New Year, New Start!

Welcome back to my blog!  I have been in a process of planning my posts for the year since I left you in 2016.  I said before that I had never planned to write this blog for more than the month of September 2016 when I took on the Cancer Research 10,000 Step A Day Challenge – Walk All Over Cancer, but I really enjoyed the challenge and writing about it day to day, sharing my daily steps and places I had been along with photos that I had taken.  I struggled by the middle of October to write much as I didn’t have a structure in place and was writing from day to day but this year I now have a structure in place and a topic to write about nearly every day so I shouldn’t struggle too much, I am also attempting to pre-write as many blog posts as I can and then add in other details and photos before publishing for you all to read!  I will be introducing themed posts which will re-occur through the year and will be introducing these as I post them for the first time!  In all, I am pretty excited about how this New Year is going to shape up!

Now, aside from looking back in terms of the blog, I feel that I should look back at my steps and how I have done in the last quarter of 2016…I was ill for a while in October/November which put a dent into how active I was, which coupled with the dark nights and cold I really struggled to hit 10,000 steps each day, on average I was hitting around 6,000 steps which I found disappointing.  However, that said, I felt that I wasn’t well enough to push each day for 10,000 steps while I was ill, or risk my personal safety by walking around in the dark after work (the street lighting near where I live is a bit hit and miss at the best of times), I hadn’t thought about, or factored in the dark nights and how it would affect my steps at the time.  I did start going out for a half hour walk at lunch time though which was a really positive move – it got me away from my desk and out into the fresh air, woke me up and when I returned to my desk after lunch I felt revived and refreshed.  My lunchtime walk is something that I am keen to continue for much of this year if I can, the difference it makes to my mental state is really good.

I also want to explore more places; I’m already planning my summer holidays around walking plans!  But even in my local area, there are places I am keen to explore so long as the weather and daylight are reasonable!  It won’t be long now til the evenings start to get longer and I can venture further!  I’d also like to plan some weekend walks with my partner and take a picnic somewhere and enjoy the peace and quiet of the outdoors.  Part of my biggest challenge with activity and steps is on the weekend where all I seem to do is do housework, food shop and spend time in the house, this is something that needs to change so going for a walk with a picnic seems like a good plan!

I’m really looking forward to planning walks and activities, taking photos of where I have been and what I have seen and blogging about it all!

Don’t forget that I now have an instagram for sharing my steps per day too, and other sneak peeks of what I’m doing, you can find me over at @tenthousandsteps2016

Plans

You may be wondering where I have disappeared to over the last few weeks or maybe you haven’t, either way I just stopped by to let you know that I have been working really hard on a blog schedule to start in the new year!!!  I never inteded to keep this blog going for as long as I have, my initial goal was to blog about my 10,000 step challenge in september and then to stop and close down the blog.  But… I have really enjoyed writing and sharing my steps and walks and other things with you, the only thing that I found difficult was finding something to write about each day.  So I have put my head down and started to think of topics that tie in with my blog theme and have been putting together some posts and a whole calendar of ideas ready to share starting 1st January 2017!  So, if you will bare with me, I shall be back in the New Year with a new blog post!!!  🙂

Hope you all have a Fab Christmas and New Year!!!  See you soon!!!

The Blog Has Landed on Instagram!!!

It’s true!!!  Just search @tenthousandsteps2016 on the Instagram app and you will find us!  The plan for Instagram is to share my stats each day, things I find on my walks and photos that will be coming up on the blog!  It is my way of sharing with you and connecting in a different way that will support the blog and it’s content!

So, head over to Instagram and add the blog!  @tenthousandsteps2016 🙂

Now for yesterdays stats…how did I do?

Still not back to full health but my steps seem to be heading upwards!  🙂

Logging Exercise and Effort Level on Activity Trackers

My Jawbone activity tracker app has a nifty feature which can sense when I have been on a walk or other activity where I have taken a lot of steps and will prompt me to enter my activity type and effort level, this will also come up when you manually enter an activity along with start time and duration.  As I haven’t used any other tracker I am unsure whether they have this feature as well or not.

Why are these things important and what do they mean?

The activity type is pretty self explanatory as the tracker gives you options for activity types you may have done (walking, cross train, bike etc) logging the type will give the tracker app information on the kind of work out you have partaken in and the basic level calories you will have burned (approximately).

Start time and duration are either logged for you, if your activity tracker picks this information up automatically, otherwise, note the time you started the activity and what the duration was.

The last thing to log is Effort Level.  My app for Jawbone gives me a few different options – Easy, Moderate, In the Zone, Difficult and Gut Buster.  But how do you decide which one to use?  I use a checking system based on breath, heart rate, body temp and sweat levels (sounds gross but trust me on this…)  Here’s how I calculate Effort –

Easy – Breathing is normal, heart rate is normal, body temperature has remained the same (don’t feel any hotter temperature wise), not broken out into a sweat.

Moderate – Breathing is a bit quicker but you are able to hold a full conversation with no trouble, heart rate is a tiny bit quicker but not that noticeable, body temperature has risen slightly and skin feels slightly damp (noticeable under arms, and lower back)

In the Zone – Breathing is quicker, you can talk but are out of breath quickly, heart rate is faster and noticeable, body temperature has risen a lot and you feel hot, you are feeling hot in the face, and you feel sweaty (most noticeable on back, underarms and face)

Difficult – Breathing is even quicker, it is hard to talk more than a few words at a time, heart rate is noticeably quick, you can feel it pumping and even hear it, you are hot all over (and may have removed a layer of clothing in order to cool down), you are sweating a lot and you feel damp all over.

Gut Buster – Breathing is hard to the extent where you cant even speak, heart rate is pounding, you feel really hot and the sweat is pouring off you.  (I have never got to this stage!)

The other way you could measure this when walking is by incline and terrain type

Easy –  where the terrain is flat and smooth, there are no inclines or declines that are noticible.

Moderate – the terrain is slightly rocky or pot holed, there are few inclines that gently rise and fall.

In the Zone – the terrain is rough with several inclines that rise steeply but level out after a short time before rising again.

Difficult – the terrain is rocky with steep, long inclines and declines.

Gut Buster – the terrain is unwelcoming and hard to navigate, it is steep to almost vertical and in some instances specialist equipment and knowledge may be needed to continue (think rock climbing and Ben Nevis).

How do you decide on your effort level?

And now for yesterdays stats…how did I do?

I did better than yesterday!  I’m feeling better today and have more energy which is a good thing!  Hopefully I am on the mend!  🙂

Quick and Easy Tuna Pasta

I made this the other week for tea after walking Roxy.  I wanted something quick and easy but filling and on the healthy side.

What you will need

1-2 small peppers

1 tin tomatoes (chopped)

1 tin kidney beans

1 tin tuna

12-16 mushrooms

1 small onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

Pasta

How to

Prepare all veg (onion, peppers and mushrooms) by chopping into small pieces, prepare the garlic by crushing and chopping  and add all of this to a pan.

Place pasta into another pan and set to boil.

Add a small amount of water (2 desert spoons) to the veg pan and place over heat, stir occasionally.  The water will be absorbed by the mushrooms as they start to cook but it will be expelled from them soon (don’t worry!).

Once the veg has softened and the onion has gone translucent add the tin of chopped tomatoes and stir.  Drain and rinse the kidney beans and add to the pan.  Bring the lot to the boil.

Drain the tuna and add to the pan.

By now the pasta should be cooked, drain and place back into the pan.  Pour over the tomato/tuna sauce and mix well.

Serve and enjoy!

Variations I have used include adding peas or sweet corn, courgette and broccoli (cut up really small) but this will work with a whole variety of other ingredients.

I quite often make a variation of this as it is filling, cheap and quick.  I tend to make more than just one serving, typically this recipe will make 3-4 meals, as I can take some to work with me the following day as a cold lunch option.  The left overs would also make a really good meal to take in a bag when you go walking.

What kind of things do you cook when you want something quick and easy?

Here’s yesterdays stats for you….

I’m pretty pleased with these stats as I’m still struggling with this cold that is niggling at me,  without the lunchtime walk which got me away from the office for a bit and into fresh air, I think I would have done at least half the amount of steps that I did.

Week 8 Overview

This past week I have been struggling with my health in general, after having the flu jab a week ago I have been run down with a cold that has seemed to get no better or worse but has zapped my energy levels and left me feeling really tired, achy and stuffed up which has had an impact on my walks and steps.  This past week (19 Oct – 25th Oct) I have taken 65422 steps (7500 of those was made up from 100 mins of housework) which is slightly more than the previous week.  I hit 10,000 steps 2 times but been under every day since.  I am not too worried about this though as I am giving my body a chance to recover and fight the germs I seem to have picked up along the way.  I don’t feel that it is beneficial to push yourself to achieve goals when you are ill as sometimes it can make you worse.  I have listened to my body and it has told me that resting up is the best course of action right now.

Anyway, on to yesterdays stats…how did I do?

I did better than I expected although I did manage to get out for a walk twice in the day as I felt a bit better than the previous days!

Walking, Weight Loss and Fitness

Weight loss seems to be written about everywhere right now along with people sharing the latest fad diets which can get a little boring to see and read, personally I am becoming super numbed to the whole diet and weight loss obsession which is probably not a good thing.  I believe that weight loss is not just linked to diet but to fitness levels too.

More and more people are leading lives that involve little to no exercise and more and more people are getting diagnosed as being obese or with Type 2 Diabetes (that is linked to diet and lifestyle) and I believe we can help to combat this epidemic by looking at our movement and fitness levels, not just what we eat.  To me it’s like movement, weight loss and fitness are all interlinked and one benefits the other.

There are lots of different exercise regimes out there, and lots of different types of exercise from resistance training, running, swimming and all manner of classes and gym activities you can take part in.  As you may know I started off with running which worked for me for a while until I developed knee problems which I think was down to the impact of my feet hitting the path and sending shock waves up my leg.  Running is not for everyone, I also didn’t consider my fitness levels which probably didn’t help.  Walking for me turned into the perfect substitute.

Walking is a low impact activity, and despite your fitness levels, nearly anyone can take part in walking.  And you can walk as fast or slow as you want, swing your arms to burn more calories and cover as much or as little ground as you want.  The main thing with walking for fitness and weight loss is to move more and burn more calories than you eat, or as the famous saying goes “move more, eat less”.  One really good way of making sure you move more and eat less is to log all that you consume*, from the moment you get up to the second you get to bed, log your food intake, use a pretty note pad, an app or any other means, but keep a tally.  At the same time log all of your activities*, including walking (aim for at least half an hour of brisk walking per day if you can), in the day and the timescale that they took, use this website to determine the calories burned and total them up.  Compare the two totals, is the figure for calories you have consumed higher than those burned? if so then you need to go for a longer walk, or take a further walk at a different time of the day.  If the figure for calories consumed is lower than calories burned you are on your way to starting to loose weight, now all you need to do is expand the difference between the numbers either by eating less and getting out more or doing both and try and maintain this as much as possible!  (*if you have a Fitbit or Jawbone or any of the new trackers you can log all of this through the tracker and the app for your phone).

And now for yesterdays stats, how did I do?

I didn’t hit 10,000 steps like I normally would on a monday, I had a hair appointment in the evening which meant I didn’t get out and about on my evening walks like I normally would have.

Types Of Map

There are several different kinds of maps and all can be used for different purposes, today’s blog is going to look at the differences between some of these maps and what they are most useful for.

Road Maps, like the kind produced by the AA are fab for finding your way from one city or town to another and showing which road to take.  This kind of map tends to only show roads, dual carriageways and motorways, rivers and canals.  They do not really show any great detail of streets or housing areas.  These maps are really useful for drivers who want to know how to get from A – C via B or the most direct route somewhere.  While I own several of these kinds of map I don’t tend to use them much at home, I prefer to use google maps to look at each part of my journey and plan routes and when I am driving I prefer to use my sat-nav than a map as I can never remember a series of directions!

A-Z’s or Street Maps are great for getting about in towns or cities.  They show the area in more detail than Road Maps, giving street names and places of interest such as parks or places of worship.  These are really useful if you are visiting an area and want to travel around the area a bit or find somewhere specific on a certain street.  I like using these when I am visiting a place and want to see where A is in relation to B and whether I can walk it or whether I should consider a different mode of transport.  They are really good to use to see where you are in relation to other points of interest.

                  

 

Now to my favorite types of maps OS Maps (or Ordnance Survey maps) these come in 2 different types – the Landranger series (with a pink band around the top) or Explorer (with the orange band around the top).  The first one we shall look at are Landranger maps.  This type of map is a lot more detailed than your average street map, road map, google map or sat-nav map which have been produced in 2D and are “flat” representations of the area.  Landranger (and Explorer maps), while still printed onto flat paper have the addition of graduation lines –  fine orange lines that join together to illustrate the incline or decline of the land – whether it is hilly or flat, the closer together the lines the steeper the climb and the further apart the flatter the land.  Landranger maps show 2 cm to every km, which is fairly detailed, you get to see path ways and bridal ways, points of interest and can navigate with them whether walking or driving.

Explorer maps show the area in much more detail again, using a scale of 1:25000, or 4cm to every km.  It shows the same things as the Landranger but still even more detail such as buildings, types of terrain and open access land.  These maps are by far my favorite and I tend to use them when I am planning a visit or a new walking route to explore.  Both the Landranger and Explorer maps come in a laminated version called Active Maps, which I find to be the best as they are hard wearing and can be chucked in your bag and used whether rain or shine without having to worry about the map getting wet or torn or damaged in any other way.

What’s your favorite type of map and why?

And now to yesterdays stats…how did I do?

I didn’t do too bad for a sunday – usually one of my more sedentary/lazy days!

Things to Look for on Your Walks

This is another series I am hoping to make a regular feature on my blog.  In this series I will be letting you know of things to keep an eye out for when you are out and about!

I’m sure you will have seen my photos of mushrooms that I have found on my walks and Im pleased to say that the mushroom season seems to be continuing.  I have lost count

ount of different types of mushroom or fungi that I have seen on my walks but its a lot!  I think that the mushroom season is continuing thanks to the warm, damp weather we have been experiencing and from the weather forecasts, though the temperature is starting to drop, in terms of temperature, its still warm for mushrooms to thrive.  The appearance of mist in the mornings has also helped by keeping the ground moist and damp, perfect for a mushroom to form.

The leaves on the trees are continuously changing color and falling at this time of the year, and they are all different shapes, sizes and tones.  Why not keep an eye out for both the biggest and smallest leaves?

Other things to look out for are seeds and nuts falling from trees, from hazelnuts and beech seeds to conkers and helicopter seeds (from the maple tree family!)  I have already found a sizeable collection of conkers and have placed them around my home – apparently they keep spiders away!

Here are some photos I took of things I have found this month on my walks!

And now for yesterdays stats…how did I do?

I didn’t do too bad for a Saturday!

Summer Walks Throwback – Part 3 – Oxwich

This is the third installment of my Summer Walks Throwback series, it is also the last installment which I hope to start up again next year.  As you know from my previous installments, I went away for 3 weeks in the summer and to 3 different places in my campervan, this is the final week of that time away.

I came back to the Gower area of South Wales and stayed in a lovely campsite above Oxwich Bay called Greenways Of Gower.  I chose this site as it had really good reviews and, again, allowed dogs on site.  It is a bit of a trek uphill from Oxwich Bay but isn’t too difficult a walk, though if you have small children or mobility issues then I would advise you to drive up and down from the site.  Oxwich Bay is not too far from Port Eynon where we stayed for the first week of our holidays, it was a nice walk to and from our site so we walked there and back a few times and we also spent quite a bit of our time walking along the beach, when the tide is out you can walk to Three Cliffs Bay!  We also walked along the headland and explored the pathways along the way.

Here are some photos of our week away at Oxwich Bay.

If you go down to the Gower where do you stay?

And now for yesterdays stats…How did I do?

I didn’t hit 10,000 steps but I did do 100 mins of housework which equates to around 7,200 steps which doesn’t show on my Jawbone app.  If you want to convert other activities into steps this site http://www.purdue.edu/walktothemoon/activities.html is really useful 🙂