Health and Fitness, June 2017

Share healthy living habits.
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Harriet
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Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Harriet » Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:04 am

Here's a place to discuss the subjects of fitness and health, for ourselves, for our families, for our communities, small and larger and earth-wide.

Last month, our topics certainly ranged !
running and marathons
record keeping
ice cream
goals, both possible and impossible
300-calorie cake slices
dessert islands.... I mean...desert islands
yard work for exercise
fasting blood work
doctor's hearing loss
and the implications of set caloric thresholds of expenditure... hmmm...

So check that out!
And please jump in with your thoughts.
How is your June shaping up?

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helia
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby helia » Sat Jun 03, 2017 11:02 am

Thanks for opening this, Harriet.

I just saw your post, RunKitty! I'm impressed with anyone who's run a half marathon, let alone a hilly one. All the races I've been in, which have been a total of 4 5Ks up to this point, ended with a fairly lengthy uphill run to the finish line. My 10K tomorrow will have about a 0.33 mile uphill to the finish line. I now include hills in my regular training, so it shouldn't be such a shock as it was the first time I encountered a hill between me and the finish. I don't have plans to run parts of the half marathon course. It's in the big city about 40 minutes away. It does involve running up a ramp to a bridge across a river and then down a ramp and through a tunnel under the river on the way back. Dh has done this one several times.

Yes, measuring might be more accurate, Kathryn. I can tell my clothes are generally looser than they used to be.

I've carried out my exercise plan this week, except I ran the arb hill (0.6 miles up, 0.55 mile on fairly flat but somewhat rough terrain to get to it) on Wednesday instead of Tuesday b/c I got up too late on Tuesday. I ran it only once. I'm resting now, and my body feels antsy. It wants to go for a run! Which will be good for tomorrow.

WW said I lost 2 lbs this week, which was a bit of a mystery since as usual, I went way over my weekly points and ate similarly to how I ate the last 2 weeks when I gained about 1/2 lb. per week. Or, maybe I didn't eat similarly. It will be hard, but I'm going to try to curb myself better.

I'll let you all know how the 10K goes tomorrow. I am not a fast runner; I can just keep doing it for a longish time. My pace now is 12 - 12.5 minutes at this distance, though I've run it at an 11:45 minute pace before. My goal will be a 12:30 pace tomorrow. It looks like it will be hot and muggy, otherwise I would actually go for a faster goal.

How to structure my runs next week will be a bit of a mystery. I usually take a rest day after my weekend run but I also take a rest day on Fridays, the day before my usual weekend run on Saturday. That makes 3 days in a row next week to do 3 runs. That usually tires me out. I'm hoping to do 9.5 or 10 miles on Saturday. :shock: I'll post my next weekly plan later.

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helia
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby helia » Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:12 pm

I want to go to a dessert island! LOL! :D

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RunKitty
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby RunKitty » Sat Jun 03, 2017 1:10 pm

I picture dessert island with a huge variety of beautiful looking desserts which actually taste as good as they look. In the real world, it's usually the opposite. They look better than they taste.
Good luck tomorrow in your 10k. Finish strong. :)

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Sat Jun 03, 2017 3:08 pm

Well, I gained weight on the trip but just a pound. I'll blame that on the ice cream although the huge breakfasts were likely the problem. Dinners were modest.

Things I did right: veggies and fruit each day. Very little fried food. I seldom had an order of fries although I'd have some of dh's. Had 6 onions rings the whole trip. Limited my soft drinks compared to usual number while traveling (still on average just under 2 a day, so less than at home and a trend I'd like to keep.)

Things I did 'wrong': not enough water, I tried but seldom got more than 5 glasses a day, too much ice cream (although not daily, just 6 times and a kiddy cone 4 of those times), bread of some sort in the morning (it was hard to pass up pastries on the buffets), potatoes at night with dinner. That's because most places don't offer decent veggies but I could get a baked or mashed potato. I was tired of salad by dinner time and had chewing issues.

Things that went wrong: my jaw is 'out' and is severely limiting my food choices. Severely. As well, there's pain involved with that. I ended up starting round the clock ibuproven and upped that to Aleve from time to time. I would have to physically push it into place at times because it would feel out of joint. Even melon junks were a challenge to eat and the apples I brought with me went to waste. After the first few days I couldn't eat carrots or nuts either. My salads would leave me in tears. Those are basic foods for me all the time. It also meant popcorn was out and I brought home all but two of the protein bars I took with me. The potatoes at dinner were a way of getting protein and calories that didn't hurt.

One night, I looked at the menu and ordered a hot turkey dinner with mashed potatoes. Dh looked at me and said, "You don't like hot turkey sandwiches." True but it was the only thing on the menu I could imagine eating.

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Nancy
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Nancy » Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:27 pm

Have done two shorter walks w ddog today. This afternoon was in the rain.

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helia
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby helia » Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:54 am

Wow, that's great Kathryn! 1 pound over. . . a week or so trip (I don't remember how long you were gone) isn't bad at all!
Good job getting in walks with the dog, nancy.

10K Race Report: The 10K race on Sunday was good in some ways and awful in others. LOL! The bad first: I ran my SLOWEST EVER 10K! My official pace was over a minute slower than my pace on the 10K I ran on my own last weekend. I was rather mortified, to be honest. My watch said my pace was about 40 seconds slower than last week's. (I'm not sure why there was such a large discrepancy between my watch and the official timer.) I did stop 3x to grab a drink, but my stops were about 5 seconds each, just enough for 4 swallows, and then I returned to running. Anyhow, 2 possible factors: the weather was warm and humid and the course was hillier than I'd remembered. Hills slow me down. Also, I slept minimally and not well the night before. I also skipped my morning tea b/c I didn't want to have to visit a port a potty while running. Maybe my body needed a little caffeine that morning. LOL! The Good: I was able to manage my body well, listening to it and forcing myself to start slowly when it wanted to start more quickly with the other runners. My comfortable pace just ended up being much slower than usual. I saw that while running but didn't push myself to my more usual pace. I was able to run the entire route and ended strong going up the last hill. I was even able to sprint to the finish line.

It was a pretty run, however. The route took us along the river, a different section than the park where I normally run. People were friendly and encouraging. I'll do it again next year.

I did throw out my back right before the run by bending over, I guess in a funny way. I do have back issues, a herniated disc at age 19 that still causes issues from time to time. I did part of my back exercises before the run. I didn't feel my back during my run at all!! I do feel it while trying to sleep at night, however. And sitting is not comfortable at all. I'm back to doing my back exercises about 3x/day. Dh thinks my sore back is also b/c I'm not keeping up with my rigorous stretches. . . . I need to do better at stretching.

My 4 mile run yesterday was also unusually slow, but only about 30 seconds/mile slower than my usual pace at that distance. What is going on? Dh reminded me of warmer weather slowing people down. Is that it? I just hope there's not something going on with my anemia again.

Exercise Plan for this week.
M - Jogged flat, 4 miles. Back exercises. Stretches.
T - Skip yoga class b/c of sub teacher and back problems. Walk? Back exercises. Stretches.
W - Jog the arb hill - try for 2x. See how body and back feel. Back exercises. Stretches.
Th. - Jog sprints. Back exercises. Stretches.
F - REST DAY Back exercises. Stretches.
Sa. - Jog 9.5 - 10 miles. Back exercises. Stretches.
Sun. REST DAY - travel to Toronto.

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Thu Jun 08, 2017 9:41 am

Helia: I was gone 14 days in total so a pound wasn't bad. And I'm down 3 since then (despite pizza one night) so it might have been water weight from sitting so much the last day on the road.

I've now got a cold. And while I finished last week with my 10K step average (actually 10.5K) thanks to lots of steps on Saturday and Sunday, this week, Tuesday was only 5K so now I'm now I'm short 3.5K steps. Not sure I'll be able to make that up, it depends on how the vitamins make me feel (I take mega doses of vitamins when I have a cold to help me keep going.)

I made 10K yesterday but that was mostly shopping. And I was moving really slowly (I was walking between big-box stores rather than driving because the car was in the shop so my walking was in parking lots, not fun at all.)

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Nancy
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Nancy » Thu Jun 08, 2017 9:11 pm

S ake walk yesterday saw 2 on that one.
Today a half walk bc of t storms.

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Harmony
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Re: Health and Fitness, June 2017

Postby Harmony » Fri Jun 09, 2017 7:33 pm

My health goal this month is to lower my caffeine. I had such a hard time the day of my MRI trying not to drink so much coffee. I am going really slowly with this so I don't get that dreaded headache. So far, just pouring 3/4 of a cup instead of full mug each time and eliminating one in the afternoon I usually drink.

But now I find I'm thirsty sometimes and I'm not allowed to drink plain water because of my low sodium numbers, and I don't want to drink soda (which does have sodium in it) because of the sugar and I don't do artificial sweeteners. So I guess it'll be back to making my homemade sports drink with the pink salt and stevia. Time consuming and I donwanna. Plus it doesn't last a long time so I'll need to put it in small containers in the freezer because I don't drink a lot of it.

Well, we just gotta do what we gotta do, right?

Today I made appointment with ear dr. to test my hearing which has gone south. I suspect (and can almost tell) it's just really clogged and from allergies but they're supposed to be able to tell what kind of loss it is. I have no problem using a hearing aid (why people resist that but will wear glasses is a puzzle to me). 8-) Anyway, it's in mid July because they are all backed up due to 3 weeks of computer problems in their office. So we'll see.

And in the mean time I'll work on the calories and sodium and caffeine problems. Enough to think about at this time.


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