|
Hi everyone!!! It's been a busy few weeks!
<H2>Work</H2>
Work has made things really tough lately. I've got three big deliverables these last two weeks. One needed to be done yesterday, so I was busy crunching away on that. The other two are due this next week. So, it will be another busy week. Sorry if I'll be scarce again this week. I'll do my best to keep up on your journals and communication with my pals on here, but I may be spread a bit thin. That doesn't mean I'm not thinking of you all! I hope you're working hard and making some great progress on your plans! 2014 IS OUR YEAR! But we have to work our tails off to make it our year!
<H2>Panicky Bad News leads to... <u>Great News!</u></H2>
So starting about 3 days after my last visit to the doc's office in November--a supervisory weight-loss visit to make sure all is ok--I caught a cold. But it was the weirdest cold I ever had. It was *only* a runny nose and intense sneeze bursts of about 10 to 20 sneezes. That's it. No cough, no sore throat, no achiness... none of the other symptoms I usually get with a cold. For about 4 weeks, I went on, just happy it wasn't a full-blown cold. But it kept getting worse and worse. Still none of those other symptoms, but the symptoms I did have were getting worse. Not to gross anyone out, but my nose would just start running like a sieve--absolutely out of the blue. It would go from fairly inactive, to... well, gross, in a beat. And walking outside in the cold made it run instantly and furiously. I was using a full box of Kleenex a day (sometimes almost two!). Anyway, enough description... but I was starting to get a bit worried. It was really odd.
By the time 7 weeks of this went by and it still wasn't getting any better, I was beginning to panic. I was scheduled to see the doc again in another week or so, but in the meantime, I tried to find if others had experienced this kind of thing in some online forums. Could it be related to my weight-loss? What was going on? I had no idea. I ran across articles about GERD, Candida Yeast overgrowth, SIBO... all sorts of alarming things. I also found some people that said they'd been having this problem ongoing for YEARS. It never stops. I really panicked. Thanks to some of my online buddies that talked me down from the ledge!!! :D
<H2>Sleep Apnea and Me...</H2>
I have sleep apnea, and use a CPAP machine nightly. My nose was getting very raw from all the nose running and blowing, and had a sore spot inside that the CPAP kept irritating. Finally one day, I fell asleep on the couch. This isn't like me... but wow, it was a GREAT NAP! I couldn't believe how good I felt. It had been well over ten years since I'd slept without my CPAP machine, and it felt pretty good. That night, because of my nose irritation (the CPAP would make me sneeze because of the air blowing on that sore spot), I decided to try sleeping without my CPAP machine all night. In the back of my mind, I was wondering if maybe that was causing the nose issues... I slept great again. After a few days of no CPAP, though, the nose was no better and I was still in a panic about that. But finally after about a few days it was getting a little better. After a week it cleared entirely! It has been gone now for just about a week, and I'm feeling better than I have in years! I just went to the doc the other day, and he's still thrilled with my progress. Everything is still looking great.
It really is AMAZING! Something I was truly panicked about turns out to actually be some GREAT NEWS that had been veiled over. When I started this journey, I genuinely did not expect to ever get to the point of not needing the CPAP. I had sleep apnea BAD! 10 years ago, when I first got it, my apnea was so bad, I would sleep for 30 seconds, stop breathing and wake for 30 seconds throughout the night--all night long! The sleep clinic said it wasn't the worst they had seen, but it was right up there. I have no doubt the CPAP saved my life back then. But after being heavy for so long, most people can never go back because even if you lose the weight, the skin is still stretched at the back of the throat. I truly did not expect to ever get to the point of not needing it any more. And even moreso, I did not expect that it would cause me problems.
I can't blame the doc, he **HAD** asked me about it at that office visit three days before this thing started. I told him, "Nah! I still need it. I can tell." He told me to keep an eye on it. Wow, what a blessing.
Anyway, I'm so glad the problem is gone. It has really been interfering with things--I have not been able to workout the way I have wanted for about two months now because of it. Now I can get back to business on my workout schedule! :D
<H2>This week's failure</H2>
This week I began trying to adjust my calorie intake a bit to be more in line with these last 35 to 55 pounds. It has not exactly been a success.
I had been losing about 3 to 4 pounds a week on average these last several weeks. By increasing my calorie intake by about 500 calories a day, I figured I would slow that down a bit (by about a pound a week). While I've been staying right at the range I wanted, I've gained about a pound and a half this last week. Unfortunately I did blow it a couple of times with crummy food choices. But overall my calories have been right in the range I wanted to be at. However, I've also made some other poor choices... I've been having coffee almost every day (one day, I had almost 50 oz of the stuff). While I've been tracking the calories of the cream et al I add, I think the diuretic nature of it is messing with my results this week. I also wonder if maybe I am miscalculating some of the ingredients (cream and sugar) a bit...
I know this is something of an adjustment period. At the moment, I'm trying to decide if I want to roll back my recent change and go back to what I was doing, or stick this out but get rid of the bad choices. This weekend I have my daughter, so I'm not going to stress about it. But starting Monday, I will do one of the two. At the moment, I'm leaning toward going back to what I was doing--it was working well after all.
<H2>BCAAs</H2>
One other change that I'm making this week... When I was younger I had GREAT success with weight-lifting. I may have bad genes for fat-gain and storage, but one thing that made that a little better was that I never had an issue with gaining muscle. But this time has been a bit different. I did not worry much about it, as I've been in a weight-loss / fat-loss mode anyway. So many online guides say that gaining any real amount of muscle is just not feasible when you're in such a mode. But I know my body. Something hasn't been right, and it's been bugging me that I'm just not putting on the muscle the way I used to. I kind of chalked it up to a combination of my age and the fat-loss mode I've been in. Then one day it popped into my head that I'd always used Amino Acids when doing muscle building in the past, and I have not been using them this time.
For those that aren't familiar with this, I'm not talking about steroids, or any chemicals / hormones that stimulate the production of steroids in your own body. That stuff exists, too, and there is no way I'd go near it. What I'm talking about are simply Branched-chain Amino Acids--the building blocks of complex proteins (and consquently **MUSCLE**) in the body. I can't believe I'd forgotten that. I'm not body-builder, and I think at the beginning I figured my protein shakes would cover it. I know I've seen others talk about them on here (I think Bill, you use them, don't you?), but it didn't click till this week. So I've ordered some pretty good BCAAs. $16 on Amazon for about a month / month and a half supply. They should be coming Monday.
I'll let you know if I see a difference in my workout results after I resume taking them. I'm hoping it is what I've been missing. My gut feeling is that this will do it. I remember a personal test I did with stopping them when I was younger. What a difference they made for me then... I think it is true now too. Just wish I'd thought of it a few months ago, but the dumb nose-thing didn't exactly make workouts very feasible anyway.
<H2>THANK YOU!</H2>
Well, that's about it that's going on with me lately. I hope you ALL ARE DOING GREAT!!!
I'm sure most people didn't actually read this far, but regardless of how far you got, thank you for listening. I'll do my best to make the rounds tonight. Again, I'm sorry I've been scarce... I'll try my best to make it up to you all! You've all been so tremendous and a HUGE SUPPORT! I cannot ever begin to thank you all enough!
KEEP SMILING! 2014 is our year! Let's do it!
<small><i>"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
<b>-–Amelia Earhart</b></small></i>
<small><i>"The past is a ghost, the future a dream. All we ever have is now."
<b>-–Bill Cosby</b></small></i>
|
97.3 kg
Lost so far: 56.9 kg.
Still to go: 15.7 kg.
Diet followed: Reasonably Well.
|
Gaining 1.5 kg a Week
|