The Challenge....

So I posted this whole thing below on the whyeat.net forum too, but I feel like I really should blog about this whole thing too. I am totally all for everyone being as healthy as they can possibly be, but that isn't going to happen overnight and things aren't going to change in the world overnight and people aren't going to stop eating junk food probably ever because they actually think it tastes good (and so do I most days but I also can't stand the calories and the fat and the sugar and everything else that goes along with the junk food) and the fact is we're a load of people who have innumerable diet issues. Whether we're eating next to nothing and anorexic, puking back up what we eat and bulemic, over-eating whether intentionally or unintentionally, exercising or fasting or trying out the lastest fad diet trend, most people have eating issues or nutrition intake issues or something of the like but it's just common place for some of those things to be more "ok" than others.

And basically if you've been following my blog at all you have probably picked up that I'm super focused on specific numbers. Numbers are my thing, but math and weight and calories don't always add up because things like metabolic rates are different for different people and sometimes calculations aren't 100% precise so to counterbalance this, I tend to over-estimate values of foods, amounts I've eaten, and various other things that I do I underestimate how much of things I've done like say I go to 5 different websites that say you burn x calories doing this activity and they all vary, I'll take the lowest one, subtract about 5 or so calories, and that's what I'll take, even though I'm a bigger person so I burn more calories than someone else who weighs 50 lbs less than me doing the exact same thing.

And another thing I would like to bring up, I keep editing this blog post, this is an edited and added in paragraph... I've been like.. afraid of the scale since 2 weeks ago when I stepped on it and I gained 2.2 lbs, but finally today I just said screw it and pulled it down and weighed myself and I'm at 199.6 lbs today. That means I'm less than half a pound away from 200, that means if I drank a bottle of water and stepped on the scale I'd probably be over 200. granting that would quite literally be water weight that I'd just go and pee out but seriously??? WTF??? I've been shoveling snow and pulling heavy ass pallets at work and slipping and sliding all over in the icy wet slush and I'm sore as a motherfucker and I'm pretty sure that I've worked every muscle in my entire friggin body and I'm achey and sore and my arms and my back and my shoulders and my legs are just screaming at me, and I've GAINED 3 MORE POUNDS????? I'm fucking pissed off at myself now too...

also on the forum I posted this last night...

"I've been weighing myself every friday/saturday/sunday just to be like "Ha! I can control weighing myself so I don't do it every day!!!" but I didn't weigh myself last weekend, and I didn't today either (granted I still have tomorrow and sunday to go) but it isn't because of some major feat of powerful strength against the scale and the number on it's grip on me... but out of fear....

See, I gained 2.2 lbs the weekend before last, and then I was kind of... "pigging out" on fast food (aka eating fast food after I get off work because I'm too lazy to come home and cook, not a ton of it but enough that I was probably eating about 1000 cal dinners) all the last 2 weeks so I'm still like... scared to step on the scale. I'm pretty sure the reason it was a little bit higher actually is because I started my period like... wed. after I weighed myself on friday. I always seem to go up a little bit before my period hits, not really sure why since I never feel bloated or anything. But... I'm scared of the scale now. I don't think that's any healthier than like.. religiously weighing myself every weekend... "I bow down to the power of the scale...." WTF!?!?!?!?

I also wanted to start running again, I want to try to start training for a marathon eventually, I know I probably won't do one for a while, but I want to do one. Anyway, I wanted to start running again and tonight seemed like a good night, I don't have my son tonight, I just got off of work, only I live in an area that is recovering from a severe winter storm, I drove past every school in the area on my way home that had a track and they were all just.. covered in snow, and I half was like "fuck that, I'm gonna do it anyway!" but then I pictured myself slipping and like.. breaking my ankle or something and being unable to work and being unable to provide for my son and getting kicked out of my apartment all stemming from me trying to force myself to exercise on snow/ice which is just idiotic, so I got jack in the box (stupid stupid stupid) and came home."

And then after weighing myself this morning on the same thread I posted....

"oh ffs can I go back to NOT conquering my fear of the scale??? I've gained 3 lbs since I weighed myself 2 weeks ago and I'm .4 lbs away from going over 200 again :'( I CANNOT GO OVER 200 AGAIN!!!! I WOULD RATHER ---DIE--- THAN BE ---THAT--- FAT AGAIN!!!

I was hoping that maybe all my shoveling snow and hauling heavy ass pallets and walking and slipping and etc. the last several days at work and my whole fucking body is just sore as a motherfucker would somehow balance out the fucking disgusting fatty nasty fast food binging but apparently not and I'm a fucking fat ass piece of shit still and I'm not losing anything, I'm just gaining and gaining and gaining and this is soooooooooo making me want to fucking restrict but I know I shouldn't. I fucking hate myself"

Obviosuly I'm being a little bit over-dramatic and I wouldn't literally rather die than be over 200 lbs again, but quite frankly it's really upsetting.... And I haven't been eating fast food every night, just.. enough nights that apparently it made a pretty decent dent in the amount of gain... And I didn't spend a ton on money on it, I bought off the dollar/value/why-pay-more menu's for the most part...


So anyway, what I posted on the forum about this challenge was....

Every year at the start of the year at my work they seem to have this "Healthy" challenge for associates and their family members, this year it's only open to associates. Last year all you had to do was log on and pledge to lose or maintain your current weight and they would donate a certain amount to "feeding america" and you could write some inspirational statement about how pledging to lose weight and actually getting healthier has made your life better and the grand prize was a trip to go to the live taping of the biggest loser. (a tv show, if you've never heard of it, fat contestants go on there and learn to make healthy food choices and work their asses off trying to lose weight and in the end the person who lost the most weight wins as the biggest loser)

Last year was fantastic, all I had to do was go online and say "I'm going to try to lose x amount this year" and in spite of my best intentions I really didn't lose much weight over the last year. But that is beside the point...

This year is the "I can do that" associate challenge in which we are being challenged to walk a certain number of steps every day. They even have this thing on the website that says "Enter the goal number of steps you plan to take during the entire 10 week challenge below. The CDC recommends 10,000 steps per day for weight loss. That would calculate to 70,000 steps per week x 10 weeks = 700,000 total steps! If you feel 700,000 steps are too much, or you’re not trying to lose weight, feel free to enter a goal you are comfortable with."

It also says on that same page that 120 steps is 100 yards, 1057 steps is half a mile, 2115 steps is a mile, 6562 steps is 5k and 13123 steps is 10k, and I calculated out they based this off of the "average" 2.5 feet step. I have a step of about 1.5 feet, so obviously it takes me more steps to walk the same distance, but I'm short.

Anyway, either way all of this just playing into how my entire life is just a numbers game, and not necessarily in a good way. I keep reading up on how walking is so beneficial to your health and the average sedentary lifestyle gets about 2-3k steps in per day, and they are basically saying that if you normally get about 2-3k steps in per day you can increase your steps by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, getting off 1 bus stop early and walking the rest of the way, walking on your breaks at work, going for about a 45 minute walk at a 4mph pace, etc. and all of that will easily give you 10k per day. If you are doing about 2-3000 already, walking 3 miles every day in 45 minute walk gives you another 6000, so that alone gives you 8-9000, if you change that to an hour long walk at 4mph pace (that's a 15 minute mile, not excessively fast walking) then there's your 10 or even 11k steps for your day. And if you already are one of those people who walks around more than 3000 steps per day wall maybe you walked a 10k that day which apparently is 13,123 steps at a 2.5 (30 inches) foot step (about 76 cm for those of you who wondered... and my average stride is about 46cm or 18 inches)

I mean, I'm already doing the math in my head calculating it all out....
if 120 2.5 feet steps is 100 yards (a football field) than 200 1.5 feet steps is 100 yards
if 1057 2.5 feet steps is half a mile than 1762 1.5 feet steps is a half a mile
if 2115 2.5 feet steps is a mile than 3524 1.5 feet steps is a mile
if 6562 2.5 feet steps is 5k than 10937 1.5 feet steps is 5k
if 13123 2.5 feet steps is 10k than 21874 1.5 feet steps is 10k

So either I need to adopt a longer stride or I'm walking that much more to go the same distance, but I think if I'm walking that much more to go the same distance than I'm losing more weight than someone who is taking less steps to go that far, right? In theory.... But all of this is just creating more and more of a numbers game with me, numbers, numbers, numbers.....

And the problem is, while I don't know what the prizes are in the first place and maybe I really don't care that much for them in the first place, but it says.... "Individuals suspected of unhealthy physical activity may be disqualified." and I'm constantly doing unhealthy shit... so I guess I'll just have to put a clamp down on that suspicion level thing...?

::end::

And the whole thing is I don't just need to "clamp down on the suspicion thing" I need to actually not be unhealthy whatsoever at all. Which is super important and the whole point of them putting all of this out there is that as a company they want their associates to be healthier. I figure to cut down on the amount they are shelling out as a result of weight related diseases, medications, insurance coverage, basically, but I could be worng, maybe they actually really give a shit about how healthy we are on a more personal level than money? Who am I kidding? It's a business, they care about the money.

I mean, if they cared more about us as people and everything wouldn't our associate first days have healthy food options and ingredients lists for people with food allergies and intolerances and dietary restrictions such as vegetarian or vegan diets? Which is something I've brought up numerous times but has never happened. And 90% of the time our associate first days are hot dogs, spaghetti, ice cream bars, nachos, cookies, where's the HEALTHY FOOD????

But anyway, back on the topic of steps.... See, the thing is that I want to start trying to train to do a marathon, which if you look that up it's...
How Many Miles Is 5k = 3.1 miles.
Most beginner runners will take an average time to finish a 5k race of 30 - 40 minutes.
How Many Miles Is 10k = 6.2 miles
The usual time it takes to finish a 10k race is 1 -1½ hours
How Many Miles Is Half marathon = 13.1 miles, 21.7 kilometres
A respectable time it takes to finish a half marathon is 2 - 2½ hours.
How Many Miles Is a Marathon = 26.2 miles, 41.2 kilometres
The average time it takes runners to finish a marathon is between 4½ - 5 hours.

So... granting that I want to start training to run a marathon eventually, I was planning on starting that up as soon as all this ice and snow melts, and this walking challenge pops up, would it be considered as suspicion of unhealthy activity to be taking probably WAY more steps than 10,000 per day? Because if I'm trying to train for a marathon I'm pretty sure I should be walking and running miles, and as you can see by my calculations above, if I get up to going say... a 10k at my current stride pace of 1.5 (granting that's my walking stride, not my running stride) that's 21874 steps on top of the rest of my day... in 1 day....

Not that I'm expecting to get up to doing a 10k within 10 weeks, but I'm just using that as an example. It's likely to look bad if instead of 70,000 steps in one week which is what the cdc recommends for weight loss, I've got a week of say... 99,750 cause on top of 3000 sedentary lifestyle steps I decided to run a 10k twice that week and the rest of the 5 days I still got in my 10k steps... or say I decided to do a 10k run twice that week and a 5k once.. say I did a 10k monday, a 5k wednesday, and another 10k friday, walked 3000 steps all 3 of those days otherwise throughout the day, and walked 10000 steps on the other 4 days, that would be 103685 steps. That's 33685 steps more than 70,000 steps per day.

I'm not going to run 2 10k in a week on top of a 5k and everything else.... I don't think I am anyway, but I am pretty damn determined.... And stubborn...

And as you can see I'm playing with numbers again....

Anyway, basically I need to get a pedometer. It says on the website for the challenge that some divisions are providing them or you can use your own. Well it actually says...
"Pedometers are either provided or suggested by the division OR the associate can use a pedometer of their choice."
Which I took to translate out as "You can use your own pedometer, and all the divisions will have a suggestion that you use one and possibly a suggestion of a sepcific one you should use, but only some of the divisions will be providing associates with pedometers." Granted I might have gotten that wrong...

So basically I need to go in to work and talk to the HR person and see what's up...