Stopping the slide - taking more steps

Over the weeks of lockdown I've become increasingly indolent, lazy, unfocused, too fond of sitting down for a 'minute', and not noticing the hours tick by.

I feel like I'm sliding towards a black hole of inertia, and I'm at a time of life when 'use it or lose it' really begins to kick in, whether you're talking mind or muscles. It's time to stop the slide, and clamber away while I can. I want to keep my brain active, and pursue a variety of creative projects I have sitting around but I'm starting with more exercise.

In the first month of so or lockdown I was full of energy, which I applied to the garden, clearing long-neglected vegetable beds, sowing seeds, planting out small plants, hauling watering cans about as the weather turned hot. But once veggies are established, there's less to do other than occasional weeding, and a return to the more normal rain meant I didn't need to water.

My few attempts at walking locally weren't pleasant - too many people not bothering with social distancing - so I just stayed home, did online jigsaws if the weather was bad, sat in the garden on sunny days.


And that lockdown weight piled on. And on.


For a whole week I tried to watch what I was eating. But at the end of it I'd still put weight on!

Now I'm trying a different plan; more steps. I always wear my Fitbit but mostly ignore it. Now, I've set the hourly reminder to get me up and moving, and my idea is to try for more steps each week, through making every day a fairly active one, rather than go on a long walk one day, and slump on the sofa for the rest. Maybe this will have an extra pay-off in weight loss, maybe just in muscle tone.


One week in, my plan is going well. Over the seven days I walked just over 43,000 steps which is a great increase over the previous week's figure - 20,884 - but it still owes a lot to just a couple of days, which is something to work on. I'm not sure if I can keep this up but I'm going to try.