Ups & Downs

The nutrition place cancelled on me the day before. Kinda ticks me off since I had another provider cancel the day of, recently. Even though they were separate places, my workplace sometimes seems like it’s this huge burden on them to let us miss work for appointments, you get everything in place and arrange to made up the time, and boom, never mind, you can’t come in.

This begs the question, do I need to see some specialist? Am I doomed to be resentful of half the stuff they suggest I do? What is the goal here? Show up once and see what they say, make notes and never go back? I probably can’t implement everything even if I try to take small steps and don’t reject everything they say. Is it more to get that other provider off my back who keeps giving me advice that I don’t ask for?

It may not hurt to go since maybe they could give advice on foods or supplements for inflammation, since that’s a large issue for me. I’ve been taking ginger and turmeric for a while, and in my experience, the supplements are usually higher doses than I would ingest in “real life” eating. Taking a spoonful or two of chia seeds every day like medicine, since still dislike them. Yeah, should probably reschedule when I’m not quite as miffed.

My mood is still very up and down. One day I’m trying to give myself encouragement thinking thigs like “I’m going to lose weight and feel better” and before long I turn it into a hokey affirmation of “I’m losing weight and feeling great.” Then a few days later the best I can muster is “It’s easier to be miserable and thinner than miserable and overweight.” Not that I’m about thin for the sake of appearance. But hey, when you need to reduce yourself drastically, smaller is going to happen somewhere.

Tried a new video today and pushed myself harder than I have in quite a while. 30 minutes straight walking in place (if we’re not counting having to stop and press the “skip ad” on youtube 4-5 times). Haven’t done that in quite a while. Hopefully my body doesn’t hate me tomorrow. I got 7000 steps by the end of work, including 49 minutes of “intense” activity, according to my fitbit. Would hope that’s something. Maybe help counteract all the junk-food I ate last weekend. Maybe subconsciously I thought I had to eat those Halloween themed Cheetos before the nutritionist scolded me to never touch them again. Yeah, that's it. Sad how it doesn’t matter how long you go without them, they still taste great. I keep hoping they won’t taste as good, but somehow they always do.

I admit the amped up exercise was good for me, and possibly even for my mood. There’s another point against that one provider with the unsolicited advice. Long time ago they told me to forget cardio and only do strength. Whatever. I think what they meant to say was that with my advanced age, it’s probably a good thing to focus more on strength and maintaining muscle. Not sure if people always listen to what comes out of their mouths. I don’t need people scolding me as if I need to feel guilty for still doing activities that get my heart rate up. Come on. Let’s scold the obese person for exercising while they’re already feeling down. Grow up. Where did that good mood go from my exercise? Huh, dissipates quickly, doesn’t it. Sure, it helps, but I have yet to see it solve everything.

Nutritionist Appointment Paperwork

I finally got all the paperwork completed for the nutritionist. It kept timing out on me, and I think I forgot a few food preferences/non-preferences to mention. They’ll probably tell me to eat fish all the time. Meat seems to be the craze, and the only thing “better” than that would be the omegas in fish, right? Glack.

I should be happy the questions seemed very holistic. One of the medical directors at my insurance company once called holistic health voodoo. Was that the word? Either that or witch-craft. Probably voodoo. It's supposed to be covered by my insurance, but if they decide not to pay, I won't go to more than one visit.

I digress. The more it asked, the more defensive I felt, like whoa, what are they gonna make me try to do? Not merely food, but sleep, exercise, screen-time. The beginning asked how ready one is to make changes: from not at all, to ready to make drastic changes. I started the questionnaire with the response that I’m ready to make small changes. By the end I revised it to I’m ready to think about changes.

Does all screen-time count if you’re doing an exercise video, or if you are watching tv, but doing mild exercises or stretching? Does take-n-bake count as eating out? Yeah, I know.

Say whatever you want, I am not going to lock my pets out of the bedroom even if they say it is unhygienic to allow them in. We have one with abandonment issues, and we’re lucky if we can keep them from going berserk. See, super defensive.

The biggest ego-crusher was exercise. I asked my husband his opinion on several questions to keep me marginally honest. His impression was that I don’t exercise regularly at all. Maybe not super regular exercise. I don’t do much on weekends because I hang out with him and he’s tired from his physical job. So maybe that doesn’t count as “regular” exercise? My fitbit and I thought I’ve been doing ok, still logging an average of 25+30 minutes a day (averaging out over the entire week). It goes nuts buzzing at me when I reach 150 minutes for the week, and sometimes I hit that by Wednesday. Whatever. Told you I’m too defensive. We’ll see what happens.

State of Affairs

Not sure how I’m doing. Trying not to be paranoid getting a couple of tired body parts returning, you know? I’ll just say that it’s sad when you think oh is that a good thing because keto makes you feel like crap, and that means you’re burning fat, therefore it’s a good thing to feel like crap?


I am not doing keto, nor do I think it would be a good idea for me. I once tried a program that resulted in mild keto-ish flu-like symptoms for less than a week and I made a couple ofcritical mistakes at work so that I spent the rest of the year trying to get my accuracy up to an acceptable level for my annual review.

I made an appointment for an official nutritionist today. First appointment is 90 minutes. Will I have the discipline and determination to do what they tell me? No idea.

Autumn

Well, Autumn is definitely here, where I live. Almost unseasonably early, but no complaints from me.

Had my annul physical, and my PCP (Primary Care Provider) congratulated me for being down 42 pounds since last year. I should be more happy about that. At least they weren’t in my face how that wasn’t good enough, and pushing semaglutide. They also agreed a meat only diet should not be required. But . . . they did have a free sample of Ozempic. Not sure if I will take it, though free is free. Like protein bars or shake mixes, is it ok if it’s means to an end? Certainly one free month’s worth won’t get me to my goal, but if it nudges in the right direction, one could argue I might have less pain and more energy to keep at it.

This is my last day of the corticosteroid prescription that has kept my pain at bay. A little bit on my shoulder and knee has crept back in while weaning off the dosage, but I’m trying to remain optimistic. I’m certainly doing much better when my whole upper body doesn’t feel like I’ve been in a wind-tunnel slapped repeatedly with debris going 180 mph for an hour.

Speaking of that, I had heard counseling can help dealing with chronic pain, so I found one that can work with my schedule, and finally had an appointment. I’m not in a lot of pain now, but I’m sure I have plenty of issues to work through. They gave me a nice pep talk that 40 pounds, even slowly, is still 40 pounds and I’m progressing in the right direction. The also noted it’s “not been that long” since my major surgery in May. I must be very lucky because I swear after 3-4 weeks I was ready to get back to normal life. Sure, I’m not an athlete, but I was antsy to start exercising and was hardly in any pain from the actual surgery. Considering my age and lack of superb health, hallelujah.

I was ordering some items online and snuck some compression gloves into my cart. I have not tried them yet, and if I continue feeling great, maybe I won’t have to. But I wanted to be prepared, and they weren’t that expensive. I don’t think that makes me too pessimistic; just realistic. And if the gloves could make a positive difference to keep me feeling great after the rx, even better.

Ha, speaking of that, I was able to get on an old size 4.5 ring yesterday. The 4 ¾ felt more comfortable, but I could get into the 4 ½. The time those fit, when I had them sized down, was when I was 100+ pounds less than I am now. What the. We’ll see how my hands are after the rx ends, though, right?

Now what to do with all this yarn . . . perhaps I should save that for another post.