500,000 steps and the flu

It's weird that with a day filled with misery and failure I sit here at the end of the night in a mild fist-pumping celebration over a random accomplishment, but yet it is happening.

Yesterday both children were diagnosed with the flu which means a bunch of medicine and keeping the 12 year old home from school for a few days.

It also means fighting with a toddler to get him to take his medicine because "that's nasty dad."  So basically I've been slipping it into his drink hoping he doesn't notice.

Then comes the fun in the fact that I have a very pregnant wife at home and she is not allowed to catch the flu or it could have bad ramifications on the unborn baby and that means a whole bunch of other medicine for her and whatever other precautions might be needed.
Me?  Well I'm just hoping that I don't end up with the flu because being a fat asthmatic and having the flu will probably put me down for a week.  It is no where near as bad as bronchitis but any time an illness happens I have to take the utmost care to make sure that nothing moves into the lung region which could potentially develop into something far worse because of my asthma and history of being a poor breather.

As for the failures?  I'm being very honest with myself with the lights spreadsheet that I am starting to keep.  My goal is that this is going to be a long term thing and I am trying to keep up with it and be honest.  I have a lot of failures on my sheet, specifically today where I just gave up and fell into old habits.  However it is all about the long term so tomorrow is a new day and I can get back on my horse and ride into the sunset by starting my day doing as much as I can and keeping that attitude up all day long.

One thing I did accomplish is hitting my step goal again.  I don't plan on letting that one fail any time soon.
Also, I need to drink about 10 ounces of water in order to hit my goal of 64 ounces per day.  It should be a fairly easy one to hit every single day and I have no excuse for failing.

And that brings me to tonight's fist pump.
500,000
As in, during the month of January I took over 500,000 steps for what I can only assume is the first month I have ever done that.
Of course, I hit this goal because I have continually pushed myself for the StepBet challenge that I am in but I have accomplished it.

My private goal for the year was to hit at least 5 million steps which would average out to over 13k steps per day with a stretch goal of 5.5 million steps which would put me at slightly over 15k steps per day.   Pulling off 500,000 in January alone shows me that 5 million is going to be something I should hit without an issue and that 5.5 million is my real goal.   I'd up it to 6 million but I'm going to have that 3-4 week period where I don't do a whole lot as I am taking care of the entire family by myself as my wife recovers and I won't be at work to force steps in.  So, lets stick with 5.5 million and re-evaluate once I go back to work.

It feels strange but with all of the changes that I am trying to implement, with having a new computer that I am enjoying using and with trying to give myself a few minutes every single day to sit down with my thoughts and without TV, phone or video game distractions I am really starting to get back into this blogging thing again.

I'm glad that some of you decided to still give my thoughts a go even though it is no longer a poker-centric blog like it was when most of you starting joining my journey.

Hope everyone out there has avoided the flu for the season.

Healthy 2017 - January

January has come and gone and as some of you are aware I made myself a goal to hit 10,000 steps at a minimum every single day for 2017 in an effort to get more healthy.

Now that January is Over I can say that I have achieved this goal every single day for the first month and I know I will continue to achieve it every day for the second month.

There were a few days that were hard to get through and I had to push myself at the end but the important part is that I actually did push myself to get those in.

Also, I informed friends that I was going to be doing this and two of them have decided to join me.

One of them started about a 3rd of the way through the month and the other started right at the beginning of the year.


So, January.

I had a total of 432,473 steps in January which breaks down to an average of 13,950 steps per day.
I had 6 days under 11k steps but none of those days were under 10k steps which was my ultimate goal.
I had 8 days over 16k steps.
My best day was 19,583 on January 28th and my worst day was 10,072 on January 8th.
January 2016 I had 297,812
January 2015 I had 289,282
January 2015 I had 327,296

So, as you can see this January was by far my best start to the year.


My buddy Matt did 301,919 steps in January and started using his Fitbit on January 12th.
For his 20 days he averaged 15,095 steps per day and is leaving me play catch up.


Shawn started on January 1st with the goal of having Zero days under 10k steps as well and did 431,091 steps averaging 13,906 steps per day - almost the same exact step count I had with just 44 steps less per day.



For February my goals are to not have any days below 10,500 steps and to have 2 days over 20k steps.  I want to raise my average steps above 14k, ultimately I would like to reach 15k average but February might be too early in the year to accomplish that (because then I want to maintain it and get better every month).

February 2014 - 331,817
February 2015 - 260,749
February 2016 - 312,897

2 out of the 3 years that I have had a Fitbit I have done more steps in February (with less days in the month) than I have done in January.
My ultimate goal would be to do 420,000 steps in Feb which puts me at 15k steps per day.
However, looking at 14k per day I would be at 392,000.
I will be happy as long as I fall somewhere in between the two.