Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Tired

Does anyone know what that is? It's the post-workout screen from the treadmill that I got on this morning, even though I had a great excuse why I shouldn't have to.

You see, I was woken up at 3:30 this morning by a bat. Yes, a bat. For some unknown reason, they get into my house and like to do loops around my living room. It's my job to get up and open the door for them so that they can go outside. Except this bat didn't want to go outside. My cat wanted to go outside. He's not supposed to go outside. So, after sitting on the porch/looking for the cat for about an hour and ten minutes, the cat decided he missed me and wanted me to pet him. Instead, I scooped his furry butt up, chewed him out and tried going back in the house...except I couldn't get the door to open. I'd closed the door because one of the other cats was considering going out and the dang bat had disappeared. I had to bang on the door until I woke Ben up to come help me get the door open. It'd swollen in the humidity. All ends well, right? Nope. Remember how I said the bat had disappeared? Well, it reappeared about 5am just when we were falling back to sleep. This time, one of the cats had got it and knocked it to the floor where him and another cat were kindly poking at it. So, it was making that god awful chittering noise that they do when they're not happy. I got up, locked the culprit cat from earlier in the bathroom, opened the door, grabbed the broom, pushed the poor bat outside, slammed the door and attempted to get a couple of hours sleep before we had to get up and on the road this morning.

Yep, great excuse, huh? I didn't take it though. I climbed both flights of steps (god, I cannot wait until those don't leave me winded), double checked that the emergency stop thing was firmly where it belonged, put in my earbuds (does anyone else have trouble keeping those in their ears or do I just have mutant ears?), turned on some music and started walking. My goal was .75 miles but when I got there, I decided I could do just a little bit more. I'm proud of that .85. I moved up to half of that being at 2.2 mph and the other half being at 2.3. Yes, that's still considered a slow walk but considering that back in the Spring I started at 1.8 mph, I'm making good progress in that area. I'm happy to report that my knee is feeling just fine. No permanent damage done by the emergency stop incident of Monday.

Speaking of that, I had a couple of people comment that I need to take it easy, listen to my body, not push too hard, etc. I want to reassure all of you that I'm not pushing too hard. I may not even be pushing hard enough, but I'm testing myself right now and each time I get on the treadmill, my goal is to go a little bit faster or a little bit further. By little bit, I mean like bumping up the speed by .01 mph or going .10 mile further. My goal for Friday? To do the same distance but this time with more of it at the 2.3mph. That's it. A tiny change. I'm starting to believe that maybe I can do this and it would help a ton if others believed in me too.

Let's see...what else? I've tracked my food since Monday and while it's not the healthiest of diets (that will come), I've been under the calorie amount that the app says both days. I'm hoping to stop by my doctor's office tomorrow and if that happens, I'm going to ask to use their digital scale. I tried to use the old fashioned one in the weight room today and it has me 12 pounds less than when I went to urgent care less than 2 months ago. It's possible that it's right but I want to be sure. If it is, I'll adjust things in the app and keep going.

Thank you to those who have sent me messages telling me that you're proud of me. I don't need them but they certainly don't hurt and they make me smile. For ages people have told me to stop focusing so much on taking care of other people, pushing their things, and to focus more on me, what's right for me, my health, my writing, etc. I'm trying to do that and it's really great having friends alongside cheering me on.


Monday, July 25, 2016

Steps...

Long time no write and I don't feel a lick guilty about it. It's been a busy month and the past two weeks have found me taking more steps than I thought I was ready for. Still, life doesn't wait for you to take the steps. You have to take that deep breath (or ten) and put one foot in front of another.

I haven't done this alone. As I take each step I seem to find someone who steps up beside me and tells me that they believe in me and that I've got this.

It started with Nick. He looked me in the eyes and asked me what was stopping me...that stuck with me for days after he asked. What was it that was stopping me? The answer, once I dug past all of the excuses, was simple. Fear. Fear is the only thing holding me back. As he would say, I was getting in my own way.

Then, it was Ben. Yep, my kiddo. He works in the community center three days a week and he made it clear to me that he expects me to be on that treadmill sometime during his one hour shift. It doesn't matter how long I'm on it, what matters to him is that I climbed those two flights of stairs and I got on there and I walked.

Today, it was Joel. Joel had a crappy childhood and suffers from some of the same issues I do. I texted him to tell him about my treadmill accident today and after making sure that I was okay (I am.I'll fill you in on what happened in just a bit.), we started talking about diet and food. We both have food issues. He encouraged me to start journaling what I eat each day. This is something that I've put off. Why? Fear. It always comes down to fear and the fact that I'm my own worst enemy and I was scared that if it were there in black and white, I would spend a lot of time beating myself over making bad choices. Joel told me today that he believes in Katie and her stubbornness. It made me smile and it also made me pause and think. I am horribly stubborn at times and I've been using that in the wrong direction or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I've let my fears use it.

So, today I came home and I installed MyFitnessPal on my phone. Since I had to confirm my email, I spent some time on the laptop looking at the app, putting in all the information and then blinked at the screen at the number of calories I should be eating every day so that I lose about a pound each week. Then, I put in my little bit of walking and the few things I had eaten today.

...We're going to tangent just for a minute, then I promise I'll get back to the app....

I have three food modes. The first is where I barely eat. Today was one of those days. The second is where I can't seem to stop eating. The third is where I eat normally. There's not always a rhyme or reason why any day is what it is.

.......

And we're back! So, I put in the 3 food items that I ate today and discovered that I'm still 1818 calories short for the day. That seems like a heck of a lot and I'll be honest, I'm not going to make an attempt at forcing them in. I'm going to eat dinner, enter that, and see where I'm at. This is going to be a learning tool so that I can see what's worth what and what my tendencies are. I need a brain change. Instead of looking at things as if it's not enough or I'm failing, I need to look at it as if I'm teaching myself what's okay and what's not okay. It's not something I grew up learning and as Nick would tell me, it's time I put my big brain to work for me.

So, what are these steps?

1. Three days a week, I'm going to get on the treadmill where Ben works.
2. I'm going to go back to watching my water intake (time to kill that whole chronic dehydration thing.
3. I'm going to track my food intake and see where I can make changes.
4. I'm going to continue menu planning and working on sticking with it.
5. When the weather isn't trying to kill us and Roger is here, we're going to walk around the village pokemon hunting.

There's nothing so big there that I can't do it and even if it takes time to gather data and make additional changes, these steps are pointing me in the right direction.

Oh! I almost forgot. I promised to tell you about my treadmill accident...

Today, I climbed up onto the treadmill, set my pace (I'm working at about a 2.1 right now, built up from 1.8) and started walking. Here's where the fun began. Have you ever seen those stop sign shaped things with the clip attached to them that are usually by the actual stop button? Well, as I'm walking, the clip is swinging and it must have snagged on me somehow because the next thing I know, the treadmill has come to a dead stop and I nearly face plant into the front of it. Turns out that's the emergency stop magnet and when it comes off, everything stops. Sadly, my leg hadn't stopped and I wrenched my knee.  It didn't seem too bad so I put the magnet back, made sure it wasn't going anywhere and walked another .55 miles (in addition to my whopping .04) before I decided the knee was getting worse and tightening up so I quit, stood there with sweat dripping off me (did I mention the weight room isn't air conditioned?) and talked to Ben for a minute before working my way back down those two blasted sets of stairs to relax for while in the air conditioning until Ben got done with work. As of right now, it's sore but I suspect that by Wednesday it's going to be okay enough to get back on there and see if I can't get up to an average speed of 2.2 (2.5 is considered a leisurely pace so I'm still on the moving slow side) and go a bit longer.

See? I have goals! What a crazy feeling..I'm taking control back. I'm stepping out of my self created prison and I'm moving forward...one step at a time..or in today's case, one limp at a t

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