Yikes! A BIG regain!

Alas, the scale showed a 3 pound gain overnight!  In one night! How can this be?  It's not just my scale either. The scale at TOPS showed the same gain.  What a tragedy--and a mystery.

The only way I can explain it is that I have been having a big fibro flare this week.  This means I have a lot of inflammation, and that means extra weight in the tissues. Still, I apparently swelled up overnight! 

The sad thing is, it's all my own fault.  I have been eating more sugar than usual, which always causes a problem.  I made a special dessert for some dinner guests, and I've been snacking on the leftovers all week.  Maybe it was worth it, just once in a while.  Or so I thought, until I started feeling the pain. And then the scale revealed the truth. It wasn't worth it.  

Did you notice a little change over there on the right?

I finished up the word COMMITMENT!  Hurray!

This links back to an earlier post. 

I haven't posted a lot lately because I've been exhausted ever since our trip, but I did keep walking and managed to complete both the N and the T.  I am proud of myself for keeping that commitment.

No luck on the job front yet, but I've been too tired to go to work anyway.  When the time is right, it will all work out.

Hurrah! I finally lost ten pounds! Also the TOP hatS won our team contest!

40 Miles! And an E!

We took a trip to Utah to see some of our family. While traveling, I wore a pedometer every day.  In five days we walked 20 miles.  Add it to what I had before, and one mile when we got home, and I reached my 40 mile goal! I also got to fill in an E and part of the next N.

In Utah we hiked up a very steep mountain.  "About 40 minutes each way," my son said.  Well, after about an hour, we were about halfway, and I decided I could go no more.

Near the beginning of the hike, J and K walk along. 

I think this is going uphill.
I wouldn't swear to anything.

One of the steep parts. I think this is looking
downhill. It's hard to see how steep it really was.

My husband wouldn't leave me behind, when I stopped to rest, so it was up to my son and his girlfriend to finish the hike. Off they went, and we made our way downhill, very slowly, taking pictures as we went.  Near the bottom we found a little stream, and I sat right down and put my feet in it. It was very cold, and several dips in it took the swelling right out of my feet.  We were still sitting there when the younger two came down. 

Cute little flower along the path. The spiky leaves belong to it.

Same type of flowers, I think. The lighting is different.

More little flowers along the path.

My calves hurt for three days, but it was worth it--not just for the view, but for the experience.  I caught myself saying "I'm sorry," and "I'm such a wuss." I felt bad for letting J down on the hike, and for making him feel bad that it was so hard for me.

View of Salt Lake City from above.

Wait a minute!  I went more than halfway up a very steep mountain.  I challenged myself and tried something very difficult. I did not finish, but I did way more than start.  And that in itself is an achievement.  So, J, I am so glad I went!  Maybe next year I can go to the top.

Number of steps when I started coming down the path.

Number of steps back at the car.  It looks as though I went
 about 2200 steps each way--probably about a mile.

We also walked around at our library, for a total of about 5 miles that day.  

I am playing with Photoshop while I relax at
home after our vacation.

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

One of the biggest blessings of my life was the day my kind-hearted husband quietly said, "Honey, I hate to tell you this, but....
you snore.

That man can sleep through anything!  I'd probably been snoring, loudly, for years.  Now I was working night shift for three months, and he woke up while I was at snore stage.  Poor guy. I am so glad he decided to tell me.

The kind of snoring I was doing was the sleep apnea kind.  Soon I found myself on a CPAP machine at night, and begin to get some actual rest.  Here I am, four or five years later, and I recently got the pressure changed and a brand new mask.  What a difference it has made to my energy levels!  I'm still tired a lot, but not dragged-out, can't-possibly-move-any-more exhausted like I was.

By the way, Pat, if you're reading this, I took your advice and went to a podiatrist. Came home with shoe inserts and recommendations for good shoes, which I hope to find on a trip to a bigger city.

Yoga

You're almost there! Tomorrow is Z!

As  much as I love Leslie Sansone videos, she usually doesn't do enough stretching at the end.  At the gym I used to go to, one of the trainers told us that we should stretch for at least ten minutes after aerobic exercise. I try to do that, but it gets pretty boring, just standing or sitting there, stretching and counting.

That's where yoga comes in.  I have a DVD called "The Ten-Minute Solution: Yoga" (for beginners.)  There are five different segments in it, so after a good aerobic walk, we just pop in a segment and stretch with Angie Stewart.  Each one has a little different focus--energy, balance, etc., but each one is a pretty thorough whole-body stretch.

X

X is the letter that comes, sometimes in multiples, in front of the letters L (large) and S (small) on our clothing.  Usually only once before the S, but up to three or four in front of the L. It gets to the point they have to write it as 4X because they run out of room on the label.

When it comes to the L in our clothes, we want as few of those X's as possible.  The world's a funny place. When it comes to food, fast food especially, we want the L or XL, but we can't get away with that and stay with the S or XS in our clothes.  So that's a good rule of thumb for ordering meals.  Order the size you want your clothing size to be.  Or at least in the direction your want it to go.

So, if I am an XL, and want to go back down to L or M (medium), I should keep ordering S foods until I get there.