📷 March Photo Challenge #8. Walk. Lunchtime stroll at the SC Statehouse. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #7: Whole. Rings closed. Crooked Creek Park. Chapin, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #6: Engineering. Backup generators. Columbia, SC.

It’s rare to see a thoughtful discussion of the U.S. National Debt. This interactive story from the New York Times dives into what it would take to balance the budget, and why it’s easier said than done.

Daffodils on our walk this morning.

📷 March Photo Challenge #5: Tile. The entrance to the new independent bookstore, All Good Books, in Five Points. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #4: Zip. The accessory pockets on my 10-year-old custom Timbuk2 messenger bag. Columbia, SC.

Another shot from All Good Books.

Liz found a spot in the new All Good Books in Five Points.

Beautiful walk this morning.

Just learned that, by default, Micro.Blog only includes JPGs in the photos page. So if I want to add illustrations to my blog posts that I don’t want mixed in with my photo gallery, I can just save those as PNG. Clever solution.

Volkswagen’s Scout revival will build new electric SUVs and pickups in a new $2 billion factory in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m looking forward to this, and not just because they picked Columbia as their home.

📷 March Photo Challenge #3: Solitude. Just me in the office this afternoon. Columbia, SC.

Raindrops on a sunroof.

📷 March Photo Challenge #2: Weather. Raindrops on a sunroof. Crooked Creek Park. Chapin, SC.

Enjoyed the Mandalorian Season 3 premiere.

📷 March Photo Challenge #1: Secure. Main Street, Columbia, SC.

I’m looking forward to the Micro.Blog March Photo Challenge. I’m going to try to integrate shots from my lunchtime walks during the week and backyard hikes on the weekend.

Our local bus system has a park and ride service that I really wished worked for me, but the timing just doesn’t work out.

Reflecting on my first two months of being healthier

Solid progress

One of my goals for this year is being healthier. Eating better. Moving more. The hope was that by breaking some bad habits I developed during COVID, I could lose some weight and feel better. I wanted to post occasional updates to keep myself accountable.

Two months in, things are going great. I feel significantly better — that’s the “metric” I care about most — and I’ve dropped a significant amount of weight. I’m not doing any trendy diet or counting calories. I’ve adapted some principles from intuitive eating.1 I’m making smarter decisions about food and listening to my body. One example, I’ve pretty much stopped drinking beverages with calories. At Starbucks, I get a black coffee or hot tea. Unsweetened tea instead of sweet tea.2 I’m not drinking sodas. I’ve generally avoided alcoholic drinks, but had a glass of bourbon at our Valentine’s Dinner. My energy level feels more consistent through the day without the sugary sodas and extra caffeine. And I’m sleeping better. Wins all around.

Exercise wise, I’m just focused on movement.3 I’m walking regularly. My wife and I have started taking long walks on the weekends, exploring the trails that are literally in our backyard. I’m trying to walk at lunch and walk to meetings around campus. I’m not running on a treadmill — or running at all. I might get to that point, but that’s down the road.

I do want to address the tech side of this. I purchased a Withings Body+ scale, and it syncs my weight to my Apple Health account. I use Happy Scale to track weight because it does a nice job of showing averages instead of just focusing on the lowest weigh in. I’m tracking activity and workouts with Apple Watch. I tend to be a data person, and I like having all these metrics. I just need to make sure I’m not fixated on the metrics. Again, the main goal is feeling better and developing healthy habits.

Two months in, I feel like I’m heading in the right direction. I’m making long-term lifestyle changes, and I know this is just a start. I plan to check back in here every month or so with an update.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. And he’s trying to be healthier.

  1. Clearly, I’ve not bought in to intuitive eating 100%. I’m still trying to lose weight and I still weigh myself regularly. If you want to learn more about intuitive eating, I recommend Rachael Hartley’s blog. ↩︎

  2. I’m in South Carolina, y’all. Around here, sweet tea is the default. ↩︎

  3. This is another intuitive eating thing. More here. ↩︎