So I am in the midst if two life challenges that revolve around getting fitter. The first is the completed 21-day Yoga challenge, which now has become the 40-day Yoga Challenge. The other is my 30-day Oliver Walking Challenge.
The 21-day Yoga Challenge
The 21-day Yoga Challenge began on April 7th. The challenge was to do one of the three yoga routines presented in Richard Hittellman’s Yoga-28 Day Yoga Exercise Plan each day for 21 days. I had been doing only exercise routine two on the days I work at Target. In addition I wanted to challenge myself to do other yoga routines at other times doing the day or at night.
The results of the 21-day challenge have been very positive. I have regain a lot of flexibility. The increased flexibility is most readily observable when I do the plough asana. Here is the pose for those who are not familiar with it.
When I restarted doing this asana my legs were parallel to the floor and obviously my toes did not touch the floor. Now they do! Kinda like this…….
….on to the 30-day Oliver Walking Challenge.
I started my 30-day Walking Challenge on April 24th. The Challenge is to walk once or twice a day on the days that I don’t work at Target. One of the objectives of this challenge is to lose a few pounds and get back in shape to run again. As looked back at my steps over the last four months I saw that I was consistently below 10,000 steps per day, except for Target work days. So my hope was that by setting this challenge I could be over 10,000 steps everyday!!
So how’s it going. well, I’d say pretty well. I am 13 days into the Challenge and have gone for two walks on four of the days. And on four other days I have gone for one walk. On three days, all Target works days I didn’t go for any walks. So that makes eleven days, on the other two days I ran!! Well, I jogged slowly but it was faster than walking!!
As far as my steps over the last 13 days I have averaged 13,891 steps per day. Over the prior 13 days I averaged 9.387 steps per day. Bottom line the Walking Challenge is going well. My steps are up and I ran twice!
Ok so overall I have not lost much weight, but I feel a lot better. I actually don;t feel like an old out of shape man. Rather,
I feel like an old semi-out of shape man. So I seem to be moving in the right direction.
Then There’s the 30-Day New Music Challenge
My last new Challenge is the 30-day New Music Artist Challenge and it is not going as well. I have listened to a lot of new music on my various walks, but I haven’t written about most of the albums. Maybe I can catch up over the next few days.
2018 Reading Challenge
Finally, my 2018 Reading Challenge is still on track I have completed 22 books on a goal of 65. I have not written about the last three books that I have finished –Building The Great Society:Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House by Joshua Zeitz, Curious Minds (Knight and Moon, #1) by Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton and finally The Ninth Grave by Stefan Ahnhem. Each was a good read and I will try to write about them also sometime this week.
Currently, I am reading Hellbent:An Orphan X Novel from Gregg Hurwitz and Future Home of the Living God from Louise Erdrich. And there are still a bunch of books on my “to be read shelf”.
Once again, it seems that both the Yoga Challenge and the Walking Challenge are starting to pay dividends. While music and books always make life better!
