Re: Summer Shred 2026!

About 3 months ago, I started my "Summer Shred", which basically is just me using a walking pad on a regular basis at home.  At first I was using it almost everyday, but I found it especially effective when I used the walking pad during my daily status meetings for work.  Before I owned a walking pad, I often took the meetings from my chair or even my bed.  But now I am always walking during these 30-45 minute meetings, thus increasing my physical activity on a daily basis, especially Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday when I have those meetings.

Here is the log of my walking time, speed, incline, Kcals burnt, and steps.  The Kcal value is reported by the walking pad, so I don't know how accurate that actually is.  Also, I rounded down the steps to the nearest hundred, for simplicity.

* Used a more accurate weight scale at the office.

At the beginning of the summer, I came in weighing around 193-195 lbs via the weight scale at the gym.  I feel like this scale is pretty inconsistent, so you'll see that I occasionally weighed myself using the more accurate scale at the office, which is what I'm basing my results off of.  I started on May 15 and am reporting back on August 5 because I just took a vacation to Boston and I'm pretty sure I might have gained weight during the trip since I ate and drank freely without my usual level of physical activity when I'm home.

I feel like the results have been good so far!  About 5 lbs lost in a 3 month period, although who knows how much of that is just water weight.  Regardless, the results have looked good, and I feel way more active than I used to be working from home on a regular basis and having a standard corporate desk job.  You'll also see that I was able to increase my speed and incline gradually once I got acclimated to the pad in an effort to increase the amount of Kcals burnt.

I'm going to continue using the pad regularly and see how effective it can be in the longterm.  I'll share another update later in the year!

Summer Shred 2026!

20+ years into my career at IBM, I find myself working remotely a majority of the days and will only go into the office maybe once a week at most.  The demands of my job just don't require me to be on site as much as I used to be.  While I am still active by going to the gym a couple times a week (for strength training and cardio) and pickleball league on Wednesdays, I often find myself getting very little physical movement on several of the weekdays that I am working from home.  As I've gotten older too (I'm now 42 at the time of this blog post), I've definitely noticed that my metabolism just isn't as fast as it used to be.  I still like to eat and drink a fair amount throughout the week and changing the diet is not always easy.

My friend Alec from Twitch is a personal trainer and he even owns his own gym in San Fransisco.  He's always been good about trying to push people to be in a better physical and healthy state, so I've decided to jump on his Summer Shred motivational bandwagon.  I currently way about ~193 pounds, which is pretty heavy for me.  Let's see how much I can lose by the end of summer...but how are we going to do this?

Like I've said earlier, it's difficult to change diet.  It's also difficult to move around a lot when you're working from home all the time.  And finally, at age 42, the joints just don't hold up as well as they used to.  Extreme workouts are effective, but they also take a toll on the body.  So what can we try that doesn't require a major change in lifestyle, will get us more active, but also lower the risk of injury at an older age? The answer might be: a walking pad!

Alec has pitched how effective a walking pad can be and he recommended me the same one he uses every day.  It's the Vitalwalk Apollo 11 Elite and I just got mine delivered today!  The goal is to use it on days that I don't have pickleball or go to the gym for cardio, which will be approximately 4-5 times a week.  And on those days, the goal is to do two 30-min walking sessions at a brisk speed like 3-4 mph and the incline % of this pad goes up to 6%.  We're starting on May 15, so we'll come back in 3 months on August 15 and see how effective a walking pad can be.  Already I can tell that the walking pad will be something I can use easily while watching a baseball game, or even while I'm working on my laptop (since I got one of those stands that can raise up high if you want to stand while working).

You also know I loooove spreadsheets, so I'll document my daily walking amount over the course of the next 3 months.  There will be periodic weight checks that we'll use the scale at the gym to track.  The scale is a little inaccurate at times, but as long as we use the same scale to measure our weight, it should be somewhat accurate, right?

Wish me luck and stay healthy out there! 

Another New Bowling Ball!?

You might recall last year I posted about buying a new bowling ball.  While I did get the Storm Typhoon, it was really only for dry lane conditions.  At PINZ Fiesta this year in the Thursday bowling league, there just haven't been lane conditions where this ball has been needed.  In fact, I can't say that I've thrown more than 10 games with it since getting it.

The oil this year at Fiesta Lanes has been really challenging, often to the point where I just wasn't getting any reaction with my Infinite Physix.  It's gotten to the point where I just feel like there's no life on the ball anymore, and my average was suffering, dropping all the way down to the low 180s!  After talking with several bowlers at the alley, they all agree that the oil has been difficult and many have turned to more aggressive balls, which my Storm Typhoon is the opposite of.

And thus, I decided to purchase another new bowling ball, this one to replace the Infinite Physix.  I ended up deciding on the Storm Ion Max Pearl, which is arguably the most aggressive ball I've owned to date.

I've also been taking my bowling balls to get drilled by my friend Butch (former IBMer and friend who I've bowled many seasons with over on the east side at Bowlero), as he now works at the Bowlero pro shop.  He did a great job with the Ion Max Pearl and after owning it for a few weeks, I've already shot a 723 series with it!  I probably won't be able to salvage this season's average (190 is possible but definitely not 200+), but moving forward it feels like this ball was a great choice.

Bowling balls seem to last about 4 years for me, which was about right for the Infinite Physix.  Here's to the new bowling balls!  Let's see if they can overcome the challenging bowling alley that is PINZ Fiesta!