It's been another good year for health and fitness, logged over time since 2014. Another record year for walking - 11,400 paces a day every day on average across the entire year! Since I started keeping tabs every day, on 1 January 2014, I've walked over 1.9 million paces, which is around 15,600km. The equivalent of the distance from London to the Bering Strait. It's also around two hours of walking a day, every day. A bad dose of flu in January resulted in a monthly average of less than 8,000 that month, but I still caught up and easily exceeded 2017's total.
Reduced alcohol consumption is the result of Public Health England nudging me down from its old guideline (28 units a week for men, which I exceeded anyway), down through the more recent 21 units a week target two years in a row; now the guideline has been set at 14 units a week - a tough target but an ambition for years ahead! This year, I downed 1,025 units of alcohol, the equivalent of 25 litres of vodka, 105 bottles of wine or 410 half-litre glasses of beer (5%). Average weekly intake, 19.7 units. Strip out those non-drinking days, and on the days I am drinking, my daily average is 6.1 units. "The Lord above made liquor for temptation but/With a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck/When temptation comes you'll give right in!" My guide is not to drink empty units - drink with friends, drink to celebrate (indeed, life should be a celebration), and drink to release the creativity and write. But never out of boredom.
| Measurable and manageable | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
| Paces per day walked (average across year) | 9,800 | 10,700 | 10,600 | 11,000 | 11,400 |
| Alcohol consumed (units per week) | 33.4 | 28.0 | 25.0 | 20.8 | 19.7 |
| Alcohol-free days over course of year | 94 | 123 | 155 | 186 | 196 |
| Days without any physical training | 234 | 266 | 148 | 83 | 27 |
| Push-ups per day | N/A | N/A | N/A | 25 | 60 |
| Portions of fresh fruit & veg per day | N/A | 4.3 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.3 |
The number of days of the year during which I did no physical training continues to fall. This means zero push-ups, zero pull-ups and zero weights exercises. The number is declining as I get more self-disciplined. A big thanks once again to Michal Borzyskowski from Australia for his continued encouragement. My weights routine has seen me move up from 1kg to 1.5kg to 2kg to 2.5kg and now up to 5kg weights for internal and external rotations, and the lateral lifts. Nine repetitions of each. Pull-ups (chin-ups) - my best for this year is 16, but 10 is a good number. Push-ups - these have gone well, requiring no apparatus, I can do them wherever I am on my travels. Average daily number for 2018 was 60 (30 each morning, 30 each evening - that's an average remember, with a maximum of 50 which I managed twice. And that's an average of 30 despite those 27 days during which I did none).
On to dietary matters - we're still being told s to aim for ten portions of fresh fruit and veg with the emphasis more on the veg than the fruit. Still, the trend continues to be good, nudging up to 5.3 portions per day, averaged across 2018.
New Year's resolutions must be sustainable the whole year round if they are to make any sense. In 2014, I kicked off enthusiastically with the exercises, then tailed off early. In 2018, I plugged away for longer, setting myself a goal to beat 2017 in every metric. It's not about perfection - it's about improvement; constant improvement.
But our goals must be more than physical, more than just due care for our shell of foam. My primary goal remains to deepen my understanding of our sentient existence upon this planet. Consciousness, memory, self, purpose - the universe. More reading, more writing. More questioning, more observations. More interesting conversations.
This time last year:
2017 - a year in numbers
This time two years ago:
2016 - a year in numbers
This time three years ago:
2015 - a year in numbers
This time four years ago:
Economic forecasts for 2014 - and 2015?
This time five years ago:
Economic predictions for 2014
This time six years ago:
Economic predictions for 2013
This time seven years ago:
Economic predictions for 2012
This time eight years ago:
Classic cars, West Ealing
This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki 2009, another view
This time ten years ago:
Jeziorki 2008, another view
This time 11 years ago:
Final thoughts for 2007
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