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

Nyom

I have not been eating well.

Correction: this week I have made a belated stab at eating well.  It’s proving... taxing...

I have started monitoring exercise, fluid intake, sleep, and fruit/ veg intake again.  Among other things, having an objective measurement is super-useful.

And it turns out that I’m about hitting exercise and sleep targets, scraping by on fluids, and frankly failing at fruit and veg.  And, frankly, even those dismal fluid and fruit/ veg intake figures are only because I’m trying harder so that I can have something to put in the log.  Less Heisenberg, more Hawthorne.

Balls.  I remember that, last time, I was doing really well - easily getting 7/8 fruit and veg a day, and usually drinking about 2½ litres of water (apart from Saturdays - I rarely do well on Saturdays as they tend to be my sofa day - lots of sleep, not so much on the food, drink, or social activity).

Over the last couple of months I appear to have systematically broken all my good habits, possibly in a fit of pique over my neck being sore and it being more difficult for me to exercise.  (At some point soon I need to address this thanatopic, adolescent tendency; it’s really starting to get in my way.)  I cut down on exercise, social time, water intake, fresh/ any fruit and veg, and I did it with a grim sense of achievement. It was weird. I only see how weird it was now, writing about it and looking back.

I’ve started baking again (creative endeavour, sense of achievement, nom), which means more biscuits. I have to take them out of the house and ply them at colleagues, friends, randoms on the street (this is not actually an exaggeration - I gave home-made flapjack to a homeless guy because I didn’t have any cash on me, and I don’t smoke).

I feel like I’m coming at this health thing again from not even a standing so much as a lying-down start.  This is going to be tougher than I’d anticipated...

Any hints and tips would be gratefully received on how to make this stick.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep on with the spreadsheet and keep reminding myself how much better I feel well-hydrated and with a less-challenged digestive tract.

(I wish I understood the weight thing - this entire time I’ve continue to remain in the lower half of the ideal BMI range, and - according to the possibly incredibly faulty fat analysis machine - I have a really (like scarily) low fat composition...)

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.

Little Victories #3

I’m trying to make a lifestyle change here, and that means changing habits of thought as well as upgrading physical function. This tag will record those little moments of triumph that make me proud.

Part of what I’m doing with this project is giving myself gifts. I don’t remember that enough - sometimes exercise and salad just feel like a chore to feed the spreadsheet. Moments like earlier are a great reminder:

I realised that, running late, I had a wider choice of buses these days and, seeing one that was running a little behind schedule that stops quite far (but walkable distance now) from my house, I decided to try it.

It had overtaken me, so I started to run towards the stop. And I ran. And kept running. Holy crap, I wasn’t running out of breath or breaking my legs. I had to pause to let someone pushing a bike by in the opposite direction, and trotted the few yards after that at a fast walk, grinning all over my face.

Of course, the next bus heading to where I’m now trying to get to is stuck in traffic, but that’s a different story...

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...

First Past The Post

I think it's fair to say that I'm not exactly the most sporty person ever. Maybe it's my sickly childhood and my parents' emphasis on creative and academic achievement. Maybe it's my under-developed competitive streak ("Oh, you did really well in a thing I can't do as well as you? Nice one! :)") or the part where I was bullied by massive sporty girls as a late-developing weirdo.

Don't get me wrong - when I could avoid wheezing, I liked running around and throwing things and climbing up stuff as much as the next person who has those abilities. It just didn't... define me, I suppose.

Especially after computers happened.

But I've been through periods of being properly fit - the Year of the Sixpack (2005), various phases of cycling everywhere (2001-2003; 2010-2011 - the middle of that was Milton Keynes. Not exactly a cycling paradise that place). They took some effort, but I'm annoyingly prone to building muscle quickly when I actually put effort into it.

So why aren't I currently buff as hell?

Asthma. Increasingly screwed-up joints. A tendency to have long periods of being very ill in the lungs or injured, because these things happen easily to me. Oh, and there was 2007-2009 when I was either carrying around an increasingly massive tumour or recovering from having my abdominal muscles slashed vertically to get it gone. And the Year of The Stick (2011-2012).

So why start now, somewhat physically screwed-up and approaching 40 at an alarming speed?

See above. Plus all my family (save one) die of heart/ blood pressure-related issues. Putting that off as long as possible feels wise. My job is sedentary, and none of my hobbies wildly aerobic. Action needs to be taken, and besides - I enjoy feeling in control of this conglomeration of fleshy electrons.

So I've taken several steps to get around my natural inhibitions towards the physical:

1. Spreadsheets. I love 'em. I'm fooling the nerdy part of my psyche that tracking nutrition and exercise stats is fun.

2. A goal. Sport Relief's mile is 23rd March this year, and I've pledged to walk 6 miles, in one go, for charity.

3. Gadgets. I'll get my smartphone in on the act and satisfy that part of me too.

4. Spending money to save money. Cautious Fay wants to know the benefits of running, jumping, and lifting? Joining the gym will save her money on taxis for when she's too out of puff to run to the bus. Or just, you know, walk to where she needs to go.

So why write a blog?

Because that's probably partly going to be 5. Appeal to my creative/ academic side. Because I'm recording the actions but not the effects (physical or mental) in my spreadsheet, so maybe the more tenuous/ difficult to measure (feeling better, better posture, more confident, endorphin response, general stamina, etc.). It will also be a good place to talk these things out without boring the arse off anyone who's not actually interested.

I should probably start making some physical measurements - weight, waist size, etc. - to feed the spreadsheet, but this blog will be a good place to talk about how it makes me feeeel, among other things.

So, will this help or be a distraction from the actual work needed? Will I complete my goals? Will I keep this blog up? Will I injure myself along the way? Will I get anyone to crack a smile back at me at the gym?

Watch this space, I guess! :)