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Sore and a bit frustrated
Pretty much since I started going to the gym, I’ve been doing glutes exercises since they were recommended by my physio. I thought I was doing pretty well with them. Then I tried a new workout in the Fitness on Request room at the gym called Kinetics and have obviously gone overboard because my bottom is so sore. That’s at 2.5 days after that workout. I’m still going to the gym but haven’t done the same exercises. The workout included lots of squats and lunges. While I can’t keep up with the number done in the workout, I did quite a few of them and must have used a lot of muscles that I haven’t been using. So I’m quite sore. Despite this I found it was a workout that I kind of liked and felt I might one day get used to doing. And I particularly liked the fact that the person in the video doing the easy option really was showing the easier option most of the time. On the spin bike video the easy option person doesn’t do the workout that much differently to the others. I hope I’m feeling better tomorrow because I’d like to try this workout again soon.
Meanwhile, my weight loss isn’t really going very far after five months of dedicated exercise and I’m frustrated at times. It’s not that I’m not losing the centimeters (I am although that has plateaued a bit) but the weight is mostly still there. At the moment my loss is less than 4kgs. My original goal was supposed to be an effortless 1 kg a month…effortless so long as I stuck to my exercise…which I have done. My overall loss hasn’t quite reached this goal and I seem to be a bit stuck right now.
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Diagnosis
A friend of mine’s teen-aged son was recently diagnosed with high functioning autism and has found it an overwhelming experience so far. It brought to mind our own experiences when Lego Lover was diagnosed almost nine years ago. We remember having such mixed emotions then. After all, someone finally saw what we could see and we weren’t barking mad. We had validation of our concerns and that was such a relief. It was also quite a shock to get this result and left us reeling for a little while afterwards. On top of that, there was a long list of things we had to now do to get help from anyone and everyone we could. And we only had a short time to do it as most of the support and services for autism are aimed at preschoolers. Once a child starts school, much of that support disappears and does not return until post-secondary school. Then there’s trying to explain to friends and family…sometimes victoriously, that we were right all along. :)
My friend is already getting lots of feedback from others about the evils of vaccination and the  “cures” for autism and other sorts of stuff that’s she really doesn’t need right now. Hopefully this rush of feedback will soon fall off and she and her son and family can just move on to figuring out what the future holds for them and getting on with life.
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Fitness continued
It’s now been four months since the Scientist and I joined the gym and it’s going pretty well right now. The Scientist has lost 15 kgs or more, I think, and is looking quite good these days. His blood pressure has dropped so much that he is hoping to reduce his medication dosage when he sees his doctor next time. My weight loss is only 5.6 kgs but I have lost quite a few centimeters around my waist and hips… I’m not quite sure where the weight has shifted but my clothes are fitting a lot better these days.
Early last month I was sick with what I assume was a flu and/or stomach bug and missed a couple days at the gym for the first time since we started. There simply was no choice as I had a fever and other flu symptoms…at the very least I didn’t want to spread the germs around. As it is, I suspect I picked whatever the bug was at the gym due to the failure of many members to clean the equipment. There are wipes provided for this but so few people use them. Anyway, missing those two days seemed to really throw off my routine and it’s been a struggle getting back into the swing of things over the past few weeks. Having holidays in the middle have also been disruptive even though we have continued to go six days a week. We even went on Christmas Day, which was reasonably crowded considering it was a holiday.
Despite the difficulties, I have managed to bring my weights workouts back to where I started and beyond. My shoulder isn’t 100% but it seems to be mostly okay now. I also started back to doing my rowing again, which I was missing while my shoulder was healing. The gym held a competition for fastest 1000 meter row last month and it motivated me to improve my 1000 meter times while doing intervals. I managed to get down to 4 minutes 35 seconds as a best personal time. I never competed officially but I think I got just behind the two fastest times for women and one of those was a trainer at the gym who is probably half my age. I think that’s pretty good for an almost 48 year old.
Anyway, I hit another hurdle near the end of the month where I just couldn’t keep up the rowing for any decent time, even when doing just 500 meter intervals. And just about every time I rowed, I started coughing a lot. I persisted and kept trying to reach that satisfied feeling after rowing but I found myself exhausted pretty much every time. I gave up trying to improve my 1000 meter times. But I did keep rowing most days and finally last week I found myself gasping for breath and having to stop even though I was rowing pretty slowly. I gave up the rowing and moved to my weights routine and eventually felt improved although I was tired out by the whole experience. To backtrack many years, I was treated for an asthma cough one bad spring and summer when my hayfever was quite bad. Later on I was told by a specialist it wasn’t asthma but reflux cough…not sure myself that it couldn’t have been both but it’s nothing I will quibble about as it’s possible to get an inhaler over the counter here. I haven’t had any issues for many years so all the puffers were out of date, aside from a prescribed one for Game Fanatic. I bought a new one the other day. I also pulled out a peak flow meter I’d bought all those years ago and found I was getting much lower readings than I’d had at my clearest before. I used some of the medication and it improved heaps so I took it with me to the gym the following day but didn’t end up using it. I didn’t feel great but I wasn’t gasping for breath either. The next day I tried using medication before I exercised and felt so much better for it. I was still having a bit of trouble keeping a normal breathing rhythm while rowing but my lungs were definitely clear.
Today I walked to the gym and I was quite warmed up by the time I got there. I also used the inhaler before I got there and my lungs were definitely clear. I usually do three or four 1000 meter intervals with two minute breaks between them (depending on whether it’s a cardio or weights day). Today was a weights day but I did 30 minutes on the rower with no break and felt okay after I finished. Then I did my weights routine which I reduced a bit due to the extra time I’d already spent rowing. And I felt really good after I finished for the first time in ages. I’m not totally sure, Â but I suspect I’ve been having exercise induced asthma episodes. Something else to discuss with my doctor when I see her next…which should be soon as I am due for regular blood tests any time now. Tomorrow is my day off exercise but I’m really hoping to have another good workout on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, my knee is still making slow progress. I think I’m probably around 85-90% of where I’d like to be and it’s just taking a long time to progress any further. The progress is mostly showing on the stairs…going up is a lot faster although not exactly the smoothest movement. Going down is still slow but I think I am better than a couple months ago. My knee still gives way, sometimes several times a day and sometimes a lot less often. I’ve resolved to start doing squats again as that’s the one exercise I have been really bad about doing as they are quite difficult…so I have avoided them. Maybe it will be the key to reaching my goal…
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History repeats
It’s hard for me to believe it but it’s now been eight or nine years since Lego Lover was officially diagnosed with high-functioning autism. I suppose it is not so incredible when I consider he was only five at the time…But it doesn’t always seem so long ago. And yet it was the better part of his lifetime ago. I remember it was a reader of this blog who drew my attention to a condition called Asperger’s syndrome by forwarding a link to a news article. I’d never heard of it before although I was slightly aware of  (classic) autism. After reading the article I was half convinced Lego Lover had Asperger’s and half convinced that he didn’t. Recently I was reminded of something else that came to mind while reading the article. I remember thinking that half the traits seemed to fit Lego Lover and the other half seemed to fit Game Fanatic. If you put those two halves together you’d have a perfect Aspie. I didn’t give that too much more thought at the time, aside from it motivating me to eventually seek assessment for Lego Lover due to the difficulties that arose from some of his issues.
Strangely I hadn’t recalled that thought for many years but it came to mind recently while discussing Game Fanatic with the clinical psychologist who has worked with us for several years. Game Fanatic has long had a variety of issues like anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder causing considerable impact on his life. Every so often red flags would go up that put me in mind of Asperger’s syndrome but then I would think about the overall picture and it just didn’t fit. It’s been an occasional topic of discussion with the psychologist over the past few years but it never went much further than that. That’s all changed recently as we revisited this topic and it seems that perhaps Game Fanatic may very well have Asperger’s. We spent our last two sessions discussing this more in-depth and there’s enough evidence from our talks to now to support the possibility. We are currently looking for a psychiatrist who has experience with autism and Asperger’s syndrome in older teens and adults to seek further advice and assessment.
It’s strange to be on this path again after so many years. It is familiar and yet it will be different because we are looking at this issue for an adult rather than a child. It’s also strange to think this hasn’t been obvious for all these years when I’d had such a thought so long ago. I think the reason for this is that Lego Lover has always been quite expressive of thoughts and feelings so we always knew a lot about how his mind works. On the other hand Game Fanatic has always kept most of his thoughts and feelings to himself. It’s only been in the last few years that he has shared enough of himself to allow us to understand him better. With this “new” information it’s easier to see how he might well fit into the Asperger’s category. Assuming that a diagnosis does happen, I wonder if I will feel the same relief and finding an explanation as I did all those years ago with Lego Lover.
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Of bugs and fitness
Last week I somehow acquired some sort of bug that brought me fever, aches and pains, headache and some symptoms of gastroenteritis. This caused me to miss two days at the gym and getting back into it has been difficult even though I’m pretty much back on my usual schedule now. In fact I am doing more rigorous workouts now than I’ve done in many weeks. Between my shoulder and my knee, I feel like I have to be careful all the time. My shoulder is a lot better but it’s not quite right yet. Maybe that will never happen though. I have hurt that shoulder many times over the years and haven’t sought treatment on most of those occasions.  It may have permanent issues now. My knee is still improving but I am impatient for it to be normal again. I am tired of it continuing to give way all the time when I’ve built back so much of the muscle. I’m now able to go upstairs with a bit of speed. It’s still kind of jerky but I am able to do it. Going down still is a bit iffy so I just keep at it. But still my knee gives way quite regularly. My theory is it will carry on giving way even when I’ve built up the muscles to the full potential. But hopefully not. The good news about being sick is I managed to finally drop another two kilograms last week. Not ideal and probably will regain some of it…but it’s progress. That puts my total lost at 5.5 kgs so far which feels a bit better than just three over more than three months. Fortunately I do have better evidence of my effort when looking at my other measurements. I’ve lost quite a few centimeters on my waist and hips and the difference is quite obvious now.
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It’s the weekend-odd and ends from the past week or so
A couple weeks ago the Scientist and I both installed Windows 8 on our computers. Last weekend, I had a problem where my computer wouldn’t move out of sleep mode and something must have gone wrong because no amount of recovery would work. Eventually it was decided to do a clean installation and also to replace the hard drive as it was kind of old and started to get crowded. The installation went fine and I’m still trying to install some of my missing software. I ran into some troubles when I tried to load my outlook mail files and have yet to find the most recent files. I do, however, have files going back five years or more. Most of my email in recent years has gone through my gmail accounts so I should be able to retrieve most things but it doesn’t feel right for it to be missing.
I finally replaced my stolen camera last weekend too. After buying the required items from the computer shop, the Scientist and I ended up dropping in to Camera House in the mall. It’s not the one we usually visit as it’s a bit further away from the local store, but it seems to be one of the better stocked stores in the chain. It happens that the model I wanted, an Olympus Pen PL-5, Â had just come in a couple days before and hadn’t even made it out of the box yet. I looked at it and also the “mini” version plus the Canon G15, which is very much like the camera that was stolen. I even had a quick look at a another Canon but that one was really not what I was looking for. I eventually bought what I’d expected to buy and brought it home. When you’ve used cameras from the same company for a few years, it’s a bit weird to be faced with totally different operating systems and controls. I found it overwhelming at the start because it really is quite different than any of the others I’ve used. But I’m getting more used to it and learning the controls little by little. Hopefully I’ll be up to speed with it before the next birthdays and holidays.
Monday morning, I logged onto the computer early to buy tickets for the Neil Finn-Paul Kelly concert happening next March. I really enjoyed the one-off show they did last year so I imagine the next one will also be pretty special. It was kind of funny because I happened to comment a couple weeks ago that it looked like we wouldn’t be seeing and Finn-related shows this year. While that is true, this tour was announced just a few days later and now we have the anticipation of the next show. I’m hoping to take my new camera with me and try it out on the low lighting of the venue.
A couple days ago I was taking our family friend, an intellectually disabled man, to the library and gym as a carer. While at the library I decided to check out a couple of books. I haven’t used this card for a while so it was necessary to update details. It was a bit of a shock when the librarian read out my alternate contact as my friend who died earlier this year. This really surprised me because I do recall using her as a contact for a couple of libraries. But it was weird feeling to have her name pop up like that. Today would have been her fiftieth birthday so I’ve been particularly feeling her absence today. Her name also popped up on Facebook as she had an account that she hardly used. I keep thinking I should remove her name from my friends list but it doesn’t feel right to do that for some reason.
My shoulder is starting to feel better now. I’m still taking pain tablets daily but I was able to drop down to just one a day this week. It’s been hard having to avoid exercises using these muscles but I’ve mostly managed it so far. All going well I should be able to start moving back to my usual exercise next week. I’ll have to be cautious, though, because I seem to suffer more pain hours after exercise than I do while doing it. Meanwhile, my legs have been getting a pretty good workout on the cardio machines lately. To end on a really positive note, the woman who owns the gym has said she wants to do before and after photos of the Scientist and me in January as we’ve both made some good progress since we started. The Scientist has already lost 10kgs since the end of August. My weight hasn’t dropped a lot but my other measurements have gone down pretty steadily and it’s obvious by the way my clothes fit.
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Sore
A week after falling onto my overturned chair, I was feeling more pain than I had in the first day or two. Sunday night I hardly slept so I called my doctor’s office yesterday and got an appointment in the afternoon. Â Seems I haven’t done any serious damage but my muscles are having spasms so I need to rest my shoulder and arm muscles and medicate for two weeks. I saw my physio afterwards and she did a massage on my shoulder which was quite painful at the time but made me feel better afterwards.
It’s interesting how the pain is more obviously from the fall now than it was five days ago when it was harder to work out where it was coming from.
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It was bound to happen
Yesterday marked the end of the second full month of our memberships at the local gym. It’s gone mostly well and even the occasional off-days didn’t put me off much. I’ve had to take time off the rower due to struggles in the past week or so with stamina and pace. I’m sure it will be fine later on. After taking it easy for a couple days I decided to go for the spin “class” in the fitness on demand room. It’s essentially a video class but with the fancy equipment. One of the spin bike positions has you leaning across the handlebars in “aero” position and at this point I got a sharp pain shooting down my arm from my shoulder. Stopping and starting again didn’t help so I avoided that position and made a couple other adaptations to the exercise and got through the class.
I must admit to getting anxious about heart issues as I recalled something like this as a symptom of heart attack. I decided I’d just take it easy through the rest of my exercise and see how things went. Later on I worked out that that the issue must be my shoulder because each time I moved my arms in certain positions I’d get the pain again. Also there’s a very tender spot on the shoulder which reminded me I’ve had repeated injuries to the shoulder over the past ten or fifteen years and most were never properly treated. I’m trying to get in to see my physio and see what I’ve done this time. Meanwhile I will stick with safer exercises like the treadmill and exercise bike so some healing can occur.
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Rowing
My fitness routine is staying pretty constant and I’ve been to the gym at least six days a week for seven weeks as of today. A couple weeks ago I finally had my personal trainer session that comes free with my membership. I already know enough about the cardio side of things so wanted to add in a strength routine to balance out my program a bit more.
So far weight loss has been fairly low, which is frustrating at times. Essentially I’ve lost about 1.5 kgs in seven weeks. It’s nothing to be upset about but I was hoping I’d be down at least 3-4 kgs by now. On the plus side I am mostly losing centimeters around the waist and hips, except for last weekend when I seem to have gained a bit on both. Maybe it’s not correct but I am attributing it in part to my period starting as I usually do gain weight. Just didn’t know it might affect my waistline as it did. Happily my spot check yesterday showed it’s gone back down again and I just have to be patient and persistent. Seems to sound a lot like what my surgeon told me about my knee. :D
This week the gym finally finished the Fitness on Request room and the Scientist and I tried out the spin class. Actually, the class we tried turned out to be a tutorial for using the spin bike that ran for 20 minutes and could have been done in five. By that time, the Scientist had had enough of the uncomfortable seat and moved on to other equipment. I stayed and tried out the proper class and got quite a workout in twenty minutes. My biggest difficulty in the class is having to stand up while pedalling as my knee isn’t strong enough to lift me yet. But I have found I can do it by using my right leg and going slowly. I think that’s better than not trying it and it seemed to do no harm. I went back yesterday and tried again and was much better at the standing parts and maybe will figure out all moves properly in a few more tries. I have given up the treadmill for the time being as I think I was getting bored with that so will add that back in when I need to take a break from another machine.
The real surprise in the past couple of months is my love of the rowing machine. I never knew I would ever make progress on that. We have an air rower at home and I never managed to get past a few minutes on it. So imagine my surprise when regular use of the gym machine has me a bit obsessed. I have discovered interval rowing and that seems to suit me the best so far. I can now row for 30 minutes, taking one minute breaks every few minutes for rest. I can see how my endurance has increased on that. But I think my technique needs some improvement so I’ve been looking at the website of the machine to see what I should be doing and will take that on board when I do my cardio workout tomorrow.
Overall, I am feeling a lot better with my body and have yet to injure myself. I think changing equipment is helping a lot so I don’t overuse anything for too long. I’m still optimistic that the weight will start falling off as I go but can always feel pleased with the improvements in my cardio health, which is of utmost important thanks to my family history of heart disease.
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One month/Six months
It’s now been a month since the Scientist and I started going to the gym regularly. I’ve gone six days a week for four weeks now and I can tell a big difference in many areas. My weight is almost the same right now but many of my other measurements decreased. I am sure the weight will follow suit with time. Â I can tell a big difference in my stamina during this time. I seem to have latched on to the rowing machine as my favorite challenge. I started out doing three minutes each workout but now I do 4 intervals of 500m each with a minute break between each. I couldn’t have imagined doing that a month ago or ever, in fact. We have rower here at home but I never quite got going with it before. The main concern with the rower is my heart rate was increasing quite a bit and I didn’t know how high it was going. When I was younger, this was less of a concern but I now have to be a bit more cautious.
The solution was to pull out my old heart rate monitor and make use of it again. The battery in the watch died several years ago and I thought at the time I had to send it to the company for a replacement. Perhaps I was mistaken because current information shows I can change the batteries myself. Fortunately we had a pack of one size battery needed for the watch. It was just a matter of buying the other size required for the transmitter as it died out at some point. With minimal expenditure, I have an additional tool for use in my fitness program. One odd thing does happen now that I’m using the heart rate monitor. It’s compatible with some of the machines which makes it easier to use them without losing track of my heart rate if I let go of the handles. Anyway, I’ve found that the cooldown period on the workouts have all increased to ten minutes instead of 3-5 (depending on the length of workout). Â The Scientist says this isn’t happening for him so we can only attribute it to the monitor.
Over the past couple of days I have worked out that I am staying under the maximum heart rate on the rower but I am in the high range, as expected. While doing my rowing intervals today, I slowed down the pace on a couple of them so that my heart rate remained within the optimal range. What was interesting is how hard it was to slow my pace.
I also started adding in some of the circuit machines into my routine. I am currently alternating cardio workouts with combination cardio/strength workouts. So far it’s working out well although I have been a bit sore when I’ve overdone it.
This week it will be six months since I had my knee surgery and it’s definitely not back to normal use, despite predictions of both physiotherapists I’ve seen. At my last visit, my physio signed off on my treatment. She was quite pleased with my progress, especially when she learned I’ve been using the gym lately. I had a bit of a setback last week when my knee gave way while I was in cooldown phase on the treadmill. I nearly fell off the back of the machine and it left  me shaken so that I started walking off-kilter again and have only mostly recovered this weekend after working hard to right the issues that have come about. I’m still having episodes where my knee buckles quite randomly for no apparent reason.
Which leads me to my surgeon appointment on Friday. He has also signed off on my treatment and says I am doing all the right things. But he also said I might still have another 12-18 months of rehab ahead of me. Or it might resolve in a few months. He says it’s all down to muscle weakness and it will happen but it’s hard to judge when it will happen. He also made it quite clear that my knee will never be perfect again…not that I was under any illusion that would be the case, especially with the arthritis affecting both knees. So while not exactly encouraging, it certainly wasn’t a total discouragement either since I know I am doing everything right. I also assume that as my weight decreases, the process will go even better.
I will finish out this update with my biggest accomplishment in some time. I can now use my healing leg to lead me up a step where I couldn’t a month ago. It isn’t easy and I can’t do it for every step. But I can do it some of the time so will have to make sure I just keep doing it and get stronger. I look forward to a time when I’m not totally worn out after a trip into town where I seem to be faced with more than the average sets of stairs.