Health and Fitness August, 2024

[Harriet]

Welcome!
Please come in and post with us about goals, encouragement, record-keeping, difficulty, tips and the enjoyment of paying attention to health and fitness for ourselves and loved ones.

Check out our 10-page July thread, chock full of insights.

I find it inspirational and motivating to come here. Just knowing that I am not alone in struggling to take better care of myself is encouraging.

said LadyM last month.

[Nancy]

Today was a good start to the month.
Thurs. I walked mowed and got my steps in by 9:00 a.m. Today.
Fri. 8-2 Got 10K steps in today.
Doing laundry steps helped going to the basement!
Sat. walked

[Lady Maverick]

Harriet - Thank you for this monthly H&F thread.

Posting for accountability
TAKE CARE OF MYSELF daily focus -
** Sleep - 8 hr 6 minutes.
** Hydration - over 100oz
** Morning Mile before coffee - Day #54
** Morning papers before internet - Day #29
** Cronometer with pictures- Day #28
** Golden Hour exercise before flavored ice - day #25
** Music = Joy - Day #21 = Beach Boys for the win!
** Oral Care before D2S Day #8

August focus -
** Eat less than 1299 calories. Success with 1296 calories
** Eat more than 120g protein and/or over 40%. Success with 142g and 44%

[Lady Maverick]

These eating parameters I am trying to do is feeling like I am playing a complicated Tetris game to get everything to match.

I always monitor the essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals, electrolytes) to make sure I am close to 100% of those each day. I can't reach those without including some sort of dark green vegetables (aka spinach) every day. Also, I need to include eggs or organ meat to meet some of the other requirements.

Then the tweaking starts as I am comparing this to that ingredient. One by one a decision is made to eliminate that to make room to include this.

Keeping calories this low while getting all essential nutrients reminds me of when we were young and poor. We had to watch every penny and budget to make our living expenses fit within our income.

[Lady Maverick]

Posting for accountability
TAKE CARE OF MYSELF daily focus -
** Sleep - 8 hr 22 minutes.
** Hydration - over 100oz
** Morning Mile before coffee - Day #55
** Morning papers before internet - Day #30
** Cronometer with pictures- Day #29
** Golden Hour exercise before flavored ice - day #26
** Music = Joy - Day #22 Eye of the Tiger!
** Oral Care before D2S Day #9

August focus -
** Goal - Eat less than 1299 calories. Actual 1369
** Goal - Eat more than 120g protein and/or over 40%. Actual 147g 43%

[Ramblinrose]

I haven’t been feeling very well these last few days so I’ve been off.

Giving myself grace before I restart slowly today and will refocus tomorrow. The back of my neck onto my shoulders has really been bothering me as well. Not sure why but it is connected to some of my headaches. Yesterday I kept my heating pad on it for quite a while and it is much better today.

[Lady Maverick]

Posting for accountability
TAKE CARE OF MYSELF daily focus -
** Sleep - 8 hr 37 minutes.
** Hydration - over 100oz
** Morning Mile before coffee - Day #56
** Morning papers before internet - Day #31
** Cronometer with pictures- Day #30
** Golden Hour exercise before flavored ice - day #27
** Music = Joy - Day #23 Old fashion gospel hymns
** Oral Care before D2S Day #10

August focus -
** Goal - Eat less than 1299 calories. Actual 1661
** Goal - Eat more than 120g protein and/or over 40%. Actual 67g 17%

I am in the middle of a couple health issues that are making me adjust my normal activities.
** The left side of my stomach area is covered in a rash that keeps spreading. Hopefully that rash will be taken care of by the prescription steroid pack I started taking yesterday. The doc told me not to sweat which limits my outside time. I had to quit wearing lower garments that touch my waist because of the rash. I have ordered some loose dresses but for now I am wearing a sheet!
** The right side of my lower jaw is in pain and makes it difficult to fully open mouth to take bites. It doesn't seem to be the teeth but the lower jaw and neck area.
I can't imagine that one issue has anything to do with the other.

While dealing with these health issues, I briefly considered pausing my health habit focus but know that starting is the hardest part. If I pause it will be super difficult to start again. I am going to continue doing the healthy habit focuses.

The august goals are taking a beating. I am still tracking everything I eat but am not doing well with meeting my goals. I am okay with that. I am still keeping these goals for the month of August. Even though I am failing at them for now I expect to be able to do them after I get past these health issues. I am not ready to give up on them.

[Ramblinrose]

LadyM… I ordered some shift dresses from Amazon that are great to wear around the house. I hope your health issues don’t last long.

Although I don’t feel much like drinking my water and getting my steps in, I’m not using it to go off my eating plan. It would be so easy to give in till I feel more like me, but I know if I do it will be twice as hard to start back.

In the past I would use all of this as an excuse to go back to my old ways of eating, but I’m really trying hard to put that behind me.

[Lady Maverick]

I ordered a couple Short Sleeve Maxi Dresses Casual Long Dresses with Pockets to wear while waiting for the rash to go away. I discovered wearing mens sweatpants works too because the waist can be positioned waaaaay higher than I normally wear pants. With my shirt covering it isn't apparent that the waist comes almost to where my bra band is located.

After taking 8 doses of the meds I got yesterday the rash was continuing to spread. When I woke up this morning my left eye was swelling and itching with a new rash, so I decided to seek another medical opinion. We drove the 70 minutes to ER @hospital. They gave me 2 shots - one was steroid, and the other shot was Benadryl. Hopefully getting this high dose will stop the spread and kick-start the healing of rash. I will continue taking oral steroid and Benadryl for several days.

I know that taking so many steroids is going to play with my emotions. I am going to put my mental/emotional blinders on and rest in the knowledge that it is for a brief time. Having boundaries and detailed to-do's to follow allows me to double-down on following my healthy habits.

[Twins' Mom]

LadyM, that's a lot of steroids for a body to process. I know you'll be feeling hungry and emotional, but I know you have a plan, too. I'm hoping this is all on the run soon.