Saturday, the day of my mother's departure. I feel mingled relief and grief. She hasn't seen her home since the morning of November 11th, when she left it, in a hurry, because my leg was being operated on. And it's been difficult, as we are both used to living alone and set in our ways. But I couldn't have managed without her over the past few months.

Weigh in: Post intake and outtake: 143.5

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Ham, broccoli and spinach egg bake; pumpkin steel-cut oatmeal; strawberries with yogurt
Lunch: Spinach salad with roasted vegetables, half an avocado, ricotta cheese chunks and Craisins
Snack: Small tasteless McIntosh apple
Dinner: Leftover mushy boiled cabbage and baby carrots with corned beef

Today's Exercise:

Front leg raise 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Side clams 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Bicycle 3x20, Kickback 3x20 and High knee 3x20.

At the gym: 15 minutes on the Cybex arc trainer, intervals, resistance just at two, then the dumbbell & weights routine. Stood up for the bicep curls and hammer curls. This made a tremendous difference in leverage on the hammer curls, which were much harder to perform while seated on a bench.

Hello!!!

I am back. Lots of updating to do. Saef, wtf? I am glad to read this as you are on the other side of the horror (mostly.)

Dagmar, I have addictive qualities also. Sucks. Hard.

Bill, Silverbirch, Michelle, all - I'm feeling like I'm back with friends I haven't spoken with in a while, but so easy to slide back into the conversation.

Detox is a word I have been using. I told my family - I'm going into food/sugar/snacks/sodium detox and to give me three days, then I will be better back on track. So, my DH says, Oh so you're going to be IRRITABLE (as in, more...) for the next three days? Snarky humor, but still, made us all chuckle.

To keep accountability I downloaded My Fitness Plan onto my iphone and this is day 2.

Happy to be back. Let's forge on.

Kitty :wave: Yeah detox is a good word. For me it's also about 3 days where I really don't want to "engage" in any spoken dialogue with the SO. :rollpin:

Dagmar :flow2: (wishing for these)

Hey, Kitty! Hope the detox goes well for you. You can complain to us, rather than to real-life people, as we'll understand. Oh, and take turmeric for your detox. Why? Because everyone is telling me to take turmeric these days. They say it will help with the inflammation. Turmeric is, apparently, the new ginkgo biloba or acai berries or pomegranate or seaweed or whatever.

It's Sunday, and I awoke with my mother gone and didn't have to be really quiet in the kitchen while she slept. But that meant I had to do my own grocery shopping, and I bought about $90 worth & overdid it, having to carry the heavy bags going upstairs with my cane. That was my morning workout before my actual morning workout at the gym.

No weigh-in today.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Ham, broccoli and spinach egg bake; pumpkin steel-cut oatmeal; strawberries & blueberries with yogurt
Lunch: Spring green salad with roasted vegetables, half an avocado, walnuts and sardines (sardines on sale *everywhere* here because of upcoming Jewish holidays!)
Dinner: Lemon roasted cabbage, along with leftover mushy boiled cabbage and baby carrots with corned beef
Dessert: One white chocolate & raspberry Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

Intent on getting to the store early, I missed my morning warm-up exercises.

At the gym: 30 minutes on recumbent bike, resistance at five, random hills; 4x12 RDLs with 30-lb barbell and bodyweight squats with a bench (more like sitting and standing over & over), 3x12 calf raises on Smith machine with about 20 lbs of plates

Did this in the late afternoon, to help with soreness: Front leg raise 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Side clams 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Bicycle 3x20, Kickback 3x20 and High knee 3x20.

KC! So good to see you and welcome back. I don't belong here any more. I am so [fat] that I am on the Losing a Lot thread. [square brackets] mean that I will come back and think of a better word, which may or may not happen.

Turmeric: I see curry in our future. We use it a fair bit (in curry, in lamb sofrito) but not in industrial quantities which I presume are required to make any difference. Or am I being cynical? Obviously I am looking for a magic cure/ingredient to help me with my life although I currently think that is Balance.

:dizzy:

:hug::grouphug:

lol, yes, turmeric is definitely the new cure-all

:carrot:

Monday, and another first: I'll be driving myself to my physical therapy appointment this afternoon.

Weigh in: Up 1.6 pounds from Friday, to 145.1. Like I had a Bacchanalian weekend. All I know is that yesterday afternoon, I was so sore and tired that I could've gone to bed at 5 PM, and I ended up taking a Vicodin.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Ham, broccoli and spinach egg bake; pumpkin steel-cut oatmeal; strawberries with yogurt
Lunch: Spring mix salad, roasted vegetables, half an avocado, pistachios, goat cheese, Craisins
Snack: Sliced-up Braeburn apple
Dinner: Rotisserie chicken, steamed broccoli and green beans
Dessert: One Double chocolate chunk Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

Front leg raise 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Side clams 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Bicycle 3x20, Kickback 3x20 and High knee 3x20.

Physical therapy: 12 minutes on Cybex elliptical, then they threw 9 more minutes at me at a graded hill. Then hamstring curls & quad raises, 2x12 alternating single legs, 2x12 double leg. And then for the first time, they put me on the leg press machine. The hardest thing was the calf raises, as the ankle and foot of the left leg are weak.

I'm down 4 lbs. after a weekend of regular eating in maintenance mode. I suspect my foray into the 140's was a blip but it was a real wake up. I will now weigh 3x per week again until I get down below my redline of 135.

Dagmar :goodscale:

First time driving, Saef? Good luck!!

I'm over my redline after my book fair/ eating out week, but not scarily so. I'm hoping a couple weeks of saneness brings my weight back down (before my cruise!).

I'm going out with a librarian friend to dinner tonight so we can both celebrate the end of our book fairs. I chose a sushi restaurant and know what I'm having-- chirashi. I don't use soy sauce so the sodium won't be sky high.

If I concocted a meal out of all the ingredients that have been put on a medical pedestal in the last decade, it would be delicious: red wine, salmon, olive oil, coconut oil, dark leafy greens, tree nuts, oats, garlic, turmeric, blueberries and (my favorite) dark chocolate. I think I could probably eat some combination of those every night for a week and be happy.

I've been struggling with a lot of musculoskeletal pain recently. Something's wrong with my right forearm; I wake up every morning with a deep aching pain there that gradually gets better over the next few hours, but then if I try to grip anything away from my body (like picking up my laptop with that hand), it hurts like ****. It is making dumbbell exercises hard and deadlifts impossible. Then, my left shoulder is touchy since the labrum is torn (and I refuse to go for surgery- the last surgery had me wearing/sleeping in a sling for a month, and not allowed to lift weights for 3), and most recently I've started having a steady ache in my left groin, like a pulled muscle but it's been getting worse over the last week rather than better. In addition to all of that, I've been fatiguing very quickly at the gym, with little endurance to get through a full workout. I'm a doctor, and I don't know whether all of this "adds up" to something real, or if I'm just reading too much into an almost-50-year-old's aches and pains.

Michele, no, this isn't the first time I've driven, though it's just the third time. I drove to the hairdresser's two weeks ago, and to the grocery store on both Sundays. There is a tremendous progression here, though. I remember the first time I had to go to physical therapy, what a big production it was for me to hop on one foot, using my walker, to get out to the car, to manage getting into the passenger's seat, and then to be driven by my mother. And now I can get there on my own power.

Tuesday

No weigh-in today

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Ham, broccoli and spinach egg bake; pumpkin steel-cut oatmeal; strawberries with yogurt
Lunch: Spring green salad with roasted vegetables, chicken, walnuts, goat cheese and Craisins
Snack: Sliced up anonymous apple
Dinner: Spaghetti squash with tuna tomato sauce
Dessert: Cinnamon bun Quest bar


Today's Exercise:

At the gym: 20 minutes on the recumbent bike, random intervals, resistance upped to six, then the dumbbell & weights routine. Again, stood up for parts of the routine, including the two-point rows, bicep curls and hammer curls. I'm up to 27.5 lb dumbbells for the bench press, rows and flys. Still not where I was at the end of the NROLW program last fall, before my accident, but further along than four weeks ago.

Always a good idea to get a second opinion Andrea.

Dagmar :dizzy:

Andrea-- that does sound like a concoction of pain.... as a physician, I don't know if that makes you more aware of issues, or if you are more likely to ignore them. While your pains could be injuries, I worry about your fatigue. An exam wouldn't be unwise.

I'm not a doctor and it sounds to me as though you're been overdoing it somewhere along the line. This is more than just aches and pains. Go and see someone who knows their stuff - and I suggest that may not be another medic.

I think it was when I was around 50 that I realised I'd been overdoing it somehow. I'd been lifting heavy for some time and then, all of a sudden, things started going wrong. For me, it's been a combo of L SI joint, L knee and L shoulder and sometimes the R side joining in because it had been taking too much strain. I've tried a range of people from the medical profession and the not-so-medical profession. Finally, years later, I found a personal trainer who also does corrective exercise, sports massage of different kinds and tai chi. It's working for me but, as you may remember, I've put on weight whilst getting it things right.

Very good luck!

Andrea~I'm in a similar situation. Several weeks ago while stretching and loosening up for golf I did something wrong that almost had me crying in pain. I tweaked my back and although it doesn't hurt when golfing, it continues to hurt doing other mundane things (sometimes when taking in a deep breath). I've also got one hip that is bothering me if I sit for too long (and even wakes me up at night). Walking helps tremendously but as soon as I sit it hurts again. I will bring these things up to my doctor on my next visit, but I kind of think that same 50-year-old aches and pains. Meanwhile I'm thinking that if I really dedicated myself to yoga that it would help both of these things.