Category Archives: health & fitness

A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals

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October Weight Check-In

I’m glad I keep track of my Non-Scale Victories (NSV’s) over the course of each month, because the last few months have really felt like Why The Hell Am I Even Trying.

NSV’s:

  • Tracking the 1st week of October, even when i went over my weekly allowance by an embarrassing large amount.
  • Getting my first weight compliment in a Very Long Time (even after officially gaining over two pounds in two weeks)

I guess my biggest issue is that I’m always thinking about how do I want to feel now, instead of how do I want to feel in the long run. I want the taste of that grilled cheese sandwich topped with pulled pork and macaroni & cheese. I want dinner for me and my son fast (not fast food, though — boxed mac and cheese). I want to eat something huge and tasty while I’m out with my co-workers. I’m sure that pile of cookies will make me feel better about whatever BS is going on in my life at the moment. I never actually plan ahead anymore; I just eat in the moment, and if I go over my Points, so be it.

That’s not a diet. That’s not even mindful eating. That’s living to eat instead of eating to live.

This week, I started paper tracking. I’m not counting Points; instead, I’m focusing on the Good Health Guidelines. Getting enough water, fruits & veggies, taking my vitamins, eating whole grains and protein, dairy. If I can do that for a week straight, I bet that will put me closer to being on-plan than before. I still haven’t managed to do it completely right for one day… but I’m getting closer.

I’m also working on Operation Early To Bed Early To Rise. That’s less of a weight-loss-centric thing, but it fits in with health in general. I’m trying to get myself to bed earlier, so I get the right amount of sleep and can get Connor up in time to be wherever he needs to be in the morning, whether it’s daycare or back upstairs in his room after breakfast. I’ve noticed that I’m less fatigued in the morning when I get to work, which means I don’t feel the need to self-medicate with sugar and caffeine first thing in the morning. Bonus!

I’ve been enjoying fitness classes at my work gym, as well. I’ve done yoga for months now, and there’s a Core Fitness class that combines pilates and yoga and strength into a 40-minute core workout that’s also stretchy-strengthy like I like. I actually took three classes in all this week, including today’s abs class. I’ve decided that I’m going to be in the gym at least two days every week, even if I’m just hitting up the treadmill. The activity will be good for me, especially in these coming winter months when I have the potential to get really depressed.

So, that’s the state of me this past month, as far as weight-loss goes. I still need to do a full weigh-and-measure — haven’t done that for a Very Long Time — and I’ll bet it would make me feel pretty good about myself to see how my measurements have changed.

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Spondylo Update: I Still Have It (But It Doesn’t Have Me)

Way back in April, I thought that spin class would be a good way to “open up” my lower back to alleviate some of the nerve pain.

Boy, was I wrong.

That was about the worst thing I’ve ever done to myself. I hosed my back and had to make a mid-month chiropractor visit (which I rarely need to do) for pain management. According to Dr. Smith, I managed to rotate one of my vertebrae.

Yikes.

This month, I got to make another mid-month chiro visit. See, I’m used to the constant low-level ache in my lower back — not really even rating on the scale of one-to-ten, but more of an awareness, a distraction — and I’m used to the slight numbness in my hip and left leg that my offset L5 causes by pressing on a nerve. What I’m not used to is the sharp, localized pain I had a couple weeks ago.

Turns out that my bulging disc at L4 was to blame this time — probably from lugging around a clingy 30-pound Mama’s boy who demands, “Carry you?” Dr. Smith prescribed some yoga poses: cobra and upward dog, to be done while watching TV in the evenings. The backward flexing helps relieve the pain of the bulging disc, but it had the potential to make my spondylo at L5 act up. She actually told me that if the cobra pose made things worse, I should stop and accept her apologies. Luckily, cobra did the trick.

It’s funny that I have two very different back problems that have two very different ways of relieving pain (backbends vs. forward bends and hamstring stretches), and relieving one could exacerbate the other.

I make a point to attend my Thursday yoga class every week, and I’ve been trying to add a core strength class into my schedule whenever I can. There’s one that the fitness center at my work has been offering lately called Core Fusion, which mixes Pilates and upper body strength and some yoga. I absolutely love it — it’s always a huge, packed class with all ranges of fitness levels. (It’s a testament to how uncomfortable I still am with my body image that I find myself scanning any fitness class for anyone who is less fit than I am.) The stronger I can get my core, the more likely it is that everything will stay in alignment and not cause me any grief.

I don’t have any dreams of returning to running. Considering that this condition has surfaced relatively early in my life, I don’t plan to do anything that could make my life miserable down the road. Cycling — maybe someday. Lifting — if I’m careful and don’t do anything stupid. Yoga — I’d like to keep with it and improve my form, actually. Improve my balance, strengthen my core, and maybe finally own crocodile pose someday.

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Weight Loss Check-In

Last month, I decided that I would start posting monthly weight-loss updates — weekly ones seem to be a little too frequent to avoid saying the same thing every time, but a periodic check-in is in order, to keep me honest.

I actually skipped my weigh-in this morning. I did it for the reason that most people skip a weigh-in: I knew the number wouldn’t be what I wanted to see. I haven’t been tracking as diligently as I should, and I’ve been hovering around the same weight as a result.

However, I did have some relevant Non-Scale Victories (NSV’s) in September:

  • My grandmother, who hadn’t seen me in person in ten years, was amazed at how “thin” I was at my son’s 2nd birthday party.
  • I looked at myself in photos of the birthday party, and was perfectly OK with how I looked.

Apart from those moments, I’ve been noticing that I wear my Spanx less and less, and my once-too-tight work pants more and more. I should really take my measurements and see what’s going where.

I also find that I really don’t care anymore if everything is exactly in the right place with no lumps or bumps. Not to say that I’m dressing sloppy. It’s just that there have been articles of clothing that “fit” just fine, but if I sat a certain way, they clung a little too close and failed to disguise my unique shape (that is, my spare tire). I find that I really don’t care anymore. Anyone who would be judgmental of what I wear and how I wear it….  I dress how I feel comfortable and classy, and if I think I look good, then the hell with anyone else.

I suppose I should be thankful that half-assed tracking hasn’t gotten me in deeper than just an extended plateau. Even though I didn’t track today (and I probably went over on the very first day of my tracking week), I intend to start tracking tomorrow and see how long of a tracking streak I can keep up.

I used to be the silently judgmental Weight Watcher who looked down her nose at people who were supposedly “on-program” but didn’t track. Now that’s me. Kind of. I know that if I don’t track, I’m not technically on-program.

Work the program, and the program will work.

You get out of it what you put into it.

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Operation Braceface: Day 295

My sixth adjustment was last week. Of course, I took photos that evening, although I knew I might not document the actual adjustment for a few days yet.

September 2013 Braces Adjustment

The focus this time around is on getting my lowers in place — closing the gaps, aligning the tops of the teeth — because they need to be in their final position before Dr. N. can determine the final position of the upper arch.
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