...and with that, I just hit my step goal for 29 consecutive days. Accordingly, I picked up another Rise and Grind badge for my 4-7 AM efforts in the last seven days.

I did NOT want to walk today. Long have I leaped over the mental hurdle of waking at 2:30 AM. But to be sick and face 23℉?

Nevertheless, I went through my prep. I looked at the mirror and appeared as I always did beneath the moon. I didn't know what the path ahead would be. I headed out.

I felt underdressed in my 3 layers of clothing on my torso. And for the day, again, my heart rate moving was lower than my sleeping, so I wasn't radiating nuclear heat.

After 30 minutes into my 1h30m walk, Garmin registered my skin temperature to have fallen from 80℉ to 42° with the last 35 minutes leveling at 39 ℉. As a point of comparison, yesterday's 2+ hour walk with the 19℉ windchill leveled out at 60.8℉ for the duration. I turned back homeward as my qi just felt off.

And thus, I came away with adding 4 miles to this past week, with some mop-up work on my map from almost to the soccer park to St. Elmo as I'll need a final walking activity that will edge it over 30 miles for the week.

These past few days haven't been physically hard. But, I have been pumping the mental iron. Remember back when it was easy just to lose weight? Just eat the bacon and smile. But my 2024 goals are set for more than that. I've been focused on the Golden Ratio, specifically shoulders to natural waist. But, I like Dr. Ken Berry's focus on waist:height proportions:

YouTube Link

It's not a bad approach: the ideal measurement is for your widest waist to be half your height. So, someone like me who's 69.75 inches tall comes in at 34.87 around the midsection. It's not likely anyone has buffed up abs and obliques to give poor data like BMI does—it's gonna be belly fat. BMI doesn't say ANYTHING about someone's fitness. Might as well be an eye color to hand size measurement.