Health and Fitness, February 2013

[Harriet]

Thanks to everyone who helped make the January Health and Fitness thread such a banner thread! We had more responses than in any other monthly H and F thread. So many topics and all interesting! Wonderful encouragement.

How are you doing on your plans now that one month of 2013 is “under our belts”?

What do you want to add to your healthy habits for February?

[Harriet]

February is heart month in many countries including the US, Britain and Canada.

Certainly it is the month we think of love. Barbara Fredrickson, director of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been studying love and believes we experience love for others as a series of small emotional moments she calls “micro-moments”. Her book, Love 2.0 came out last week and has since remained in the top 10 of Amazon's "health, fitness and dieting books" category.

My research team and I recently learned that when we randomly assign one group of people to learn ways to create more micro-moments of love in daily life, we lastingly improve the function of the vagus nerve, a key conduit that connects your brain to your heart. This discovery provides a new window into how micro-moments of love serve as nutrients for your health.

My team is now investigating the cellular effects of love, testing whether people who build more micro-moments of love in daily life also build healthier immune cells.

Small emotional moments can have disproportionately large biological effects. It can seem surprising that an experience that lasts just a micro-moment can have any lasting effect on your health and longevity. Yet I learned that there's an important feedback loop at work here, an upward spiral between your social and your physical well-being.

That is, your micro-moments of love not only make you healthier, but being healthier builds your capacity for love. Little by little, love begets love by improving your health. And health begets health by improving your capacity for love.

[Nancy]

I have a dr. apt. mid month a well person check have not been for a couple of years.

[OKay]

I looked up Grey sheeters and read about their way of eating. Interesting. I hadn't heard of them before. It is a tad bit stricter than i am willing to commit to, but I applaud those who choose to use it.

Yesterday was another eating disaster. I packed my lunch and stayed with my eating program during the day (traveling & at class). However that only lasted until I went to visit DParents. Then my healthy eating and correct portions were tossed to the side. It's like I can't keep too much "stuff" in my head and focus on everything at the same time.

I am starting again today. I've already drank a couple cups of coffee so I'm not going to weigh....but I am committing to weighing tomorrow NO MATTER how much I don't want to see the damage done.

[Harmony]

I know my fluid retention problems are worse than I've been admitting. I go up and down 2-3 pounds daily. A couple days ago I noticed I was in the bathroom 3 times as much and had no clue why. The next day I was several pounds down.

The last couple weeks in December when I was frantically sewing hour after hour, I retained more water than I've ever seen in my ankles and feet. The day after I worked hard all day, up and down the ladder over and over, was the day I lost all the water weight. So now I have positive proof that exercise gets my body kicked into gear and all systems moving. A serious thing for me to consider.

[Nancy]

Today for my exercise I did 5 mi. on the exercise bike while it was foggy out this morning. Then this after noon I did some more yard work moving leaves out of the drive way that I'd raked up yesterday. I also got 90% of the back yard raked up it looks better now. Cleaned out the chicken run and nest boxes dgkids "helped" also.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

OkayK I had a bad week last week too. And no period to blame it on. Starting over today.

My knees knocked me for a loop last week. I stayed off the treadmill for a few days and noticed some improvement but our house is a split level so stairs are a HUGE issue. There's no bathroom on the main living floor (office, family room, kitchen, dining and my desk) so I found myself drinking less so I wouldn't have to do as many stairs. My pedometer numbers are interesting:

Sunday: 5742 Treadmill
Monday: 2445 Knees hurt
Tuesday: 2291 Knees
Wednesday: 3184 Knees were almost better but I took it easy & IKEA lunch
Thursday: 1548 Knees were only sore on stairs, did 30 min on Nordic Trak, paperwork all day
Friday: 833 Knees really sore on stairs and when I got up from sitting. I did paperwork all day

Part way through the day yesterday I switched to sitting on the exercise ball because I keep tucking my legs under the chair and leaning forward which makes the knees worse. That cut my steps vs the day before because 1) ball is more comfortable on my butt so I don't get up to stretch as much, and 2) the ball is hard to get settled on so I hate to pop up 'for a sec'.

The numbers and trend was scary enough that I'm back on the treadmill today. Low incline and no great speed but I don't want to let myself stop exercising completely and it is a long, long drive to an indoor pool and I don't like swimming (which is more 'not drowning' in my case.)

Not sure if the Nordic Trak made the stairs harder or not. I definitely felt the knees as much on it as I do on the treadmill.

On the plus side, the heart rate was way higher, it is a much tougher workout for me than walking.

I ended the month down 6lbs but am tentatively touching the 169, not solidly there (the last few days I alternated 170/169/170/169, had there been 32 days in Jan, I might have only lost 5 lbs!

Goal for this month is just 4 lbs (short month.) Since I've only lost 1 pound in the past 2 weeks, that is a very aggressive goal.

Not sure if I'll give up the gluten reduction. I was desperate for a grilled cheese sandwich (had been for 2 days) so broke down and had it. In general, my eating wasn't too bad yesterday, it was the lack of movement and lower water intake that was off program.

So I'm restarting WW (was off from Wednesday on last week.) And I'm going to try to alternate between treadmill and nordic trak. It isn't as pleasant to do because I'm in the basement and I've got nothing to distract me except music since I can't do my computer while on it and with bifocals, I can't read either even though I have a book holder for it.

[Nancy]

K in C hubby said the ex. bike is better on his knees than walking you might consider that.

I need to rake and move more leaves today but it's frosty out this morning so will wait a bit on that. It's sunny and beautiful here today.

[OKay]

Harmony - IKWYM. The water retention is very noticeable in me too. I think of our DIndiana and how smart she was with her body and how she battled it. I agree it is not a symptom that we want to ignore and/or take lightly.

My disaster week is over. I gained 1.4 lbs during it. My body is feeling better this morning so hopefully this virus is over too.

There is no way I can met my weight loss goal for this month but I refuse to give up. I am going to do my best to stay on program and be happy with the outcome.

Restarting....
** MFP (recording food)
** Fitbit (recording sleep & activity)
** Drinking water app

Adding a new goal for 6000 steps a day.

[Nancy]

Yesterday I did 5 mi. on the ex. bike before church. Raked some leaves in the afternoon for my exercise.