More on my Green Weight Loss Challenge

So how have I been doing on my Green Weight Loss Challenge you ask? Oh...you didn't ask? Well I'll tell you anyway. It is a bit frustrating to be honest. Two weeks ago I was only able to walk to work 2 out of 5 days and last week I managed to squeeze in three days of walking to work but then I also walked to a volunteer outing I had on Saturday morning, so I am going to count that as well. So I am now up to 21 trips to the office on foot and I have managed at least not to gain any weight. My weight loss is minimal and I can't really explain this. I still weigh 200lbs and I truly felt it would be no sweat for a guy of my physical stature to get down to about 190 by now. I have a new appreciation for those people who struggle to lose weight.

So what does this lack of weight loss mean to my Carbon footprint? Really it means nothing as I'm still continuing to keep carbon out of the environment. At present my calculations have me at almost 23.9kgC, far from attaining one carbon credit. I feel at present the carbon credit system is severely unbalanced and until polluters pay more than $20-$40US for a carbon credit they will simply continue to pollute and take a small refund when it is available and the clean green technology exists. Unfortunately for individuals such as me, this makes keeping track and having our credits audited not worth the effort. I simply have to be happy saying that I am doing the right thing for the environment, because I think in the end it would cost me more to have some consultant company validate my carbon reduction efforts. Here are a couple of sites I reviewed "What are Carbon Credits Worth?" or "How do I validate my carbon offsets?" and "How can I start a carbon offset project?" I find that there is a great deal of information out there but a lot of it is very vague and therefore I question its validity.

Week Three of the GWLC

My Green Weight Loss Challenge is now entering its fourth week and I am pretty happy to say that I have started to notice some weight loss. From my starting weight of 206lbs I am now down to 201lbs. I weigh myself on my home scales in the evenings. I simply wanted to make that consistent and I tend to remember it better at night than in the morning. I have managed to walk to work 11 out of 15 days so I am pleased with that. I feel more energetic, more peaceful and if not for a bit of a cold, I would likely be able to sleep better.

So on the Green side of the challenge, my walking to work has reduced my carbon emissions by approximately 12.51kg to date. Again to review the formula I take the number of days walked to work (11) multiply that by the distance walked each day (4.8km) and multiply that by the kilograms of carbon my car emits per kilometer (0.237kgC/km) so the end formula looks like this - 11dys x 4.8km/dy x 0.237kgC/km = 12.51kgC.

My next step in this challenge is to find out how much 1carbon credit is worth and whether or not you can receive payment for partial credits. As I stated in last weeks up date I would have to walk to work for 4years before recieveing a full credit, so I hope it is worth lots :)