take and explore, and looking a map of the gardens I haven’t been to about two-thirds of places there.  So I am looking forward to spending more time up there exploring.  And on a nice day it is a really lovely place to be.  Winter it isn’t so pretty, but it will be spring soon so there will be lots of nice pretty flowers.  This week the weather has been (at times) beautiful, so had nice views of the harbour and up the Hutt Valley.

I’ve also subscribed to Fitbit premimum, because it has some cool reports, and I am a sucker for such things.  Fitbit has actually been fantastic and motivating me to get up and about and active.  Especially now I am logging my eating in it as well (Fitbit Inc. is getting all my health data now ).  And my eating has been pretty good the past week.  Although it started bad with me having some old friends around for dinner, so I cooked up and storm and over ate.  I also experimented with McDonalds last Saturday to see the affect a Big Mac w/ Steak Mince n Cheese Combo.  Not pretty.  Won’t do that again for a while.

Didn’t even enjoy it that much.

What I did like was the Italian Meat Ball and Mozzerella Pie from Z Energy, pie of the week.  I decided life isn’t worth living if I didn’t have that pie in my gob.  That happened yesterday, so I skipped lunch and dinner and no damage done

I bought new replacement scales (although my brother insists that the other ones aren’t broken . . . whatever)  So far, after 4.75 weeks of my “try not to eat” diet I have lost 18 kg.  Have to say, it feels pretty good.  Kate Moss was right.  Still a long long long way to go, but I am actually optimistic that it might be achievable.  A non-fat Jordan, can you even fathom such a thing?  I am also not struggling with the hunger so much.  I am kind of hungry all the time, but not flat out starving.  I am actually starting to enjoy the hunger, it feels good.

So an update:  at the (near) end of week 17 of The Plan™ I have walked a total of 334.4 km in 80 hrs 35 mins.  That is an efficacy of 100%!  Yea!  I’m glad to be back in the black after the Mangatepopo Slump.

4 weeks until a go/no go decision on the Milford Track (i.e. I pay for the tickets).  Gotta  say it is looking positive.

I think I have myself back on The Plan™  It’s been a difficult couple of weeks to keep on The Plan™, last week was very wet and cold, and the beginning of this week was not much better.  On the bright side I got to try out my waterproof hiking trousers, and even my thermals underneath.  It wasn’t quite cold enough for the thermals I still ended up sweating by the end of each walk, but better that than be cold.  Unfortunately walking in all that wet and cold gave me a cold.  A proper cold, not man-flu (it’s a real thing!).  So that stopped me on Thursday and Friday, I decided I needed to keep out of the cold and wind.  On Thursday I managed to keep my activity levels high and get my 10000 steps in for the day by getting up from my desk every hour and walking twice around the block.  I’m quite proud of that  I will have to do that more often.  It also made me go up and down the steps quite a bit too.

I’ve started taking my iPod with me (yes I still own an iPod classic) on my walks.  I had been resisting doing that because, I don’t know, I thought listening to music took away from the gravitas of the activity.  But actually it’s quite good, except I can’t not sing along as I walk, so the neighbourhood gets to hear my rendition of my “Top Rated” playlist.  I also find that when Bittersweet Symphony is playing I get quite a belligerent purposeful stride.  Go figure.  It’s a good walking song.

The diet has been going well.  I am getting used to the lack of food, and even enjoying the salads, which is pretty much all I am eating.  I’m generally keeping myself to less than 2000 calories a day, which is well below my target.  That leaves me with about a 3000 calories a day deficit, which is 3 times more than what I am trying for.  This week I am about 16000 calories under budget, that’s the equivalent of not eating anything for four days.  Oh yeah!

I had planned to not weigh myself until the end of July, to give myself time for there to be a noticeable change, and also because my scales at home can’t handle my weight as it was, so I didn’t want to stand on it and just get an “err” on the screen.  That’s just demoralising.  but I couldn’t resist this morning because I thought I was looking thinner, and lo and behold not only have I lost enough to actually be measured by the scale, but I have lost double digits – 11 kg in two weeks.  If I keep this up I will lose that 50 kg in eight more weeks!  Unlikely, the weight always comes off quick to start.  But it did put me in good spirits.

So an update for the end of Week 14: I have walked a total of 247.8 km over 61 hours 48 minutes.  That is pulling in at an efficacy of 94% to plan.

I haven’t done any mini-hikes or even longer walks since Mangatepopo, so I should probably do that.

I am also considering going for a few swims next week to up my activity level even more.