MsLouise

Hey Guys, Sorry I disappeared for a few days, I didn't mean to! I'd wanted a little bit to re-think my challenge and then life just got in the way and I was silent for longer than I meant to be. I'm still here! Thank you all so much for checking on me and continuing to offer support. I am shaky, but I am still here. I have eaten some less than healthy things, but I am still here. I have not revised my challenge, but I am still here. I am in pain, but I am still here. I have had a couple of dark days, but I am still here. The short recap of what's been going on: I realized at the end of week three that I needed to revamp my challenge to factor in my uncertain health, and then in one of those ironic life moments, my uncertain health got in the way of me getting that done. Ha ha! Good one, life. I plan to have a revised challenge ready to go by Monday, but I am pretty uncertain what that's going to look like. The long recap of what's been going on: everything happens at once, and I am not as strong as I like to think I am. Don't get me wrong, I am basically okay. I am a survivor, and this will pass. Nothing major has gone wrong, just lots of minor things that add up to a mentally, emotionally, and physically stressful time. I feel like there's a domino effect happening, and I suppose that all the stress is adding to it. The next few paragraphs are me getting my complaints out in the hopes that it will help me, so please feel free to skip. There will be a good things section after to bring it back around to the positive. My original sciatic problem is acting up, and my knee and hip are still messed up. I've had to totally scale back my exercise and that took a big mental adjustment. I have a couple of other long standing things that are acting up as well, namely a neck/shoulder tension thing that gives me killer headaches, and a female problem that exacerbates everything else. And then there's the GI stuff, which I can barely stand to even think about. Grr. Emotionally, whew, this has been a tough week. Being in pain is exhausting, medical testing is exhausting, my family is exhausting, and oh HAI insomnia! The medical testing turned out ok in the end, but it was much more stressful than I had thought it would be. I foolishly went by myself, and then realized once I got into it that it would have been nice to have someone there with me. Lesson learned. Of course, I couldn't have known going in that the "one" set of images would turn into six plus an ultrasound, but now I know I should take someone with me to this stuff. Unfortunately, the stress of going in for "one" set of images and then being called back from the waiting room time after time after time threw me right back into a bad old space of remembering some very unpleasant medical stuff that happened when I was little. Added to all the other stressors, that equalled an insanely bad night two nights ago. I do often have insomnia and sometimes nightmares, but never like that. It was really bad. According to my sleep app, I got 15 minutes of actual sleep. I was in pain, so I had trouble getting to sleep, but then once I would drop off, I would have terrible nightmares and wake in a complete panic. Over and over. I would read until I passed out with the book in my hand, only to drop right into another nightmare. That's a night I was relieved to see the back of. I took yesterday off because I was so tired and upset I couldn't see straight. I didn't sleep, but I just relaxed all day and got lots of snuggles from our loaner kitties. That helped. After some family stress, I had a realization in the car today that it's time for me to re-jigger my expectations so that I am not constantly surprised, hurt, and disappointed and can just enjoy the good parts. Basically, I got upset because my brother (who is by far and away my least stressful family member) wouldn't go ten miles out of his way to pick me up. I'm flying over seven hundred miles to see him and his family tomorrow, and he can't be bothered to drive ten lousy miles to pick me up?! Seriously? Instead, I will have to transfer from one public transit system to another with my luggage and add 30-45 minutes onto my public transit journey. Ugh. I was going around and around in my head, because this is NOT how I treat people and it made me feel unwelcome and unloved, and then I remembered...it's up to ME how I feel. I'm not in charge of what anyone else does, but I'm in charge of how I feel. I can't change my brother, but I can change how I feel. I do still want to go, and I want to see my niece and nephew, and I want to be relaxed and happy when I'm there, and to feel happy about spending time with my brother. So, instead of expecting my brother to behave differently, or having a series of fights, I will change how I think of him, and just remove the things that make me so upset, like just assume that they will never pick me up from anywhere, etc. Please note, this is not me putting up with abuse (it's just a car ride), this is me trying to make this weekend be as pleasant as possible for my own benefit. I'm hopeful that I will make it through this weekend on a positive note. I have another family trip coming up the weekend after this one with a much more stressful family member, so I need to start working on coping strategies for that. I normally keep time spent with my family to a minimum to preserve my mental health and space it out better, but this weekend's trip was a re-schedule so it wound up back-to-back with another family trip. Okay, that's enough getting it out of my system! On to the positive! Here come a few words on things I am grateful for. I am still here! I don't know what my challenge will look like going forward, but I am still here, and I am still committed to improving my health. I am grateful to still be here and to be moving along on this journey, wherever it takes me. My husband. I have no idea how I found this kind, patient, and generous person, but I am very lucky to have him in my life. Loaner kitties and end-of-summer joys. We're house sitting for some friends with an amazing house, amazing garden, and amazing kitties and loving it. Their house is much nicer than our place, so it's like we're on vacation. I've had so many lovely kitty cuddles this week. We've also made amazing tomato sauce from the garden, and enjoyed a few late summer blackberries. Friends. In real life, and here. Seriously, it means a lot to me that I can come here and figure out what my road to a healthier life looks like as part of an amazing, supportive, community. I'll be catching up with threads over the weekend, and hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for the encouragement! I hope you are going strong, and enjoying yoga. Thanks, Mistr. This is a good reminder to give my body at least the basics--nutrients and sleep, and those alone will help with everything else. I am definitely feeling that meditation is going to be part of my new challenge. Hey techmom, thanks for checking in. You're right about pain, I just need to learn to listen a little earlier. I am adapting for sure. Into what remains to be seen. Yes. I do! I do want to do all the hard things, and I will get there! I am so much stronger and tougher in my head than in real life. I always think that I sound really straightforward and tough, but when I hear my voice on recordings, I'm confused about who that soft-spoken person is. Thanks for the encouragement! You have been such a wonderful supporter and source of inspiration. Thanks, Teirin! I have some ideas about my revised goals, and much as I hate to admit it, you are probably right on with your suggested goal. Ah, selective hearing. Hey Darwins_Demon! Thanks for checking in. You know, as helpful as advice is, support is just as helpful, and I appreciate yours. Being healthy is glorious, and honestly, even though I have some challenges, I still have it really good, and I am grateful for that every day. I am also extremely grateful to have health insurance right now. I'm working on my goals! Don't be sad, Ash! I'm here! I'm working on my stuff, things are still moving, albeit slowly. Thanks! The limitations thing is one of those lessons I just keep on learning, over and over again. Every time I think I'm there, it's like "Oh, there's another chapter?!" Being here and being part of this community is really good for me, and is super helpful in getting me to keep working on the chapter about asking for help. That's one of the hardest ones for me, and it seems like there is always a new way to learn it. I am also really working on separating out my self worth from what I can do. My value is not in how many dishes I can or can't do, or how many squats I can or can't do, I am valuable no matter what. That's something I will probably always work on. Thanks! I love what you said about making the food choices that will prepare me for when I can do harder exercise.

Congrats on making it to week four! Thanks for the kind words on the knee. I'm working on it, but my natural tendency to do stuff too intensely is biting me in the ass. Over the weekend, I managed to give my knee an ice burn by putting the ice pack directly on it for too long. Oops! Good on you for spending time with your Dad when you can. Exercise will still be there later. 60 second planks are amazing! Your core strength is certainly improving. Don't forget to celebrate where you're at now. Your past achievements are there for you to be proud of, not for you to use as a stick to beat yourself up with. I wanted to say thanks for that link! I'm benched from yoga for a while, but I watched that and got a lot out of just watching. I really like her style, and her instructions make sense to me. How was your weekend?

We are halfway through this challenge! Congrats on making it to week four. re: yoga, right now I am having to work on changing my goal to meditating due to physical issues, but long term I am also hoping to hold a half moon pose, hold warrior III, and progress on handstand prep. We have several of those 'new things' goals in common, maybe we should challenge each other to break them up into achievable bits? Like, pick blog name by x deadline, join language group/download language software, make a yoga date with a friend? I'm always saying I want to start a blog, but haven't, and I'd really like to get back to learning French. So many props for getting back on track after pizza! I've been avoiding it as I can see myself turning into a junk food monster after a taste of pizza, so I admire your willpower there. How was your weekend?

Congratulations on making it to week four! Your progress is incredible, and I am so happy to hear that your ankle is coming along! Haha! Hey, props for recognizing what it was at that point and getting some food. Mmm, grapes. I did something similar when I changed up my schedule over the weekend. I normally don't like to eat before yoga, but I normally go after work when I've had some food throughout the day. Saturday, I went to a yoga class on an empty stomach, and wound up coming *this* close to passing out after an inverted pose (I have low blood pressure). That stir fry sounds delicious!

Ash, I am so proud of you. That is all. WOOT! You and Jess and both killing those planks! And now I am singing "We got the beat" by the Go-Gos in my head except with "plank" in place of "beat." You got the plank! Yep. Scales are liars. Don't trust them for a second. P.S. Grammy made us zucchini bread, and wants to know if you need some lasagne. Have I mentioned that she ships? (yes, really. When my brother was in college, she routinely sent 20lb care packages of "goodies" to his dorm to make sure that his dormmates wouldn't starve).

Congrats on making it to week four! So glad you had a good time out there, and woot on doing such a long weighted hike! 11 miles is no joke. Haha, of course one of them is coming to Utah! You'll get here. I'm headed up to Montana over labor day weekend, and then we have a trip planned to Escalante in September, and I'm really excited for both of those. Did you wind up rolling out your feet? I'd love to hear how that went. I let the assistant at physical therapy roll my IT band about 10 days ago, and it has hurt like a <insert bad word here> since, but I've heard that using rolling on muscles can be good. WOOT! Straight As in week three, go you! Oh, that upstream wind! Paddling as hard as you can to stay in place is hard work. Sounds like you guys had a great time out on the water. We picked up some paddles over the weekend, so we're good to take our kayak out as soon as we can swing the time. Yay cat sitting! We are cat and house sitting for some friends right now, and I am loving having kitty snuggle times. Enjoy!

First of all, thanks very much to everyone who has checked in. I am grateful for all the support. I'm still here, still working on my challenge, but it's probably time for me to overhaul the whole shebang. I feel discouraged because I felt like I was really making headway with my physical therapy until other issues cropped up. My knee went first, now my hip is angry, and the original sciatic issue is still acting up. It feels like every attempt to get stronger results in a new problem, which is like playing an immensely frustrating and unwinnable game of whack-a-mole. Despite how much I wish it were otherwise, my body is just not able to do the things I want to do right now, and it's time for me to stop beating myself up over that and take control over what I can. I can't force my leg to magically stop hurting, and I can't make things better by forcing my body to do exercises that hurt more than they help. What I can do is to redefine success. For today, that means finding a way to treat myself with kindness. What that means specifically, I don't know yet, I just know that beating myself over the head with guilt for things that my body can't do is not helpful, and it's not kind. I know that forcing my body to do exercises that hurt to the point of tears is not kind, and I know that I need to listen to ALL of the things my doctor and physical therapist say, not just the ones I want to hear (case in point, the physical therapist gave me new exercises and told me to NOT to work through pain--I want to listen to the part where I have new exercises to do, and not to the part that says I have to stop when they hurt). For anyone who might want to chime in with suggestions of "What about this exercise, or that exercise," please save that advice for later. What I really need right now is encouragement in accepting my body's current limits and doing what I can within those parameters. I am in control of what I choose to eat, and what I choose to do. I'll get started on redefining my challenge when I have a better handle on what I need to do. I suspect that Melyssa's suggestion of focusing on the meditative parts of yoga might be a good thing, and I know that eating healthy food will be crucial. I don't have the energy to recap week three right now, so suffice it to say that my grade for week three is an A for Acceptable.

This is exactly what I needed to hear today. Thanks for that. MinionLove, I'm really impressed with how you've scaled your challenge to taking every day as a new challenge. Well done!

In hindsight, it's probably a miracle that my dad didn't abandon me as a child for my ridiculously picky eating habits. That combined with severe allergies and an epic stubborn streak meant that I turned my nose up at most everything when I was a kid. I've branched out since then, thank goodness. I agree with those who have said to try using bacon and/or dairy as a way to get you started with the veg while making them taste delicious. Also, UltanBoyd's advice is spot-on. Vegetables can taste completely different (and MUCH better) if they were grown for taste rather than transportability, and it's important to eat them when they are optimally ripe, as well as when they are prepared correctly. I always thought I hated tomatoes until I lived in California and had home grown heirloom tomatoes. Yum! Turns out, I just hate those mealy flavorless grocery store tomatoes. I was also deeply convinced that I hated brussels sprouts, but it turns out I just hate them when they are overcooked (sorry, Grandma!). Can you get to a farmer's market? Those places are amazing for trying new fruit and veg, vendors will often give you samples and ideas about how to prepare their wares. If not, is there a fancy market or ethnic grocery around you could get to once in a while? When I am bored to death of broccoli, sometimes I go to the grocery store and buy the weirdest looking fruit or vegetable I can find. Turns out, jackfruit is delicious, but pepino melons are now dead to me. I can personally confirm that this bacon mushroom cauliflower recipe was incredibly yummy, and really didn't taste like vegetables at all. This one was nice because the cauliflower wasn't pureed, so it still had a nice texture rather than just being paste. I also really love this roasted cauliflower recipe. You can change up the flavor of the cauliflower by using differently flavored olive oils or various herbs. The other thing you might try is bartering. Do you have any friends who are good cooks? Offer to trade them something if they will make you their favorite vegetable recipe, or just plain old ask them for the recipe. Good luck!

Happy Friday! That's fascinating. It does make sense, and I wish I'd done that as a girl. I've really been getting a lot out of short pre-bed meditation, if you can even call it that since I have no idea what I'm doing. We have this ambient sounds app, and I put on the "jungle at night" noises with a heavy dose of rain, lay down in the dark, and check in with my body and try to focus on breathing through each part of my body while concentrating on it. While I have a lot to learn, I've been pretty surprised at how helpful I am finding it with my sleep issues. The other night, my legs were super twitchy, so I did this little meditation routine, and the twitching stopped after just a few minutes! It was such a relief, usually it lasts quite a while. Bwahaha! Now the vacuum is a spotted robotic dog named Spot in my head. I had quite the chuckle over your account of causing a campground wide barking outbreak with you laughing over that thread. Same here! I love that we're starting our yoga journey at similar places, and it's really inspiring to come here and see what you're doing, how it's going, and what you're thinking about in your yoga practice. I am with you. The challenge is *really* helping to keep me from ditching my healthy eating, since I just refuse to have to post horrible things I ate to my thread. I will cop to having a glass of wine right now, though. Margaritas sound delicious! Keep at it! We will not be defeated by week three slump. I decided to branch out to keep me from getting bored, and watched (without doing, stupid knee) this beginner vinyasa flow I saw in another thread here: http://www.doyogawithme.com/content/beginner-basics-flow Loved it. I really like how that teacher explains things, and I was able to get a lot out of it just by watching. I look forward to being able to do it all again. Oh, Kiwi, you would mention pie. That is a huge weakness of mine, and if I do say so myself, I am kind of a pie baking ninja. Sometimes I even sneak into other people's kitchens and make pie for them. Sometimes I even make miniaturized pie-on-a-stick, which has got to be just about the cutest food ever. Pie pops for the win! AND margaritas. Auuuuugh. I am waiting for a week when I really need a pick-me-up, and then I am busting out steak-a-rita night as one of my planned off plan meals, which is when we grill steak and drink a margarita with it. I love SteakaRita night. Melyssa, how's the end of this week going? I hope you have killer weekend plans.

Oh look it's Friday! Is there a special happy dance for Fridays? Well, okay, no, I can't *actually* hack your calendar. What I *can* do is this: Haha! You tricked your brain into more jumping jacks! I tricked mine into calming down the other night when it was making my legs super twitchy. Yay brain whammy! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go help my Grammy make you a sandwich. P.S. when we used to stay with her while in grade school, she'd send us to school with packed lunches. Only, regular lunch bags couldn't contain the enormity of Grammy's packed lunches, so she had to use full sized paper grocery bags. That's right, 20 liters of food. For a six year old's lunch. We used to feed entire tables of schoolchildren.

Woot! That is amazing, well done!

Okay, I get that nonemergency medical care is not on the table right now. If you don't have access to a doctor, use common sense. If an exercise causes any kind of sharp pain, don't do it. It sounds like you know the difference between "working out is hard" "sore muscles" and "OW! Something's wrong!" so pay attention. Seriously, if something is causing sharp pain, just don't do it. There's tons of other stuff you can do. So much sympathy. I also live in Utah, and I know all about how much the Utah high risk insurance pool sucks. The fact that I am uninsurable outside of that horrible pool is actually one of the big reasons we finally got married (my husband has great health insurance). Good luck!

My best gear advice is this: GO DO IT FIRST. Buy gear later. Sure, it's good to get some basics especially if you can't borrow them, but hold off on major gear purchases until you know what's what to avoid wasting your money on gear that won't be a good fit for you. Once you start finding what you like and need, gear sales and swaps are an awesome way to save money. You won't know which activities you'll love the most (day hikes? overnight backpacking? snowshoeing? canyoneering? go try it and find out what you love) until you get out there and do them, and you will learn a ton about gear from being around it. Can you make use of existing outdoorsy friends, or use meetup to make some? Get out there and do the activities, borrow tons of gear and see what works for you. You can also rent gear from places like outdoor equipment stores, and University rec programs. We are now in the position of being people with a ridiculous gear room who are always lending stuff out, but that's exactly how we built our supplies up, by hanging out with folks who do the stuff we like to do, asking about their gear, and borrowing stuff to see what we liked. Man, I love gear. If you're looking to pore over lists of what people take on various kinds of trips, this place has an awesome forum community. That said, there's a huge difference between necessary gear for solo trips and necessary gear for group trips. I strongly advise against solo trips until you really know what you're doing, because stuff happens. I hate to carry sh*$ I don't have to, so I am all about asking what everyone is bringing so that we don't wind up with twelve utility knives and no toilet paper. Anyway, your gear questions will pretty much answer themselves as you get out there and try stuff. Have fun!

Yay reading! Heh. Maybe try Patrick Rothfuss' series The Kingkiller Chronicle? Full disclosure, though, he hasn't finished writing them and could still pull a Robert Jordan or a George R.R. Martin on us. I have really enjoyed Jim Butcher's stuff! Do you have anything else like that to recommend? Right now I have Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, Exuberance by Kay Redfield Jamison, and some reference books on my list, on my nightstand, or in my purse.

Hello! I wanted to come in and say well done so far! Glad to meet another member of team gimpy knee. Yay! I totally love this idea. I am a big believer in laughing at everything, including myself and horrible life events. I always know I'm on my way to getting through the worst stuff when I am able to laugh about it, and I am always saying "I know this will be funny later." I spent a little bit of time back in school reading up about humor in the face of truly horrifying events. Have you read Sherman Alexie at all? He's one who does that really well--his story "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" is a good starter. Cheers!

Hey Kiwi! Congrats on making it to week three in such good form! I love how you're breaking your exercise up into chunks throughout the day. Do you find it easier to get it done that way? And, if you don't mind answering this one, what are you doing about clothes? I mean, changing into workout clothes that many times every day seems...hard, but that might just be laziness talking. Hah, Melyssa, I am so with you. I basically refuse to go to Ikea without a safe person, and I usually only visit Trader Joe's first thing in the morning before it gets crowded. I will happily go hungry for a couple of hours so that I can eat lunch at a more peaceful time. Costco at a busy time is a total nightmare for me (I swear that place has the rudest people, everywhere else people at least apologize for running you over with their cart, but not at Costco!).

Morning! Laughing is the best. Are you ready to be inspired? Maybe flex your jaw so it's ready to drop: http://www.rebellesociety.com/2013/08/13/the-worlds-oldest-yoga-teacher-turns-95-today/ Scroll down to the white poses. That's right, she's doing flying pigeon (or something like it) at the age of 95!!! There's hope for us yet. Okay, so I spent a bunch of time this morning trying different yoga glo knee therapy classes to no avail. So then I tried that down dog class but couldn't make it through, there was just too much hands and knees, or knees folded, stuff going on for me right now. I'm also pretty sure I need to work on downward dog later in the day when I'm less stiff. Hope you have a great day!

Yeah, Meta, where you at? We miss you.

Transcript of a conversation between me and my knee this morning: Me: "Hey, knee, how are you doing? Wanna do some exercise?" Knee: "No! I'll get all sweaty, and it will hurt! If you make me I'll get my friend the lower back to beat you up!" Me: "Okay, how about some gentle knee therapy yoga?" Knee: "I guess. Maybe. Am I still your princess?" Me: "Yes. You're my pretty, pretty princess. Now can we do some yoga?" Knee: "Wait, do these yoga pants make me look fat?" Me: "No, you look great!" Knee: "You didn't even look. You don't love me anymore." Me: "I don't think this is what that yoga teacher meant when he said 'take a moment and check in with yourself.'" And end scene. And then we played a round of Goldilocks yoga, wherein one video was too hard, and another was too annoying (seriously, who makes a knee therapy yoga session that has you spend half of your time on your hands and knees??!!), and so on, except that I never found one that was just right. So I spent an hour trying and failing to find a gentle workout to do. Is this a failure because I didn't work out, or a success because I didn't push through pain? You be the judge. Thankfully tomorrow is gym day, and I feel more confident about what I can do there now that I have modified physical therapy exercises to do. Last night I made this bacon mushroom cauliflower "risotto," and it was divine. It was an instant favorite, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit how fast it vanished. I'm not deluding myself that bacon is health food, but it IS on my plan, and it was an insanely satisfying earthy treat after these weeks of lean meat and veg. I highly recommend it as a way to indulge without giving in to rice or potatoes.

I know, I thought that inbreeding comparison was pretty funny, especially coming from here in Utah where we do have some pretty inbred communities. About the handstands, not really. It's there in my head as an idea of something I'd love to work on in the future, and I'm in total awe of folks who can do them, but I'm not ready. My main yoga goal right now is to find a modified practice I can do without hurting myself (struggling with some sciatic and knee issues). I've been trying out a few different videos this morning, and I have a yoga basics class at a studio this weekend, so hopefully it will start coming together. Before the knee started acting up, I was really enjoying a vinyasa class. I love seeing your handstand progress, though! That video earlier in the thread is awesome. How's the hot yoga treating you? re: House of Leaves, there's a lot to like about it, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. I got pretty annoyed sometimes with the style, but overall wound up really liking it. This review does a good job of praising its high points while pointing out some flaws.

Thanks for this! I'm going to give a modified version a shot this week. I've had postassium and magnesium repeatedly recommended to me by healthcare professionals, and I'm always looking for a way to get them in without supplements. Do you happen to know which ingredient(s) the magnesium is coming from? I can't do the avocado, but I'm down with everything else in there.

Hello! I wandered in, and love your yoga progress! Props on your handstand achievements. I hope to get there someday. I happened to read an article about sugar in my local paper yesterday morning. If you're looking for ammunition in the fight against processed sugar, this might help. Without having read the actual study, I'm leery of relying on the accuracy of news reporting about science, so take with a grain of salt. Hope you're killing week three! P.S. also love the two quotes in your current signature, those are great.

Hey, welcome to the rebellion! That is a great motivation. I so hear you on recovering from injury/muscle imbalance stuff. I'm in hardcore physical therapy, but sometimes it feels like every step forward equals two steps back. I love that you're diving into this with headfirst, and if you are able to hang with your plan, that's great! If it gets to feeling a bit much, maybe think about scaling back the exercise goal? It depends where you're starting from, but if you're recovering from an injury, that seems like a LOT. That's amazing. Good on you for taking the time to show her some dumbell ropes. Here's to finishing this challenge strong!

Belatedly checking in to say GO JESS GO! You're building great habits, and I suspect your mom will be proud of you no matter what, and so will we. Ash, you have to put fuel in your body! Don't make me hack your calendar and add the world's dorkiest reminders to eat, or even worse, send my little old Grammy over there. She grew up with 13 brothers and sisters on a farm in Iowa during the Great Depression, and no one within a 200 yard radius of her will ever go hungry again (seriously, she will actually throw food right at your face hoping to catch you with your mouth open). Way to go on your measurement progress!