Well, I took 3 days off.  I took off from exercise because of some serious ailments.  Looking back, I think I'd been exercising every day for 3 weeks straight.  But I figured since it was pretty light cardio it was OK.  Anyway I had thriving gains in weird places in my knee and foot, but after two days of I realized the throbbing pain was gone.  Almost by accident I missed the gym on Friday, but fortunately, due largely to the fact that, with me still not working, exercise and health are taking top priority for me.  So I went back today and did 90 minutes while reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  30 walking, 30 doing light elliptical (though light, HR at over 140) and 30 of light walking.  I meant to take it easy today, so when I began to feel strange sparkles variously around my body in the second hour, which I have no idea why I was associating that with a lack of electrolytes, I started to feel guilty about overworking myself.  Would stomping on the treadmill for an hour, even fairly slowly, be good for knees and feet like I promised I'd be?  In otherwise, I go to the gym promising to take it easy, but once there I can't resist pushing a little.  At least i'm still to lazy to push a lot.

Despite an excess of pumpkin pie with sugar-free cool whip, wine, movie theatre popcorn and Raisinettes (I saw 2 movies, Dallas Buyers Club and Thor: the Dark World) I didn't gain significantly.  I think I was 274 on Wednesday and today I was 275.  That was before breakfast at home.  After breakfast, on the scale at the gym, I was 289.9!  Not much surprise that it's higher, but it hurts to see that.  I wonder if I'd have made it to 300 pounds at the doctors office scale.  Our Thanksgiving dinner was pretty OK - we really don't go overboard with casseroling our vegetables or aging to many sugars, creams, and though there was surely butter, it wasn't excessive.  That's just our way; mom prepared the whole meal.

And a turkey sandwich with dressing and cranberry and gravy would be good pretty soon.  :-)

hobbled

ARGH!  Knee and foot pain are still there this morning.  If there are stress fractures, they want me not to exercise for weeks?  I'm trying to decide if I want to even do swimming but I just don't know whether swimming kicks would be a good idea.  CURSES!  I will stay home.  Tomorrow I may do yoga.  That's gonna hurt.  Maybe by the weekend I'll feel ready to return to the gym.  To be honest this strange foot pain that throbs in and out - I don't know WHEN it started showing up.  Could have been months ago I just don't know.  There seems to be a ligament that pops over an ankle bone of some sorts, so maybe it's just an aggravated ligament or something.

The good news is that weight has been lost again.  Actually seeing results, so keep it up, Hallie.

a pain in the knee again today and a pain on the top of my foot that's been there a while but i don't know when it started.  little throbs that come and go.  mini-fractures?  arthritis?  do I need to stay off my feet?  cuz that would suck.  NO MORE SETBACKS!  Gonna rule out diabetes because no numbness or tingling.  Gonna hope it's not MS!  No family history - I think.  Just watching Pres Bartlett struggling with first symptoms of MS and I'm not having that or any kind of clumsiness.

Hi.

So I told you that I took Sunday off from exercising but I somehow failed to mention that my lower back was really sore yesterday.  As a result, I treated my workout at the gym more like a walking back massage than a push-myself workout because I didn't want to hurt myself.  Hurts again today, hopefully not as much.

When I got on the scale, readings ranged from 280-272 - like a huge range.  At first it registered at the high end, but then as I kept standing on it, it dropped.  It felt really good every time I saw it as less than 277, and really bad every time I saw it as 277 and above.  I was going to claim 275, but I think I'll claim 276 and be happy it seems to be working and not distress if it's slow.  Although I'm in a hurry to get some weight off my joints, I guess I'm still fine with losing weight.

scale reading

I sort of immediately dropped from, what, about 282 to 277 and then was deprived, the rest of the week, of any more weight loss joy on the scale.  Even had to endure a pop back up.  I found myself wondering whether Lose It had assigned me too many calories.  Even if I don't exercise, Lose It budgets me over 2100 calories per day to lose 1.5 pounds a week.  Once I realized that, it didn't seem that amazing that I was coming in so under calories every day!  Then I remembered that when I started, the point wasn't to count calories so much as to eat good foods that would balance me glycemically, and just sort of track to see how my eating habits registered on the calorie count log.  However, as soon as I started tracking, that became the obsession, to stay under budget.

I took yesterday off from exercise, just in case any of my leg muscles wanted a chance to repair.  So I'm back today.

I also figure I'll go back to work a little bit after Thanksgiving.  Maybe just warm myself back into it.  Today I have flare-up and that is even though there was no exercise yesterday.  I thought about a couple possible career changes but can't get started on them till next fall anyway.  It's time for a little income!

Exercising every day...

I think exercising every day might be starting to hurt.  I will take a day off tomorrow.  Disappointing scale reading today as I was down to 277 all week to be swung back up to almost 280.  Yesterday I waited too late to ingest sufficient calories.  I had a large dinner of chicken, zucchini, marinara and brown rice - 1 cup of which came to 340 calories!  After that I thought I might have another row of my 72% chocolate bar, but I wound up having the rest, which was about 3/4 of the whole bar.  Add in a few other things and it felt like an oh-god-I-need-calories-now kind of binge, and at the end I was satisfied and still hundreds of calories under-budget at the ol' Lose It app where I'm tracking this stuff.  Anyway, it's all good, I'm not letting that one scale reading bother me, I just wish it hadn't happened.

Mom's coming back into town today.  I do wonder if I'll be able to keep this up while doing other things in life.  I need to start doing other things in life.  Keep hoping exercise will make me a more energetic person but :-/

heart rate considerations - Level One too easy

I am finding my return to the gym to be easy.  Too easy, in fact.  The book says that the first Level One goal is to be able to do 45 minutes of exercise at a heart rate of 60-65% of your max heart rate.  65% for me is 117.  I just can't walk that slow!  I have been mostly maintaining something around 130-135 on the treadmill, trying not to work TOO hard too soon, and that's about 2.8-3.1 mph at a very slight incline of 1 or 2, but occasionally playing with higher or lower levels.  I feel a twinge in my left knee reminding me that there's no rush to get up to speed.  I like doing the 45 minute walks.  I watch an episode of Star Trek or House of Cards while I exercise.  There is plenty on Netflix to go through.

Level Two (from the old folks book) is to add strength training.

I'll see a personal trainer next week and get her guidance on where to go from here, adding weight lifting and maybe cardio goals - we'll see what she says.

Someone posted an article featuring the full nude photos of Julie Kozerski's post-weight-loss body and I looked at my old nude photos at about 220 and feel like maybe I'll be happy at 220 or 230 - depending on what my doctor says and whether my heart or knees and feet are okay with it.  I don't mind a little chubbiness.  Also she lost 160 pounds in a year.  I'm not going to do that.  Plus probably no man will ever see me naked again so it's only my aesthetics I have to worry about.