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More on Fitter
There was one point I meant to include in my last post. Normally my diet and exercise fall off the tracks a bit during the winter. I think this is the first time in many years that I have managed to maintain a reasonable amount of exercise through the season. So yay to me! The weather is already shifting towards spring and I am already in a good place. And that makes me kind of happy. :)
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Assorted
The premier of our state just did his daily update and there were nine cases of covid. It seems all were related to previous clusters. So far the numbers haven’t exploded but it still seems likely to happen at some point. While I haven’t been avoiding going out, I haven’t been spending as much time in more crowded locations. The press conference also outlined the plan to deal with high case numbers when we reach that point. That is still a long way off but obviously could change at any time. I also noticed that rapid antigen tests are now available locally and must be in demand because my pharmacy has a sign saying they don’t have any. The Scientist ordered some tests a couple of weeks ago but they haven’t arrived yet.
I’ve been attending a pilates class at a local leisure center for the past few weeks and I feel like it’s really helping with core muscles. Meanwhile, in the gym, I’ve been avoiding those exercises and doing more cardio and more weight machines. Still, my muscle mass hasn’t changed from several months ago even though I can feel changes in arms and glutes, etc.
One of the support workers who share support for my client has been promoted to a coordinator position. This opens up several more hours per week with him and I’ve taken on Tuesday hours. I chose this day in order to provide an opportunity to attend a special exercise class on a regular basis. The changes in support workers are going to be disruptive for a while but I hope he is able to settle in for the longer term. This does create another day where he may be unsupported while I’m away though. The extra hours will nice after losing so many hours from my other client. I don’t want to take on too many with this client, though, because he’s a family friend and I want to keep a decent balance between work and personal life.
We had several days with milder weather but that has now ended and we’re back to another heatwave. We haven’t had any rain so far this year but that is pretty typical for this time of year.
I got out onto my bike almost two weeks ago and it went quite well. The last time I went out I had quite a struggle to go very far. This time I didn’t struggle at all and managed what might have been a normal ride back in the time I was riding regularly. This was a nice surprise. I will admit to being tempted to go farther than planned because I was feeling well enough. Common sense did prevail and I stuck to a normal distance in the end.
I got a message from my doctor’s office that I needed to come in to discuss some results. I was only there on Monday so I assume some of the tests took longer to be processed. There were two tests from earlier that had been repeated so I suspect this might have been one or both of them. I got an appointment with yet another gp that I’ve never seen since she has the earlier available time on Tuesday.
Yesterday I stopped at a local park to eat a sandwich I’d gotten from the nearby bakery. While there, a black swan approached the side of the pond/small lake where I was sitting and seemed quite interesting in making contact. I took several photos, even approaching the swan and taking an overhead shot. I’ve been to this park before but never had any of the creatures approach me. It was pretty neat.
I started playing the Wordle game that has taken the internet by storm lately and I’m enjoying my daily dose. What I like about it is it’s just a single game that takes a couple to a few minutes and won’t be a major time sucker. It works much like the old Mastermind game but it’s for five-letter words. You get six tries and I’ve been able to solve each puzzle so far. I do it really curious how so many people need to share their results each day. And it’s weird how so many people get so annoyed by that. I personally don’t do it but I have no concerns about others. I just find it strange they need to share so much.
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Stuff
I am still keeping up with exercise to some degree. That isn’t translating to any weight loss as yet and it also isn’t translating to increased muscle mass. I am a bit stuck on that part because I know I have built up muscle but to stay the same that would mean I’d have to lose muscle somewhere else and I don’t think that’s happening. That said, I am not sure how much stock to take in the scales that do all these fancy computations on the body. I am finding it’s been a struggle to get through exercise sessions lately. Usually, I will start feeling better after going for a while and the rest comes more easily. Not the case recently though.
I don’t think I mentioned here yet that my dad went home just before Thanksgiving and is doing okay. It seems he is suffering a bit of confusion since the second stroke but other issues don’t seem to have changed a lot. I did speak with him a few days ago and had a slightly longer conversation. Still quite brief but he was able to get more out on that occasion.
Game Fanatic has been trying to get hold of a Playstation 5 for some time and the pickings have been limited since its release whenever it was. Then EB Games said they had some available for pre-order last month and I rushed there to get an order in to find out they had sold out. I was put on a waitlist in case more units arrived than predicted. These units were supposed to come fairly soon after the orders were taken but I didn’t hear anything further. So I stopped in one day last week to check on the status. It turns out they were still working on calling people about orders and I was able to collect mine after all. So Game Fanatic now has the monster-sized machine which blocks our tv and was able to add a couple of items to his limited Christmas list.
The Scientist hasn’t had any real holiday from work in ages. I don’t count the time taken off when he had surgery earlier this year. As of tomorrow, he’s off until early January. Here’s hoping the time off allows him to recharge a bit for next year. Also, the Scientist had a birthday last week and he’s now started his last year of his 50s. I took him out for lunch at a Thai/fusion restaurant where they had robots to deliver meals to tables and it was a good meal. Then we went to Holey Moley to do mini mini-golf and a game of bowling, both of which were lots of fun for us.
We still don’t have any definite dates on our borders opening here in WA but it feels like it’s getting close to reality now. I have been playing around with dates for travel for next year and it seems like it might be okay in the second quarter barring any delays from newer variants.
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Pilates
In the last few years I’ve had issues enough that I see my physiotherapist reasonably often. Well, the past few months it’s been quite often as I have had one issue after another. A few weeks ago it was suggested I try the clinical pilates classes they offer so I decided to give it a go. I had to attend an assessment session first but I’ve now gone to two classes and it’s been quite interesting. I have used some of the machines in the regular appointments but it’s quite different using them for a whole hour. The first week the exercises weren’t too difficult although a couple really brought on a muscle burn. This week they have ramped up a couple to more difficulty. The worst one is standing on a bosu ball for balance. I can stand on the flat side and let go but balancing on the ball side was a bit too hard when I was there this morning.
I also said I wanted to work on my abdominal muscles as they tend to be pretty weak much of the time. I can’t help thinking it will be beneficial to get that toned up a bit. It might make a different in my swimming when I one day get back to lessons.
I’m scheduled for ten sessions and then we will see how I am doing and reassess my needs. I will likely take a break at that point since I can’t afford to do it through the year. But it’s nice to have this option available to me.
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Getting better
It’s been weeks and weeks now and I am still coughing. But it’s much better than it’s been and it’s been awhile since I woke up coughing in the night. I am still unsure where I had a viral thing or not. Turns out I was in contact with someone who became ill just a couple days before I started coughing. Another mutual friend also has been ill for weeks with a chest infection and was also coughing a lot. It seems terribly coincidental. I don’t know if a couple days is long enough to incubate a virus of that sort or not. I was coughing up a lot of thick sputum early on but it’s not like that at all now. So maybe this has been an infection of some sort, possibly viral.
I did see a doctor a week and a half ago and my lungs were clear, so if there had been something, that part was gone. Maybe by this time it was more of a post-viral cough that was being affected by reflux? Who knows? That was a strange doctor visit. I made an appointment rather late so didn’t get to see my regular doctor. The one I saw was new to me and I found her a bit strange in her manner. It was one of those cases where I felt like I was expected to do all the work of figuring things out. In the end she gave me a prescription for paracetamol with codeine (Tylenol 3, in essence) to help me sleep. That turned out badly and my reflux got really bad the one night I tried that. It was painful and while I did sleep eventually it was very broken due to the reflux. I stopped that immediately. I have more to say about this doctor in a separate post.
I went out on a bike ride a couple days ago and I was exhausted by the time I got home . To be fair I kind of overdid things by taking too long a ride. But I was desperate to get out and I don’t regret going out…just doing too much.
Today I am going back to my swimming lessons. I’m still coughing but I think it will be okay and hopefully the exercise will be just enough to make me feel better. And to get back to learning the butterfly stroke.
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Pat on the back
A few days ago, my bike ride turned into a particularly long one due to circumstances. One of those circumstances was that the final section of road on the nearby highway finished. This meant the bike path was open all the way to the end of the new highway. I will point out that it’s unlikely I’ll be travelling the whole way any time soon but it was kind of neat to know it was open.
The other circumstance related to an incident with a family member where I knew I had to speak up about something and it just made me ill to think about it. I was stressed and anxious when I went out and the other conditions were kind of right so I went off with expectations of turning around at the former end point of the path. I found, however, that despite playing my music while riding, I definitely wasn’t hearing it at all.
On that ride I travelled almost 40 kilometers round trip, which was pretty huge. It was kind of good for me to ride hard and long that day even if it didn’t make as much of a dent in the feelings I was having. On the other hand it was also kind of foolish since I had to make a return journey and I was cutting it close to dark. Not to mention I was expected to be back before a certain time so we could “play” a Zelda video game that evening. Anyway, I got back okay but the following day, I was feeling a bit wiped out, physically and emotionally.
Now after missing a day or two of exercise, there’s always a chance I will allow myself to fall back into old habits where I skip it altogether for to long. And with the cooler days it’s even easier to slip more often.
So there I was yesterday and I had spent a good part of the afternoon playing Animal Crossing. That issue I spoke about above was still ongoing although I wasn’t feeling quite as terrible as I’d been before. Procrastination on days that are getting shorter is never a good thing and I finally did get myself read to go out for a ride. The day before had actually been quite warm so it’s a shame I didn’t go out then. Yesterday was somewhat cooler and by the time I went out, the winds had picked up.
I had worn two shirts to keep warm and at the last minute decided to bring along a ratty light jacket just in case. Boy am I glad I had it as I had it on within the first five minutes. It was chilly out there. At this point I thought to myself that I would lower my expectations and just make it about halfway to my original destination (which made for about 65 minute ride). The winds were really strong so I wasn’t making much progress.
I got closer to that point but decided I shouldn’t be so slack and should push on and reach my usual turning point. I was moving rather slowly despite my efforts. I was tiring a lot and my new thing of pedaling while standing up were making it worse. Eventually I started to avoid the standing and just lowered gears to make it the ascents easier.
Thankfully my music was helping to drive my efforts. But I was well behind my usual time based on how far into the playlist I was. I did make it to that turning point and stopped for a couple minutes to recover and to rehydrate. Turning back, I found it even worse and I ended up zipping up my jacket this point. The sun was lower and I was getting chilled despite extra layers.
I ended up dropping to the lowest gears and just focusing on moving continuously rather than at any speed. That was pretty much all I could do and the trip back seemed to go on forever. In the midst of all this, my anxiety would return occasionally and I guess it was distract with the agony of the ride or the agony of the anxiety. I figure I must have passed it back and forth mentally most of the way home.
I did get home okay but I definitely didn’t feel any better. But I did pat myself on the back for making it through. Here’s hoping the next ride or exercise will be a bit easier to handle. :)
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Zero cases
I thought I would post that there have been no new cases of Covid-19 in Western Australia today. Yesterday there was only one. Three states in Australia record none over the weekend. Talk about flattening the curve. I just don’t want people to become complacent and start increasing interaction too early. There haven’t been any lifting of bans as yet and I suspect there won’t be any changes for a few weeks still.
Also good news is I went to the shops today and discovered toilet paper on the shelf, much like it was before the crisis. This was in both supermarkets in the shopping center so I don’t think it’s a fluke. I think people the rush to buy has finally passed and now people are back to buying as needed. Well, at least I hope this is the case.
In our family we’ve started watching new seasons of two reality series. The first was Masterchef which started last week and featured Gordon Ramsay all week. He seemed to love being there and was really a good mentor for the contestants. In this season all of them are former contestants who didn’t win from about eleven seasons, I think. The judges have changed for the first time and it seems to be working fine so far. It’s got to be one of the better reality shows out there. Even if they seem to bring contestants to tears on a regular basis. The other show is Lego Masters and that started last night and was excellent and it seems they are all quite likeable. I like this show for the Lego content but also because they seem to like to skewer reality shows on a regular basis.
I’ve been hard at work trying to do my album commentaries and have now finished four. The Scientist did his own version on Facebook and just finished yesterday. He wants me to share my posts there so I will start posting tonight with a few edits along the way. I’m still not sure what all the albums will be but I have settled on all but two of the artists now and the albums are mostly whittled down to a couple. I’m kind of going with the theme that these were albums associated with periods of time or events in my life so it’s not exactly favorites and it’s not exactly just influences. Anyway, I will have to write an introduction to my version and post the first album tonight. I think the good thing about posting here first is I can read them over a few extra times to make sure they make sense.
My exercise has been a bit more sporadic the past few days. I did do a long bike ride a few days ago that went pretty well. I normally ride to a further point but decided to stop after forty-five minutes and that seemed to work well. I’m glad I did because the last few kilometers tend to have a lot of hills to climb on the way back and I find I am done in by the time I get to the turn around point for my shorter rides. Yesterday I did an 8 kilometer walk in Whiteman Park near us and was fine until the last few steps to reach my car. That’s when I twisted my knee and bit and slightly injured some muscle or tendon or something. It’s nothing serious but I found it kind of funny that I lasted all those kms and was taking it easy those last steps and that’s when something happens. Today I didn’t go out as there were sporadic showers and I didn’t feel like getting stuck in it. I plan to use the spin bike at home and do at least 45 minutes and possibly up to an hour later on. I’m hoping to go out tomorrow and do a proper ride again.
The Scientist made an origami heart with an arrow through it a few days ago and it was lovely. Unfortunately I’d left it on our coffee table and for some reason one of our dogs got hold of it and chewed it up. Not sure what caused the dog to do that as they don’t tend to remove that sort of thing from the table. The Scientist did a new one for me this afternoon in purple and I’m keeping that in a much safer place.
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Strange times
This isn’t the first time I’ve thought this but it is a weird time for us.
As of midday yesterday, the pool and library closed along with all dine-in establishments being forced to do take away or close. I had to go out for a short time yesterday to get something from the markets and I noticed that some people were “dining in”. I’m not sure how all this works in the food court areas and this was sort of in that category. Not a lot of people but there were people.
I had scheduled an appointment with my doctor for last Friday a few weeks ago and then later got an SMS suggesting I could have telephone consults if I needed since I am considered high risk due to my diabetes. Last week I called up and asked for that appointment to be changed to a telephone consult. The lady I spoke to assured me it had been changed after going away a couple of times. So I was waiting on Friday for that call to come through and it didn’t. I normally don’t have to wait long to get in so this seemed unusual. But due to current events I thought maybe things were really behind schedule for some reason. After an hour and a half I finally phoned them to find out what was happening. The first person I spoke to said I didn’t have a telephone consult listed there. She kept putting me on hold and coming back and eventually another staff person got on the phone and abruptly said I had a did not attend on my record for that day’s appointment. I don’t know what she new beforehand but I went on to explain and she practically growled at me to ask who I spoke to and that never got resolved because I didn’t know for sure. Eventually I had to reschedule for today and I asked her to take the notation off my record but it didn’t happen. Today my doctor called me even ahead of time and we got everything sorted out quickly enough. I mentioned this issue to her and she apologised which didn’t happen before. I had to go later to pick up a blood test form and some prescriptions and stopped at the mail box to find a letter from them admonishing me for not attending…even though I spoke to someone soon afterwards. I made a point of having this removed from my record. I was told I wasn’t charged for it but the point was I didn’t want my record to show anything of the sort when I did nothing wrong. I can just hope it finally got done this time.
I ended up going to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled. I accidentally gave more of them to fill than was needed but I guess it doesn’t hurt to get them a bit early. I had to get a higher dose of Nexium as I’ve been having a nighttime cough for a few months now. It sometimes wakes me up so it’s become rather troublesome, especially since it also wakes up the Scientist. I also left my prescriptions at the pharmacy and plan to call ahead the next time so I can avoid having to hang out there for too long in the near future.
It was quite a warm day, maybe even hot at times. But I decided to try to get a bike ride in during the afternoon and that sort of worked out well. I decided on the cycle path along the new highway since it is nice and wide and has a good turning around point when it crosses one of the local roads. It gives me about an hour of riding and that’s exactly what I needed. I started out and all was going well. I had a good speed going and wasn’t struggling too much getting up hills. But when I got close to my turn around point something in the air started messing with my head, literally. I don’t tend to have too much trouble with seasonal allergies in autumn but something was really getting to me and I got that creepy, crawly feeling on my head that I get when I’m affected. I did make it to my turn-around point and took a scheduled break for water and to recover slightly. I still wasn’t feeling too terrible. The ride back went less well. I was okay for a while but by the halfway point I found my heart rate had gotten to 183 without a lot of effort. I took another break, which I planned to drink water but stayed a bit longer so my heart rate would go down a bit. My last stop also lasted a bit long but it was planned to rehydrate again. I was feeling kind of bad by the time I got home. It wasn’t the worst ride but it wasn’t nice either. Anyway, now I’ve got to be wary of pollen going out now. I did take an anti-histamine which seems to have cleared my head for now.
When I got home, the Scientist and I did our tai chi sword and fan routines before doing a tai chi set a the times we’d normally be at our class. The Scientist had organised with our instructor and other classmates to do it together but apart at the same time. It went fairly well aside from the glaring sun when we started. :)
Tomorrow I have to go out again for my job as a carer. I get to take my client to the doctor as he needs a referral letter. I’m hoping that’s sorted out quickly and easily. I’m not sure what I’ll do with him after that but we will work it out later.
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Dragging a bit
I’ve had a couple days where I’ve been dragging my heels a bit. The current environment is quite stressful, of course, and life doesn’t go on as usual. On Wednesday I wasn’t able to go to the pool or gym with my client and he had already gone on a bike ride in the morning. I ended up getting no exercise with him since it would have been pointless trying to get him out for a walk. Also trying to get him to understand that we can’t do normal things is a bit tricky right now.
I didn’t exercise at all the past few days, so effectively I missed three days of exercise. I could have gone out on my bike yesterday but I just couldn’t motivate myself to go out. Today, I forced myself to go to the pool and had a good swim in the end. It was really quiet there even though it was a warm-hot day with hot easterly winds. I was the only one doing laps for the first twenty minutes there. There were a few others that came during the hour I was there but only one of us per lane and a family in the non-lap lane.
I had a bit of a boost to mental health yesterday due to a new Animal Crossing game being released on the Nintendo Switch. This series is one of my all-time favorites and it was nice to sit down as a family while I started my new town.
I’ve also been inspired by something my brother did on Facebook where he posted a cover of an album that influenced your musical taste every day for ten days with no other information. I’m thinking of doing that here instead but I plan to write about it instead.
I haven’t done anything about my airline ticket as yet. Since there’s no change I’ll be travelling I guess it doesn’t matter too much right now. My idea is to shift my travel dates to later this year or next year instead. Not sure I really want to travel to the US late in the year with elections going on but I will consider it if it works out, I guess. I also have a sim card for AT&T that won’t be getting used now. I hope I can do something to allow use of it later on but I think these things expire within a few months.
Meanwhile I was rather horrified that the brand new first Costco went ahead with its grand opening on Thursday. People lined up around the store twice and it was a jungle there from what I saw from video footage on the news. And it’s still crazy there today. Even if I were interested, I wouldn’t think of going there at this point. Sigh.
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Exercise
I’m still doing my exercise pretty regularly although I did force myself to take a break for a couple of days. Not so much for a needed break as to break up the perfect run of days on the activity app on my watch. It works really well to encourage me to keep moving but I find it really hard to get long runs and then have them broken.
Last Monday I went to the pool to practice my swimming and it all went terribly wrong. Almost nothing was working for me. I felt sluggish and I couldn’t breathe properly and my arm motions were wrong and I couldn’t make it to the end of the 25m lane without stopping…just a bad day at the pool. Then Tuesday I went for my lesson and it went much better. This week I worked on my breathing and I think I got a lot out of it. The adult classes are tailored to what you want/need to learn that was my goal. And there were only two of us that week so we got a lot of time with the teacher.
Since then I’ve been to the pool three times. Two were at my local pool and I practiced on my own both times, managing to swim a full 1000m for each swim. I did have to stop between each lap but I didn’t tire out so quickly and I seem to be getting the breathing a lot better now. I also was given a couple of tips by another person using the pool about my arm movement, which I think helped. Tomorrow I might work on the arm movement a bit more. My other pool time was as a carer with my client, who goes most Wednesdays. I didn’t swim a whole lot but did get in a few laps that went surprisingly easily. I think that helped me regain the confidence lost on Monday. I don’t count the lesson since I had the teacher there the whole time.
Yesterday I wasn’t able to get to the pool due to other commitments so I went out for a bike ride after dinner. I think it had been well over a week since I’d been on my bike and it was great to get out again for a decent ride. I was worried my muscles would have started to weaken but I seemed to do just fine in the end. It wasn’t my fastest ride but I felt I was pretty steady and I didn’t struggle so much riding up hills this time. Maybe that was due to the swimming?
Last night my gluteal muscles were really feeling the exercise. I wasn’t in pain but I was a bit sore. Even today I’m still a bit sore, mostly on my bottom. I think my gluteal muscles are getting the most benefit from my recent exercise…lol. I’m going to swim this afternoon, hopefully before the pool gets crowded after school time. Maybe I can work out some of the soreness while there.