Getting Healthier

I follow a dude on FB who's something of a conservative pundit.  Good guy.  Anyway, I saw where he'd posted about his weight loss journey.  From April to now, he went from 217 to 170 - all by eating healthier and exercising.  Way to go, dude.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about my weight loss journey.  There isn't one.  I don't care if I lose weight.  I do, however, want to be a healthier human being.  Cuz, let's face it, I ain't gettin' any younger and the old parts are starting to notice that their warranty has expired.

Every Sunday for the past whatever, I've tried to post about my activity level and with that, I put my weight.  Yeah, yeah, a lady is supposed to talk about her weight.  I think that's a silly taboo.  I'm not ashamed of being 177-ish pounds.  It is what it is.  (Ladies also aren't supposed to mention their age.  I'm 55.  I'm such a rebel.)

Time out... I was just searching to see what my ideal weight would be for my age.  Freakin' idjits have made it so you now have to calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) and age doesn't factor into it (except whether you're a child (under 20) or an adult (over 20) which is stupid in my opinion).  Anyway, a person who's 5'7 and 177 pounds has a BMI of 27.72 according to the Forbes BMI calculator - and that means I'm 'overweight'.  Which is actually better than the last time I checked one of those and it told me I was obese.  According to them a healthy weight is between 118 and 159.  I tried another place that calculated using height and actual age to find my ideal weight (it came out in kilograms... damn metric people... which I then had to convert to pounds).  According to this place, my ideal weight is 138.

Okay... my ideal weight when I was 25 was 135, so I'm not sure what the hell they're talking about.  Oh, and I'm probably carrying around 10 pounds of boob which skews things.  Maybe I should delete 10 pounds so I can see what the rest of my body should weigh.  Me minus 10 pounds of boob is 167, which is only 8 pounds over what Forbes consider within healthy parameters.  I'm okay with that.

Actually, this wasn't supposed to be about weight, but I fell down that rabbit hole, so you get to enjoy reading about it.  

The point I was trying to make is that in order for ME to feel healthier, I need to up my activity level - regardless of calories and make-up of calories (you know... carbs versus proteins, and all that rot.)  I learned this about myself ages ago.  If I sit around, I end up feeling like shit.  My hips hurt, my legs hurt, walking to the mailbox makes me tired.  That's no way to live.  

When I'm a good girl, I do something active every day and that makes me feel better.  And for me, feel better = healthier.  When I'm a bad girl, I sit on my ass all day and feel like shit.  Simple stuff in my life, really.  

Right now, I'm getting more active.  It's cooler, for one thing, which means I can get out in the woods again.  I love woods work better than any other activity.  I'm sawing limbs and throwing logs.  I'm tramping over uneven terrain - uphill, downhill, sideways - over rocks and logs while maintaining my balance.  It all uses a lot of different muscle groups and gets the heart a-pumpin'.

I spent 6.25 hours in the woods last week, and I'm feeling pretty good.  Oh, sure, everything aches today, but thems good aches.  Joints feel better, heart feels better.  Better is good.

Now, I just need to find the gumption to be active when it's not fun.  (Outdoors = fun. Indoors = not fun.)  It's all a balance.

How are you feeling?  How's the balance in your life?