Steady As She Goes, Except her Bank Account...

Hey all, popping in to report that I have been holding relatively steady for the past while. I am unfortunately not hitting the gym as much as I would like, mostly due to scheduling and work being extremely busy but also because I am throwing a bit of a "I'm sore...boo hoo" pity party.

Since the accident, I have completed 12 weeks of physiotherapy which really, really helped a lot. I was almost unable to move my head and neck at all, but after physio I had a lot more movement. But it was not the same amount of movement as before. Now I get really sore if I am on my feet for too long, or if I am doing too much, or if I am lifting or carrying heavy stuff. Certain exercises are painful or more difficult. I have been having numbness and weakness coming down my arm and into my right hand, specifically the pinky and ring finger. (That makes weightlifting a frustrating process!)

I am wondering if some yoga or pilates would help, as I make the assumption that it is actually my neck or back that is the originating issue. Problem is I hate yoga because it hurts, hahaha! If I was leading a yoga class, it would look something like this:

But as much as I am sulking about this ongoing annoyance, I am at least keeping my food relatively in check. I slipped out of keto for a bit, but have been working my way back into it this week. I really do feel better when I stick to the plan. I have to commit to meal planning and grocery shopping on a regular basis, now that I cannot fall back on my old "No lunch packed? Just spend whatever on a restaurant!"  And speaking of that...

One new thing that I have started doing is using You Need A Budget (aka YNAB) on my phone, ipad and laptop. It's dramatically cut the amount of times I eat out during the week, as I can actually look at the amount I have left for the rest of the month.  I haven't been anywhere NEAR overdraft, I have almost all of my next month's bills ready to be taken care of even with another paycheck to come this month, and I am killing off my credit cards left, right and centre.

But the one thing that I have to say about YNAB is that it sometimes makes me very uncomfortable. I know, that sounds weird, right?  But the truth is, I love to spend money when I want, on what I want, and I am SO USED to not having to think about it. Of course, I was also used to living in the land of overdraft by the end of the month too. (When I added up my overdraft interest for last year, I wanted to punch myself in the neck.)

It's only been a month since I started using the program with any seriousness, and as much as I am coming up against my bratty, impulsive spending self, I think I am going to be much happier and more comfortable knowing where my money is going in the moment, not after the credit card statements roll in. I want my money to go into my goals, not the bank and credit card companies' pockets.

I already cleared one credit card, the second will be done next month, and the last one will be done within the next 2 years, although I am going to see if I can cut that down to a year.  Once the cash flow from paying those debts is freed up, I plan on ramping up my mortgage and emergency fund payments, and maybe save for a vacation with the kiddo.

Bring it on, 2015.

Post-Accident Fitness Frustration

Just checking in. I am now back to being able to do some swimming, cardio, and as of last week, some weights, provided that I modify any moves that involve neck/shoulders.

I am still getting massive headaches after I do any upper body movement that is beyond gentle stretching - and I mean anything from cleaning my fridge, to carrying a load of laundry, to light workouts. It sucks, but I have to keep moving. I think I have taken more ibuprofen in the last few months that I have for the entire rest of my life. Oh, my liver!

Anyway, it is 6 a.m., and I cannot sleep for the life of me. I got my old Ipod Shuffle restored, after a year of it not working. So now I am throwing some Pantera on, and I may run over to the gym before everyone in the house wakes up. I'm thinking I want to roast in the sauna and do some foam rolling and stretching to ease up my back and neck.

The DietBet is going well, I have hit my goals for the first 2 rounds. I have noticed that after doing some weights for the first time in a while, my weight has gone up and and I am SO SORE. Even with glutamine in my shake post-workout and all the ibuprofen I choke down, I have to take a few days in between right now.

But I gotta keep moving!

Since I am being light on the upper body, I have been considering trying out the "Strong Curves" program. There is a few workout programs on it, including a beginner and advanced program for the gym, a lower body only workout, and a home bodyweight work out. I grabbed the book from the library to comb through and will try out some of the routines in the next few weeks. If I like it enough, I will grab my own hard copy.  A lot of reviews of the book explain that the ebook edition is hard to flip through, is not indexed well, and does not have links to the exercises, so hard copy it is!

I will try to be better about updating here. I have just been very down and very keeping-to-myself for the last few months. I guess it is a side effect from the accident, but still, I should snap out of it already!

Talk to you soon.

Keeping on Ketoing on

Since the last time I logged in here, I have been doing keto on and off for most of the summer, not being particularly motivated. I have managed to stay within 5-7 lbs. of the weight that I have not been able to break past, which is amazing.

I've decided that I've had enough of treading water with keto, so I have decided to joining a Dietbet 6 month competition. Basically, you pledge a set amount of money per month for 6 months. Every month you have to reach a certain milestone to win. If you hit the milestone, you split the pot with the other winners, and if you don't hit that milestone, you forfeit your money for that month.  The overall goal is to lose 10% of your body weight.

I was recently involved in a car accident and had very little ability to move my neck, shoulders, arms and back, so needless to say the gym has been a no-go for a few weeks. I have been seeing a physiotherapist and doing my physio exercises at home, so as of Friday I was cleared to do walking, some gentle specific stretches, and once the burns heal, swimming.

I got my walking desk aka battle station back up and running, as this was the perfect reason for me to start cleaning my super cluttered room.  I had to brace the legs on the laptop stand, as one had collapsed from too much weight (my laptop is a monster), which I managed to do with a bit of twine.

So here she is, ready to go. I am resetting my FitBit goal to work back up to 5000 steps per day, and will be able to supplement my activity at work, which is limited at this time, with extra steps to hit my goal.

This week coming, I am going on a trip for work, and planning food ahead is going to be very, very difficult as I have no access to the menus that will be available. I am going to bring some supplies to help me get by, and so far have been able to pack some beef jerky, pepperoni sticks, mixed nuts, tea, and will be making 4 of my Promasil Chocolate Chia Shakes (sans water), just in case there are meals being served that I can`t eat.

New Gadgets are New!

I've been struggling a lot with my scheduling. I am working seven days a week at 2 jobs, and attending school 2 nights a week. (It was 3 days a week but I finished one of the courses.) Combined with running the house, paying the bills, parenting the kid, and my social life, my food planning, grocery shopping and coking food ahead has been a struggle/non-existent.

So I have decided to step a bit back from keto, though I love it, and ease up to a mostly slow carb diet. I have 6 weeks left of this gruelling schedule and will shift back until then. On the bright side, my weight has been maintained within 5 lbs. despite my struggles. Last night I made a big batch of Vegetarian Chili from the Eat Clean Diet book by Tosca Reno. Despite having no meat in it, it remains one of my favourite recipe in the world.

I also managed to lose my heart rate strap in a zipper malfunction on my backpack, which resulted in me purchasing the Polar H7 Heart Rate monitor, which has bluetooth capability. Now I can use my phone or ipad to connect with my HRM which in turns allows me to feed my gadget addiction.

I also went out and got myself a Fitbit Flex. I really enjoyed my Shine activity tracker until the clasp malfunctioned and I lost it. Customer service at Shine never bothered to respond to my email, so fuck those guys.

The Fitbit was really easy to set up, and I have my profile set up on the ipad and android phone, so no matter where I am, I can compulsively check it allll day long. I've set my first goal to 5000 steps, which I beat into the earth today. That being said, I am having a lot of pain in my lower legs today.

My next fitness gadget is a no-electricity required one. I am considering the Rogue Fitness Voodoo Flossing bands, to see if they will help with my lack of ankle mobility, shin and leg pain. I want to get back to squatting and deadlifting, but without the horrific pain!

That's it for now, I will update on my Fitbit goals soon!

I have what I have, what I have is enough.

I have a great job. I have an awesome kiddo. I have the knowledge to eat well. I have the ability to move my body. I have access to the gym. I have what I need.

So why I am resisting so hard?

Holiday Reset - Fat Fast day 3

Well, the good news is that I made it through day 3, and the bad news is that the weight shifted up a bit. That being said, I always go up a bit just before my period, which of course is this week, so I will actually have to wait a few days to settle back down to my non-bloated state. On the bright side, my body fat reading came down on the scale.  I know a lot of people complain that their body fat scale is not accurate, but I have to say that when I went to get a DEXA scan done, the body fat reading was within 0.2% of my home scale so I trust it. If you want to know a bit more about DEXA scans, check out the video below.

I ended up at a sushi place, Noka, for dinner, which could be really good for keto if I ate fish and was not allergic to scallops, lobster, shrimp etc.  Although I had a few non-keto eats, I did keep much of my meal keto. I also tried raw beef sushi for the first -and not last- time! I sometimes have a hard time trying new foods, but my friend convinced me that I should at least try it. Seeing as I like my steak bloody and rare, it's not that much of a stretch so I gave it a go and I have to say I like it.

Other keto eats were short ribs, chicken wings, bacon wrapped asparagus and peppers and seaweed salad. The food is always really good here, but the service is a little frustrating. If you order 10 items, you will only get 8 or 9 of them, so we had to ask several times for them to go and get the missing items. This would not bother me so much if it wasn't for the fact that last night's missing items were all keto friendly and I am the only one at the table trying to keep as keto as possible!

So I survived the three days of fat fast, I tested positive for ketones this morning, despite having a few not-keto eats last night, and I think I may try doing another fat fast next month, although maybe not during shark week.

Holiday Reset - Fat Fast Day 2

So it's morning of day 2 and I hop on the scale, and it reads -2.6 lbs, and 1% bf. Awesome. I have now shifted below the weight I keep getting stuck at. Now I just have to keep my momentum going!

My sleep is still off quite a bit, and I was in bed late, so I managed to sleep through 4 alarms, so no, no morning cardio.

Food for the day:

Brekkie - 1 cheesecake muffin, 2 bacon
Lunch - 1 lemon cheesecake fat bomb, add 1/2 tsp xylitol, 1 pepperello
Dinner - 4 keto jalapeno poppers
Snack - slice of roast beef
Lots of water

1073 cals
17g carbs
5g fiber
97g fat
36g protein

I am struggling a lot with the psychology of not having a huge amount of food on my plate. It's really, really weird to experience but I have this undercurrent of "this is not enough, I can't do this" running on tape through my head all day.  I was thinking to do a 5 day fat fast, but I am not sure that I can maintain that without panicking. Sounds cowardly, I know, but it's this very scary, primal fear going on.

Day 3 for dinner I am going to break my fat fast with some Pho (extra meat, hold the noodles, extra sprouts) but I am concerned that I will have a hard time during the day. The key is to plan ahead and bring some food with me.

I am going to hold off on the gym today too. I don't think I want to spend an hour doing cardio on this amount of calories, and I also don't want to add to my insane fear of hunger. I will talk to one of my coworkers about hitting a cardio class Thursday on our lunch.