Preprandial Perambulation

So, as I said before, I’m keen to expand on my fitness activities now that I’m back at work (sedentary as hell) and no longer charging up and down hills and up and down several flights of stairs every day.

So new strategies for worktime fitness include:

1. Stairs

I currently work on the third floor, and am no longer choking horribly like I was this time last year (for AGES), so if I can go up and down the stairs to/ from the Edinburgh flat, I can do that at work. (Last year I was so ill that even going down stairs made me cough and choke. I got really reliant on the lift; I’m trying to kick that habit.)

Sometimes I go up two stairs at a time, then stand and gasp at my desk while I wait for my heart-rate and blood pressure to return to something approaching not-having-a-stroke. Two of my geographically close colleagues are so much fitter than me it’s not even funny, but they’re polite about me doing my landed-fish impression.

Useful for: leg strength, heart strength.

Disadvantage: makes me look a little antisocial at times when others are using the lift...

Goal: not to be out-of-breath after doing the full three flights.
 
 
2. Lunchtime walks

I work very near a patch of land in Cambridge that is approximately 0.65 miles in circumference - Parker’s Piece. It seems ridiculous to only step outside my building before home time when I have an errand in town that can’t wait until after 6pm. So, instead of sitting looking at t’internet the whole time, I figure I’ll step out and do a brisk turn around the Piece before eating lunch. Except that that’s a bit boring and not exactly very long. So I’ve worked out this more complex criss-crossing route that takes the walk up to about 1.7 miles and 36 minutes (including getting to and from the office building), making maximum use of the greenness and relative-lack-of-cars-ness.

Wacky Saltire/ Wobbly Kite - movement map courtesy of Strava

No doubt I’ll get bored with it after a while, but there’s a great deal less pollution and dodging people than if I walked in any other direction from my office. And I’m not going to just walk up and down the stairs. No-one wants that. I’ve invited other people along generally; let’s see...

Did it for the first time today, and here are the results:

I overheated so much... - stats courtesy of Fitbit

Short of actually jogging, I think I’m unlikely to get any better than that. And I’m not jogging for anyone - my knees are shot enough as it is.

Useful for: general fitness maintenance, leg strength, heart strength, getting away from screens and chairs, encouraging a good appetite for lunch.

Disadvantage: I’m struggling here, because anything I think of is tiny. Okay, let’s say that it’s dependent on weather, and in splashier months the choice of bike-ridden paths/ car-ridden Regent’s Terrace and muddy ground may prove tricksy.

Goals: Maintain a pattern of doing it every work lunchtime that it’s not horrendous weather for six weeks; bring it down to a 30 minute time by the Solstice.
 
 
3. Isometrics

About 50,000,000 years ago I was shown some isometric exercises (though she didn’t call it that) for my shoulders by my old physio. They were supposed to work on the small, stabilising muscles closer to the bone, to help prevent injury. Like everyone in the history of rehabilitation ever, I stopped doing the boring exercises when I felt like I was feeling better.

{sigh}

I have rigorously trained myself to do the big-muscle daily physio exercises every day, between waking up and breakfast. I’ve only missed one in the last few months or so, and that’s because I was full of snot and coughing like a pit pony. I need to get into a similar pattern with the isometrics, and frankly it’s ridiculous that I’m not because I don’t even need to get out of my chair to do them! So the notion is to have at least one time in the working day where I do them.  I’ve decided that it’s towards the end, when my colleague who sits next to the big window has gone home so I can walk over, rest my eyes on the distant view of the far side of Parker’s Piece and just bloody do my exercises already. It takes 2:45 minutes, so I’m not entirely sure why I don’t do ’em! :)

Useful for: much-needed shoulder stability, better posture.

Disadvantage: honestly, mate, there really isn’t one; you could even do it in the loo if you’re worried about people thinking you look weird doing it!

Goals: Maintain a pattern of doing it at least once a day every day (work or otherwise) for six weeks.
 
 
Thoughts? What fitness habits do you incorporate into your workday?

Back in the saddle

TL;DR - New regime seems interesting; cycling longer distances is a bugger against the wind, but my app has great safety features for cycling/ running alone in isolated places; those of us at the whim of menstrual cycles have some interesting things to learn about what progesterone seems to (spoiler: metabolic and heart rate changes)…

So I’m back in the exercise mindset and have started using the Fitstar by Fitbit app. So far I’m impressed - the first session in the “Get Strong” program I’ve selected (muscle-building and cardio - exactly what I’m after) was 20 minutes long, with three short breaks programmed in, and it didn’t seem ridiculously taxing and yet I am exactly the right amount of sore today. I need some new stretches for calf muscles - anyone got any good ones that won’t fry a bendy?

I’d already committed to either going dancing last night or, if no-one was going to come with me, a longish bike ride today. Bike ride it was, despite having woken up with fun menstrual cramps. I dithered a little, but eventually set off wearing too many layers and with a brisk tailwind. Obviously that was less fun on the way back (although I’d stripped down one layer, which helped), but, oddly, having given myself permission to stop whenever I needed to, I persisted all the way back.

I also tried out the “Beacon” element of the Strava app, and sent the associated link to a couple of people who were able to watch the little dot of me trail out then home, even being told how much battery life my phone still had! Someone’s put a lot of thought into that…

Way out

Way back

Back home, I showed one of the beacon-watchers (a similarly nerdy scientist) graphs of my heart-rate on the way out and back (distinctly different!), and discovered a weird pattern in my resting heart rate (RHR) courtesy of the Fitbit I wear. Turns out my RHR shifts across the weeks in a distinctive pattern. I did some Googling and found out that heart-rate and baseline body temperature shift across the menstrual cycle, peaking briefly at ovulation, then climbing again through the luteal phase. This could explain why a lot of us are different amounts of hungry and for different types of food across the cycle - our metabolism is shifting in response to these hormonal changes.

I don’t know about you, but this is going to make a difference to how I train across the cycle. I need to put some thought into exactly how - does this mean more strength-building challenges in the first part of the cycle (taking advantage of lower joint laxness and lower injury risk) and more cardio in the second part (taking advantage of running hotter) or the opposite way around (i.e. more cardio when my system’s slower)?

I’d be interested in hearing what anyone has to say about this. (Also whether anyone’s started a pool for when I next injure myself and put myself out of the running for all this… running around.)

_________________________

Some links on RHR/ menstrual cycle research, if you’re interested:

Twelve month study by Clue with largeish subject pool

Personal study by one Redditter

Another study from 2000

BEEFCAKE!

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m back on the getting-strong trail. Finally. This mostly involves just doing lots of stuff and being active, but also some focused exercises.

For the explicitly (mostly upper-body) strength-building stuff (what I tend to call the “hench mat exercises"), I do press-ups (normal and wide-arm), planks, leg-lifts, and - when I get to that stage - chin-ups.

Once all these are relatively easy, then it’s onto more exciting gym machines, which actually means entering a gym - all these other things I currently do at home.

In the meantime, I also want to get back into free weights but without, you know, injuring myself again in the manner of a muppet. And I’d also like to ensure that I’m making the most of recovery time between exercises by eating the right foods.

So this is also an advice-asking post:

1. What/ where are good resources for finding out about free weight exercises (and advice about actual weights to use) for people who injure themselves easily yet build muscle quickly (or even just the former)?
   
   
2. What/ where are good resources for finding out about good foods to eat and drinks to drink for recovery after exercise and maximising efficiency of building muscle from exercise? So far my best bet appears to be chicken (high protein but not too heavy on my poor stomach).
   
   (I used to eat protein bars, because they’re convenient and portable and last for ages, but they’ve changed the recipe for the ones I liked (read: the only ones I found that weren’t disgusting/ allergenic) and so I’m kind of scuppered again. I’d be particularly interested in finding some new, non-allergenic (milk: fine; ton of sweetners, nuts, eggs, or chocolate: not fine) protein bars...)

I’ve been doing the Hench Mat Exercises again for a few weeks now. I’ve managed to push through the “But I don’t like it!” stage into “Oh, does today have to be a rest day?!” remarkably quickly, which is something to be happy about. The same thing happened with the bike, which was also gratifying. My main worry now is the perennial “Fay gets cocky and overdoes the exercises so that she injures herself... Again” problem.

Remarkably, I’ve only just thought about recording progress on a spreadsheet, so I can’t tell objectively if I’ve got any more adept, though it feels like I have. I know explicitly that I’m holding my planks for longer (at first I was pleased with 47 seconds (which would sink ignominiously to a bare, shaking 30 towards the end of a session), but now 01:05 is the baseline (can be as much as 01:20 to start, which then sinks to 47 seconds towards the end of a session... or rather: the middle, weirdly, then back up to 01:02). As for number (and quality) of press-ups, etc., I don’t have the data for that, so we’ll have to see...

This rambling post was brought to you by, among other things, a new medication that the specialist is trying me on, which word-suppressing funtimes side-effect is making everything more of a chore when it comes to communication.

Yay.

Progress and Technology

Hello!

Well, it's been a while, but I thought I'd give you an update.  Preferably one nothing to do with slightly scary mental health stuff.

So today I'll be talking about:

1. Training for the Sport Relief 2016 Challenge (sponsor me here)
2. Technology
3. General Health stuff

1. Training for the Sport Relief 2016 Challenge

This has been less fun that it could be - partly because I got ill between Christmas and New Year, and could (fairly) directly attribute that to going out on a training ride late in the day, getting cold with an exercise-induced lowered immune system, and then, instead of going straight home, went to the shop for food (a move that seemed logical at the time) where clearly some infectious bastard breathed on me. Garh

So what with having funtimes with breathing, then injuring myself (minor standard neck/ shoulder stuff), then the winds being insanely strong, I somehow let training drift into a puddle of excuses. I was still cycling pretty much everywhere (work, social engagements in Cambridge, choir rehearsals, anything where I didn't need to tote much gear) else, but no particularly challenging distance.

And then I checked my magical spreadsheet, which showed me that I only had a few weeks to go, and that I'd spent nigh-on two months not training. Eeeep! Instead of a steady increase of ≤½ mile every session, I was going to have to jump up more emphatically each time, especially if I stepped back to a shorter distance to kick back off again (because, despite being foolish, I do learn - slowly - from my past mistakes with exercise).

Mon 28-Dec-15: 16.4 miles, 1:39:32 hours (64% of end goal)



Wed 24-Feb-16: 10.1 miles, 0:57:14 hours (39% of end goal)



Sun 28-Feb-16: 12.6 miles, 1:11:38 hours (49% of end goal)



Sun 6-Mar-16: 15.5 miles, 1:29:16 hours (60% of end goal)



Wed 9-Mar-16: 17.7 miles, 1:41:25 hours (69% of end goal)



I am still aching after this last one (cold, damp, mizzly, long; an exercise in self-discipline/ persuasive self-talk), and currently wondering two things:

a) How much of a percentage of the end goal should I aim for?

b) Should I do a training cycle on the Wednesday before the Sunday 20th ride, or am I better off having a rest (apart from work cycling) that week?

2. Technology

After agonising over gadgets, I found the one that was the best fit: a FitBit Charge HR. Of all the things that I wanted an activity tracker to do/ be, it only doesn't do one of them: GPS tracking. On the other hand, it (along with its concomitant app) does everything else, and things I didn't even know I wanted it to do (and some other things - like calorie counting - that I'm resolutely ignoring).  It's good at working out when I've been cycling for short stretches, but the longer ones confuse it, so I have to manually record them, which isn't exactly taxing.

It's proving useful for helping me keep track of (and manage by increasing) my water intake, gamifying my fitness efforts, and it looks slinky on my wrist (it functions as an actual watch as well).

It's also proving useful during anxiety - it turns out that the thumping heart sensations are often misleading: my heart-rate will rise slightly, but not anything like as much as it feels. This is proving remarkably helpful in swift calming and fending off potential full-blown attacks.

And I've bought a fancy water bottle that's easy to carry around work (I saw someone else with one and desired it greatly), means I don't use up lots of plastic cups (yay environment), and measures much more precisely how much I've drunk during the day at work/ during cycle rides.

3. General Health stuff

I am generally well. However, my hip joints (especially my right one) are not. I have been mostly ignoring this and trying to find comfortable positions, but the "it's reliably achey by 10pm" rule has shifted to "it's reliably achey all the damned time and difficult to bear by 10pm".  And now the right one keeps going out of alignment when I get up from a chair and start walking. Unfun. So I need to go and see someone about this.  Sadly, my former physiotherapist has now retired, so I will need to begin the Quest for a Local Physiotherapist Who Actually Understands HMS/ EDS all over again, though armed with more knowledge than last time I started.

My lower left-hand back aches reliably after about 6-7 miles of continuous cycling; less if hills are involved.  I've been advised that I need to get my posture on the bike checked and the bike's setup amended by experts.  As in all things requiring experts, this is not cheap.  If it prevents some further physiotherapy sessions, mind, it'll be worth it.

I forgot to renew my gut medication prescription last week.  This will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.  I have come to rely on not being in constant abdominal agony - turns out I'm on PPIs for life. A small price to pay unless, of course, the NHS is dismantled. O_o

I'm beginning to see why people with my condition (especially those with more severe versions) get into a cycle of morphine use.  I'm still avoiding even paracetamol unless my neck's particularly bad and I want to sleep (and nothing I've got touches migraines, so there's no point there either), so we'll see how long I can keep this straight-edge attitude to pain management up...


Thanks for reading so far! :D More updates to come, more frequently and smaller, especially in the run-up to the Sunday 20th challenge. Did I mention that you can sponsor me...?! :D

Activity Tracker (or: retail therapy)

This is an appeal to the Sporty/ Gadgety Hivemind. Hello! :D

I am going to be in the market - in the New Year - for a new activity tracker (my current cheap one - Sony SmartBand was great for a few months, but has stopped recognising cycling (which is my main form of exercise!) and tracking my position over the course of a day (or ever), and doesn't measure my heart rate...).

There are some very fancy (read: expensive) activity and exercise trackers out there, and I'm doing my research, but I'm seeking out personal recommendations to trawl the sales with in January.  (Yes, yes, I know - a gadget doesn't substitute for just getting out and doing exercise, but I've found that a simple tracker with plenty of opportunity for graphs and comparisons has made a big difference to my motivation and therefore me actually doing anything.)

My requirements (not all of which are easily gleaned from t'interweb):

1. Not ridiculously expensive (my last one was <£20, end of line, to see if I wanted that kind of tech; £50-60 for a good one feels sensible, but less than that will be handy).

2. Has a heart rate monitor that doesn't require a chest strap.

3. Will track my movement (I'm a sucker for a good map).

4. Will integrate with my Android smartphone (send movement data to it, receive vibrating heads-up of phone notifications, can be used to e.g. snooze alarms).

5. Is a passive, through-the-day activity monitor, not just a "turn this on to say you're working out" type of thing.

6. Recognises the difference between different types of activity/ allows me to edit afterwards.

7. Fits my ludicrously slender wrist.

Preferable but not wholly essential:

1. Charges up from a normal micro USB cable.

2. Activity app integrates with other things like MapMyFitness/ Nudge/ whatever.

3. Fits under fitted cuffs without too much difficulty.

4. Shows me the time.


So there you are. Go recommendations... :)

Phase 1.2

In classic fashion, after crafting myself a clever and sensible bicycle training regime, I got busy, and then I got ill.

So, until yesterday, I hadn't done any further longer-distance rides.  After - yet again! - more procrastinating, I set off on another training ride along the Busway:



Several significant differences in preparation this time:

1. Lighter, smaller shoes.

2. Checked my tires.

3. Wore fewer layers.


What Went Well?

+ didn't overheat
+ really enjoyed it
+ didn't injure myself
+ went at a surprisingly fast clip
+ went further than anticipated (see above)
+ remembered to stretch at all
+ remembered to eat a protein bar and drink a ton of water when I got in
+ took a picture to mark the turning-point

What Could Have Gone Better?

- the soles on The Boots are ludicrously thick, and I nearly crippled myself climbing onto the now-far-too-high seat with my smaller shoes
- I was clearly dehydrated before I went out
- I hadn't eaten enough before I went out (seriously: very little all day)
- procrasturbating
- went further than anticipated
- didn't stretch as soon as I got in (again)


What will I do (differently) next time?

> adjust the seat before getting on the bike!
> drink a little more throughout the day (not directly beforehand!)
> get a mount for the phone on the handlebars so I can see how far I've gone rather than rely on a random notion of average speed to tell me when to turn around
> eat more sugary snackage beforehand and take something small with me for the turnaround break


Another thing not to do would be to look at other people's rides on Strava while I'm still feeling chuffed about my distance of 7.7 miles or whatever because one of my friends does 23 mile partially-off-road trips kind of as a matter of course.  If I do do that, I need to remind myself more swiftly that this is a guy who used to go mountain-biking on a Sunday, every Sunday, as a student, even when hungover to all hell. He's had over half his life to get really, REALLY good at this. Nice one, dude.

Remember: Do your own time...

Phase 1 Begins

After my bike challenge proposal, I decided on a vague training regimen of increasingly long trips, building up a mile or so a week, until I was near enough to my goal of the full distance between my house and Ely Cathedral.  I would do this on Sundays, and maybe Wednesdays, and I would neither wuss out nor break myself.

I spoke to colleagues who've trained for and completed cycling challenges such as London to Cambridge, or 100 mile round trips.  One of them came up with the excellent suggestion of using the busway's cycle path (since I live so close to one of them) for training, and another suggested a stepping programme of: increase, increase, step back, increase, increase, step back, etc. so that my baseline is always moving inexorably upwards. She also said that I should work out whether I'm stepping up time or distance. Both of them told me to listen to my body.

I discussed with R on Saturday how much I would do for the first step. I said: my longest usual non-stop journey is 20-25 minutes (my house to Cambridge Junction), so my first one should be slightly longer than that - 15 minutes one way and 15 minutes back. I discussed the ramifications of different options to an intricate level detail, and was reminded explicitly that I shouldn't "munt [my]self" on the first step - stick to 30 minutes. Oookaaaay...

Sunday came, and I watched myself procrastinate in the worst ways until I realised that I was basically waiting for it to be too late/ too rainy to go out. It hadn't rained, and I was disappointed.

Ah.

So I got off my arse, put what turned out to be too many layers on, set a count-down timer for 17 minutes, and got on my bike.  Here is the route I took:

It started off extremely boring, once I'd got onto the busway cycle path. Soooo dull.  I was pleased I'd opted for music, though I was sorely wishing for company. Quite how that would work, I've little idea yet - hands-free walkie talkies...?!

Anyway, after a while we left the science park behind and the landscape started getting interesting. More fields, more trees, am unexpected body of water, less noise. The little wiggle towards the left-hand side is where the cycle path abruptly jumps over three roads, including the busway, and I confidently crossed only two of them and ended up heading for a disused siding (the busway used to be a railway).

What went well?

+ I managed the distance
+ I didn't injure myself
+ I maintained a decent speed (av. 9.6, max. 13.6)
+ I felt fine (no significant aches & pains) during and after
+ I remembered not to take my usual heavy load of more urban gear with me

What could have gone better?

- I didn't stretch afterwards (probably the main reason I'm feeling it a bit more now)
- I didn't check bike's health (turns out you should inflate the tyres when heading off on a journey)
- As C predicted, watching me leave with all my layers, I massive overheated, especially on the way back.
- The procrastination!

What will I do (differently) next time?

> Start the journey colder (fewer layers, with options in saddlebags)
> Wear smaller shoes (my Big Black Boots weigh about 0.5kg)
> Check the tyres (and other things) first!
> Set a time for setting off and stick to it.

I'm definitely going to stick with the busway route for the next few iterations as a way of building up stamina and hours spent in the saddle while I level up.  As training ground it is excellently safe, and it forces me to keep going for longer, as there are only a few traffic lights, unlike any in-Cambridge cycling I do, which is packed with traffic lights and roundabouts, etc.  In fact, I'm almost tempted to switch the challenge to be "from home to St. Ives and back" because the busway to St. Ives is about 12.3 miles. There would be less dicking about with trains to get to the main leg of the trip, and it would be - for the most part - very protected from car traffic.

However, it would be extraordinarily dull.  I've had a look at the (mostly) off-traffic route from Ely, and it's via Wicken Fen and Anglesey Abbey - interesting local places I still haven't been to yet. I could make a proper (mini-)adventure out of this! :)

There's also an amount more hill (for this part of the world) going on. I haven't decided yet whether that's a good or bad thing.  I'm not convinced I want to end the journey uphill...

As the training progresses I'll get a better idea of how well my body is coping.  As each segment necessarily gets longer, it'll also be a test of my commitment to the goal - I'm not someone who's currently coming down with loads of spare time as it is...

More updates to come over the next few weeks...

Food, Glorious Food

(Dammit, now I have that song stuck in my head.)

The Spreadsheet Plan is working out well. Disappointingly, it told me that I have to work harder on fruit and veg (thank goodness dried fruit counts - I'd struggle to make it up to 7 most days) and that - as suspected - I'd routinely been drinking not enough water.

It also highlighted that, curiously, I am much better at eating and hydrating well during the work week.  I'm guessing this is either to do with the reduced structure during the weekend, or because it's easier to eat vegetables when someone else is cooking them for me.  Possibly both...  Hmm.  The hydration issue, though, is still a little confusing.  But I'll come up with a plan for combating that and then we'll see...! :D

As part of this Back on the Wagon programme, I've been trying to identify my weaknesses and eliminate them.  I have come to the conclusion that there's one thing in my life in particular which can topple all sorts of good intentions and excellent plans in a single bound.

To put it bluntly: I'm a cretin for biscuits*.  They are my Kryptonite.  I don't really eat many sweets; I'm "meh" about savoury fatty food (I definitely know when to stop, and do). I'm virtually teetotal, and am generally pretty straight-edge. I can only put my utter inability to resist biscuits* down to:

1. That thing about foods which combine both sugar and fat (which pretty much never happens in nature, so we have few inborn mechanisms for recognising satiation from processed foods which combine them like this, apparently) being so addictive.
    
2. Me being encouraged to snack on (a strictly limited number of) biscuits* every day at about 4:30pm as a child (i.e. after school but before dinner... possibly because my mother wanted us not to be hungry as she preferred us to all eat together - i.e. so that she only had to cook one meal).
    
3. My allergies meaning that many other sweet treats of choice are not an option (anything containing chocolate, nuts or eggs, which means no cakes, among other things), so biscuits* are pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to convenient processed snackery.

*biscuits, in this context, means a range encompassing cookies and flapjacks. In fact, flapjacks are particularly dangerous as it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that they're "healthy" because they contain oats, and often fruit. They're also ludicrously fatty and sugary.

So what have I been doing about this?

To start off, in my own, fumbling, amateur way, I've been following my "good" instincts (i.e. listening to my body, rather than following "damaging" cravings).  I'm pretty sure that I know fine well when I'm doing things wrong through indolence/ a desire to passively hurt myself (yay depression and a fragile body - why self-harm when you can self-neglect?!), so I'm having to come up with ways around these thanatopic tendencies.

One thing I'd worked out was that if I allow myself to become too hungry (to the point where even waiting to cook/ the actual act of doing cooking seems like a massive drain on perceived low resources) I will snack like a mofo.  If I structure my eating a little better, I can resist snacking.

Well... resist snacking crap, anyway.  I'm allowing myself dried fruit mid-morning and mid-afternoon at work, eating a carby lunch, and trying for a light meal in the evening which is strong on vegetables and protein, but low on carbs.

My lifestyle is problematic, and some of it can't really be switched up without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  I perform, using my voice.  There appears to need to be quite a gap of time between eating satisfying (fatty, carby, proteiny) foods and singing/ speaking well.  As most performances tend to be in the evening, around the time you'd be wanting to eat sensibly, juggling all these things can be an arse. Also: the satisfying food that's available when the show has finished and you're on your way home tends to the unhealthy (to say the least). And see above - by the time I'm in a position to eat I'm pretty hungry and tired, and also starting an adrenalin come-down, so prone to seeking something that feels like an energy (or mood) -boost.

So what are biscuits substituting for?  They're not exactly something that our bodies have adapted to draw nutritional substance from.  They're eaten because they're nice, a treat.  They're eaten because a sugar-rush can be a compelling high; because they remind us of childhood (with the extra benefit of no-one telling us we can't eat too many now we're grown-up); because we associate sugary foods with the end of the meal when we're relaxed and happy after a good time with family/ friends; because biscuitry is a reliable standby of feeling good and filling us, unlike people or job or creativity; because we're tired and have overridden the command to sleep, so need something else to fill the energy void; because we're not great at working out what it is we're missing and we know we like biscuits; because they're convenient and they keep for ages in desk drawers and vending machines and bags and cupboards and pockets; because it's just an ickle biccie...

So I need to get better at working out what "I want a biscuit" means in each context and then acting on that, rather than ignoring or repressing that urge.  Sleep, water, attention, stimulation, sex, affirmation, nostalgia, low blood sugar... these needs can all be dealt with in other ways.

In other words: I need to make new habits, tread new patterns into my brain (like "walk rather than wait" or "bus rather than taxi" or "bike rather than bus" or sleep rather than social media") as I replace "biscuit" with better sources of satisfaction.

No short order. But I've done it before - let's see if I can do it this time so it sticks better.

Back in the Habit (Slowly)

It's quite remarkable how many good habits I've dropped lately. From the aforementioned gym-slacking and taxi-taking to sleep patterns, fluid intake, and sugar consumption, it's all gone a bit to pot.

Annoying.

However, not insurmountable.  So this week I will be:

1. Resurrecting the Spreadsheet. Harder to say "Oh, I'm fine..." if the graphs say "Er, not really..."

2. Setting myself some short-, medium-, and long-term goals again.

3. Starting blogging about all this again (I suspect this lost out to the "writing a new poem a day for every day of April" thing I've been doing (with running-mates this year)...)

4. Starting thinking about teaming up with others who have similar goals.  (i.e. people who aren't super-fit but who like walking/ are happy to job gently beside my fast walking pace; want to cycle at all/ more/ further/ faster; want to use my gym at the same time as I do, etc.)

5. Celebrating the small victories again.

6. Starting to look out for a physio who likes talking about weights, press-ups, etc.

7. Having a look through this book what I bought, to see if that's any cop (got to sort this bloody neck/ shoulder thing out).


So yeah - see above; you'll be hearing more from me on this.

Right. As you were...

Bleh

Today is a Bad Joints Day.  Not only the usual suspects: Borked Shoulder, Particularly Bad Knee, Grinchy Neck Section, Dodgy Wrist, and Whingey Lower Back, but pretty much everything else as well.  The knees feel swollen, and everything is particularly clicky, achey, or twisted.

Yay.  No gym for me tonight.  This, combined with general increase in clumsiness and fine motor control near-absence today and yesterday leads me to conclude several things:

1. Sleep deprivation is a major key in pain perception/ management

Sleep has been very absent lately, especially over the last two nights.

2. I need to drink more on busy days

Like way more.

3. I have entered the "secretory" phase of my menstrual cycle

O hai progesterone, come to make a fuss, have you?

4. Standing around lots really does knacker my knees, especially when carrying heavy stuff

Seriously.

5. There may be some other factor that I'm not figuring in that is pulling everything else out of alignment

e.g. diet (sugar? acid? protein? calcium? something else?), the actual weight carried while walking/ standing, emotional stress, etc.


One of the things that worries me about, well, all of the above, is that the weekend of The Walk is a busy one, and that's got some real implications for stamina/ injury/ enjoyment on the day and recovery afterwards.

The day/ evening beforehand is a choir concert.  Judging by last time, this means: lots of standing; not much fluid intake (you don't want to rush to the loo in the middle of the gig); and a late night finish, which includes eating late.  Boo.

On the evening of the the day itself is a poetry gig that I run.  Judging by, well, every time, this means: a fair amount of standing; lots of heavy lifting (including up and down stairs); not much fluid intake (as organiser, you find yourself forgetting); and a really late night finish, which includes eating late. Double-boo.

And both will involve a fair amount of emotional stress, of different types, as well as likely to be taking place during the same less-than-ideal phase of my menstrual cycle.

Oh dear.

The Big Day is five weeks away and I have, as yet, to do any of the long walks necessary to check my ability to walk the increasingly long distances on the graph on the way up to six whole miles.  I just typed the phrase "Things keep getting in the way." and looked at it in disappointment and a measure of horror.

Oh deary me.

So the next five weeks are going to see:

1. A new sleep strategy (and set of tactics to match)

Don't ask me yet - I need to work this out.

2. A dry run of "drinking more and standing around less" for the next poetry event

Can't hurt...

3. More physio advice

She offered something I was tempted to take her up on.  Now that looks like a Very Good Idea Indeed™

4. Cracking on with the nutritionist advice

Any suggestions for good ones in Cambridge?

5. A new mattress

Mine is completely scuppered; time to spend some money.

6. Actually doing a long walk

No excuses.

7. Reading up more on hypermobility

There must be more I could be doing that I haven't thought of yet...


So watch this space, basically.

Confessions #1

I am a MASSIVE nerd. I think we suspected this already, but come on: who else do you know would decide to chart their menstrual cycle in a spreadsheet and then apply an algorithm to give predictions of the better days to exercise over the course of the weeks in order to draw a graph of this.

An uncle-flipping* GRAPH.

I'm monitoring a lot of things on this project; even I feel that this might be getting a little weird. I was monitoring protein intake, but gave that up really quickly because, well, it was a bit dull, to tell the truth, and the answer to my previous conundrum (am I eating too much protein because I can't eat pulses, nuts, eggs, and fish?) appeared to be: "probably not" (there seems to be little but rough consensus on absolute figures and a huge range of what "right" is, and the potential side effects of too much - anywhere from "nothing" to "meh" to "heart disease" to "OMG crumbling bones!"), apart from beef days, which I already knew.

However, the revelation that my waist-to-hip ratio leaves more to be desired than you might think (though this depends on: time of day measured, muscle tension, and which ratio scales of "you're doomed!" you believe) has me thinking that, despite earlier protestations, maybe I should be measuring calorie intake.

I really don't want to.

1. DULL.
2. Admitting that (again, depending which Doom Scale you believe) I'm closer to "overweight" than I'm comfortable with believing.
3. Painful and difficult.
4. Calorie-counting is what people on a diet do, and I'm not on a diet.

Am I?

And if I was, so what?  Hmm...

My mother was always on some diet or other and miserable about it.  She constantly felt uncomfortable about her weight and some days it seemed she felt like her very skin didn't fit right - she didn't even like her hair (until after it started to grow back after the chemo and we begged her to leave it alone and let it curl naturally).  I only have a few photos of her.  Among other things, my memories are of a slightly overweight, slightly-shorter-than-me woman with a wicked sense of humour, a beautiful voice, and a lot of regrets.  Presumably, at some level, I associate calorie-counting dieting with a fundamental lack of liking for yourself.  Oddly enough, at other levels, I also associate it with a fundamental respect for and desire for a healthy amount of agency for yourself.  I guess it depends on who's doing the dieting, how, and why.  Maybe it's fine for everyone but me. (Seriously?!)

I wonder, of course, if me striving to overcome the screwed-up joints (a clear legacy from a man with a double-jointed digit or two and a woman whose joints constantly pained her, sometimes to a crippling degree), to gain muscle definition, and compensate for my low-movement lifestyle is a symptom of a degree of dissatisfaction with who I am.  I don't think so.  It doesn't feel so much like trying to change myself into something else as uncovering a self I've neglected for a while, whipping the dust-sheet off a still-serviceable piece of old furniture**.

Or I'm protesting too much.

Anyway, for the moment I'm not going to count calories, if for no other reason than that my heart just sinks at the notion, and right now - trying to take something positive from the fact that I'm bleeding too heavily to exercise (like the discovery that I've already got to the point where I miss actually exercising when I can't, and distraction in the form of the creation of a menstrual exercise algorithm, for goodness' sake!) - I can do with all the motivation I can get.  I am, however, going to cut down even further on refined sugar***, and see where that gets me... :)

______________________

* Not swearing is pretty hard, but I'm going to give it a go for this blog, in case certain folk**** are actually reading this.  Hello!

** I'm not that posh - it was just a mental image

*** Oddly, that does sound rather like a diet... {facepalm}

___________

**** Putative delicate readers who, for some reason, I'm happy to allow to read talk of my menses... curious...

No Man’s Land

Some of will not want to read this. Some of you may well be relieved to see someone else saying this out loud...

Like, I suspect, a fairly large number of people out there putting together and maintaining an exercise regime, I am an adult person with an active pair of ovaries and a uterus and - along with work and other time commitments, current state of health, sleep deprivation and Stuff, I need to factor this state of affairs into my exercise planning.

For example, about a week or so before menstruating, my already floppy joints become even floppier, and more prone to damage. I need to take this into account when, e.g. doing press-ups or weights - I’m liable to injure myself. I’m also going to have to put extra effort into lifting, which may affect my perception of my strength and progress. With the mood-shifts that can come - while these can be combated by exercise, the bad ones can make actually going and doing exercise a harder ask.

I tend to change weight/ shape around this time, with water retention adding to my woes.  Which means that checking to see if I’d lost weight/ the burden of spare Fay on my belly last week was pretty much doomed!  In addition, the urge to stuff carbohydrates (especially sweet, short-chain ones) in my maw is rarely higher than at this time of my cycle. My blood pressure is often higher than normal, and migraines pounce, rounding out already foul and pathetic moods with their very own nauseating magic.

All this can pretty much be accounted for and worked around:

• Don’t give in to your inner grump and overdo the weights.
• Do nudge yourself firmly to a sensible timetable of exercise, no matter how much doleful poetry (seriously, it was dreadful) you compose on your phone on the way to the gym.
• Do stop eating when you’re actually full.  Keep leaning to the high-fibre, lower-refined-sugar snacks.
• Drink even more water.
• Don’t berate yourself - you’re more likely to give up on yourself and sulk in front of the TV with your own personal barrel of fudge.
  Mmmh. Fudge.

I’m annoyed today, but trying to see the bright side of it.  I was due to do the Long Walk Back Home Goal today but luckily I’d already decided to do that on Saturday and do the gym tonight, as usual.

Then last night happened. Pain so intense it was like being continually punched.  It was liked being a teenager again. (Whenever I say this, it’s pretty much short for: A Bad Thing™, by the way.)  It was also, inconveniently, at 4:30am. And yes, I already had a hot water bottle. And yes, I used pretty much every pain management technique I’ve got. And yes, I got up, walked around, drank some water, tried to distract myself, then gave up and took some paracetamol. I found getting up an almighty arseache this morning, and reluctantly decided that, all things considered, I’d be doing myself more harm than good doing Proper Exercise today. Nine hours later, while sad I won’t be doing it, I haven’t changed my mind.

For those of you who may be thinking: wuss - you may well be right. And here’s a thing: I don’t care*. A massive part of this whole project is about trusting my body and the signals I receive from it, learning again how to interpret them properly.  I did quite a lot of exercise yesterday morning, having already started this new phase of the cycle, so I’m not backing away from exercise without trying it.  I’m just not going to stagger to the gym, bleeding heavily and sleep deprived. A mistake in judgement doing too little on one day of the month will do, I reckon, less damage than doing too much.

Remember: I’ve been here before, I’ve exercise-munted and crippled myself more than once.  (*I’m sufficiently self-aware to realise that this is me arguing against one of my own inner daemons; this is, after all, part of what writing this journal is for.  This one is convinced I’ll never be good enough at anything, and tells me that telling me this at every opportunity is for my own good. It’s a dick.)  I’m pretty sure I should pay attention when an organ a similar size to my heart starts shredding itself.  Back in the bad old days of the Massive Tumour™, I would move as little as humanly possible for the first three days of my menstrual cycle. Even now I’m occasionally nervous about hurting myself at such a time.

If I’m still not fit to do it tomorrow, this may become the first session I’ve cancelled since committing to the timetable.  I’m choosing to see this as a learning point rather than failure, as I’ve been at this for less than a month, and I reckon it’s going to take a few of them to establish patterns (as well as achieve some of those pesky goals!).

I am, after all, a scientist at heart as well as a poet...