So I went a bit overboard today on my planning function for my workouts. For Stretching, I took the 16 low-difficulty exercises, figured out which order to do them in that makes sense, and prepared a simple 4×4 table in Word that shows the pretty pics and names of the exercises. And then I used it today for the first time. It worked perfectly.

I wasn’t surprised I liked the layout, I had pretty much already done the same thing for the Bowflex routine (9 exercises in the 20 minute full body workout).

I used it for the second time today, and it also worked well. I have both sets of exercises on my phone so I can log the activities in my exercise app.

Annnnnnd then I went down a rabbithole for figuring out how far I’m going to start walking. When I went to the MapMyWalk website, I found out that I have apparently used MapMyWalk on three prior occasions.

First, back in 2008, I did some initial routes around my old house. I set up three or four routes, did a couple of them, but mostly I was laying them out as potential routes to see how far they were.

Second, I did a bunch in 2014, and that time I think I was expecting to be a bit more ambitious, as I set up some really long ones.

Finally, in 2016, I did a couple of ones around the neighbourhood that I had walked, and then mapped them afterwards to see how far I had gone. I can’t believe I ever did them, as the thought of doing them now fills me with dread. They are SO much farther than I am capable of right now, by a factor of ten at least.

So, it’s 2021, and I thought I would clean up some of the old routes and plot some new ones. Start small, keep some of the old ones for future inspiration. Ditch the ones where I was just trying to figure out how far it was, such as walking all the way to or from work, as I would never plan to actually do that route. It was just for info.

But I went to my profile settings and nada. It wouldn’t load that part. Umm, okay. So I went to the past routes, there they all are, great. Scroll down to one I don’t want, over to the right is an option for COPY / EDIT / DELETE. So I try deleting it, it asks me if I want to delete it on a pop-up, I say yes, and then it just sits and whirs at me endlessly. It doesn’t delete it and it doesn’t “end”. Eventually, I have to reload the page. I tried clearing caches, resetting passwords, logging out completely, etc. And no dice. The app on my phone shows me the same data, but you can’t actually delete from the phone, just the website, so that doesn’t help. I have a sneaking suspicion that my account is somehow dormant or something, or it’s confused with some old ones I had, but in the end, I had to email Under Armour and hope they’ll reset my account next week. If they want to erase the account and start over, I’m okay with that.

Mostly what I was surprised about was how many times I’ve done the same thing before. Started a new “habit”, set up some routes with the same tool, and then when life intervened, stopped using the app. Ultimately, I have no interest in the app for tracking, as I already KNOW the routes in advance. I have a separate workout logger where I’ll put in the distances for example, and then when I do the route, I just do the route. I don’t need a phone or FitBit to tell me my progress or distance, the pre-programmed route is already “known”.

When MapMyWalk crapped out, I went looking for a replacement app, and I found one (which also uses a website), but it is a lot more basic. If Under Armour can get me going this week, that’s probably the easiest option.

What is different about this round is that I know what I’m planning to do. For each of those previous occasions, it was more like I was trying the app out then actually tying it into my workout plans. This time, I already have some ideas of how I can set progressively longer walking goals too. And some of the old ones reminded me of some possible routes that would be really good to work up to over the next year. So far, my immediate routes are pretty embarrassing for distance. It doesn’t take much for my left hip / lower back to start screaming at me, regardless of the stretching in advance. I could put BioFreeze on it, and go further, but for now, I’ll stick to the short distances.

In the meantime, I at least have stretching and weights figured out; walking routes are pending; and then it will be on to the exercise bike setup!

I have my home gym in place, and I know what I’m doing for the exercises. I chatted with my brother-in-law last night who does a bunch of stuff with weights and works out regularly. He knows way more about this stuff than I do, and I got some good tips for how I set up my routine for the future in terms of weight levels for the BowFlex and number of reps.

But as I look farther forward to my “new” normal for working regularly and changing my body, there are several things still in my “to be determined” category. Two of those are stretching and cardio.

Stretching

I need to do more stretching for two primary reasons. First and foremost, so that I don’t injure myself while working out. The whole “warm-up / cool-down” thing that everyone understands easily.

However, I have a second reason which is just plain flexibility. If I am sitting in a chair, and I want to tie a shoe by crossing my right leg over my left leg, I can’t do it. As I pull my right leg up, I can get my ankle to just below my left knee, but then my right hip starts to object. Sure, I can reach down and PULL it into position, and I do regularly, but it’s not the same as just lifting it. If I do my left leg, I can ALMOST get it up, but then my left hip REALLY hates me. Or my left adductor. Depends on the movement and how fast I try to do it. If I try to lean forward simply, without adjusting my legs outward, my belly gets compressed and one of the muscles or several of the fascia in my upper stomach area says, “Nuh-huh, you ain’t doing that today, bitch.”

Losing weight will help with a lot of the resistance areas, but I need to be doing a comprehensive stretching routine. My view, generally speaking, is that there are three levels:

• Structured stretching
• Yoga poses
• Tai chi

I may be the only one on the planet that thinks of those that way, but I do. Stretching is more technical in my mind…put this arm here, put this leg here, lean this way, good.

Yoga seems to me to be a step above that. It is more about overall body poses and flexibility. It includes stretching, sure, but it also gets you closer to movement and energy flow. I am not ready for serious yoga by any stretch of the imagination (or of my body! hah!), but Andrea has referred me to the Yoga by Adriene series on YouTube which is quite popular and has options for different levels of participant.

And then I see tai chi as a step even further along that spectrum. Less about stretching and flexibility, and more about the movement of your body. I feel like tai chi is something I could get to eventually, but I am SO not ready for it yet. I need to start with my “technical” exercises.

Let’s start with my “best” source, so to speak. If you think back to social media about 5 years ago, June 2016 or so, you may remember that a number of people were sending around some really good illustrations of how to do some exercises. The source was always unclear, and if you search for them online now, you’ll likely end up at various sites whose links no longer work. However, with a bit more luck, you can find them at the place I saw them originally, which is the LifeHack site and the post is still there (https://www.lifehack.org/345771/36-pictures-see-which-muscle-youre-stretching). Ignore the fact that there says there are 36 when there are only 34.

The pictures were realistic simulations of people doing the stretch, but where the muscles were being stretched, it showed almost an anatomical representation. The muscles were lit up in red showing you where IN and ON your body the muscles were that were being targeted. For example, there was one called the “wide forward fold” and the illustration shows a woman doing the splits with her adductors coloured in red.

In the collection, there are 34 possible exercises to do, of varying levels of difficulty (by my rating), with the text explaining how to actually do them.

Exercises	Muscles Targeted	Difficulty
Camel Pose (01)	Rectus Abdominus External Obliques	High
Wide Forward Fold (02)	Adductors	Medium
Frog Pose (03)	Adductors	Low-Medium
Wide Side Lunge Pose (04)	Adductors	High
Butterfly Stretch (05)	Adductors	Low
Forearm Extensor Stretch 1 (06)	Forearm Extensor	Low
Lateral Side Flexion of the Neck (07)	Sternocleidomastoid (SCM)	Low
Neck Rotation Stretch (08)	Sternocleidomastoid (SCM)	Low
Neck Extension Stretch (09)	Sternocleidomastoid (SCM)	Low
Lateral Side Flexion of the Neck with Hand Assistance (10)	Sternocleidomastoid (SCM) Upper Trapezius	Low
Half-kneeling Quad / Hip Flexor Stretch (11)	Psoas Quadraceps	Medium-High
Forearm Extensor Stretch 2 (12)	Forearm Extensor	Low
Lateral Shoulder Stretch (13)	Side Deltoid	Low
Standing Assisted Neck Flexion Stretch (14)	Trapezius	Low
Lat Stretch with Spinal Traction (15)	Latissimus Dorsi	Medium-High
Lat Stretch at the Wall (16)	Latissimus Dorsi	Low-Medium
Child’s Pose (17)	Latissimus Dorsi	Low-Medium
Standing Calf Stretch (18)	Soleus Gastrocnemius	Low
Front Split (19)	Psoas and Hamstring	High
Seated Forward Fold / Seated Toe Touch (20)	Hamstrings Calves	Medium
Single Leg Forward Bend (21)	Hamstrings	Low
Deep Squat (22)	Glutes	High
Seated Half King Pigeon Pose (23)	Glutes	High
Standing Calf Stretch at the Wall (24)	Soleaus Gastrocnemius	Low
Lateral Flexion at the Wall (25)	External Obliques	Low
Supine Twist (26)	Glutes External Obliques	Low
Lateral Flexion with a Dowel (27)	External Obliques Latissimus Dorsi	Medium
Triangle Pose (28)	External Obliques	Medium-High
Chest Stretch at the Wall (29)	Pectorals	Low
Assisted Chest Stretch (30)	Chest Latissimus Dorsi	Medium
Seated Half Pigeon Variation (31)	Anterior Tibialis	High
Supine Shoulder External Rotation Stretch (32)	Subscapularis	Low
Downward Dog Variation at the Wall (33)	Pectorals Latissimus Dorsi	Medium
Assisted Chest Stretch Variation (34)	Pectorals	Medium

Of the 34 exercises, I rated 16 of them as low difficulty. Which is my simple way of saying I can do them now. Maybe not perfectly, but I can do them. Three more are ones that I rated Low-Medium difficulty which are ones that look easy but require a bit more flexibility and a bit less girth than I have now. Six more are ones that I think I could get to in the next year or so, maybe a bit more, but foreseeable at least. The three that I rate Medium-High and six that I rate High are almost pipedreams for me.

On the positive side, this gives me a short-term goal — working up to a daily routine based on the 16 “low difficulty” exercises I flagged above. There are two others that I do now, one being just stretching arms over the head to the left and right (a side arch) and a reverse arch with two hands straight up and back, that I may work in there, although they would replicate similar exercises above. I have one more from my chiropractor and RMT that is more of a bent upright row, but that will get picked up by the weight workout with the BowFlex.

Cardio

As a friend pointed out in regards to a previous post, I have made a good start on physical and mental metrics, and I have the weights and now stretching figured out, but I don’t really have a good idea of what I’m going to do for Cardio.

I guess my plan comes down to three things, although I’m not sure it rises to the level of a “plan” so much as it is simply the options I see.

First and foremost, I need to do more walking. My friend was sharing with me his experience with walking, and I agree with all of his points. Starting small, tracking the steps, getting moving generally to get going. I have a FitBit and I have my phone for things like MapMyWalk. And I’m also interested in those online sites that do “distance” challenges. It’s a bit simplistic of a description, but it’s like you sign up to walk the height of Mount Everest, or the Appalachian Trail, or the Great Wall of China, something big, and then as you knock off a 2000-step day, it adds that to your total so far. Some sites also send you summaries to say, “Hey, great, you went 500 feet. In this 500 feet, you would have seen blah ablah blah, the site where runner James Smith had a massive heart attack and died, and heard birds chirping from the nearby bird sanctuary. Here are some photos!”.

I might be more tempted to “create” my own equivalent list in something like Google Maps rather than pay for a site, but hey, it’s an idea. At least through the other sites you get yourself a little medal or medallion to commemorate your steps (of course, you have to pay for it, but it’s gamification like Boy Scouts collecting badges).

Secondly, we have an exercise bike. Or at least we have the body of one, it still needs tweaking to be fully re-assembled and functional. Like with walking, I want to do distance things to track progress, although there are other settings too that track heart rates, intensity, etc. I doubt I’ll measure that, but they’re there.

Third, I have a scooter. It is an adult scooter designed for full-size woolly mammoths, and can handle me too. I tried using it shortly after I got it and it didn’t take many outings to realize I am just not in good enough shape for anything other than the basics. Way too much cardio for my current level of fitness to do much more than a block or two. So I’ll get there, but likely not before next spring/summer.

I have other dreams, I admit. I’d like to ride my regular bike too, although there are challenges for comfort with so much weight on so small a seat. I really would love to be able to go cross-country skiing when I retire, but again, I’m not there yet. A friend has a Finnish kick-sled, and if I ever get sub-250 lbs, I’d love to maybe give it a try (not sure how low I need to go, but somewhere around there). I really want to do kayaking, but I am neither flexible enough or agile enough for doing that. I doubt I’ll ever have the balance for stand-up paddle boarding, but I can dream I suppose. And since I’m already in technicolor world, I’d like to try Jacob’s trampoline when I get sub-230 lbs or so. A very very long way away for a bunch of those. Oooh, and maybe a rope course sometime. Wait, did I say that last one out loud? Hmm.

Conclusion

So in the short-term, I’m focusing on my BowFlex and weight routines. I’ll use the 16 low-difficulty exercises to get myself going for stretching and hopefully walking + exercise bike for some basic cardio.

I posted earlier about keeping track of my body metrics (Changing my body – Baseline 21-001), and I feel somewhat, umm, undecided about them. Some seem obvious, like weight. BMI has some well-known issues, and I don’t really care about it, but it’s auto-calculated on every app, so I don’t care if it’s there. But beyond that? I’m not sure what I actually care about.

I have three separate apps that track measurements, and I’ve set them all up for now so that I can see what it looks like when I do my October and November updates. Essentially, I want to see what they show me for ongoing tracking, so for now, I’m tracking “everything” that each one does. Here’s what the three apps do collectively.

Area of the body	MY WEIGHT app	REMEASURE app	Body Tracker app
	Yes	Yes	Yes
Height	Yes	Yes	—
BMI	Calculated	Calculated	—
Body fat %	Calculated	Calculated	—
Neck	Yes	Yes	—
Shoulders	Yes	—	—
Bust	—	Yes	Yes
Lower-chest	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stomach above belly button	—	—	—
Stomach at belly button	—	Yes	—
Waist	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hips	Yes	Yes	—
Buttocks	—	Yes (but not used)	Yes
Biceps (Relaxed)	Right / Left	Right / Left	Average
Biceps (Flexed)	—	—	—
Forearm	Right / Left	Right / Left	—
	Right / Left	Right / Left	Average
Knee	—	Right / Left	—
Calf	Right / Left	Right / Left
Ankles	—	Right / Left (but not used)	—
Feet girth	—	Right / Left (but not used)	—

What do the measurements tell me?

So, I really like the My Weight app for the simplicity of entering weight measurements regularly. I like the screen it shows me, nothing too fancy, just simple everyday progress (or more accurately, whenever I choose to enter it, which isn’t daily, more weekly). The Body Tracker app has a very simplified interface too, and simplified measurements, but the big “advantage” of the app is that it lets me take front / side / back photos and has some basic features built in to let me do side-by-side comparisons at check-in. To “see” my actual change in body, which hopefully will eventually be visible. I don’t however have to use all the features of any app, just seeing what works.

But when I think about my body, I think some things stand out more than others as areas I care about. Weight is a complex beast compared to health overall as a better goal, but on the other hand, I’ve been experiencing some negative parts purely from weight (breaking furniture, for example). I’m more conscious of it of late and it’s bothering me, separate from the health concerns. While my weight hasn’t shifted much during COVID, I’ve lost heavier muscle tone and gained lighter fat in increased girth. And while I will obviously include Weight as an ongoing measurement, it’s really the girth that bothers me the most at present.

However, on weight, my earlier musings to achieve my target goal of 185 lbs in a little over 4 years were apparently way too ambitious. Based on medical research, the best advice is 5-10% change per year. At 5% reduction per year, it will take me 12 years to reach my goal. At 10% reduction per year, it’s a little closer to 6 years. I was thinking in terms of linear totals (i.e., the same amount each year), not the percentage per year, so that changes my timeline. I’ll have to alter the plan to make it where I want to be by age 62, or about 4-5y after retirement, and 8-9 years from now. That is a hard blow to take, to see that long a delay in achieving my goal, but it’s more realistic. At least I’ll see benefits all along the way at earlier milestones.

The apps can calculate fat % or BMI, not active tools I’ll be using, but they’re there. Maybe they’ll give me info, maybe they won’t. We’ll see.

For the neck, it’s a bit misleading. I don’t in theory care about my neck measurement, at least not directly. What I do care about is having multiple chins. I have a light beard right now, so it’s not as obvious (I’m not doing it to hide it, it’s just WFH laziness on my part). But if I shave, and I tuck my chin into my neck to “force” the worst possible look, it’s bad. “Fat-shaming role in a movie” bad. I know it’s there, and I’ve had it for a long time. One of my least favourite memories from my mother happened a bit after Jacob was born. She wasn’t being deliberately mean, more merely thoughtless, but she suggested out of the blue that I needed to start doing neck exercises to get rid of my extra chins. As much as I disliked the comment, she wasn’t wrong. In fact, when I got married, it was something I discussed with the photographer — how could we do some photos that wouldn’t show how fat my face was? There’s a reason why the best photo of the bunch has me leaning forward and looking up a bit.

So I’ll measure neck as I don’t quite know how to measure “chin” decrease…from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1? I confess I also have concerns that as I lose weight, the skin won’t retract with it for tone and I’ll be left with hanging flesh in places, including my neck or arms. I try not to dwell as that is an almost-envious problem to have because it would mean I had lost enough weight to see the difference.

Shoulders? I really don’t think I care. Maybe if I was trying to be a linebacker, this could be relevant? I’m not trying to increase or decrease it, so why track it? Only one of the apps asks for it, while another has a slot for it. But it is also one that requires someone else to measure as your arms have to be down at your sides, and that alone is enough for me to likely veto it. I’m trying to do most of the stuff on my own without burdening Jacob or Andrea too much in my tracking. It’s my obsession and problem, not theirs, and while they’re willing to help, I also don’t want to impose too heavily on their goodwill.

There are two measurements, bust and just below the bust (i.e., lower chest), and I’m rather bewildered about these ones. I am carrying a lot of fat to the sides of my breasts, and it’s visible in the pictures. I hate it, sure. And I definitely want to find ways to get rid of it. But if I go by measuring the bust area, in theory it will go down and then back up? Down as I lose the fat, back up as I put some muscle into pecs and lats. So I’ll keep measuring it, at least one of them anyway (likely bust), but I’m not sure how to interpret the numbers as to whether a dropping number or an increasing number is good/bad.

The next five measurements are all very inter-related, and some of the descriptions from app-to-app are conflicting about which is which for upper stomach, stomach, waist, hips and buttocks. Some of the waist definitions point to the belly-button, others go to the waist band of underwear, some call that the hips. Generally, the top one (above my belly-button) and the bottom one (around the butt) are really clearly different, but the other three get intermingled. For me? I care about three things. I want to get rid of my giant stomach. It’s in the way when I’m bending over, I can’t see my toes, blah blah blah. So at least one measurement that is around my stomach at the belly-button level has to stay. The next measurement is waist. Part of the challenge, tied to pant measurements for example, is that if you are thin and tall, you tend to wear your waistband higher than you do if you’re fat like me. My stomach wants to “push” the beltline lower, which is why you often see TV and movie characters “cinching” their belt under their beer belly. In the end, I don’t care what it is now, I only care what it is when I get closer to my ultimate goal in several years. I want to wear 30″ pants someday, and not because I’m so old that I’ve lost every ounce of tone or weight. And thirdly, just to close out, I want to get rid of my extra girth in the pelvic and butt areas. So a measurement around the butt area is probably a decent one to keep.

For the arms and legs, I get confused a bit again. Take biceps, for instance. I have a lot of flab in my arms right now, and so they seem “bigger” than they actually are. Ergo, I want that number to go down, right? Except, I wouldn’t mind if I could develop some decently noticeable biceps. I don’t want to be a body-builder or anything, but I would get some mental boost from seeing actual definition. So, the measurement should go “down” and then back “up”? But to what? Like I said, I want functional strength and some definition, not competition-style biceps. I confess I also have no idea what thick forearms would translate to in actual numbers or definition. As with other areas, do I want it to go down? Up slightly? I have no idea. On thighs, they definitely need to go down and then gain some definition, which a measurement won’t really capture. Similarly to forearms, what does a measurement around the knee tell me? Should it go down? Up? And finally my calves. With my diabetic numbers, I moved into wearing compression socks, and with that compression, the girth has gone down, as has the more marbled appearance I used to deal with from time to time. At times, I liked it, as my calves looked like tree trunks. But now that I’m wearing the compression socks, does the size matter? Should it go up? Or down? Or is it simply about definition again? I think it should go down for awhile, but I’m not sure what a “good” size would be.

Where does that leave me?

If I’m brutally honest then, and utterly ruthless, I need:

• A weight measurement, to tell me how I’m doing more regularly than the monthly baseline review;
• A neck measurement, as the only useful proxy for how many chins I still have;
• A bust measurement, for context;
• A stomach measurement, as the only one focused on the most significant area of girth;
• A waist measurement, for context in the short-term;
• A buttocks measurement, for eliminating some flabbiness on the front and back;
• A thigh measurement, for flabbiness and simple sitting agility/pressure;
• A calf measurement, for future compression sock conversations; and,
• A bicep measurement, as a bit of an ego thing.

Since I want the first app for the great tracking related to weight, and I’m using the third app for the photos, the real question is whether or I keep the second app long-term. I’ve certainly shown there’s no need to include any measurements in the third app, as it is just not robust enough. I’ll keep it for photos, and weight, but likely not the body measurements. But if I compare app #2 against app #1, my problem with only using #1 is that there’s no option for a good stomach AND waist measurement, and while I could repurpose hips, there’s also no pure buttocks measurement area. If I go instead with only app #2, I can do all the measurements, but the weight aspects are not as visually appealing.

Overall, it seems like I’m likely to keep:

• My Weight for the purposes of weight tracking;
• ReMeasure for a smaller grouping of physical body measurements; and,
• Body Tracker still for the photos.

As I said at the beginning, I’ll enter the measurements for now in all three, and re-evaluate once I get to November or December. Mostly what I’ll be looking for is how it shows me graphs and trends in an easy to use format.

I’m not convinced I know what all the measurements will tell me individually, but it’s a start.