Weight Loss and Exercise #7

I spent the afternoon walking around a mall. Didn’t buy anything though. Just walking with my son sitting in a trolley and pushing the trolley around.

I looked at some pictures of me from April 2024. And they are almost identical to the ones I took today. So I guess at least I'm not gaining or looking worse then I did last year.

I did stretching and now need a nap - my sleep during the night was so fragmented. I hope to go to the gym after napping.

I had 2 servings of cheese today and I normally only have 1. Need to be careful because cheese is high in calories. Otherwise I just grazed on falafel and hummus pineapple and I had a chicken and vegetables soup for lunch courtesy of my partner’s mom. Man she’s a good cook.

@Tart Cherry Jam - So sorry about the lightheadness; that has to be frustrating! I hope you start feeling better soon.

@Crazy Hitch - It's fantastic you are so close to your goal weight! It's not an easy thing to lose that much weight.

I jogged yesterday and today, around 7 mi. I'm definitely not as fast as you, @Discombobulated. I calculated, and I think I'd do well to jog 10 mi. in 2 hr, maybe even just 9 mi. My pace is quite slow. The beginning of my run could have been better though as a skunk had either been hit by a car or sprayed a dog or something. Thankfully the smell finally dissipated, and the rest of the run went better. I started my run before sunrise and there was an absolutely beautiful sunrise this morning; I always love pretty sunrises.

I am in bed with lightheadedness. What can I do but just wait?

Refresh me on your meds - do you take something that lowers blood pressure? Or any kind of diuretic? Stamping your feet ffor 10-20 seconds when moving to a rising position is sometimes enough to move enough blood to your head. Do you have a home blood pressure machine? They are about $50 on amazon.

I take Zyprexa. My symptoms are apparently a migraine variants, called vestibular migraine. My blood pressure tends to the low end of normal. Of course, all antipsychotics can lower the blood pressure. I do not take diuretics or beta blockers. Back when I monitored at home with an Omeon cuff, there was no correlation between my symptoms and the numbers. I could feel fine at 91/61, which was borderline low, but be in bed at 110/70, which was perfect. But I can go back to monitoring and see if there are any changes. I will try the trick, too! It is a new one for me.

This morning I was pretty tired, had very tired legs, not to mention the chemical smell outside was awful today, so I stuck with a gentle pilates video. It felt so good on my muscles & body. I definitely need to remind myself to slow down now and again, especially from power walking/jogging in the heat & humidity outside.

@Blueberrybook you do amazing to run in those temps and humidity, it’s much cooler here, I find heat difficult and humidity makes it difficult to get proper deep breaths in. Be careful around chemical smells though, that sounds possibly dangerous.

@Tart Cherry Jam a friend is going through similar dizziness/vertigo and it’s very life impinging, she’s got a diagnosis of vestibular migraine too but she’s not sure it’s right, she’s still getting tests. She doesn’t have low or high bp so it’s a mystery.

I've been eating decently. I had some ice cream this afternoon because I was very hot. But I ate some chicken cesar salad and a Greek yogurt.

I'm just maintaining my weight which is ok for right now.

I found out that there is a whole bunch of Belvita type biscuits. I got these digestive things today. The brand is Mcvirite I think.

Disco,

I am sorry your friend is suffering, too. It is indeed a life impinging condition, even though it is not exactly painful (and I am thankful for that). Not painful but very limiting. My episode yesterday lasted for 9 hours. I also had an episode on Friday with double vision, for the first time in my life, and the neurologist confirmed that double vision can be a manifestation of migraine. He gave me tips for how to check for whether it is a migraine next time, should it happen again.

Today I felt much better.

15 mins warm-up on the recumbent elliptical with leg press

Personal training session

21 minutes on the recumbent bike, on a ride as if through a scenic route in Maine.

I plan to do more, leveraging the fact that I feel OK today. Since some of my days are occupied by those episodes, I feel like making the most of my well days. So I will either cook while wearing my weighted vest or go for a walk wearing it. And hope for a good day tomorrow, too.

I spent time on my creative writing and now I am sleepy, so, did not do more exercise today. But writing is very important for me, and tomorrow will be another day to do both: write and work out.

Long run this morning and it wasn’t the best, I needed a toilet break half way around and thereafter not really feeling great, I did scale back and it was 11 miles but took over 2 hours. Hoping next weeks is better and also that I don’t need the toilets on half marathon day especially as the portaloos are not a great experience!

My partner gave me a nice compliment. He said, You’re fading away those jeans are so loose on you.

Thank you for noticing!

Newsletters

A WebMD article about why step count is the most important fitness metric

And what a creative way to put it. He really cares.

@Discombobulated - I hate when I need the bathroom during a run! The park has one but they don't open it until 7 or 8 AM (with a very loose opening time, so if it's 7:30 AM you still have no idea whether it's open or not).

I jogged 7 mi this morning, but the jog was hard pretty much all the way. The heat & humidity just really got to me; there wasn'lt the slightest bit of breeze at all. The air was 100% still, and ugh, but a slight breeze makes a bigger difference than I would have thought. Even once I got in and had my shower, I was still very fatigued from the run, and usually my end of run fatigue dissipates by the 3-5 min. or so I do a slow recovery walk back to my house . It took a lot of drinking water and another hour yet before I felt a bit better. It was tough!

15 minutes warm-up on the treadmill followed by a very effective personal training session. The trainer noticed how well I did today and I greatly enjoyed not feeling depressed. I got sweaty, too, and now will jump into the shower. My favorite shower experience is after workouts that cause me to break a sweat.

Next I will spend time on creative writing (in the planning stage) and in the evening should have time to wear my 20-lb vest.

I am getting more and more comfortable wearing the 20-pounder.

After the evening walk, I hit 9000 step count. Also, Oura now shows total time of activity instead of the mile equivalent. I found their mike equivalent redundant in the past, since the step count is a measure of length. The time spent exercising is much more important for me. Today, it was 2 hrs 30 minutes.

Tomorrow, I plan to do water walking in the warm water pool after seeing my T, whose office is near the pool. I am so excited, having not gone water walking in a while

And, not depressed now. What a relief!

Glad you’re not depressed now Tart Cherry Jam. That’s huge 😊

@Blueberrybook that sounds very tough conditions to exercise in. I know what you mean about breeze helping. I complain about the wind on this coast but I’d rather have it than not at all. The public toilets aren’t open early here either and so for my longer run I do two 10k loops past my house just in case of toilet emergencies! It rarely happens but I was glad of it yesterday. The things you find yourself doing as a runner!

Short slow 30 mins recovery run, felt fine. Be interesting to see if I crash this afternoon like I have day after last two long runs. Yesterday afternoon I was very sedentary, sat in nice cool cinema watching Superman and eating sweets! Kept flexing my ankles and doing ankle circles though so I didn’t seize up.

@Tart Cherry Jam - 2.5 hr. exercising is a lot! Don't go too hard on yourself! Like @Crazy Hitch said, not being depressed is huge

@Discombobulated - I hope your recovery run today will help after 2 long runs! 30 min. of a good run is a fantastic recovery run I hope it helps you in the afternoon after having 2 long runs.

Today I had a fantastic, strong jog, which is probably a slow jog to you @Discombobulated! I capped it at 6 mi. though as I just felt if I pushed it another 0.5 mi I would be completely exhausting myself & really pushing it. I ran nearly 1 min/mile faster than normal, keeping it up the entire run. Anyway, that's nearly a 10K which is a pretty decent run, all in all and with the heat & humidity at a much increased pace I'm still feeling the benefits on my body 4 hr. later. It's hard to explain, pretty much still feeling the runner's high still after being fairly sedentary for 4 hr. post exercise is probably the best way to explain it, which feels pretty darn good!

I walked in a warm water pool for 75 minutes. Mostly sideways, but also backwards and forwards. Initially I felt refreshed and wonderful, but then a migraine (classic, not vestibular) started. I took Promethazine and Indocin to abort it, and the pain is almost gone, but I am left with nausea. If it doesn't go away, I will just sit at my computer and right. If it goes away, I will cook soup while wearing my 20-pounder vest. My plan is to cook a bean and spinach soup with hand-grated hard cheese. But I cannot make soup while nauseous - I don't even want to look at food.

I also walked today before my T appointment, around his office, because I arrived early. So my total exercise time today is 1 hr 52 minutes. That is plenty even if I call it a day now.

Just about to inject my weekly Wegovy aka ozempic now. Been out this morning and it’s now after lunch. Can’t believe I completely forgot to inject first thing in the morning like I usually do. Ughhh.