Burnin’ Fat

I have been dieting and increasing my activity since December 1^st and I’ve lost 14 pounds. Charlie has been dieting too, albeit forced, as she recovers from hiatal hernia surgery. She has lost 18 pounds since November 27th.

My goal is to get down to 180 pounds by the end of January; I’m at 185 now.

The biggest change in my diet is to eat a very sparse lunch. Over the past year, I had got into the habit of eating a lot of Doritos chips and salsa/cheese dips. My new snack lunch consists of maybe 30 cheese puffs, so about 150 calories.

Typically, I eat a light breakfast of an English muffin with peanut butter or a couple of toaster waffles. On most mornings, I walk with my friend Mac for a mile, sometimes with Charlie for another mile, and often I add three or four more miles of walking with the dogs. Thus, I pretty much burn off the breakfast calories before midday.

Our community (Sun City Mesquite) is a great place to walk. There are scores of concrete- or asphalt-paved trails crisscrossing the entire community (of 5,000 homes), the weather is typically great, and the trails offer nice views of Flat Top Mesa on the west and the Virgin Mountains on the east. The dogs love walking the trails, which range from ¼ mile to 4 miles long.

Recently, I’ve done some hiking with the local club (called the Desert Fossils). A neighbor friend of mine named John Kasberg is club President. The group hikes on Mondays and Thursdays. I pick my spots: most of the club’s hikes aren’t that interesting to me, but occasionally they do a hike that I’ve never done before, and I join in.

Yesterday was one of those hikes that attracted me. It took place in the Valley of Fire state park, which is located about halfway between Mesquite and Las Vegas. It’s about an hour’s drive from our neighborhood.

Valley of Fire is a cool place to hike. It reminds me of Arches National Park, with all of the red sandstone cliffs, weird landforms, and occasional arches. There are Bighorn sheep there, too, and areas that have petrified wood just lying around. In addition, the park has RV sites. It can get super-hot in this park during the Summer, so the ideal time to hike there is in the Fall, Winter, and early Spring.

This week’s hike was supposedly a five-mile “loop”, designated “difficult”, with 900’ elevation gain. I’ve hiked many times in this park over the past five years but had never done this particular hike.

There were 12 hikers in the group, led by a guy named Fred. Everyone in the hiking group is a “senior”, i.e. above 60 years old. Most are older than that, like hike leader Fred who is 78 years young. I’ve known him for many years, and he is a hiking beast; we call him the Goat. Everybody on this hike was competent… no crybabies, and about half of the hikers were women. I was impressed at everyone’s gumption.

That was a good thing, as this short hike turned into a real bitch. There were no trails to speak of, lots of very steep sandstone cliffs, and loose rubble which helped to make our ascents and descents dicey. And good ol’ Fred got us lost a few times, which caused us to put in additional steep ascents and descents on the slick rock. We eventually made it out of there in one piece with no injuries.

HipHipHooray!

Charlie has never visited Valley of Fire, so I’m going to have to schedule an outing down the road where she and the dogs can look see from the comfort of our Jeep Cherokee.

Now that I am regularly hiking again, I think its time to see my orthopedic surgeon Dr. Scott Parry. He did both of my hip replacement surgeries a few years ago. Unfortunately, the aftereffects of those surgeries left me with some adhesions in my thigh muscles (quadriceps) which cause my legs to sometimes buckle a bit when I step down or put a lot of weight on a leg. This is not a good thing when doing “difficult” hikes like the one at Valley of Fire. The last thing I want is to fall headfirst into a pile of jagged rocks while out in the boondocks 25 miles from civilization.

I am thinking that perhaps there are some exercises that I can do to counteract the adhesion problem. Dr Parry will know. If I can get that problem resolved, there is no reason that I couldn’t hike another five years or so (into my eighties).

Speaking of hiking, my old adventurous buddy Lloyd (who moved to South Africa) will be visiting us next week for five days. Maybe we can put together a fun trek?

I’m thinking Observation Point in Zion National Park.

Hopefully, Lloyd brought his hiking boots with him.