A Walk A Day...

[franciemarnie]

No outside walk today. It was a blizzard with snow gusts going horizontally! Ugh. Tomorrow sunny and almost 40. Can't wait for my walk.

 

[EverOnly358]

Spent the whole day puttering around the house, going up and down the stairs. I'm feeling it in my legs. I say that counts! I'm really hoping to walk outside and/or get to the gym tomorrow. It's been hectic this week. :confused:

 

[franciemarnie]

@EverOnly358 - Excellent core and glute work. You go baby gurl!

I got out today. 50 minutes walking in the afternoon. It was heaven. Listened to soundtracks of Camelot and My Fair Lady. I can still "hear" what my memory memorized before I lost a lot of hearing thank God.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Ok, I have a lot to do today and I was up all night. No sleep. I'm planning on getting as much done as possible and then crashing. It seems that every time I lie down to sleep the flashbacks hit. Oh well, I'll have to sleep eventually.

 

[greenleaf]

That definitely counts, Ever! Good job.

I've been trying to take off the holiday pounds so my knees don't get worse. Food has been a comfort thing so it's difficult; the exercise helps; trying for alternative comfort things. Cats?

@DharmaGirl -- I hope you get some good sleep tonight. Sending sleepy thoughts with relaxing dreams.

 

[franciemarnie]

Today was 40 something and clear. I was in heaven walking 1.25 hour. It helps my cigarette abused lungs and helps me sleep better if I clear an hour outside. Left ankle weak-ish but have been doing ankle exercises. Don't want to flip it and break it.

Tomorrow expected rain, but sometimes they're wrong. Hope to be outside. Expected 48! Before returning to teens and 20's.

@greenleaf - my knees were bad too. I put on 40 with Zyprexa, but little by little it came off walking, etc. PT taught me core work would take pressure off knees. Who knew?

 

[EverOnly358]

@EverOnly358 - Excellent core and glute work. You go baby gurl!

LMAO! :roflmao: You should totally be my personal trainer, y'know. Plus someday I'll get in touch with my anger, and I'll work my way through a bunch of speed bags, too. Seriously, thanks so much for the encouragement! It totally made me laugh and smile! :D

So... yesterday I went to the gym and walked around and around. The library is downstairs (it's a community center... really nice, just built a couple years ago), and that's where K and my husband were (it's just as easy for him to "work from home" at the library as at home, and he can keep an eye on K while she does her schoolwork and while I workout). So... I was really walking pretty good when they showed up earlier than I thought they would... I got interrupted and didn't take any cool down laps, but it was okay. I did manage to fit in 60 minutes. Yay! :D We'll see how my knee is doing... perhaps back to walking and jogging next time (I hate how I fall off track every time I get depressed and isolate... and then I have to start over from scratch again! Annoying!). :sour:

Anyways... totally proud of myself :wideeyed: for getting in 60 minutes on the track plus lots of walking around at home (stairs! :meh:) and at stores while shopping. I'm feeling it today... I think more from the stairs than the walking, though. Not bad... but instead of pushing and pushing and pushing, I'm trying very hard to take a break and just rest today.

Am I the only one who has to start over with exercise again and again because PTSD symptoms interrupt things? :alien: It's driving me nuts! :wacky:

 

[greenleaf]

Thanks for that bit about core exercise helping the knees, @franciemarnie, I'd never heard that. I do exercises to strengthen the muscle right above my knees, on the inside of the leg especially. I will add some more core; I haven't been doing them much. My shoulders and neck are the current problem, I've been storing emotions there this year. Much more convenient than feeling them! Saves time! :rolleyes:

 

[franciemarnie]

@greenleaf - I know what you're saying. Some of my emotions go instantly to the body. Today no walk for me. I have intense pain in a glute muscle. But I don't know if it's because I've been stressing on something that's a pain in the butt, or if I actually strained my gluteus maximus! Either way - Ow!

 

[greenleaf]

@franciemarnie - ouch indeed! Maybe a heating pad? I hope you feel better.

 

[EverOnly358]

Thanks for that bit about core exercise helping the knees, @franciemarnie, I'd never heard that. I do exercises to strengthen the muscle right above my knees, on the inside of the leg especially. I will add some more core; I haven't been doing them much. My shoulders and neck are the current problem, I've been storing emotions there this year. Much more convenient than feeling them! Saves time! :rolleyes:

I was having a lot of knee problems last year, when we moved from a ranch (a house with all one floor) to a three story townhouse. It was so aggravating. I did some internet research, and read that doing wall sits, lunges and this exercise where you stand with your feet even with your shoulders, toes pointed out, and you bend your knees and straighten again and again, that these exercises really help. It was something about knee problems being caused by bad hip alignment and lack of flexibility in the knees... anyways, I started doing 30 each of these exercises daily and it REALLY helped. Yesterday at the track, when my knee started to say hello to me (started to make it known that it would get pissed off if I didn't do something differently), I moved off to the side of the track and did some more stretching, plus these exercises, and my knee felt all better. Anyways. Thought I'd add that in, since I didn't know that doing some specific exercises could actually help with the pain (that seemed counter intuitive to me... more exercise when something hurts? Oy! :wtf: LOL!). :roflmao:

And, oh boy, do I store my emotions in my jaw and neck and shoulders. I'll actually wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with intense neck and jaw pain. Still have no idea how to actually let any of my anger out in some sort of productive way... I mean, I'm totally scared of anger; I don't do anger (except when it bubbles over out of my control, which is when I usually complain to my husband about something he did which annoyed me but was totally not his fault anyways... just me and my warped PTSD thinking, GAH! :banghead:). This is something I need to find some way to address... but there's been so much to address, well, it's gotten little attention. When I get bummed out about how screwed up I am... I like to think, "Hey, at least I'm not boring." LOL! :p I do think any sort of exercise really helps with tension, though, and so I'm at least doing that. I need to fit more yoga in... yoga really makes me feel good and a lot less tense.

Yesterday I deliberately took the day off from exercising... but I still had a bunch of things around the house to do, plus there was running around at the grocery stores and at Target. I know it might be silly to count those things... but I find they really do add up. I need to learn to spend some time each day just sitting... maybe drinking tea or hot chocolate or something. :coffee:

Today I'm doing something new... I'm trying out the local gym. I'm so nervous. I feel like everyone will be looking at me, and I hate new experiences, I hate not knowing exactly what to expect, or being confused about how to use the machines or the weights or whatever! But hey, I've turned 40, I really don't have a choice... I need to step this up with weights and exercise in general. So, please, wish me luck today that I survive at the gym. I'm not worried about the exercising part, that's okay... I'm just worried about not looking like a complete idiot... which is silly... I know how to use most of the weight machines and most of the things like treadmills and stair masters and all... it's just this weird feeling of being exposed, of being watched, and doing something new, and not knowing EXACTLY what to expect... I hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! :hungover: I'm sure after I've gone a time or two, it'll be no big deal... it's just getting through the first couple times that's gonna practically kill me. Maybe I'm psyching myself out here? Doesn't matter... I'm determined and I'm going either way. It's Free Fridays in February at this gym, and my husband told me if I get up and go in the morning, no excuses, this Friday and next Friday, then sure, it's a good idea to get a membership. :playful: So, I wanna getter done. All too often, I do something like getting a membership like this, because I think it's a really good idea, but then I never follow through. This time I wanna do things differently and follow through and go workout as something just for me... a way to take a turn and pamper myself and do something nice for myself and spend a little time alone where I can hear myself think.

Anyways... wish me luck... I need it. :confused:

Oh, and @greenleaf, maybe instead of comfort foods (believe me, I know the attraction... I've tried out the cupcake diet and the homemade bread diet and the mousse filled chocolate cake diet... unfortunately, while they were all really comforting, these diets really pissed off my hips! ;)) try sitting down for coffee or tea or hot chocolate... make a little fun, relaxing ritual out of it? I've been thinking about getting some of those Starbucks shots ever since the employee at Sur La Table made me a special coffee when I was shopping there... it had tons of sugar and a couple shots of hazelnut syrup. They have sugar free hazelnut syrup... and all kinds of shots... vanilla, pumpkin, almond, raspberry, chocolate, etc. I saw the bottles last night at the grocery store, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Also, I'm endlessly fascinated by these pyramid shaped teabags I got at the grocery store, too, Blackberry Vanilla! Yum! Anyways... I'm in the same boat... I love sweets and comfort food, plus being home all the time and loving to bake... Jeez, it's a bad combination. I'm trying to do better and find alternatives, too.

 

[greenleaf]

Best wishes for your gym adventures, @EverOnly358 ! I do hope you'll make it into a habit for yourself. My gym time is definitely the time of many days when I can really just do what I like, and I feel more relaxed afterwards, grounded, often a bit happy, and sleep better. Plus I think regular aerobic exercise is what allows me to use lower amounts of paroxetine - being on the higher amount of that went along with 60 lbs of additional weight. The calories burned don't really take off weight, but I don't seem to gain nearly as much when regularly exercising. So lots of benefits all around. It sounds like you might be getting some good exercise at the track, too, though? That's great.

Re. a feeling of being watched; that is definitely unpleasant (and familiar...). I sort of adopt a 'no eye contact' approach in the gym. I find that virtually everyone is focused on their own workout, and no one ever bothers me. Most people want their own "them" time too. I suppose a few people want something else but no eye contact sort of shuts that off, in my experience. You could imagine an armored bubble around yourself, or pick another good visual associated with confident emotions for you. Perhaps one can trick the "reptile brain" in weird ways like that; perhaps it changes one's expression, posture or something... Projecting like that is something I learned in a self-defense class years ago. (If time goes by in the situation with nothing bad happening, discomfort sometimes tends to calm down, too.)

Thank you very much for the knee and comfort food replacement tips! I love vanilla, and will look for some good vanilla teas this week, esp. non-caffeine for evenings. I saw stevia with vanilla at a local store too. I will try the knee exercise you mentioned. I am your age plus ten... These things only get more important.