Chapter 164: How many hours a day should I move to get to 127 pounds?

Sitting in the steam sauna, all zipped up (who has a sauna like mine knows what it means) I was thinking about this one thing: what is different between my daily routine during my late teen years and now?

I have not changed my body height since 16 yo. The only parameter changing since then was weight. And 67 pounds is a lot of weight gain to be explained by physiological changes only. At least some of it should be caused by changes in my daily routine.

And then interesting memories came to the surface

1. Amount mandatory weekly sport hours at school: 6
2. Daily evening activity: going for a walk with friends for minimum 2 hours time. On Sunday – 4 hours outdoors activities.

Total amount sport / outdoor activity (hours/week): 6+2*6+4=22 hours

Total amount sport / outdoor activity (hours/day): 3.1 hours

Then I remembered that during my first years at the university I found myself gaining 30 pounds within one year time (summer job at McDonalds helped a lot). Without stressing about it too much – I started daily exercising in the second year. I have also discovered that we had a great free pass for all various sport activities at the campus: dancing, aerobics, you name it. And I binged on free exercise, 3 hours a day was a norm: 1 hour bike drive to the university and back plus 2 hours daily exercise. 30 pounds melted off in a matter of half a year without me even noticing. I remember how surprised I was mounting a scale for the first time in 6-7 months.

What about diet? In both cases I had a simple diet. No restrictions and somehow no overeating really. Food was there to eat. Cooking was simple. At 16: Almost no sauces. Lots of soup. Bread and butter were on the table. Potatoes. Meat products. Chicken occasionally. Rich food was available on special occasions only. What was totally absent? All kinds of serials. All kinds of pre-cooked meals. All kinds of pizza like items. All kinds of soda and juice. All kinds of sweets. The sweetest thing available was sugar, jam or occasionally PANDA condensed sweet milk.

2^nd year university: basically the same, but lots of salad. Rice instead of potatoes. I had one Rollo chocolate every day. Love Rollos.

So I have two examples from my life. On both occasions: simple diet with minimum processed food, but not really a diet. In both cases: 3 hours physical activity a day on average. And this physical activity was not pure exercise. We just used to walk everywhere or go by bike, and to watch minimum TV, going for a walk instead. We would meet friends; go for a walk and talk. Instead of meeting in some place, sitting around, having some food and talk.

I jumped out of the Sauna cabin, went online to Loseit app and exported my logged physical activities for the past year:

Jumping Rope: 194 hours

Walking: 132 hours

Bicycling: 65 hours

Steam sauna: 49 hours

Yoga: 49 hours

Activities around the house: 23 hours

TOTAL: 512 hours

Hours per day: 1.4

1.4 hours physical activity a day is half of what I used to have at the weight levels of my aspiration.

I am also halfway to the weight levels of my aspiration right now.

I may add an early morning walk combined with meditation and day planning. And on some occasions, a walk combined with listening to Audible books. Adding more work around house would not hurt either 🙂 I will think about these 3 hours in terms of physical activity hours rather than exercise. And I will start going for a walk with friends again.