Dr. Appointment/Exercise

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Better late than never right? I stink....

Went to the Dr. for X-rays and a follow up this week. Of course the Doctor himself does the consult, Pre-op and surgery then leaves the Post-Op dirty work to the nurse practitioner. Meaning when (and I mean when,not if) we have pain or issues we'd like to discuss we can't really yell at the sweet NP (and I do really love her!) because she didn't technically do anything wrong so there is no blaming her. It's no wonder the Dr. keeps his office in the back of the clinic behind a secured area. Someone learned the hard way at some point wouldn't you say-ha!

For the most part I'm feeling decent. No more feeling like a bobble head, sleeping is slowly but surely getting better now that I sleep on my U shape pillow. My only issue still is that burning pain in my right collar bone,which is not localized anymore and has dramatically decreased,however, I still have a VERY weak muscle in the right side of my neck that still hurts when I lift my head off the pillow and there seems to be a constant low wattage pain in that muscle that radiates up into the back/side of my head and down my shoulder. It's REALLY annoying. Previously the NP hasn't been concerned about it,saying it's normal because of the pulling and tugging they did during surgery and how they pulled my shoulders/arms down and secured them to the bed and then put my neck in a funky brace to expose my throat,and that it'll get better. But at this weeks visit she expressed some concern. Gave me a prescription for massages & PT, and a low dose of a nerve med. I'm sold on the massages,not pumped about the PT (driving/wasting time/$) and not sold on the meds. So I'm in limbo pondering it all. NP said no mowing the lawn or jogging still. Also says she wants to follow me still and to come back in 2 months and see where things are,if I'm feeling great in the meantime then I can cancel my appointment but if I'm still dealing with issues then I'm to come in because then she'll order another MRI and see if "another disk might be constricted causing the muscle pain".

You have GOT to be kidding me????

:::SIGH:::

Thinking about feeling fine before surgery yet now dealing with pain after surgery,I can see why Dr.s hand out depression medicine along with pain meds. This can really bring a persons spirits down. It's been 13 weeks. Do you look at it as what it is,13 weeks? or do you look at it as only 13 weeks?! And the dreaded Million Dollar question is, is this my new normal? Lord,I pray it isn't!

Moving on..

So with that bit of cheery news I figured I'd turn my cheek and direct myself in another direction and go find my happy place. No I didn't take a trip to Hawaii or something fun like that. I'm talking 2010. The New Year. Fresh Start. Getting in shape!

I'm back on the weight loss bandwagon. again. for the 15-hundredth time.

Oh really? you too? well then... ;)

Instead of going gung-hoe like I usually do and then getting burned out after a week I've decided to put my expensive Wii Fit to good use. I now alternate days of doing the Wii fit and walking 2.5-3 miles. Leaves me with a 'wanting more' kind of feeling rather than 'do I have to..again' feeling. So far it's working!

A typical Wii Fit session looks something like this-

10 minutes of tennis (alternating arms)
3 minutes hula hoopin' to the right
3 minutes hula hoopin' to the left
7 minutes in Mii step class
" " repeat
10 minutes of skiing, tight rope walking, bubble balance, marble balance,
15 minutes of strength training exercises: squats,lunges,single leg extensions,torso twists,single leg twists,sideways leg lift,tricep extension & planks.
4 games of bowling (alternating arms)

= over an hour of play time..err.. exercise.

On my walking days I warm up for 10 minutes,then keeping my speed the same the whole time,I alternate between walking normal fast speed and walking really fast in this shimmy motion moving my legs and hips in a fast wiggly way. Remember years ago the infomercial,was it Walk away the Pounds?,about listening to their CD while it tells you to walk fast for 2 minutes,slow for 3,fast for 2,really slow for 1,and then seeing ladies walking on the sidewalk wiggling their tushies? Yea..that's pretty much what I do but on a 2 on/ 2 off scale AND in the privacy of my own home. Believe me,everyone will thank me :)

I think the key is intervals! Switching it up constantly through your routine so your body freaks out and doesn't have the time to adjust.

So it's been 8 days since working out. I made a Wii Fit 2 week goal of losing 2 lbs thinking it wasn't unrealistic. I decided to Wii fit weigh myself today at 1 week and see where I was at.

I've lost .9 lbs.

For some out there reason I was hoping that since I've been sitting on my butt for the last 13 weeks that maybe I would get a jump start and lose that full 2 lbs in the first week (if not a smidge more). Craig pointed out to me that my Wii goal for 2 weeks was 2 lbs and that the Wii says I need to lose 1.1 more lbs to meet my goal..meaning the Wii is calculating on a 10th scale so technically I lost more than the actual .9 lbs..it's more like .15 lb. Just this shy of 1 lb,so technically I did make my half way goal.

Then as I thought about the past week,eating habits,exercising etc.. and looking where I could improve I realized I wasn't even working out to my full capacity!! I hadn't been jogging & burning & sweating calories out because I'm not allowed to jar my neck AT ALL so everything I do has to be low key. I've barely been making a dent in the sweating department just walking. NOW it's all making sense! I've always sworn that my key to weight loss is jogging jogging jogging! I lose weight jogging.

So..for barely working out compared to what I used to do,an almost 1 lb weight loss isn't too shabby after all?!

And hopefully in a couple months I'll be down 10 lbs so that by the time I can start running again I'll be a little lighter on the feet. If I am going to take up running again,the less I weigh will have a huge effect on the jarring of my neck. The lighter I am the bouncier steps and lighter impact..the heavier I am the clunkier the steps. I'm on the right track I think..one pound at a time.

One more thing! I've been doing planks (google it) and boy oh boy what a core exercise that is! If I were to pick one strength training exercise to do a day it's by far planks! My tummy feels tighter (remember 3 c-sections?)and it totally targets that area,upper body for sure along with the rest of my body and only takes a couple minutes a day. I noticed yesterday that my shoulder pain I've been having has gone down some since my Dr. appointment on Monday. Maybe I need/needed PT after all? or what I'm doing is working?

Lets hope & pray!

Christmas pics/updates coming soon.