Just another manic Monday (with apologies to The Bangles)

Happy Monday morning, all. And by "all" I mean the three people who are actually actively reading my blabbers. ;-)

Anyway. Class on Saturday was interesting. Thankfully, it didn't involve a phone call to Centra tech support like my Wednesday class did. I managed to get through it without caffeine - dunno how. I woke up Sunday with severe pain in my right foot and realized that the plantar faciitis is back. So I got right on my treatment for it. I'm hoping I can manage to ease it off with my home treatments so we don't have to resort to steroids again. That's the -last- thing I need. Because of that, I'm doubly motivated to work out in the pool today rather than walking on the treadmill. I -did- go & do my morning walk break and it was OK, but I don't want to push it. So, weather permitting (i.e. no lightning), I'll water walk/swim when I get home. If it's storming when I get downtown, I'll ponder a trip to the Y rather than risking the weather will hold and keep me from getting my workout.

It's really strange. Since I've started really getting a handle on my emotional eating & my eating out of boredom, I'm simply not all that hungry. I guess that's a good thing. But, as such, I'm eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full. I'm also drinking a LOT of water. I'm hoping that eating moderate amounts of food, massive amounts of water, and exercise will show a significant loss on my doc's scale on 09/03. I have to lose 15-30 pounds before my surgeon will even think about scheduling surgery, so... As of this AM (according to my scale), I'm down 7.3#, so I'm nearly half-way there.

Best laid plans of mice and men

I fully intended to go to the gym on Wednesday and do a lower body workout, but a migraine de-railed that plan. :-( So I went yesterday as planned. I've decided that, for the time being, I'm going to do a full-body workout on the weights on Tuesday and Thursday, and concentrate on cardio on Monday and Friday. I'll play it by ear and see how I'm doing in a couple of months. Until Labor Day, I'm planning on making Mon/Fri pool days at our complex pool then switching to the pool at the YMCA after that. Maybe by then I'll feel a bit more confident in wearing a bathing suit in semi-public. :-)

Both yesterday and Tuesday, I walked from the new transit center to the Y, which takes approximately 15 minutes. As it cools down and I get into better shape, that might change, but I don't think the change will be appreciable. I've already babbled about Tuesday, so I'll babble about yesterday now. ;-)

I'd decided after my nap on Wednesday (trying to get rid of the migraine) that I'd switch to full-body on Thursday. So, I went to the Y, weighed myself (up a smidge because of fluid retention) and went to the weight room. I did two sets of 12 reps on each of the machines I'd done Tuesday, and added 2X12 on the hamstring curl and quad extension machines. I tried the rotary calf, but couldn't make it work for me so I settled on 2X12 of calf raises using my body weight (which is plenty enough weight, thanks). I need to figure out how to work my hip adductors/abductors because I'll need them strong for when I start dancing and/or skating again. I'm sore but not in pain today, but only slightly, so I can probably stand to go up on the weight on some of the machines. I frequently underestimate how strong I still am from years of lifting weights, dancing and skating. I'm gonna be one hot mama when I get the fat burned off. ;-) I just hope that the toning and the fact that I'm not yet 40 will help me not have a crazy amount of loose skin after my weight loss. I'll worry about that when the time comes, but am doing what I can to prevent it as much as possible.

I have my IS 520 class in the AM, which should prove interesting. I'm not sure there's enough coffee to get me awake by 9:30AM on a Saturday, but I'll fake it as best I can. :-)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Yay me! I did it!

I keep a notebook in my locker at the gym where I record my workouts. I was very saddened to see that my last entry was in May 2009. But I was also heartened by the fact that I made a plan to go to the gym yesterday and I followed through with it. I was a good girl and I only did 1 set of 15 reps on the weights (did upper body yesterday, will do lower today) just to re-introduce my body to the concept of working out again. I'm hoping that the routine I've designed will be enough for the time being. I may add a couple more core exercises in a month or so, when I've built some strength, but I think I'm okay for now. I'm actually more concerned about hitting all of my lower body muscle groups, honestly. Especially when the machine they have at my gym for the hip flexors/hip adductors/hip abductors looks more like a medieval torture device than a piece of exercise equipment. ;-) I'll figure it out. When in doubt, I'll ask one of the staff to show me how to use it.

In addition to doing my weight circuit, I walked for 30 minutes on the treadmill. If I add my commute to/from the bus, from the bus to the Y, the AM walk break, the 30 minutes on the treadmill and my weights, I got almost an hour and a half of movement in yesterday. Yay me!

My fall term starts today, so wish me luck! I'm determined to manage my time a bit more wisely this semester so that I can get all I need to get done for school, work and at home and still be able to work out and attend to my spiritual life.

Ta da!

I have now survived my first semester in graduate school. I have also survived my first semester in graduate school while also preparing for WLS. My sanity is still mostly intact. :-) The group project in the class on whose grade I was waiting was given a score just high enough for me to keep my A. I've filed away my prof's comments and will definitely seek out more information on projects in the future because I think that the reason we did not do much better is because the assignment wasn't clear enough in our heads. Oh, well. Lesson learned. Still, buried in this paragraph is the fact that I've finished my first semester in grad school with a 4.0!!!!

Semester #2 starts tomorrow. I am, again, taking two classes (6 credit hours) and I'm hoping the extra month in the semester will feel a lot looser. I've already downloaded my syllabi and it doesn't look as though they are trying to simply cram more into the term, which is good. This semester I'm taking Organization of Information and Introduction to Information Technology. I think they'll both be pretty kewl classes. I'll keep you all posted, of course. ;-)

On Thursday, I was actually able to attend my first support group meeting for Foothills Weightloss patients. The topic wasn't anything really new, but it still felt good to have gone. The hubby is going to do everything he can to be able to continue going with me. We took a test on Thursday, and we're supposed to get our results back next month, so that'll be good. It's an eating behavior test and it was really kind of neat to see that my behavior and thinking towards food has really changed in the last few months, which will definitely help me be more successful in the long run.

I'm actually going to the gym tonight for the first time in a LONG time. Wish me luck!

All Over but the Shouting

I've turned in all my assignments and am waiting on one more grade (and my class participation) in one class. So far, I've got a 95% in the class so my group and I will have had to completely bomb the group project for me to get less than an A in the class, but I'm not assuming I have an A until I see it on my official grade report. My other professor has reported my grade and I -do- have an A in his class. So, yay!

Now, the "boo". I've developed another UTI. I'm not entirely sure why I've gotten more of them in the last 5 years than I have in the entirety of the rest of my life, but... this makes 3 in the last 5 years. I guess that's not the worst odds, but it's still darn inconvenient. I've just been thanking my lucky stars that my body waited until the semester was ending so I have a week or so to get better before having to get up and at 'em again. I went to the clinic on Tuesday (& spent nearly 3 hours there) and got an antibiotic and the lovely dye stuff that helps with pain & other symptoms. I'm now on day 3 of the antibiotic and I'm feeling a bit better. I still have no appetite, which I guess is a good thing. :-/ Unlike other times when I've not had an appetite, I'm actually losing, so I'll count it as a positive for now. Hopefully when my appetite returns it'll be satisfied with less and less so that I'm prepared for the less and less I'm able to eat post-op.

The way I'm feeling with this does confirm the possibility that it was an infection that was causing all my problems last year. Might not've been a UTI, necessarily, but an infection of some kind, though one never showed up in blood work, &c. Still, I will be glad when I'm able to get some pool time in. Hopefully I'll be up to that tomorrow afternoon - assuming the weather cooperates, of course. :-) I'm in orientation until 6PM, but that still leaves plenty of daylight. I'll just have to see how I'm feeling. I may give myself the rest of the week and just hit it on Monday, like I'd planned to. I'll be nearly done with the antibiotic by then, so... I'll just see how badly orientation wears me out.

Hope all are well!

TGIF!

While I still have an assignment due today and our group project due on Monday, I'm still glad that today is Friday. It's been a long week, mostly because it's been so gorram HOT! But I missed my bus two days this week; once was my fault because I really was running late but yesterday, the bus passed by the stop (I saw it) early. According to the published schedule, it's supposed to hit the timepoint before my stop at 6:55AM. Since that's about 5-6 minutes away, I still try to be at my stop at 6:55-6:56AM (basically, I try to be at my stop when the bus is scheduled to get to the stop before, if that makes sense). Well, yesterday AM, it hit my stop at 6:56 (as I was waiting to cross the street to get to my stop). There is NO way it hit the timepoint, as they are not supposed leave them early, and made it to my stop in ONE minute. I know that the timepoints will be 10 minutes earlier after the transit center opens on 08/16, but they are supposed to be going by the current schedule until then. I abhor getting anyone into trouble, but I asked the transfer point supervisor if they'd already switched to the new timepoints, and she said no, and I explained the situation. This morning, I tried my darndest to be at the stop by 6:50, just in case (was there at 6:52, so that wasn't horrible). Bus got there at 6:56, so I was glad I was there early. I guess I should just prepare to be there on time for the new timepoints. Hopefully not having to be up until all hours of the night will facilitate my getting up a smidge earlier.

Next week I've decided to swim at our pool at home in the evenings, or walk home (basically not go to the gym), and take the week I have between semesters to catch up on some housework that I've let slide this summer. I need to get the fridge cleaned out because I think we're going to have to tell the manager that "it's dead, Jim." I put a bottle of water in the freezer two days ago and it's still water. That's not right. So... Hopefully it won't take them long to get it repaired or get us a new one. The fridge wasn't new when we moved in and that was 15 years ago. I may get them to look at the AC while they're at it.

Starting on Monday, 16 August (when the transit center opens), I'll get the trolley to the gym and start my as-of-yet-undetermined workout routine. I'm really thinking of upper body two days/week and lower body two days/week + stretching everyday and walking home or swimming as my cardio. According to my surgeon's office and my pre-op behavioral guidelines, I'm supposed to concentrate on strength training and flexibility, so that's what I'm going to do. So long as I get a minimum of 60 minutes of movement (exercise + non-exercise)/day, I'm good.

I hope all are well and staying hydrated in this heat!

Woosh! There it is!

So, okay... I got up this AM and got dressed and ready to go to the doctor for my third of 6 visits on this 6 month thing. I figured that, if I weighed myself on my scale fully dressed, including my shoes, that I'd have a good idea of what to brace myself for at his office. My scale read 295.6. That did -not- make me happy, especially considering I walked home 1.5 miles in nearly 75% humidity, lugging my laptop. I've been sweating. I've been eating, if not 'right', then better. I've been drinking water like it's going out of style. And I step on my scale to a GAIN? I don't -think- so. So, I'm bracing myself for the lecture that will come -this- month.

Then I get on my doctor's notoriously evil scale. The one that hates me so much that it usually weighs me 2-3 pounds heavier than the one at home. And I'm at 292#. Not only is that 3.6# lighter than at home, it's 6# lighter than last month's weigh-in. Yeah, I'll take it. :-) Thankfully, my schedule opens up next week, so I can start really working out and swimming every night until the pool closes on Labor Day. After that, I'll need to start going to the pool at the YMCA. I'll figure out my workout plan this week and hit it on Tuesday. My class on Monday is only an hour long, so I might actually be able to fit in a 30-45 minute swim on Monday, too. I'll just have to see how the weather is doing.

Anyway. I'm supposed to lose 15-30 pounds pre-op. If I can get 6#/mo for the next three months, I'm golden.

I can has Fall nao?

Sorry for the LOL speak, but... there you go. I am so gorram tired of this heat. It should -not- be 80 degrees F at 8:00AM. Seriously. Even LA is supposed to be cooler today than it is here, and that's just not right. The heat has me really frustrated because, with my schedule, I've not been able to get into the pool like I'd like to and the heat is making it nearly impossible for me to walk without courting heat stroke. Even if I were to suck down my body weight in water, the humidity makes it very difficult for the body's sweat to do its job: to cool me down. If my sweat can't evaporate, then it just makes me feel even hotter, which overheats me to the point of nausea. Gah! Thankfully, my semester is over as of Monday, which means my schedule switches to my Fall term schedule, which will allow for more evenings/week that I can actually go to the gym. It's not my favorite thing, especially if it means doing cardio at the gym, but at least there is AC. Frankly, I'm planning two days/week of weight training and then swimming the other days as long as weather permits (and our pool is open). I've thought about doing upper body two days/week and lower body two days/week, but I'm not sure if I'm that hard core yet. ;-) I'll ponder that some more.

For the time being, though, I need to ponder getting the rest of my assignments done before the end of the term. Sleep? Who needs it? :-) Oh, yeah, I kinda do...

Love-Hate Relationships

I'm in a love-hate relationship with my scale right now. Actually, it's probably more of a hate-hate relationship ATM because I hate that it's not showing that I've made any progress (unless you count -gaining- as progress) and it hates me right back. I don't know if I'm really retaining fluid or what but I'm not able to get below 290 again. :-( This weekend's weigh-in had me at 290.4. Is it too much to ask that I'm actually down when I go see my doctor on Wednesday? Sheesh.

I didn't find the handout with my pre-op behavioral guidelines, but I -was- brilliant enough to copy them into my journal, so that's something, at least. I am frustrated, though, because Saturday was National Dance Day and I didn't feel up to doing more than "dancing" in my chair while I watched "Footloose". Next year, though. Darn it.

I'm so glad that the summer term is over as of Monday next. That means that, starting Tuesday, I'll be able to work out like I'd like to and get myself into the habit of exercising. Weather permitting, I'll be swimming as much as possible until Labor Day, when our pool closes. I will also be doing some strength training a couple of days/week and flexibility every day. I know that I'll have some loose skin to deal with after surgery, but I'm hoping that staying hydrated, making sure I'm getting my protein and doing weight lifting will help keep it to a minimum. Otherwise, Spanx will become my friend. :-)

I'm tired today, but I did want to make sure I posted -something-. I'll be sure to report on my doctor's visit on Wednesday.