Real face

 After a slight relapse I am now feeling recovered from Covid - so I was sick for 12 days. I still have a occasional wheezy cough but feel fine. My sore feet are also much better, perhaps due to a combination of stretches and then complete rest while I was sick, so yesterday my podiatrist gave me the all-clear to exercise again (gently). Is that good or bad news?? It was funny, I hadn't ever seen him without a mask but yesterday we were chatting about his strong Scottish accent (which isn't a problem for me as my best friend in primary school had a Scottish father and I got used to it, new people couldn't understand a word he was saying!) and he said older deafer people sometimes struggled and he had to take his mask off so they could see his lips move, he pulled it down for a second and he didn't look at all as I'd thought! I hadn't realised I had imagined a face for him, but apparently I had because his actual face was a surprise. 

Jasmine gets her HSC results in a week so that is exciting and stressful. All her friends are going to Wollongong University but it doesn't teach Occupational Therapy so she's applied to Sydney, and it needs quite a high mark. If she doesn't get that she's already been accepted into easier courses in several Unis but hasn't decided what she will actually do if she doesn't get her first choice. 

It has rained so much here, all spring and summer. It's the middle of summer, in Australia, and we've used the swimming pool twice. Warm but rarely hot, and so humid. 

Sorry, not much to talk about in these days of pandemicness. 

This is why I always wear shoes

more Thursday:

It's been a hot day. We just had a very brief storm that made it more humid rather than cooler. I thought, stuff it I'll take off my socks and enclosed shoes for once. Walked through kitchen. Eew, a bit sticky. And gritty. Ok, ignore that, will sweep later. Sit in rolly desk chair and tuck chair under desk. Wack heel with foot of rolly chair. Skin removed. Go back to bedroom and put shoes and socks back on.

For some reason this made me think of the first time I went for a promotion in my public service job in my 20s. I had an interview in another building, and afterwards got stuck in the stairwell on my way out. None of the doors opened from inside the stairwell without a passcode. I had to knock and get them to let me out.

I didn't get the promotion.

A delicate flower

 

Sunday:

After a couple of weeks of almost no exercise (just a little walking most days) I have lost any fitness I managed to build up. I did 45 mins of very gentle exercise yesterday: I started with Kinect Adventures which is moderate intensity (or high, with some games) but quickly had to switch to Carnival which many would say isn't exercise at all. But it had quite a bit of arm movement (tossing rings and throwing balls) which mobilised my stiff shoulders and got some blood moving, so I felt it was a good way to get back into it. That afternoon I was sore around my ribs. It took me a while to work out it was the muscles, from the exercise! Arg! That made me sore? I really am delicate.

This morning I didn't get started for a while and in the end only had half an hour before other activities took over the day, but I did a mix of high and low intensity (Adventures) and was left tired and sweaty so at least I felt like I had done a bit of work in the time.

I've been going barefoot a bit around the house as part of my plan to start toughening my feet, and they get sore pretty quickly and the skin on one of my toes is cracked. Pathetic, huh? Being barefoot on carpet, super-low intensity exercise, and my body is protesting.

This afternoon was taken up with five hours of watching a couple of hundred children (including our own) doing their end-of-year gymnastics performance. I quite liked it, but five hours? That whole last hour, with a toddler screaming next to me because every other kid in the gym was getting a medal and he wasn't, and the hard metal bench making my behind ache, was moderately horrible. But both our kids did really well. It's great they have a sport they both enjoy, so that being active is fun.

Sweat is fat crying.
Toughen up, princess.

photo from Swem library

Tender feet and pre-Christms detox

Sunday:

I really need to toughen up my feet a bit. The problem is that I always wear proper supportive shoes with socks; generally I wear my crosstrainers, running shoes or walking shoes -- the only other shoes I regularly wear are only slightly less sporty. No heels, no sandals, never barefoot. As a result my feet are as soft and smooth as a baby's. I have certainly never needed one of those grater things that scrape dried skin off. But on the down side, they can't take much abuse. A long walk, or even a short walk in the heat, costs me a few layers of skin. So I have a campaign this summer to get a bit hardier. I spent a few hours this weekend barefoot, mostly inside on soft carpet but a little bit on grass. I plan to buy some sandals this year, and wear them for short periods at first to get used to the horrible discomfort of the rubbing. By the end of summer I'll be able to stride boldly over hot coals!

I managed to get in a short walk yesterday morning and another one this evening as the roast was cooking, but we spent most of the weekend driving to Sydney to see family and then back again. And eating. On the way home, after our second on-the-road McDonald's in two days, I resolved to do some kind of detox. There are five more work/school days before we are all on holidays a week before Christmas, and I am banning junk for those five days. I had a bit of trouble decided exactly what my detox would involve, but as my diabetes dietitian has advised me to eat a certain number of carbs per meal I have decided not to cut out all processed food; I will keep in bread and pasta. But no junk. My definition of junk includes chips, chocolate, biscuits, cake, deep-fried anything, butter, alcohol, cream, lollies. Pretty much anything from a jar or packet, laden with sugar and/or salt and/or preservatives. I will still have a small amount of low-GI fruit sugar in my tea; I am still slowly working on reducing that. Lots of fruit and vegetables and lean meat. I've found a surprisingly nice low-fat cheese, and I already use low-fat milk.

This is not a particularly drastic detox, in fact it is just a healthy diet that I should be eating the majority of the time anyway. I've been slumping into bad habits lately, yet with Christmas two weeks away I am not ready to commit to a "forever" kind of change. For now, I am committing to five days. I think it is achievable, although there are already some hurdles lined up. I'll let you know how I go.

picture of bare feet by smallestbones (not my feet)

Wednesday weigh-in: 78.6 kg

Wednesday:

My weight has been hovering between 78 and 79 kg for a few weeks now, no change there.

The soles of my feet were still a bit sore this morning. One friend suggested that I get some extra padding for inside my running shoes, my husband thinks I probably just have to toughen them up a bit. Maybe both? I'll get some inserts, and more pairs of wicking socks, and try to build up foot stamina. I used to get sore feet after about 3 or 4 km, now I'm up to 7 or 8 before the soles start to feel abraded.

My legs were also very sore (in a good way, like I'd worked the muscles hard) so I decided to have a rest day. Just half an hour of walking. And I had plenty of non-exercise things to catch up on. It's kind of funny/sad to think that three days of two hours a day is enough to exhaust me. I've had 22 hours a day when I'm not exercising to rest. Nevertheless. That is my level of fitness right now.

So I read and rated six short stories that had been submitted for publication, reviewed one book that I read a while ago, finished filing away papers from when we did our tax return on the weekend, folded some of the mountains of laundry etc.

I had written to Diabetes ACT (my state - stands for Australian Capital Territory) about whether or not I had to count carbohydrates, since my doctor didn't bring it up and my dietician friend said I didn't need to since I wasn't injecting insulin. I wasn't sure though; if I was diabetic I would have to but why not for a pre-diabetic? Today I got a response that recommended I do.

 "Slightly increased blood glucose levels will not cause the micro- and macro vascular complications seen in diabetes, but it stimulates excess insulin secretion that can contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes."

Good to get that cleared up. I am going to go to an "Introduction to prediabetes" information session they are holding in a couple of weeks.

I've been making a better effort at tracking the past few days. So many things to work on.

Intervals

Tuesday:

I had been looking forward to doing my interval training today out in the lovely spring weather but when I woke up a bit sore this morning (from BodyPump yesterday, maybe there is a reason 5 k training is only every second day!) I started to feel a bit scared that I wouldn't be able to do it. The brief was to run for 1.00 minute eight times with 1.30 walk in between. Could I even run (jog) for a whole minute? I had no idea. I probably had done it, but eight times in a row?

After taking the kids to school I faffed around at home for a while, putting it off, but finally drove to the lake around 10.00 am. Warm day with a lot of cloud cover and a little breeze, perfect. Had my iPhone, hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen.

After a 5 min warm-up walk RunKeeper beeped and I started on my first run. Quick short steps, trit-trot-trit-trot. There was a sculpture of Whitlam, a politician, beside the path a bit ahead of me and I thought it was about the right distance. I wasn't far off, I was nearly there when the beep notified me my minute was over. That wasn't too hard. I could do that eight times, surely. I worked on my running rhythm and style, taking slightly longer more relaxed steps. Third interval was hard. Fourth interval was really hard. I'm sure this would be ridiculously easy for anyone used to running -- a minute at a time?! So slow it was barely faster than my walk! Ha! But it was hard for me.

Fifth interval I somehow suddenly hit my stride. It felt much better. I could have gone further instead of slumping back to a walk. And the final three intervals were the same. Not easy, never easy, but they felt much right-er than the first four. I did my eight intervals without stopping. So I just have to learn to keep that up for 30 mins straight ...

I was 2 km around the 5 km lake loop and kept walking, having the occasional drink from the bubblers (public drinking fountains). The breeze was blowing seeds off the trees, each one buoyed up by a wisp of white fluff. It was like walking through a warm blizzard. I got back to my starting point feeling strong.

And then I went around again, to achieve my personal goal for the month of walking 10 km straight. I started to need to pee after the first lap, but Floriade had just finished on the weekend and there were fences all around the park while they dismantled stuff so I had to go a fair way. After that brief stop I was suddenly tired and sore. And my feet started to really hurt. I wasn't bothered by the tired legs, but the balls of my feet were so sore that I was trying to walk on the outside edges of my feet for the last kilometre. Not so fun. I used to get sore feet doing 5 km walking, now at least I get to about 8 km. Presumably the wicking socks are helping. But that last bit was miserable. They are still quite sore now, a couple of hours later after a shower, but at least I can walk.

The school day is nearly over and I haven't got anything done! Except exercise. I've got my exercise done today.