Daniel J Isom

As I enter my final year of my 30s, it feels like a good time to reflect a bit. I wrote a similar, yet incredibly long winded, post entitled  Turning 32  back when I turned...32. I don't think this will be nearly as wordy, but it's a stream of consciousness type post so we'll see. Unlike 32, I've started to feel my age. So if you were to ask me the question "Do you feel older?" today, the answer would certainly be yes. It's not a bad thing, it's not that I feel like my body is breaking down or that I see the world in some significantly different ways. My life has just transitioned so much since that last post, especially in the past 2 years or so.  Going back a few years, I'm so thankful for my weight loss journey and being able to mostly keep the weight off since. Had I not done it in the first place then I think mornings would be harder, but I still feel pretty good when I get up. I've been in maintenance mode since the end of COVID and have ...

The year is almost over, which means I've always got a lot of going on due to the holidays. I thought this month's post might not be as long, but I think it's actually longer than the first one. I'm going to try to keep them from getting out of control, but I added a new segment that will likely stick around and have more ideas for others. Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy! Blah Blog Log November was a fairly busy month on the blog. Here are the links to each post, if you haven't already read them: Solotober 2023  - I covered my participation in the solo gaming challenge known as Solotober. October Wrap-Up  - The inaugural monthly wrap-up post that is formatted similarly to this one. The House On The Hill - Reading, PA - A great getaway spot that Christine and I stayed in for a couple nights. Bored  Board Games November was a tough month to meet in person because of the holiday, but I still found a way to get a lot of additional plays in tha...

This is the first monthly wrap-up post in what will hopefully be a great series of posts that I keep going for years to come. October was an incredibly busy month, so there is quite a bit to cover. I'm sure there will be months where I'll have less, but that'll be a good opportunity to try out a new segment or share something different. If you have any suggestions, comments, or questions regarding what I'm covering, please leave a comment at the bottom of the post. I'd really like to start interacting more with my readers here. If you came here from social media, you can always interact there as well. With that, here's what was going on in October: Blah Blog Log I thought the name of this segment was funny when said out loud. My assumption is that you just said it out loud as well and found it as comical as I did. If you didn't then you probably weren't an Arrested Development fan. Anywho...here are links to the posts on the blog for October if you haven...

Today marks the end of the first week of me wearing the exact same outfit to work each day. I've toyed with this idea for over 6 years (see my post from May 2017 entitled  What's in a wardrobe? ), but never quite took the plunge until now. I have reduced the size of my wardrobe during that time, but a lot of that had to do with me needing new clothes after losing a bunch of weight. Even then, I kept pieces that were too big for me because I didn't want to spend the money to completely replace everything. I decided that once I got to where I was truly happy with my weight and how my body looked, I would finally pull the trigger. That day still hasn't come, but that's a different issue that I'm continuing to work through. For the past few years, my main work outfit has been a casual button down shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Since I don't interact with the public, this has been a perfectly acceptable way to dress under the State's more relaxed dress policy. A...

Another year has arrived which means it's time to set some more goals. After a fairly successful year across the six smaller goals that made up the two main goals, I flip flopped on how exactly I wanted to handle this year. Having two main goals that were somewhat opposed created some issues so I need to avoid that this year. Focusing on one year long goal feels like a better idea, which will offer the greatest chance for success. There is a Chinese proverb that goes “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." It couldn't be more true in my experiences. While I've had a lot of success in some goals, I cannot have the same amount across all of them. As I thought about what things were most important for me to improve on, I realized that I didn't need to make them goals for the year to make sure I did them. A prime example are the three board gaming challenges I did in September, October, and December. I wanted more board gaming in my life so I found a way to make ...

It's the end of the year and time for an update on how well I did on my two (actually 6) goals. Goal #1: Improve Overall Health I think I did everything I could to try and not get this one done in the second half of the year. Well, I did try and was successful with two out of the three, but the first one was really my main goal and I couldn't stay focused on making it happen. Get Below 25% Body Fat From our trip in July through Christmas, exercise was sporadic at best as were my eating habits. I got back on the wagon at the end of December and have made a very dedicated effort with calorie tracking while fitting in some exercise and I was able to get down to 26.9% for the year. Obviously I didn't get to my goal, but having pizza making as my other main goal didn't do me any favors. For next year, I'm focusing on this single year long goal. Average Sleep Score Above 85 I know what I need to do to get a consistent sleep score above 85 for a given month. The question i...

   We're halfway through the year and I'm doing pretty well with these goals. I could definitely be doing a lot better with some of them, but I'm not stressing about it too much. It's been a much more relaxed year so far, goals wise, as I'm not feeling overwhelmed with just too much to try and complete before the end of the year. Goal #1: Improve Overall Health Of the two main goals, this is the one that I could be doing better with for sure. Seeing some improvements across the board, but need to be more disciplined if I'm going to get there. Get Below 25% Body Fat I'm getting pretty close to completing this one, currently sitting under 27% according to my new home scale. My Amazon Halo body scan has me a bit higher, but being diligent with calorie and macros tracking, I'm down from the beginning of the year. Finding "healthier" snacks has helped with this goal a lot. However, I need to cut back on snacking from our overloaded pantry of goodies...

     November was an uneven month when it came to accomplishments. Even though I only wrote two posts, they were more involved and a couple of my favorites for the year. The chance to succeed at the board game challenge is basically dead in the water, but I did some really good baking. 1)  Write at least 2 blog posts each month Did a little health update and things are going really well. Shared our Christmas traditions and some new ones we're starting. 2)  Complete the 10 x 2 Board Game Challenge We played none of our games for the challenge. That means we still have 7 total plays left to do before the end of the year. It's nearly certain that we won't complete the challenge. I'm sad. I've already decided not to include any board game related resolutions next year. 3)  Bake at least 2 different baked goods each month There's never a bad time to make biscuits. I decided to do a Twitter thread on the steps as I made them. I had a lot of fun doing it, so I ...

I've been struggling to find inspiration to write about anything lately. I have some ideas, but every time I sit down to write I just don't feel motivated enough to actually do it. This post was going to be about one of the YouTube channels I watch, but even that didn't seem very interesting. So why not a health update? It's probably one of the things going on right now that I'm actually excited about. If you read the blog, you'll know my journey of weight loss/gain and exercise (or lack their of) is always going on behind the scenes. Back in June, I wrote about the website Darebee  and how it was really helping me. It's been about six months so here's where I'm at today. Lowest Weight as an Adult As of a week before Halloween, I started consistently weighing 175 pounds. That puts me below my all time low as an adult when I was down to 177 in July of 2019. It's been nearly a month and I've kept that weight, give or take a pound depending on t...

If you know me personally or follow me on social media, you know that I have struggled with my weight and the will to exercise. I've written about my trials and tribulations many times on this site. This post will be similar to others because it's highlighting a new tool that has really helped me, as well as being an update on where I stand health wise. Let's get the update out of the way first. I weighed 177 pounds in July of 2019. From there it was a slow creep upwards as the weather got cooler. By November I basically stopped doing any exercise, including my daily walk, which didn't yield much in the way of weight loss. What I didn't realize was that daily walk was doing just enough to keep me from gaining weight. My daily steps plunged, but I was using our stationary bike periodically so I thought it would sort of balance things out. I wasn't using it daily, so I wasn't burning the same number of calories each week. I saw this everyday as I entered my c...

It's been exactly one year since I started wearing the Fitbit Flex 2 . Not only has it been a year since I started wearing it, but I've also worn it every single day. Having it to help track my exercise, calories, steps, and sleep has truly paid off. Serving as a reminder to commit to a healthier lifestyle, it encouraged me to shed over 35 pounds from this past July to the beginning of December. I'm happy to share that since then, I've been able to keep that weight off. In fact, I'm actually down to 177 pounds as of this morning. I wrote a post about getting down to my target weight of 180 pounds back in December, and in that piece I said that I was going to try and lose more. Shortly after writing that, I decided to see how I felt at 180 pounds for a while. I knew that I'd have to still stay vigilant about tracking my eating and exercise. I continued to exercise and did more than I was doing before, but at some point I also stopped tracking my food intake ...