Cat's Exercise Diary

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Update 7/22/15: After work yesterday, I still felt fairly energetic, so I walked my dog. That went well, the weather was nice. We didn't meet up with her pack and we did see her enemies (there are 2 dogs she hates, they always bite her in the butt which is probably her least favorite thing ever) but she just barked at them once and then we all moved on in opposite directions. So everything went pretty well.

After our walk, my right hip was still feeling pretty messed up and my left calf for some reason started hurting too. I took a bath with Epsom salt - I don't think the stuff actually works for joint or muscle pain, but it also can't really hurt and it makes my bath smell nice. And at any rate, my hip and calf feel somewhat better today! Not sure if it was just the hot bath, or if the Epsom salt actually helped somehow.

I'm going to play it by ear today - if I'm feeling up to it this evening, I will probably walk the dog again. If not, I'll just rest. My left knee is bothering me a little bit right now (it does that sometimes) so I'll see how my knee and calf and hip are all feeling later in the day. Guts seem to be okay. I'm still having diarrhea almost every night before bed, but all in all it's not too bad. I'm not having d all day long, I really only go once first thing in the morning (usually at least somewhat formed/solid) and then 1-2 times at night before bed (usually d, hardly ever formed/solid). So I'm still having d, but it's predictable d. There's not urgency or frequency or anything like that and it's always at the same time of day, just as I'm winding down and getting ready to go to bed. (I usually take a shower before bed, so sometimes I'll have d both before and after my shower, but at most it's 2 episodes per night). I'm not getting up in the night to go, no night sweats or anything like that either. I'm still not sure if I'm in remission or not, but I guess this predictability is good. Now if I can just get my nighttime stools to be more formed...

The tentative fitness plan for the week is coming together. Tonight either rest or dog walk. Tomorrow, weights at the little gym on my lunch break. Friday, hubby will be out of town so I'll likely walk the dog after work. Saturday, I'm hoping to ride my bike to the gym - currently they're saying 60% chance of thunderstorms on Saturday so that may not happen, but I plan to lift weights that day regardless of the weather. Sunday, maybe a rest day - will have to see how I'm feeling. Oh, I'll probably have to walk the dog each weekend day - if I'm not feeling energetic then we might just take short walks! I'll do what I can.
 
Update 7/23/15: I walked the dog last night. Felt pretty good, the weather was nice. My dog met up with her pack and we didn't see her enemies so she had a good time.

Because of the walk, I didn't end up eating dinner until late. It was nearly 8 PM when I got home and looked around the kitchen for something to eat. I decided, screw it, have a hot fudge sundae. :p Hubby was like, you're having that for dinner? And I said, "May as well have whatever I want, since I'm just going to poop it out in an hour anyway." (Because of the nightly pre-bedtime diarrhea I've been having.) Hubby just gave me a look, and then he said, "Jeez, you can even make a hot fudge sundae sound depressing." Ouch, that was not a nice thing to hear. I thought I was being charmingly self-deprecating but hubby just thought I was being a downer. Hmph. Well, so what. It was true anyway.

So that put a bit of a damper on my mood. At any rate, hubby's going out of town for work today, so I have from now through Sunday to have some me time and I'm excited about it - I'm a massive introvert and I loooove alone time. I'm going to do some relaxing and some exercising of course. Today's plan is to hit the little gym on my lunch break for weights. I'm feeling pretty decent today (my hips still aren't stellar, but hopefully a workout will help them feel better). Looking forward to today's workout. :)
 
The little gym on Thursday went fine - I did everything but abdominals and felt good. Thurs evening though everything went downhill. :( I started feeling headachey on Thurs evening just before bedtime. I slept okay, but Friday morning I woke up with a nasty migraine. Head was throbbing and I was nauseous. Called in sick to work and just rested all day Friday. Saturday I wasn't much better so I rested most of that day, too. Bleh. So much for "me time" - it was all spent on the couch doing nothing.

Finally Sunday I was feeling mostly okay, so I decided to push myself to go to the gym. Right before hitting the gym, however, I passed some blood in my stool. Ugh! I think I figured out why - the migraine had given me some nausea, so I had taken some Zofran. Sometimes Zofran will constipate me, and it did for sure this time. So I passed a rather hard/large constipated stool on Sunday and it felt like it ripped open a fissure, so I think that's the source of the blood (it was not a lot of blood, just a small amount of bright red blood, and it sure feels like a fissure). Things obviously didn't feel stellar back there after ripping myself a new fissure, but I decided to go to the gym anyway.

So I went to the big gym. I felt iffy at first, but it's like I transform when I put on my gym clothes. When I put on my gym clothes, it's almost like putting on a superhero outfit. That sounds dumb but it's true - it has a mental effect on me. It's like, I put on these gym clothes and I can do amazing things and I can be strong and get through anything. So I put on my gym clothes and it was like an immediate feeling of, I am strong and I can do this.

I had a great workout. I felt stronger as the workout went on - at first I wasn't quite sure if I was going to get through it, but as it went on I just felt better and better. I pushed myself and even did some extra sets on top of my usual gym routine - I did extra leg presses, tricep dips, and squats with the bar. It was fantastic!

After the gym I also walked the dog (we didn't go as far as usual, her dog park is closed so we went to a smaller adjacent park). It was very warm and humid out but fortunately my guts didn't get upset. During the walk, I noticed I still had some head pain. My migraine decided to stick around I guess. I feel okay today head-wise. I am quite sore from the gym yesterday - adding extra sets is something I'm feeling today, my legs in particular are quite sore. It's also just about my time of the month, so I'm expecting the cramping and fun to start any minute now. Aside from the soreness and the anticipation of cramping, I'm doing okay today. Going to take a rest day as I'm too sore to exercise. Hoping to be feeling okay enough tomorrow to hit the little gym on my lunch break. Haven't planned out the rest of the week yet, it seems like my health is just too iffy lately to make solid plans. Just going to continue playing things by ear.
 
Update 7/28/15: I'm still feeling pretty sore from Sunday's workout! Glutes and hamstrings particularly. Those extra sets of squats and leg presses did a number on me. I'm less sore than yesterday, so I am recovering, but still definitely sore. So, I'm thinking a workout is not a good idea, I'd like to let my body heal more before going back to the gym. I'll take another rest day today and plan on hitting the gym tomorrow.

I didn't completely rest yesterday - I did end up walking the dog after work. I figured walking might help break up the soreness a bit, and I think it did help. Tonight I probably won't walk her, it'll be a true rest day as I need to pick up some stuff at the store and then make dinner, so no time for walking tonight.

So, the hope is that tomorrow I'll be recovered enough to do a workout. Not planning anything beyond tomorrow just yet. Although this weekend will be a workout of sorts - we're hoping to paint the outside of our house! The previous owner of our house looooved pink, most of the rooms were painted pink and the outside is an ugly salmon pink. Over the past few years, we've gotten rid of much of the pink on the inside of the house, and now it's time to get rid of the pink on the outside. So hubby's looking into borrowing a power washer and paint sprayer, hopefully that will make the job easier. Our house has some brick on the front, so I'm thinking of painting the house colors that will complement the red bricks. So the main color will be a creamy light brown (think coffee with creamer in it), with darker chocolate brown for accents, and our front door will be painted a deep burgundy red. I think it'll look really nice, and at any rate, it'll be a zillion times better than salmon pink! :p
 
I know, it's not going to be super fun. But it's definitely needed. My house isn't huge, either (one story, about 1,000 square feet) so it won't be too bad. I did a bit of reading about painting vinyl siding, and it sounds like it should be an easy job (no primer required, just power-washing before painting). It'll still definitely be a workout in itself and we'll have to get up on a ladder to paint the higher parts and stuff like that, but I think we can at least do the bulk of it (maybe not the trim or the door) in a weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice for the most part, possible thunderstorms on Sunday but it sounds like mainly in the evening, so hopefully we can complete our painting while avoiding the rain. I'm really looking forward to having a house that is no longer pink! :p So I'm very motivated to knock this paint job out of the park.

Oh, and my father-in-law does have a power washer and a power paint sprayer that he's loaning us, so that will make the job go quicker too. So that'll be good.

Fitness update: I'm feeling pretty well today - soreness seems to be gone, finally. So I'm heading to the little gym on my lunch break today. Don't know about tomorrow. Tentatively thinking of going to the big gym on Friday evening. Probably won't do any proper workouts this weekend since we'll be painting, but obviously I'll be active all weekend.
 
Lobster! *drools* Hawkeye, are you going to that lobster roll festival? If so, you must let me know how it goes! It sounds like it'd be delicious but dangerous - like, if I were there, I'd stuff myself silly. Also, I'd probably throw the bread away and just eat the lobster! But I'd probably attempt to eat my own body weight in lobster. :p

Fitness update: I went to the little gym yesterday and had a good workout. Guts are a bit crampy & painful (it's that time of the month so crampy pain is not unexpected) but otherwise I felt pretty well. Not sore today thankfully (didn't do extra sets this time though!). I did walk the dog last night as well, just a quick walk as it was pretty warm out. Guts gave me some LLQ pain and a pretty bad bout of d last night before bed - hopefully just a menstruation thing.

We're getting everything ready to paint our house. Hubby's going to pick up the sprayer and power washer today, and tonight we're going to the store to buy the paint (because of that, today's a rest day). Tomorrow I think I'm just going to hit the little gym on my lunch hour, because tomorrow after work we're planning to power wash the house so that it's dry and ready to be painted on Saturday. We'll start painting on Saturday morning and keep working until we're done. I have no idea how long it'll take, probably all weekend, so I highly doubt I'll make it to the gym either day. (Painting in itself will be pretty active, so it's not like I'll be having a lazy weekend!) I'm hoping to hit the gym again on Monday. That's the tentative plan for now!
 
Update 7/31/15: Ugh. Last night I felt headachey and today I think I have another migraine. It's not nearly as bad as the last one was, but I'm still having head pain (not throbbing this time) and some nausea (not as bad as last time). I'm thinking this indicates that I have to rest today, so no gym. I need to be feeling okay enough to paint tomorrow, so that means rest today is the wisest choice. I'm frustrated though, I don't know why I am getting so many migraines. I haven't had 2 migraines 2 weeks in a row since I came off of Entocort (that stuff gives me wicked headaches and migraines frequently). Bleh.

At any rate, we're pretty well set to start painting. Hubby's been washing the house to prepare it (we have vinyl siding, and the internet research I've done says to wash the siding before painting but that's it, no primer needed). So we can start painting tomorrow or even tonight if we feel like it. (I'll have to see how I'm feeling tonight, I suspect I'll just be resting.) It's going to be an active weekend, I hope my body and head can keep up with the challenge.
 
Update 8/3/15: Fortunately my head didn't get as bad as last time, so I was able to paint on Saturday. I started at about 10 AM and painted until about 3 or 4 PM, then I was just done. It was pretty warm out and the heat just sapped my energy and strength. Very fortunately, hubby had started painting on Friday, so we were able to (mostly) finish by Saturday afternoon. There are still a few spots to touch up, but overall it's done! My house is no longer pink, I'm super happy about that! It looks a million times better. It was a lot of work for sure, but it was worth it.

I ended up resting on Sunday to recover from Saturday. It was even warmer (like 96 F!) on Sunday, so we stayed in the air conditioning most of the day. It was just miserably warm out. Too warm to do anything like touch up our house's new paint job, so we just stayed in instead.

I'm feeling okay today. Going to hit the little gym for weights shortly. Hoping to do weights Mon, Wed, and Fri. Not sure about Tues & Thurs just yet. The weather is supposed to be a bit cooler this week, so I'd love to do a bike ride at some point. And I'll likely walk the dog at least a couple nights this week.
 
Another quick update for today: I'm exhausted. Didn't sleep well last night - I usually don't sleep well on Sunday nights. I didn't think it'd affect me this much as I'm usually okay to work out on Mondays regardless of how I slept, but today I definitely did feel more sluggish and a bit more weak in the gym today. I usually try for 12 reps per set, and today I was feeling like making it to 10 reps was a big achievement. Bleh.

So I'm going to rest and try to sleep better tonight. If I do sleep better tonight and feel okay tomorrow, then I think I'll either do cardio (stationary bike) or yoga on my lunch break, whatever I feel like doing. If I don't sleep well or still feel exhausted or whatever, then I'll take a rest day tomorrow.
 
Update 8/4/15: I'm SO TIRED. Slept terribly last night, a lot of tossing & turning and wakefulness. Just exhausted today. I'm thinking it's a rest day because I just don't have the energy to do much of anything. Presuming I finally get some sleep tonight, I'm still planning on hitting the gym tomorrow. I really just need some sleeeeep.
 
Update 8/5/15: I'm still fairly tired although I did finally sleep halfway decent last night. (Hubby woke me up once with his snoring and I nearly smacked him! I was so mad!) My right knee is aching today which is new - I'm presuming I just slept on it wrong. I've had a few issues with my knees in the past, but it's almost always my left knee that aches, not the right. So, I think it's probably fine. Still planning to hit the gym today.

My stomach and guts are a bit messed up today though. Yesterday and today, I've had pretty bad reflux all day - literally from the time I wake up, I'm noticeably refluxing, and it continues the entire day. Last night I had a bit of a hard time finding a comfortable sleeping position that was friendly to my refluxing stomach & esophagus (maybe that's why my knee hurts today, I probably slept in an unnatural position due to the reflux). I'm not sure why I'm suddenly refluxing more than usual - I haven't had any trigger foods lately, and I am not doing anything differently (haven't re-added abdominal exercises into my regimen or anything like that). So that's a bit frustrating. Yesterday I had to take extra ranitidine, and today I took an extra Nexium. Hopefully things calm down soon - my reflux has been relatively calm for awhile now and I'd really like it to go back to being calm!

Oh, and because the reflux caused some nausea, I took some Zofran yesterday. Zofran sometimes constipates me, so I'm constipated today which is just adding to my abdominal unhappiness. Bleh. Going to hit the gym regardless of all this stupid stuff going on. I'm not feeling great but I think I'm okay enough to go to the gym.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the little gym on my lunch break, and I feel SO much better now. Joints feel better, I feel less stressed and have more energy, guts feel a bit better, and my mood has lifted. Reflux seems to have eased up too, although that may just be because I pre-medicate with a bunch of antacids (300 mg ranitidine and a handful of Tums) before every workout.
 
Update 8/7/15: Yesterday I walked the dog after work. The weather has been hot but it cooled down a bit by the evening, so we had a nice walk. Tonight, I'm heading to the big gym after work with hubby. Going to do a nice long workout. I've been feeling pretty well yesterday and today (knock on wood!). Haven't had much in the way of diarrhea or cramps, feeling more energetic, just generally feeling like a human being again. :p So I'm excited to have the energy to go have a nice, long workout at the big gym! I'm going to rock it.

Tomorrow, I'm thinking I might take a bike ride. It's supposed to be nice weather although a bit warm, so I'll have to see how warm it gets. The botanical garden is something like 5 or 6 miles from my house, and I haven't been yet this year. So I'm tentatively thinking, ride my bike to the botanical garden, have a walk around the garden, then ride home.

Sunday, hoping to hit the big gym again for weights. I'm really hoping this feeling good and having energy lasts through the weekend! I am planning to be pretty active with both a bike ride and a couple gym sessions, I just hope my body can keep up with me.
 
Update 8/10/15: I went to the big gym Friday night and felt good. I felt strong and was able to keep up with the added sets that I did last time I was at the big gym. I did get pretty refluxy by the end, I was burping and I had one episode of feeling acid/stomach contents shooting up my throat into my mouth - yuck. Fortunately though that was the worst of it.

Saturday I woke up feeling headachey, so I scrapped my plans for a bike ride. Hubby had a few of his friends over and we all ended up playing board games for much of the day. That was fun although I was quite headachey and so was the other girl who came over.

Sunday, I was still headachey, and I just had no motivation to do anything. So I ended up resting a lot, watching TV and working on crocheting a blanket.

So, I didn't work out all weekend due to not feeling great. Today I'm feeling better - I actually slept fairly well last night. I usually do not sleep well at all on Sunday nights, but I guess I was tired - I zonked out hard. I actually woke up a couple times, and I was so disoriented when I did wake up - I was like, where am I, what time is it, where is hubby? And then I zonked back out again. It was weird (and hubby was in bed with me where he always is), it was kind of like still being in a dream as I briefly woke up. Then, my lovely cat decided to come into the bedroom and meow at me 10 minutes before my alarm went off. :p She wanted to be fed, of course. So I slept well aside from the waking up and my hungry, spoiled cat.

Anyway, so overall I'm pretty well rested today and my head is feeling better. Guts are a bit iffy but only because I gorged on pizza yesterday. I'm feeling well enough to hit the gym, so that's the plan. Going to the little gym on my lunch hour today. The tentative plan is to hit the little gym on Mon, Wed, and Fri. Hopefully will walk the dog after work at least a couple days this week, and maybe will fit in some yoga and/or bicycling too.
 
Yummmm, lobster claws. That's my favorite part of the lobster! Everyone else seems to love the tails, but I find the tails to be stringy and chewy. Give me the claws any day!

Fitness update 8/11/15: I'm achey today, particularly my right hip and knee. I did sleep in a weird position so that's probably why. My upper-right abdomen was giving me some prickly pains last night (not sure why, perhaps because I ate mushrooms with dinner) so I had to figure out a sleeping position that would not put pressure on that part of my abdomen and would allow the pains to ease up.

The abdo pains are gone now so I'm just dealing with the achey joints. I might try yoga today to see if I can get those joints to quiet down. And I may also walk the dog after work - sometimes just moving around can help my joints. We'll see what I'm feeling up to.

Tomorrow the plan is still to hit the little gym on my lunch break. Thursday, I might rest. The weather is supposed to get hot again on Thurs (close to 90 degrees, from at least Thurs thru Sun). I just don't deal well with weather that hot, so my dog isn't going to get walked when it's that warm out (my dog doesn't deal well with hot weather, either - she loves cold and snow). So I'm hoping to walk my dog tonight and tomorrow night before it gets too hot.
 
Update 8/12/15: I didn't do yoga yesterday but I did walk the dog after work. Ohh, she was super naughty at the dog park. She sometimes gets a little aggressive with other dogs, particularly dogs that are bigger than she is. I don't know why she does this and I've been trying to discourage that behavior. Last night it got out of hand - she walked up to a lab and growled at it. This lab apparently also had some issues with aggression, so they started fighting! The lab was of course much larger than my corgi, so it immediately got her pinned on her back, belly-up, and was trying to bite at her neck. I was terrified, I thought this dog was going to seriously injure my dog. Thankfully, fortunately, we got the dogs separated quickly and none of the bites to my dog seemed to break the skin.

I think I'm just going to have hubby be the dog-walker for the time being. He said she usually doesn't get aggressive when he walks her (she does get aggressive fairly often when I walk her - from what I was reading, this may be because she doesn't view me as the "alpha" so she thinks she's the alpha when it's me and her and therefore she tries to assert her dominance to other dogs - so I guess hubby is the alpha?). I don't really know what to do and I'm frustrated and upset. When it is my turn to walk her, like when hubby is working weekends, then I guess I'm just going to take her on regular, on-leash walks and not take her to the off-leash dog park, at least not for awhile. And I'll have to figure out how to be more dominant and show her that I indeed am also an alpha like hubby (if there can even be two alphas? I don't know!). I really hope all of this helps. Just, ugh. Seriously, is there any wonder I'm a cat person? I love my dog, but I do not really understand dogs! Cats are so much easier!

So yeah, I'm stressed because my dog is crazy and very nearly got hurt. (For the record, she's only aggressive with certain other dogs - never with people nor children - it's just certain dogs that bring up this reaction in her, and it's not even all dogs as she's got plenty of dog friends that she plays nicely with, so it's not like she's a dangerous dog - she's just got this one unfortunate quirk.) Anyway, I'm going to the little gym today on my lunch break. I hope to work off some of this stress! You wouldn't think that going for a walk with your dog could be stressful, ugh. So yeah, I'm going to push myself in the gym today as I need it. I'm seriously looking forward to it. It's one of those days where I wish that I had more than an hour to devote to working out.
 
That's so weird with your dog. My dogs are overly protective of me and bark more when I am home and are less friendly towards anyone when I am around. My husband could be home all day with them and no barking...I come home and they bark at every noise, weird! I have always wondered why they do that.

I find that time is a common deterrent for me with exercise. If anything will take me more than 30 minutes to do I simply won't do it. Just seems so much more tedious of a task if it is longer than 30 minutes.
 
Teeny, that's weird - my dog only barks at certain select things, she tends not to be barky at all (which is apparently rare, as most corgis are very barky). If another dog walks past our house and she hears it (like if the windows are open and she hears their collar jingling, or if she hears another dog bark) then she'll freak out and bark. Or if there's a loud commotion outside like children playing. She won't bark if someone comes into the house, like if hubby comes home from work or if a friend comes over and lets themself in, my dog will not make a peep. So I guess she'll protect us from neighborhood dogs and children but not someone actually coming into our house, ugh. :p

I have a new theory as to why she gets aggressive when I walk her. Hubby tends to walk her in the mornings (he works part-time, and on the days he does work, he goes in at noon, so he has mornings free). I work a standard Mon-Fri office job so I get home in the evenings and sometimes walk her then, or at whatever time on the weekends. When I walk her in the evenings, if hubby's been at work all day, that means she's been in her crate from noon until about 6 PM when I get home. So maybe she's just got some pent up energy/anxiety/boredom or whatever and that comes out as aggression as soon as she meets another dog at the park - this could explain why she gets aggressive when I walk her but not when hubby walks her. So, I'm still thinking that on-leash walks are best for me for now, particularly in the evenings when she's been crated for awhile. I'm also thinking that I might try putting her in doggy day care every so often on days that hubby and I both work, as that might help her in multiple ways. She wouldn't be crated all day, she'd have a lot of interaction with other dogs (and would hopefully not be aggressive although I've read that doggy day cares tend to deal with that kind of thing a lot so they just separate dogs that don't like each other). She'd get socialization and stimulation and wouldn't be bored all day. I just need to research dog day care places in my city and figure out which one would work best for us and what we can afford, etc.

Oh, and I looove having a long workout. 30 mins is okay for things like a yoga session or a quick cardio session (like 30 mins on the stationary bike), but when I'm doing weights, I like to have as much time as possible. It's not like I'm just lifting weights and that's it - there are multiple components to my workouts. My favorite workout is, I like to ride my bike to the gym - it's 3.26 miles each way according to an app on my phone. It takes maybe 20 mins to ride there and I try to go fast on my way to the gym so that's an excellent warm-up. Once I get to the gym, I do a bunch of weights, mainly using weight machines. I do a bit with the bar and weight bench and I do a few bodyweight exercises as well (tricep dips). Once I've done all the weights in my usual routine and I'm properly exhausted, I go and stretch for a good 10 mins or so. I take particular care to stretch out my hips since they are the joints with confirmed arthritis. Once I'm done stretching, I ride my bike home at a slower, more leisurely pace for my cool-down. All of this takes close to 2 hours from start to finish. Last time I did a bike-weights-bike workout, I left my house shortly after noon and got home shortly before 2 PM. And I loved it! It didn't feel tedious at all, it felt like 2 fun bike rides and a kickass weightlifting session. :)

Fitness update 8/13/15: I hit the little gym for weights yesterday. I pushed myself as much as I could which felt great at the time. But it turns out, I pushed myself just a bit too hard. I ended up tweaking my left shoulder, there's a bit of pain when I move my left arm in certain ways. I've had this pain before and it's always gone away within a couple days, so I'm not too concerned. But, I obviously don't want to make it worse either. So I'm thinking that tomorrow's weight session should probably be a rest day instead. Not super happy about that, but I can work around it I think. My legs are fine, so today I'm going to do a cardio session (stationary bike) in the little gym on my lunch break. Tomorrow I still want to do something fitness-wise, so I'm thinking yoga. As long as I stick to poses that won't put too much pressure on my shoulder, I think it'll be okay. Slow, deliberate movements seem fine - it's when I move my left arm suddenly like to reach for something, that's when the pain is worst. So, hopefully yoga will be okay and won't exacerbate my shoulder.

Saturday, I'm hoping to make the most of the remainder of summer - hubby and I are thinking of taking a mini-road trip (staying within the state) and having an adventure day. We still haven't quite decided on where to go but we have a couple ideas. So I'll have some sort of little adventure on Saturday! :) Sunday, I hope by then my shoulder is recovered enough for me to do a weights workout. That's the tentative plan. If my shoulder is still bad on Sunday then I'll either rest or figure something else out.
 
Oh, I forgot to add - speaking of my dog, we're in a mini heat wave with temps above 90 from today thru Sunday. Yuck. This means my dog will only be walked in the mornings by hubby when it's still relatively cool. I am *not* walking her in the evenings when it's still close to 90. She and I both do poorly in the heat. So, the aggression issues won't come into play for the remainder of this week and weekend, as we'll both be inside in the air conditioning. :p
 
Another quick update for today: I ended up feeling a bit nauseous around the time to go to the gym, so I opted to rest instead. My shoulder was also feeling fairly bad and I wasn't sure I'd be able to change into and back out of my gym clothes! At least not without a bunch of pain. Shoulder is feeling somewhat better now, so I'm hoping to go to the gym for a cardio session tomorrow.
 
Update 8/14/15: Shoulder is continuing to improve. There's still some mild pain if I move it the wrong way, but for the most part it's doing a lot better. I think I'm able to change into my gym clothes without much pain today! So, I'm heading for the little gym in a bit. Going to do about 30 mins on the stationary bike. Not going to push the shoulder at all just yet, I'm going to continue letting the shoulder rest.

Tomorrow is a rest day (taking a mini road trip up north for the day). Sunday, I'll just play it by ear. If the shoulder is at all iffy then I'll do something just involving legs and will continue to rest the shoulder. If it feels better then I'll tentatively do a regular weights workout but won't push my shoulder, I will do a bit lighter weights than I'm used to and of course if anything hurts then I'll stop.
 
Update 8/17/15: Did the stationary bike for 30 mins on Friday and that went fine. I used the new bike in the little gym. That bike has the world's most uncomfortable seat. :p It has like zero padding and it's a weird, uncomfortable shape. I sat on a towel to try to minimize the discomfort, but even so, it was not very easy on my backside.

I had a fun weekend - we hit the road for a day trip on Saturday. Went and saw a historical site I've been wanting to tour, so that's a bucket list item checked off. Sunday we did stuff around the house like laundry and dishes, and also did grocery shopping and took the dog to get her nails trimmed. Just a bunch of chores and errands. Didn't do any workouts all weekend long as the shoulder was still a bit tender, but it was fine with me doing things like carrying laundry basket. The weather was so hot (over 90 degrees F) that we didn't walk the dog at all.

Today the shoulder is still just a tiny bit tender. I had been thinking that I could do the stationary bike again today if my shoulder was at all iffy, but now the bike isn't happening either. I woke up totally exhausted and my guts are angry. I've been dripping bright red blood out my butt (I think it's from a new fissure?). Stomach is sending me little shooting pains and I just generally feel run-down and unwell. Soooo. Not happy but it's another rest day. As soon as my shoulder AND my stupid guts recover, then I'll go back to the gym. Hopefully that day is tomorrow, we'll see. I'm just not at all impressed with the crap my body has thrown at me lately. Seriously grumpy and upset and having a little pity party today.
 
Update 8/19/15: I went from dripping blood to gushing. Had 5 bloody bowel movements in one day, that's a new record for me. Ended up feeling light-headed and just completely unwell. Went home sick Monday, stayed home sick Tues. Today I went back to work but still feeling light-headed, so went to urgent care to get checked out. It's a very nasty hemmie causing the bleeding so I'm back on steroid suppositories (yuck). My bloodwork is oddly pretty good though so no explanation for the light-headedness. Hmph.

So, just going to wait for the steroids to heal things up and also wait for the light-headedness to go away. After all that, hopefully my body will give me a break and allow me to go to the gym! I haven't lifted weights for a week now, since my shoulder got tweaked. Looks like it's going to be a bit longer until I go back as I don't want to have another episode of crazy bleeding. Bleh!
 
Update 8/20/15: I'm feeling slightly more human today. Haven't passed any blood in about 48 hours now, although my rectum is still pretty painful and I'm still more exhausted than usual. Still not ready to go back to the gym just yet, I feel like I need to rest and heal up more first. I'm hoping that next week I'll be recovered enough to work out again. For the rest of this week and weekend, I plan to just rest and heal.
 
Update 8/24/15: I haven't passed any more blood, that's the good news. I am still feeling not great, though. Abdo pains, rectal pain, exhaustion are all making me feel rather bleh. I rested most of the weekend but still don't feel great.

I'm sick of not going to the gym, though. My hip was giving me pains on Friday and over the weekend, probably because it's been awhile since I worked out. So I think I'm just going to give it a try today and see what I can do in the gym. If weights turn out to not be my friend then I'll switch to yoga. I feel like I need to do something, though. My joints are not happy and I'm not happy, so gym it is. Hopefully my body will allow me to lift a few weights at least. I'll obviously stretch out my hips quite a lot as well.

I think the gym will help with my stress level, too. I'm stressed lately because I might be buying a new car - that's exciting, but also stressful (why do cars cost so much, ugh). My current car is nearly 15 years old and getting close to 200,000 miles, and I vacillate back and forth between wanting to keep my current car until it dies, or wanting to get a new car before my car dies (before it becomes an urgent need that I need a new car now). I found a newer used car that looks decent online, so we'll see what it looks like in person and if they're willing to lower the price any and how much they'll give me for my trade-in and what kind of a loan rate can I get and all that fun stuff. So my mind is racing thinking of all the car stuff I have to do. I keep telling myself that if the car isn't wonderful or if things turn out to be too expensive then I can just walk away - but if things look great and are affordable then it's going to be a stressful time for me! Which sounds weird to say but hopefully that makes sense. So either I'll have a new car soon and a bunch of stress over it, or I'll stick with my trusty yet quirky older car for awhile longer. For the time being there's definitely stress as I at least have to deal with a car salesman long enough to take a test drive and get some more information. Ugh.
 
Update: Stress gone. :p I'm not buying that car, already talked myself out of it. I just got a carfax for it which shows it was in an accident - says it hit a pole, moderate damage. It's been repaired, but even so, it'll never be quite the same and I totally don't want it now knowing that it was in an accident. (My brother crashed my mother's car into a curb in a snowstorm years ago, and they had it repaired, but it's never been the same since even with repairs and my mother complains about it sometimes - so hitting a pole I think would be even worse.)

So, sticking with my current older car for awhile longer which is fine. I've been telling myself I should stick with my car through at least 200,000 miles if not 250,000. (It's a Toyota so it'll go that long, but the older it gets the quirkier it gets and the more care it needs, so it starts to become a question of: Do I continue to pour care and money into an older car, or do I divert that money into a newer car?) Anyway, so yeah, no new car for Cat but not necessarily a bad thing, and that stress is off my shoulders for the time being.
 
Oh, definitely. It wasn't a brand new car, it was a 4 year old used car that I was looking at. I have never and will never buy a brand new car as I completely agree, it's a huge waste of money when you can get the same car for much cheaper when it's a couple years old. My current car is a 2001 and I bought it in 2004 for about half of what it would have cost new. It had about 55,000 miles on it when I bought it and I've got it up to 188,000 miles now. I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of my car! :) It's been a great car, so I don't really need a new one yet, but when I see a car that piques my interest then I start to have conflicting thoughts about, should I keep my car longer or should I invest in a new one before my car dies? I haven't really figured out the answer yet obviously, ha ha.

My other idea is that I might get a moped/scooter. That way I'd have something to zip around town on in the warmer months and can use my car in the winter but give my car some time off in the summer to help my car last longer. Since summer is almost over now, though, and I haven't yet found an acceptable used scooter (not buying that brand new either, ha ha), I'm going to wait until the spring to start looking again since it seems silly to buy a moped right before winter. (And yes, I'm really picky about my vehicles!)

Fitness update: I went to the gym and felt pretty well. I lifted weights and did some bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, pushups, etc) and of course some stretching too. My guts weren't super happy afterwards and I've been belching ever since. But, I was able to do a pretty good workout and I felt good while I was exercising, so I consider that a definite victory. We'll see how I feel tomorrow and go from there, not going to plan any gym sessions in advance, just going to take it day by day.
 
I do use a fitbit, yes. I have a fitbit "One" which is the clip on kind (not the wristband). It's okay, not stellar but not bad either. My main complaint about it is that it can't detect things like when I'm riding a bike or lifting weights or basically doing anything other than walking. :p So I have to input all of that data manually which is kind of annoying. To track calories, I have to also manually input all of my food as well (I usually don't even bother with that). Hopefully in the near future there will be better fitness trackers available that track those sorts of things automatically without me needing to input so much data myself.

Fitness update 8/25/15: I feel about the same today. Going to the gym didn't make me feel any worse nor any better. Still exhausted, and guts are still feeling quite unsettled. Today is probably a rest day. I will probably go to the gym again tomorrow even if I still feel like this - I could do it yesterday, so I can do it tomorrow too. I just hope I start feeling less crummy soon, this is really getting old.
 
Another quick update for today: Pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold. That's just perfect, right as soon as I get back to the gym, something else happens to keep me out of the gym. Ugh! The weather here went from very hot to quite cool (from 90s to 50s) pretty rapidly, and I was hoping that the weather shift was just affecting my sinuses a bit. But the symptoms have progressed to the point that I'm pretty sure it is indeed a proper cold and not just wonky sinuses - my throat is hurting a bit and I feel run down and my head is a little fuzzy, it sure feels like a cold. Plus a bunch of people at work seem to have active colds right now as well which means it's been going around, and I usually tend to catch whatever's going around.

Soo, this means I'll have to skip working out for the next couple days at least. I can't work out with a cold, I've tried in the past but it just makes me cough and makes my lungs hurt (even if I stick to weights only and don't do cardio) and generally makes me feel worse. So no gym until this cold is on its way out if not completely gone. Boo. Not happy but not a lot I can do about it. I see a lot of tea, soup, cough medicine and rest in my near future. Bleh.
 
Update 8/26/15: Guts are a mess today. I still have this cold, and whenever I catch a cold it seems to make my guts a bit angrier - maybe something to do with my immune system turning on to fight the cold? Whatever it is, my guts aren't happy about that. Also, I'm due to get my period any minute now, and that also gives me more d and cramps. So yeah, my guts are a big fun mess right now. :p

I'm still coughing and run-down and bleh so definitely no gym today. Just going to play it by ear and see how I'm feeling day by day. I did sleep pretty well last night - I zonked out like a rock for most of the night, and I hadn't even taken any cold or sleeping medication (aside from my usual amitriptyline which helps me sleep). I feel like getting some good sleep did help a bit. So for now I'm still focusing on rest and recovering from this cold. Hoping to get back to the gym soon!
 
Update 8/28/15: I still haven't been to the gym. Cold is getting better, almost gone. Hemmmie/anal region still unhappy though. I thought things were improving so I tried stopping the steroid suppositories, but right away I wound up having a LOT of discomfort and swelling in that area, so I am back on the supps for a few more days at least. Not super happy about that but I need to heal. Bleh, just wish I could get off of steroids and feel well for awhile. I'm in a grumpy, bleh mood today.

My boss wants to take our department to a football arena today to watch the home team practice. That sounds awful to me, it's concrete bleachers in the football arena which sounds like the worst thing I could sit on when having anal pain and swelling. :p Ouch. Fortunately it's supposed to rain and I am supposed to cover the receptionist desk at work this afternoon while the receptionist goes to a funeral. So hopefully between the weather and having to stay at the front desk, I can get out of it. Don't get me wrong, I like professional football - but this is college football which I don't follow and sitting in the cold rain on concrete for 2 hours watching a football team I don't care about practice (not even a game, just practice) sounds really miserable. I'd rather just stay at work! At least that way I'm indoors out of the rain and sitting on a reasonably comfy chair, not concrete.

Anyway. So I'm keeping myself on the supps for the next couple days at least. Going to try to come off of them again soon-ish. Still not feeling up to working out so I probably will just rest all weekend, again. Getting sick of resting but I'll just have to deal with it. On the plus side, all this resting means that I'm getting a lot of crocheting done. :p I'm starting work on making xmas presents - I just finished making a blanket and next I'm going to make hubby and I a couple of xmas stockings. Crochet is what I do when I am resting as I can't just sit there and watch TV or whatever, I have to do something, so I usually crochet to keep my hands occupied and my brain somewhat occupied (sometimes I have to count stitches or rows, etc). It staves off the boredom and I end up with a nice finished product, and it makes me feel like I'm still worthwhile even when I can't do much of anything. So yeah, that's what's been keeping me sane lately. The only downside is that I have too much yarn and I need to figure out more storage for it! Hah!
 
The car thing is ongoing, I guess. I looked at another car on Saturday but it wasn't satisfactory to me either. I currently own a Toyota Echo, and I've been looking at possibly replacing it with a used Yaris with low-ish miles (Yaris and Echo are the same basic car and my Echo has been great, hence why I would like a Yaris - super reliable and fantastic gas mileage). The thing with Yarises (what's the plural of Yaris?), is that people will for the most part hold onto their Yaris until it's got a lot of miles - they're so reliable and can go for hundreds of thousands of miles, so most people just hang onto them until they're well above 100,000 or even 200,000 miles. The only used Yarises on the market that have low-ish (under 100,000 miles) seem to be ones that have a rough history & have been in accidents. I've now looked at 2 used Yarises with low mileage but I see that they have bad history when I am finally given the carfax. So I will keep on looking I guess as I think it's going to take some searching to find a car I'm actually satisfied with! I got my Echo at 3 years old with 55,000 miles and no accidents - I was told the original owner of my car just wanted something bigger (they traded in the Echo and bought a Dodge truck, so they went MUCH bigger, ha ha). So I need to find someone like that who treats their Yaris well and doesn't drive it a lot and then decides that they want something bigger.

Fitness update 8/31/15: I didn't work out all weekend. I felt decent on Saturday, but I didn't have time to work out that day. Hubby and I had a lot of stuff planned. We went to look at that car that ended up not being satisfactory, then we did a bunch of shopping out of town. Went down to Ikea and also went to a couple specialty grocery stores that we like. Bought a bunch of groceries (stocking up our freezer for winter) and had sushi - yum!

It was rainy all day Saturday though and that seemed to have triggered a sinus migraine which lasted all day Sunday and is still lingering today. Yuck. It feels like it's on its way out, I don't feel as awful as I did yesterday. I had really been hoping to be well enough to work out yesterday - I had wanted to ride my bike to the gym. With my head pain, though, I was only able to lie on the couch and crochet. My hubby had some friends over and one of his friends was talking rather loudly, which hurt my head, and then the friend asked me how I'm doing. I said I have a migraine, and the friend was like, "I've been talking so loud! Why didn't you just throw something at me?" I was like, all I have to throw is some yarn. :p That wouldn't have even made a dent, ha ha. I know I'm doing okay when I still have a sense of humor through the pain, so that was a good sign.

Today I still have some head pain but I think it's getting better and I just took some Tylenol - when I get these migraines, during the worst of it Tylenol does absolutely nothing, but it sometimes does help if I take it once the pain starts to ebb. So I'm hoping that will help get rid of the migraine. My goal is to be feeling well enough by lunchtime that I can hit the gym. I'm doing okay aside from the migraine, so if I can just get this under control, I should be good to go lift weights.

If things work out wonderfully this week and my health is actually quiet for a change, this would be the plan - little gym today and Wednesday for weights at lunchtime. Big gym Friday evening for weights, and ride my bike to the big gym on Sunday, do weights there and ride home. On the days that I'm not lifting, still do something active - walk the dog, yoga, bike ride, rowing machine, yard work, whatever. The weather is supposed to be hot again this week (90s pretty much every day) so I probably will opt to do more indoor workouts than outdoors. I really just want to get back into the swing of things, though. I haven't been well enough lately to do a lot of workouts and I really want to change that pattern! So my goal is just, be active every day, and if I can't be active on a particular day, just try to get myself well enough to keep pushing forward with being active the following day. That's my plan.
 
Saturday was errand and mow the lawn day here too. Keeping with the car theme, I was washing the cars Sunday morning and had someone pull up and want to sell me an SUV. He had the same model that I have, oily a year newer. His transmission was toast and he wanted to sell if for parts. I had to pass because I didn't have the time or space to strip it and I don't know if I will keep mine that much longer - it depends how the motor vehicle inspection goes next year.
 
That's funny, Hawkeye - the hubby and I were just discussing something similar. In my car search, I found online hubby's same exact car for sale, same make & model, same year and even same color, but with far fewer miles, so we joked that we'd buy it and use his current car for parts. Hubby drives a Subaru though and there's a Subaru junkyard not far from here where parts are both plentiful and super cheap, so we don't actually need to keep parts on hand as we can easily get them from the junkyard.

Fitness update 9/1/15: I'm doing better. :) Head pain is dissipating, still slightly there but almost gone and I'm feeling mostly good. Guts are a bit rumbly, I've been belching and having some gas today, but I can totally deal with that (not sure if my coworkers can though, hah!). I did hit the gym yesterday. I didn't push myself very much as the head pain was not very pleased. Oddly enough, my head was mostly fine doing things like jumping jacks during my warm-up. But after lifting weights, when I got down on the mat to stretch, and then got back up after stretching, that's when my head really let me know it was unhappy. Weird. At any rate, it's doing better today so I guess I didn't make it too angry.

Today it's going to be super warm out, so I'm staying indoors. I'm thinking I'll do yoga in the little gym today - I queued up a couple yoga playlists on youtube and I'm going to try one, do something a bit different from my usual routine (my normal routine is to do yoga on the Wii Fit and I usually do the same poses in the same order on that). So we'll see how that goes. Tomorrow, presuming I'm still doing well, going to do weights again. Not sure yet about Thursday - going to be super warm then as well so we'll see.
 
Update 9/2/15: I did yoga yesterday. I wish I could say it went well, but, I suck at yoga. :p I've tried, I really did, but I think I need to give up on yoga. It just never goes well. I'm not flexible at all - can't touch my toes, some days I can't even get close. Also my balance is terrible and I'm just generally awkward and uncoordinated. So I was trying to do what the girl on the yoga video was doing, but I did yoga in front of a mirror in the little gym while watching this yoga video, and the mirror was eye-opening. As in, I didn't realize I was *that* bad! But it turns out I really, really suck at yoga. I can't seem to do any of the poses right.

Another thing about yoga is, it doesn't give me that happy-amazing feeling that more intense workouts give me. Bicycling or lifting weights makes me feel like, ahhh! Like I'm powerful and amazing and normal and healthy and awesome. Yoga just makes me feel like I suck. So, I'm going to do less yoga, and on my non-weight days, just focus more on cardio. Working out, for me, is so much about how I feel inside. I don't really like how I feel during yoga, but I love how I feel when lifting weights or riding my bike. Or kayaking, or ice skating, or snowshoeing. I love all those things, but I don't love yoga. So I'm breaking up with yoga, ha ha.

Onward and upward! Going to put yesterday behind me and move forward with better workouts. Today I'm feeling a bit sore in my abs - I didn't realize the "hips and hamstrings" yoga routine that I attempted yesterday would make my abs feel sore, not sure quite what's up with that but I presume it's because I am so terrible at yoga that I was using the wrong muscle groups yesterday, hah. ;) I'm feeling okay though, I'm actually back to having a little bit of head pain today but nowhere near as bad as it was the other day, so I'm okay to work out. Going to hit the little gym for weights today. Tomorrow, well I try to never miss watching a Green Bay Packers football game, but I can do my rowing machine while I watch the game, so that's the plan - have a cardio rowing session while cheering for my team. Still hoping to hit the big gym for a longer weights session on Friday evening - if the weather isn't crazy warm, I might ride my bike there.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym and did well. No pain, good energy, and I was able to push myself a bit and increase the weight on a couple things. I had a pretty healthy lunch afterwards, a wrap with turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, and kimchi (yum!). I used to not be able to do spicy foods, but kimchi is surprisingly easy on me. Maybe because it's a fermented food? I have no idea.

After my healthy lunch, things took a downhill turn diet-wise. My co-worker gifted me with a dozen cookies as a thank-you for my helping out on some recent projects. And oh dear, they are delicious. I've eaten two so far and I kind of want to just scarf the others, eek. They're soft and chewy and I'm having a hard time not eating them all. I could make my guts super unhappy if I do scarf them all so I'm trying to tell myself not to eat them. The deliciousness seems to be winning though! Eek! This is why I try to not buy foods like this, for snacks I try to have things like rice cakes and safe fruits (usually bananas or peaches with the skins peeled off) on hand. I'm definitely a snacker, and if there's junk food around I will eat it, so I try not to have it around. Having a dozen cookies on my desk is such a recipe for disaster, ugh. I'm so good exercise-wise but clearly I still need to work on some diet stuff!

Update: Eating cookie #3. Ugh and yum and ugh. Kind of hate myself but SO TASTY.
 
Update 9/4/15: I did about 20 mins of rowing machine last night while watching TV. That felt pretty good - sometimes the rowing machine seems to put a lot of pressure on my abdominals, which can in turn cause me some symptoms, but I'm feeling pretty well and even had fairly solid stool last night and this morning.

My weight is up a bit though which is not the direction I want it to go - I'm off of steroids now (finally, and hopefully for awhile) so I'd like to lose a few lbs of steroid flab. I think adding more cardio in can only help. Today's a weightlifting day, and it turns out hubby got called into work today, which means I won't be hitting the big gym after all. I will hit the little gym instead. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, I'd love to go for a bike ride. And/or walk my dog. If the weather is still way too crazy hot then maybe I'll do the stationary bike or the rowing machine in my air conditioned house. Sunday, I'd love to ride my bike to the big gym. Again, if the weather is over 90 degrees like it's been, then that's not going to happen. But if the weather stays in the mid 80s or so then I think I can manage it. We'll see what happens. I also need to fit some yard work in there at some point, perhaps on Saturday.

Monday is a holiday here so no work. I haven't yet decided what to do. I've been doing a lot lately, so I might take a rest day. Monday also happens to be my wedding anniversary, 13 years, so I'll probably do something with hubby like have a nice dinner.
 
Update 9/8/15: Friday I didn't end up going to the little gym. I was having a super stressful day at work - there was a big important spreadsheet that needed urgent attention, and I'm the spreadsheet person, and people kept sending me updates and additions for this spreadsheet, so it was a challenging day. Usually I like to go to the gym on stressful days, but I was feeling burned out and just wanted to leave the building. So I did, I went and had a picnic in the park. It was a hot day but not too bad in the shade. I sat and ate my lunch and breathed the fresh air and read a book and decompressed. I told myself I'd lift weights with my dumbbells at home after work, but by the time I got home, I was just exhausted and not feeling it. I tried but stopped pretty quickly. My heart wasn't in it and my body was telling me to rest, not lift. So I rested.

Saturday I didn't work out, but I was quite active. I went around to a bunch of garage sales in the morning, and then for the rest of the day I did some rather intense cleaning. I washed things that don't often get washed, like table cloths. I cleaned and organized and cleaned some more. I was on my feet for hours doing dishes, laundry, straightening up, wiping off counters, etc. So I didn't have a proper workout, but I was definitely active.

Sunday I did do a proper gym workout. I had wanted to ride my bike to the big gym, but it was just way too hot out (like 93 degrees F) so there was no way I could ride my bike in that kind of heat. So I drove to the big gym to lift. It was so hot outside that the air conditioning in the gym was having trouble keeping up - the big gym is a large space with high ceilings, and it's tough in extreme weather to keep it a good temperature in there. So it ended up being pretty hot in the gym as well and my guts weren't so happy. My whole body wasn't happy. I felt like I might either puke or pass out, and I wasn't sure I could make it through the whole workout. For about the first half of my workout, all I was thinking about was how bad I felt and how I couldn't do it. I was starting to think I should just stop and go home.

Then, a former co-worker of mine spotted me in the gym and she came over to say hi and to ask how work is going (she retired about a year ago and she's been going to the big gym regularly ever since she retired). I'm such an introvert anyway, and in the gym I get so much inside my own head and just focus on me and my workout and my music and my thoughts, so it was difficult for me to go from being inside my own head to suddenly having to converse with another person. I kind of temporarily forgot how to socially interact. I was like, Sorry? Work? Huh? Work is good, I guess, I think? I don't really know how work is? I really have no idea right now? :p I was seriously awkward and just couldn't put together a coherent thought. But, that turned out to be a good thing - I was so awkward that, for the rest of my workout, all I could think about is how stupid and awkward and weird and embarrassing I am. As a result, I didn't think any more about how ill I felt or how hot it was, and so I made it through my workout just fine. Hah! Social ineptitude for the win, ha ha.

So that was Sunday. Yesterday was a holiday here so no work. I did basically nothing - I did some crafts and watched some TV, but I didn't leave the house and I stayed in pajamas all day. It was nice to have a lazy day. Today, I'm right back at it - heading to the little gym on my lunch break today. Tomorrow, haven't decided what to do yet. Thursday will be weights again, hopefully at the big gym with hubby after work.
 
I love yard sales! I am very thrifty and I love finding good stuff for cheap. Last Saturday I went garage sale shopping and I was able to buy enough yarn to crochet a blanket, for a grand total of $3. Score! So as soon as I finish up some other crochet projects, I'll be making a blanket and somebody (haven't decided who just yet) will be getting a blanket for xmas.

Fitness update 9/9/15: I'm not feeling great today. I stupidly had salad for lunch yesterday and that did not go well. Sometimes I can get away with salad, but yesterday turned out to not be one of those times, and I wound up on the toilet with chunks of undigested lettuce coming out of me. Fun times, ugh. So the guts aren't super happy with me. Also, I woke up this morning with my bad hip hurting. I am not sure why - usually it hurts when I do high-impact exercise or if it's going to rain or snow heavily. I did work out yesterday but didn't do anything high-impact aside from a few jumping jacks during my warm-up, but those don't usually cause me any hip pain. And weirdly enough, it rained heavily yesterday and my hip felt fine then. Today it's sunny out and today the hip hurts. I'm not sure if I slept on it wrong or what.

So anyway, I've decided that today is a rest day to give the guts and hip a chance to hopefully recover. Tomorrow I'm still planning to hit the big gym for weights with hubby. Haven't decided on Friday yet but am tentatively thinking of having a cardio day - probably stationary bike in the little gym on my lunch break. Saturday we're going out of town for a day trip, so no exercise that day. Sunday, I'd love to ride my bike to the gym - it looks like the weather will be pretty nice and not too hot (upper 60s/low 70s). That's the tentative plan for now. Hopefully my hip and guts are up to doing all this.
 
Update 9/10/15: Well, the hip is somewhat better and the guts are recovering too I think. I'm exhausted today - felt like I didn't sleep well last night. But, if exhaustion is my biggest complaint, then I should still be okay to go to the big gym tonight. It's tough to get through a workout when I'm exhausted, but everything else is feeling reasonably okay so I think that's enough of a green light for me. I'll just take my time during my workout, probably take things a bit slower than usual and not push myself too much. Sometimes working out gives me a nice bump up in my energy levels, so I'm hoping that'll be the case tonight. And if not, well, I'm just hoping to get through it without issue.

Tomorrow I'm planning to hit the little gym on my lunch break, for a cardio session on the stationary bike. And tomorrow evening, I'm going to do my second favorite thing after working out - grocery shopping! :p Ha ha. It's weird but it really is something I enjoy. Anytime I get a bit of extra spending money, I start writing a grocery list. So I've been writing a list for like a week now and today is finally payday, which means I get to go buy groceries. Am I the most boring person ever? My two favorite activities are working out and grocery shopping? :p
 
Another quick update for today: I'm still exhausted and a little while ago some nausea and reflux came on, too. That's it, I don't think I can work out tonight. I was really trying to convince myself that I could hit the gym in spite of this exhaustion, but with other stuff also knocking me down, I need to be realistic and admit that it's just not happening. I'm so tired and just feel unwell. I am thinking about going home sick from work so that I can rest. Bleh.
 
Update 9/14/15: I am still rather exhausted. I went home sick on Thursday and took a 3 hour nap, and still woke up feeling exhausted. I've improved somewhat since then, but still not feeling energetic. I mostly rested all weekend. I did walk the dog on Saturday & Sunday, but didn't do anything other than that.

My hubby isn't helping my exhaustion (not his fault though). He's got kidney stones again, so he's been getting up 5-6 times per night to urinate. He sometimes wakes me when he gets up. So I haven't been sleeping well because my hubby is constantly up and down all through the night. We're both feeling exhausted and a bit miserable, yuck.

Today I'm exhausted once again. I'd love to work out but I just don't know if I have it in me. I'm presuming today is another rest day. My goal is just to get back to the gym at some point this week. That's as lofty a goal as I'm able to muster right now.
 
Yes and no. On one hand I know I'd get more and better quality of sleep if I kicked hubby out to the guest bedroom. But, it's only got an uncomfortable futon in there and I'd feel bad about him sleeping on that awful thing (or on the couch). Plus, during the worst of my flares, with me getting up multiple times in the night to use the bathroom, he never kicked me out of the bedroom (a few times I voluntarily slept on the couch because I knew I wasn't going to get much sleep anyway, but that was my decision). So I feel like I can't kick him out of the bed because he wouldn't do that to me when I was really ill and suffering. Now he's ill and suffering and he deserves to sleep as much as he can in his comfy bed.

He said he was going to call the doctor today so hopefully he did. Last time he had kidney stones (about 3 years ago), he had a 7 mm stone. The ER doctor told us that anything over 5 mm tends to be too large to pass on its own. But then that same doctor said they were going to take a "wait and see" approach to see if hubby's 7 mm stone would pass on its own. I was like, um, I'm not a doctor nor a mathematician, but 7 is larger than 5 so why would you think it's going to pass?... At any rate, they made hubby "wait and see" for 6 months and he spent that whole time in pain and sometimes vomiting. When they finally went in with the laser to blast it out, they found the stone was impacted - so it never would have passed on its own. Ugh. So this time around we're trying to be much more proactive because obviously neither of us wants hubby to go through another 6 month torture. So anyway, hopefully we can get this new stone taken care of quick so that we can both get some sleep.
 
Update 9/15/15: I ended up having something of an unintentional workout yesterday. A guy came to my workplace to pick up our old printers (we just got new ones at work). Of course he came at like 5:02 PM and the building closes at 5:30, so we had to scramble to get the old printers out of there. They were all big & heavy and there were like 13 printers and all were on the 3rd floor and a fair distance away from the elevator. So I helped this guy lug and shove and move these heavy pieces of equipment to the elevator (most had wheels but they were still ridiculously heavy and cumbersome to move). I ended up getting rather sweaty and definitely used my muscles - and I felt quite good afterwards! :)

After I got home from work, I was feeling like I wanted to still be a bit active, and hubby was feeling okay, so hubby and I walked the dog. We met up with our neighbor and her dog and we all walked together, that was nice. The weather was just about perfect and the dogs were well-behaved (for the most part - my dog hates german shepherds and she tried to get a bit aggressive with a german shepherd that we met in the park, but we quickly separated our dog from that dog and then everything was fine).

The best news of all - after our walk, that evening, hubby went to the bathroom and came out looking very relieved. It turns out he had passed a kidney stone! We're not sure if that's the only stone he had or if there are still more in there, but I'm hopeful that it was the only one - because last night he didn't get up at all to use the bathroom! This is very good news and I'm glad it passed so quickly. And, he fished the stone out of the toilet, so hopefully his doctor can analyze it and figure out why hubby got stones again and what he can do differently to prevent future stones.

Today I'm encouraged by my ability to move a bunch of heavy printers and still feel okay, so I'm going to hit the gym. I'm less exhausted, probably because hubby didn't keep waking me up with bathroom trips last night. I am confident that today I can do a weights workout and I'm excited about it & looking forward to it. Haven't planned any workouts beyond today, just going to see how I feel and go from there.
 
Update 9/16/15: I hit the gym yesterday and that went well, I felt strong and good. I was able to do everything I wanted to and I even did a 30 second plank. I'm not sure if the plank affected me - my guts are so wonky these days, I can't always tell what sets them off anymore. At any rate, last night just before bed, I had a pretty bad episode of "hot lava" diarrhea. That was unpleasant. This morning, when I woke up, I expected to have more hot lava, but instead I had a nice firm perfectly formed poo. (How weird is it that nice formed poo is more unexpected than hot lava diarrhea!) Since then, I've had a couple soft-solid bowel movements today. My guts are feeling a bit off today, like there's a little pit of pain inside but it's not bad at all.

So, since I'm doing overall okay, I decided to go to the gym again today. Since I did weights yesterday, I did cardio today - 25 mins on the stationary bike followed by stretching. That went okay although my guts feel tired, it's like I did an abs workout but I didn't. Meh, like I said, can't figure out what's going on with my guts these days! So I just try to ignore the more minor gut stuff.

The next couple days I'm on the road for work. Definitely no working out tomorrow. I'm hoping to finish things up early enough on Friday that I could hit the big gym Friday evening. I'm also hoping to ride my bike to the big gym on Sunday - the weather is supposed to be nice (low 70s and sunny) so a bike ride and weights workout should be feasible as long as I'm still feeling reasonably well. Saturday I have a corgi picnic to attend, so I'll be walking around and squeeing at all the adorable stumpy dogs, but I won't do a proper workout that day other than a lot of walking around.
 
Update 9/21/15: I had a pleasantly active and mostly uneventful (guts-wise) weekend. Thursday I headed out of town for work. I had to do some work in the city where my parents live, so I stayed with them overnight on Thurs. I did my work on Thursday and had a nice lunch and dinner with my parents, and in the evening my mom and I took a long walk like we used to when I was much younger. That was nice, and with the walk I was able to be more active that day than I had anticipated.

Friday I finished things up and was able to get home by mid-afternoon. It was supposed to rain that day, but not until evening, so hubby and I figured we could squeeze in a workout. We rode our bikes to the gym, lifted weights, and rode home. On our ride home, it started sprinkling rain. It wasn't too bad, we didn't get soaked or anything. We were warm so the cool rain actually felt nice and refreshing.

I sort of messed up after that workout, though. I know I should eat after a workout, but I didn't eat right away when we got home. We were sweaty so we showered first and then I sort of sat around for awhile as hubby slowly cooked dinner. My guts didn't like that, they wanted to have food right away. So I got hit with some nausea and d. I got the nausea under control with Zofran, and I was able to eat a little bit when dinner finally was ready, and after that I felt somewhat better.

Saturday I felt pretty well, the episode of nausea & did fortunately didn't stick around. We went to the corgi picnic and had a nice time. There was a lot of food (everyone brought a dish to pass) so I sort of stuffed my face! Didn't pay for it, fortunately. Sometimes my body doesn't like it when I eat too much, but I did okay on Saturday. Didn't do anything active aside from walk around with my dog at the picnic.

Sunday hubby had to work, so I decided to ride my bike to the gym by myself. I did much better on Sunday than I did on Friday. I did feel a little bit tired, like things were still slightly sore from Friday, but I managed to do everything I wanted to do. And didn't get rained on this time! ;) Also, I made sure to eat right away once I got home. I had very little energy left once I got home, so I had an English muffin and a little bit of chocolate just to get something in my belly. That gave me enough energy to shower, and I made sure to have more substantial food for my dinner (homemade tummy-friendly pizza with a cauliflower crust, goat cheese, and avocado - super yum!).

I stayed up too late last night watching the football (Packers) game, so I'm pretty tired today. That tiredness, combined with me being sore and tired from yesterday's workout, means that today is a rest day. Tomorrow I'm planning to hit the little gym for weights. Haven't planned anything beyond that just yet. I'm feeling pretty well right now but don't want to jinx it!
 
Honestly, Hawkeye, lobster rolls just don't make sense to me. You take this delicious lobster meat... and put it on a crappy sandwich. :p Just give me the lobster, leave the bread out of it!

Fitness update 9/22/15: I walked the dog last night, so it ended up not quite being a rest day. Today I'm still planning to hit the little gym for weights on my lunch break. For some reason I'm just freezing cold today - it was supposed to be mid 70s and sunny, but it's very overcast and it feels cold. I'm wearing a sweater and shivering! So I'm looking forward to going to the gym, because at least then I can get warmed up. It's starting to feel and look like autumn here for sure. I don't know how many more bike rides I'll be able to get in before the weather prevents me from riding. I'm really glad I was able to do two bike-gym-bike sessions last week. I'd love to do at least one more before I have to put my bikes away for winter.

Oddly though, I'm excited for winter as well. I look forward to getting out my ice skates and my snowshoes! :) I also want to try downhill skiing this year - I've never been skiing, so I'm surely going to fall a lot, but it sounds like something new and fun to try. And I feel like fitness should always be fun. That's one of the secrets to staying motivated, to always have fun with your workouts and do something you enjoy. If it feels like drudgery and you just can't wait for it to be over with, of course you're not going to stick with it. Fortunately for me, I find lifting weights to be fun, but I'm probably weird, ha ha. :p
 
Update 9/23/15: I hit the little gym yesterday. Wasn't feeling particularly energetic but I muddled through. It was one of those "fake it till you make it" type of workouts. And there's nothing wrong with that, I still did everything that I usually do in the gym, and not every workout is going to be amazing and wonderful. It was fine, just didn't feel overly enthusiastic or energetic.

Today my bad hip is aching, not sure why. I stretched it out quite well after weights yesterday. Sometimes it aches when it rains but it's not raining today, didn't rain yesterday, no rain in the forecast, so that's clearly not it. I might have just slept on it wrong? Not sure.

I'm feeling tired today. Lately I'm finding it harder to get through a full work week. I get exhausted by the end of it. It's only Wednesday and I'm already starting to feel that exhaustion. Not good. I think I'm going to rest today, probably will go to bed early and just try to tackle some of the exhaustion. Tomorrow I hope to go to the gym again and lift weights - not sure which gym I'll end up at. If hubby isn't working and wants to go, then we'll likely hit the big gym. If he can't go for some reason then I'll hit the little gym on my lunch break. Not planning anything beyond tomorrow just yet. I have to conjure more energy first!
 
Another quick update for today: I feel more energetic this afternoon which is good news. However, the bad news is, my bad hip has been aching more and more as the day has gone on. I find myself limping and wishing I had brought my cane with me this afternoon! :( Not good. I snuck down to the little gym for just a few minutes, didn't change into my gym clothes or anything, just went to use the mat down there for some hip stretching. That seemed to help a bit, temporarily, but the pain is back and worse again. Ugh, frustrating.

If my hip is feeling like this tomorrow, I should actually still be okay. I think I can still work out, I know that I've done weights in the past where I was fine with the weights themselves but them limping from machine to machine. My hip is fine with me doing weights, and most weights exercises don't tend to involve my hips anyway (and if my hips do balk at me doing leg exercises then I'll just stick to arms, but I honestly think I'll be okay to do everything). It's the walking in between sets that really gets me. :p There's a lady who I see at the big gym sometimes, she uses a walker so I presume she has some sort of injury or disability, and she uses her walker to get from machine to machine. I'm going to use her as an inspiration, as I'll likely be limping from machine to machine tomorrow. In the meantime, tonight I'm going to put my heating pad on the hip and I might also soak it in some Epsom salt (I'm not sure that Epsom salt actually does anything for me, but I guess it can't hurt either).
 
Update 9/24/15: The bad hip is still aching today. Not as bad as it was yesterday afternoon, but then again the hip pain yesterday started off not too bad in the morning and then gradually got worse as the day went on, so that could very well happen again today. I did put the heating pad on it for a couple hours and also soaked it in some Epsom salts yesterday evening. I think the heating pad helped a bit, not sure about the salts. Today I brought my cane with me - yesterday I found myself wishing that I had my cane, so today I just bit the bullet and brought it to work with me. It's always annoying because certain people always have to comment - "Oh, you have a cane! Did you hurt your leg?" Um, no, it's for my arthritis, you know, for the same reason I needed a cane the last time and the time before that. Yes, I'm a young-ish (35) person with arthritis so then the next comment is always about how I'm "too young for this" - gee thanks, I'll inform my hips of this. Also please tell me - what is the appropriate age for arthritis? ;) At least I can keep a snarky sense of humor about it.

Sooo. I could probably do a workout today, but since the hip is still having some pain and I'm using a cane to walk, I think it's probably wisest to rest another day rather than go to the gym. I'm aiming to get to the gym tomorrow, that's the goal. Will just have to see how it's feeling tomorrow though, if it's still bad then I may rest again.
 
Update 9/25/15: The hip is still achy. Getting better but pain still definitely there. Not walking with a cane today but still walking more slowly than usual and limping a little bit, the hip just feels tight and uncomfortable rather than pain, so it's improving but not great just yet. I'm going to listen to my body and rest again today, and through the weekend as well just to be safe. The current plan is to rest and recover and then hit the gym on Monday.
 
Update 9/28/15: I mostly rested all weekend. We did do a fair bit of walking around on Saturday, going to garage sales. I even got some new fitness equipment - at one garage sale, there was a huge pile of free stuff, and in that pile I found a really nice weighted bar and some weight plates. So now I have a nice barbell set which cost me $0. Score! I already had dumbbells at home but not a barbell. I don't use the bar for much when I'm at the gym, mostly just squats with the bar, but it's still nice to have one at home. And the price was sure nice. :) I always love getting new fitness equipment and I'm pretty excited about my new barbell set.

The hip has given me a few niggles of pain here and there, but it's much better than it was and it's just about back to normal (my normal). I'm no longer walking with a cane nor with a limp so that's a definite improvement. I am fighting off a migraine today, but I'm functional and not feeling horrendous so I think I'm good to go to the gym. Just going to hit the little gym on my lunch break, won't push myself too hard and will ease back into things since I've been away from the gym for nearly a week. Don't want to make the hip angry all over again and don't want to aggravate the migraine either! So I'll do a workout while trying to keep all my various health issues in balance. Anybody else ever feel like you're walking a tightrope while juggling all your health issues? One false move and everything topples over and then you have to climb back up and start all over again. That's basically how I feel a lot of the time.

I haven't planned out my week yet. I do know that tomorrow I have lunch plans with a friend, so no lunchtime workout. I may use my rowing machine at home tomorrow evening though. Wednesday tentatively little gym again, if today and tomorrow go well. Haven't given much thought beyond that. Just working on getting and keeping myself well enough to work out and that's definitely a day by day endeavor.
 
Update 9/29/15: I hit the little gym on my lunch yesterday and felt really good. I felt strong and energetic and was able to accomplish everything I wanted to. You know it's a good workout when you exhaust yourself to the point of being shaky by the end of the workout, and I ended up shaky.

Today I'm mostly going to rest. I'm on my "time of the month" so I'm a bit crampy although my guts have been surprisingly quiet (formed stools!). I think I might do a quickie rowing machine session at home tonight while watching TV, maybe just like 15-20 minutes on the rowing machine in order to get in some physical activity. I can't walk the dog tonight because it's quite rainy today, and even if the rain stops soon the park will still be muddy and yucky. So the rowing machine sounds like my best bet. Tomorrow I'm planning to lift weights, likely in the little gym on my lunch break. Haven't made workout plans beyond tomorrow just yet. Although I will say, the weekend looks nice - temps in the upper 50s/low 60s and sunny, sounds wonderful for a bike ride. I'd love to get my road bike out at least once more before I have to put it away for the winter, so I'm tentatively thinking about going on a bike ride. A leisurely ride through the arboretum to see the trees changing colors might be just the thing.
 
Update 10/1/15: I did do the rowing machine on Tues evening for about 20 minutes. I also tried doing a bit of hula hooping, but I couldn't for whatever reason get the hoop to stay up and moving - usually I have no trouble, but this time I had nothing but trouble. Hmph. So I only tried and failed at that for a few minutes. Hooping never makes my stomach feel good - the hoop I have is a professional adult sized hoop, but it's got these little bumpy parts on it that are supposed to massage the stomach & back but instead they just sort of hurt and irritate. So I guess I'll never be a very good hula hooper.

Yesterday I hit the little gym for weights. It started out well - warm-up and the weights went fine. But during my stretches after weights, I got hit with the vurps. My GERD hasn't been angry for awhile, but when I get the vurps I know my GERD is seriously not messing around. So I had to stop, leave the gym, drink some water, have a bunch of reflux meds, and then force myself to eat something (by that time, the nausea had set in so eating wasn't easy). The vurps (vomity burps) are always a warning sign for me, that things are about to go crazy with my reflux. But as long as I take those steps to get things under control immediately, I can usually avoid the really bad symptoms (gastritis). The reason I need to eat right away is, I need to give my stomach acid something to work on. If there's nothing for it to work on, no food, then it goes to work on the lining of my stomach and that's what causes the gastritis which is pretty painful and not a fun time. So yeah, I had to take a bunch of ranitidine, an extra nexium, and a couple zofrans for the nausea, but I got it under control. I still didn't feel stellar after all that, and I ended up with my heating pad on my stomach the entire evening.

Fortunately, I feel okay today. I'm not going to push things as I don't want a repeat of yesterday, and I was thinking today would be a rest day anyway, so it's just as well. I'm going to eat bland, low-acid foods and not do anything that would anger my GERD. I have some food triggers, but my main GERD triggers are lying down/sleeping, and exercising. Those are the two times that my symptoms tend to be worst - and for exercise, abdominal exercises in particular are the worst (I didn't do any ab exercises yesterday though so it's still a bit of a mystery why the GERD got so angry). So I won't exercise today. Can't really avoid sleep and will avoid GERD food triggers. Not much more I can do other than that!

Tomorrow I'll assess how I'm feeling and go from there. I'd love to do weights again but I don't want another bad GERD attack so we'll just see what happens. I think I might just skip the little gym and use my home gym tomorrow evening if I'm feeling up to a workout - I can use my weights at home to have a pretty decent workout (I have a weight bench, dumbbells and a barbell, plus a kettle bell and a balance board and various other fitness equipment), and if things go south then my heating pad and bathroom are right there. I usually tend to dislike working out at home because of all the distractions - my pets always try to come by me and see what I'm doing and beg for cuddles and attention when I'm working out, and with being at home I am reminded that I have to do laundry or dishes or vacuuming, stuff like that. Being in a gym, there's obviously none of those distractions. But at home it's very convenient so there's a trade off. On days that I'm feeling less than great and know that I might need to run for meds, run to the bathroom, etc then I feel like being at home is the safer and better option. So, that's the tentative plan. I haven't planned anything for the weekend just yet, am going to take it day by day and see how I'm feeling. Lately it's been one thing after another - last week it was my arthritis and this week my GERD - really not looking forward to whatever's next!
 
Update 10/5/15: I had a pretty good weekend for the most part. Friday, I didn't end up exercising. I ran some errands on my lunch break, and after work hubby and I sat by our fire pit and grilled kebabs which was yummy and relatively tummy-friendly. So no exercise on Friday but I did eat fairly well (chicken and veggies on the kebabs).

Saturday was a day of getting stuff done. I didn't do a proper workout per se, but I was active pretty much the whole day. I did laundry, dishes, a lot of straightening up and cleaning, some baking, took out the garbage, walked the dog, did yard work, and went grocery shopping. I did a lot! So I felt satisfied that I moved around enough on Saturday even without setting foot inside a gym.

Sunday, I knew I should do a proper weights workout, but I didn't feel like leaving the house. So I worked out with my equipment at home. Got to use my new barbell which was quite nice. Also used my dumbbells and kettlebell. Had a good workout and then rested for much of the day - mainly worked on crafts and watched the football game on TV.

Sunday night is where things went downhill. I asked hubby to make us some fried fish for dinner. Terrible I know, but it sounded delicious at the time. It did not do such good things to me though. It riled up my GERD and my guts. I took a Zofran for the nausea which took me from diarrhea to constipation. Today I still feel stopped up, but it feels like diarrhea is building up behind it. After several attempts, I was able to pass some stool this morning, and there was a bit of blood in it. Great.

So I'm once again trying to be super mindful of my diet and not eat stupid things that I know I shouldn't. I bought some fresh broccoli and cauliflower this morning, which I'm going to steam in the microwave at work and have with a packet of ready-to-eat salmon for lunch. That sounds like a fairly decent and healthy work lunch. I also have a healthy breakfast/morning snack - I made myself some overnight oats with chia seeds and cashew milk and fruit. I'm also determined not to let this episode keep me out of the gym. So, since yesterday was weights, today I'm going to have a cardio day and do 30 mins on the stationary bike in the little gym. I'm also trying to walk more. In the little gym, someone else (not quite sure who) uses the gym at a different time of day than I do, and they tend to crank the thermostat to be warmer. I like it cold in the gym when I work out, I find it miserable to exercise when it's at all warm. So I have decided, I'm going to take the stairs to the basement more often during the day. I just went down there now and turned down the thermostat in the gym. My desk at work is on the 3rd floor and the gym is in the basement, so that was a nice bit of stair walking. I'm going to try to walk up and down the stairs as often as I can. Whenever I'm feeling cold or tired or just need to get away from my desk, I'm planning to just walk down to the basement and back up again to get my blood moving.

I haven't done much planning for my workouts this week, but I'd like to work out as much as possible. I'm hoping to do weights Tues & Thurs & Sat. Sunday, the weather looks like it'll be really nice and the fall foliage might be at peak by then, so a bike ride through the arboretum could be amazing. That's what I'm thinking for now. Need to see how I'm feeling of course, hopefully this bleeding episode was a one-time thing so that I can move on and keep up with my workouts. I'm feeling optimistic though and am really going to make an effort this time (I feel like I've said this before) to eat better and focus on my diet more and not eat crap that makes me feel awful.
 
Update 10/6/15: I feel okay today. Guts are improving although all that broccoli and cauliflower did give me some gas! :p The cramps and grumbliness are mostly gone though and my stools have somewhat normalized so that's good. I'm having a fair bit of nausea this morning but that's normal for me (I have some degree of nausea most mornings) so I'm not worried about that.

I did cardio yesterday - 30 mins on the stationary bike in the little gym. That went well, I felt energetic and I did some intervals of faster riding and played around with the resistance too. Today I'm planning to hit the little gym again for weights. Depending on how energetic I feel this evening, I might also walk the dog after work. The weather is quite nice today, sunny and low 70s, so it'd be nice to get outside and enjoy it for a bit.

I haven't planned anything yet for tomorrow. It might end up being a rest day or dog walking day. I'm starting to plan out my weekend fitness - hubby works all weekend, so I'll be on my own (which is fine, I prefer working out alone). So, I'm tentatively thinking that I might ride my bike to the gym on Saturday. The weather looks like it'll still be pretty nice. One last bike-gym-bike session would be great before I have to put my bikes away for winter. And on Sunday, I'm thinking that might be the day that I take a bike ride through the arboretum to enjoy the fall foliage. I may as well get as many bike rides in as I can before the weather gets too cold! That's the tentative plan for now.
 
Update 10/7/15: Doing okay today although had pizza last night. It didn't seem to affect me too badly, I thought I was slightly constipated but nope, I'm not. Not having d either, actually having formed stools. I've been trying to eat better and less lately so maybe that has something to do with it? (Pizza is obviously not part of my plan to eat better though!) I've also been having more fiber, I'm making sure to eat oatmeal every day as well as take my psyllium husks. It sounds weird to say but fiber might actually be helping me for once! I think because I'm only having soluble fiber - I know that insoluble fiber does awful things to me, but soluble is okay.

I didn't end up walking the dog yesterday, but I did go to the little gym so I got in a workout. I did weights and bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, wall sit, pushups, etc) and my stretches. My hips have felt a bit tight lately but not painful, so that's good. I've been trying to exercise and stretch my hips as much as I can to keep them loose and feeling okay. That's been working pretty well.

Tonight I'm going to walk the dog. Not doing anything fitness-wise other than that today. Tomorrow will be weights again - might end up going to the big gym with hubby after work. If not, I'll hit the little gym on my lunch break. Friday, I haven't decided yet what to do. Hubby has to work all evening long so I'll be on my own. I may just walk the dog again. I don't want to do a cardio bike day on Friday, because I'm hoping to do bike rides both Sat & Sun. 3 days in a row of biking is too much, I think. So tentatively will walk the dog on Friday unless I can think of something else fitness-wise I'd like to do. Saturday I'm planning to ride my bike to the big gym - will lift weights at the gym and then ride home. That's always such a nice workout, with the ride there being my warm-up and the ride home being my cool-down, and with the cold weather rapidly approaching this may be my last bike-gym-bike session of the season so I'm going to enjoy and appreciate it. It's always sad when I can't ride my bike anymore because of winter. I have to do the stationary bike indoors all winter long for cardio, and that gets to be so incredibly boring. I love riding my bike outside, seeing the sights and having the scenery change and actually propelling myself forward. Staying in one place and pedaling to nowhere with no change of scenery, no sun on my face nor wind in my hair, it's just so dull. I know I need cardio, so I still do it, but sometimes I really have to force myself to do a session on the stationary bike. Bleh.

Anyway. Sunday will possibly be my last bike ride of the season. I'm hoping to take a mid-morning ride through the arboretum. The leaves are changing colors, and to ride through a place that is like 99% trees should be wonderful. I'm not going to push myself (the arboretum is surprisingly hilly and I can really tire myself out if I push myself to ride too fast through there), I'm just going to take a leisurely slow ride and soak in the beautiful fall scenery and the still reasonably warm weather.
 
Update 10/8/15: I walked the dog last night. We had a good walk - met up with my neighbor who has corgis and walked with her. She only had one corgi with her as her other dog is recovering from a back injury (bulging disc they think, but fortunately it sounds like the dog will be okay and is healing well). It was nice weather and nice to talk with my neighbor and nice for our dogs to play and walk together - it was just a good time all around. :)

Today I'm heading to the little gym for weights. Hubby is off of work today and he's decided to go visit a friend, so he's not able to go to the big gym with me after all. So, little gym it is, which is just fine. I'm still feeling pretty well today. I'm getting a little exhausted, but that often happens. I work a full-time Mon-Fri office job, and lately I've started getting exhausted on or around Wednesdays, and have to really push myself to get through Thursdays and Fridays. Today I'm not nearly as exhausted as I've been on other Thursdays, so I'm still reasonably okay. Not sure how I'll be feeling tomorrow, but I'm okay to work out today. Not running on fumes just yet but the tank is starting to run low on gas.
 
Another quick update for today: Well, crap. I'm coming down with a (yet another) cold, I think. There's been a nasty cold going around and at least one of my co-workers seems to have it. I felt sniffly and congested and slightly exhausted this morning but figured it was just allergies as I felt otherwise okay (exhaustion is common for me especially later in the week, the work week tends to exhaust me towards the end of it). But walking up the stairs at work gave me a few short coughing fits. Then I did go to the gym today, and I felt quite sluggish and just "off" during my workout. Since I've gotten back from the gym, I've been coughing a lot and I sure feel like a cold is coming on. Yuck!

I didn't have solid workout plans for tomorrow anyway, aside from maybe walking the dog, so I think I'm just going to rest tonight and tomorrow. Chicken soup is definitely happening for dinner tonight, but I don't feel energetic enough to cook, so I'm going to pick up some ginseng chicken soup from a Korean restaurant in town. Will likely take a hot bath tonight after my soup to try to get my sinuses to open up since they just feel stuffy. Tomorrow I likely won't do any exercise, not even walking the dog. I have to work, I'm almost out of sick days and I need to save what few days I have in the event of a flare or something really bad, can't waste a sick day on a cold at this point. So I will work, but after work I'm going to rest and won't exercise. Then, I'll just play it by ear on the weekend. I'm not hopeful at this point that I'll be able to do my bike rides, because recently I've seen otherwise healthy friends on facebook saying that this cold has lasted them several weeks. Me with my crappy health and crummy immune system, that doesn't bode well. So at this point I'm assuming I'll probably just end up resting all weekend, ugh. I know it's necessary to rest when I have a cold, but it just frustrates me to have to cancel workout plans. Resting seems so unproductive (although I'm sure I'll be doing things like crafts - I can still crochet even when I'm too ill to do much of anything). So yeah, workout plans for the next few days are likely cancelled and I'll be resting and coughing and bleh.
 
No, not for most of us - I still have to work on Columbus Day. The post office is one of the few places here that actually closes on Columbus Day, and my parents are/were postal workers (my dad still is but my mom is now retired) so they always got a day off work, but basically nobody else outside of postal workers gets a long weekend. So I just get a regular weekend, I still have to work my usual schedule. Oh well!
 
I'm definitely not working out today. I've been coughing up a storm and feeling quite exhausted. Just trying to get through my work day so that I can go home and rest tonight. I did have chicken soup last night but not sure if it helped any. Today I'm eating mostly bland foods because my guts are a little bit upset (my guts always get worse when I get a cold or virus). Yesterday I mostly just sat on the couch with my crocheting (finished the blanket I was working on, woo hoo) and watched TV. I'm thinking tonight will be exactly the same except that I'll be working on a scarf and not a blanket. Wow, exciting fun plans. ;) That may end up being my entire weekend.
 
Update 10/12/15: I didn't do any exercise all weekend. No weights, no bike rides, didn't even walk the dog. Stayed at home for the most part (I did go out grocery shopping but that was about it). I watched a bunch of TV and movies, crocheted 3 scarves, did a bit of stuff around the house like cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc but for the most part I rested. Today I'm still coughing a bit so I think I'm going to have to rest again. I find that I can't work out with a cough, heavy breathing just makes me feel 10 times worse. It's frustrating, but I'll continue resting and just hope to get back to the gym soon.

I do see my GI today. Not even really sure what to ask him. I've been up and down lately, not great but not terrible. My bloodwork is always good so I don't seem to be flaring, but I'm not sure this is proper remission either. I really don't know. I'm just going to tell him how I've been doing lately and ask if he has any suggestions.
 
Another quick update for today: I saw my GI and it went better than I expected. We're re-checking my anemia, and if I'm still anemic then I'm likely going to get some iron injections. I hope I do get to have the injections - I've had some issues with fatigue & exhaustion lately, and I'm hoping that iron injections will help with those issues. I've had some issues with rectal bleeding going back to March which caused my anemia in the first place - I can usually stop the bleeding with steroid suppositories fairly quickly these days, but the damage is still done. The last episode of bleeding I had, back in August, I had 5 bad episodes of bleeding in one day and ended up dizzy & light-headed. I went to urgent care where they checked my blood and said I was fine, but it turned out they didn't check my iron (!!) and although they did check my CBC, it wasn't actually fine like they said it was. Worthless, ugh. So my GI is re-checking things properly, we did bloodwork today to look at my iron & ferritin and we will go from there once the results are back.

On the downside, the phlebotomist gave me a huge painful bruise when she took my blood! It is legit painful, probably the worst blood draw I've ever had. And, I get my flu shot on Wednesday, so that's going to give me some arm pain then too. Ugh, I'm starting to wonder when I'll be able to get back to the gym! I'm still trying to kick this cold, and now with arm pain on top of arm pain, lifting weights isn't going to be pleasant for a few days. Bleh. So in this order, I need to get better, get back in the gym, get my blood results, and get some iron injections. Now to start checking items off of that list...
 
Update 10/13/15: I'm still coughing today so the gym isn't happening. My arm is also still somewhat painful from my blood draw yesterday. I'm getting grumpy about my lack of exercise! I'm thinking about maybe just walking the dog tonight - a quick walk might be okay, if I dress warm. It's a bit chilly and windy out today, but if I wear some reasonably warm clothes I think I'd be okay. Just going to see how I feel when I get home tonight and go from there. Hoping to get back into the gym properly at some point this week.
 
Update 10/14/15: Didn't end up walking the dog yesterday, the weather turned colder and I was still coughing. Still coughing today too, so I guess it's yet another rest day, ugh. Had my flu shot today so now my other arm is sore. :p I can deal with that, though. Just have to get over this cough and then I should be okay to work out. Still waiting on my bloodwork from my GI. Just kind of waiting for everything right now!
 
Update 10/16/15: I still haven't been to the gym this week. The arm pain is gone but I'm *still* coughing and congested. Also I'm exhausted. I at least have a reason for the exhaustion, finally! I'm still anemic, not sure how significantly anemic but both my iron and ferritin are definitely low according to the bloodwork results that I just got back this morning (iron is at 30 when it should be at least 50, and ferritin is at a 4 when it should be at least a 5). The good news is, there's relief in sight. My GI said that I could have some iron injections or infusions if my bloodwork showed that I'm still anemic. So I've emailed him this morning asking how to get the ball rolling on those injections or whatever. He did say that those should give me more energy and take away some of the fatigue, so I'm really looking forward to that.

I'm honestly not sure when I'm going to make it back to the gym. With how exhausted I feel right now, I just want to rest as much as I can during the weekend. My parents are coming down for a bit on Saturday to do some shopping and have lunch, but they never stay the whole day so that'll just be a few hours fortunately. I can rest the rest of the time. Hopefully by next week I'll stop coughing and have a bit of energy and can make something happen in the gym. For now, I'm just feeling very bleh.
 
Hawkeye, I can't take oral iron - even the so-called "gentle" iron really upsets my stomach. So infusions it is. I heard back from my GI this morning and he said my GP has to order the infusions, so he's sending all the information over to my GP so he can do that. So, I'm still waiting, but hopefully not for much longer. I want to start the infusions ASAP as the fatigue has been terrible lately. Today I'm so exhausted even though I slept for like 10 hours. I really need the infusions so that I can get rid of this fatigue already!
 
Update 10/19/15: I'm still exhausted today, but I seem to finally have stopped coughing. It's only been 10 days, ugh. :p So, I think I'm going to give the gym a try today. I won't push myself too hard, but I want to do *something*. It's been 10 days since I last worked out and that drives me crazy. I hate missing that many workouts, so I'm just going to go for it today and see what happens and how I feel afterwards. I have low expectations but I need to try. I'll be happy with anything that I'm able to do.

I obviously haven't planned out any further workouts just yet, as I'm just going to play it by ear and see how today goes and then take it day by day from here.
 
Another quick update for today: Well, I made it through my workout. It was extremely tough, though. I did not have a lot of energy and I found myself out of breath regularly, and a few times I just had to stop, breathe, and talk myself out of passing out or puking. I didn't push myself but I did do everything I usually do in the gym, just at a slower pace, so I probably overdid it just by doing my usual routine. I am apparently not well enough yet to make it through my usual weights workout, which is discouraging. I think it's partly this lingering cold - it must still be affecting my lungs a bit even though I haven't been coughing today. And I think the anemia is the other culprit, it's been sapping my energy which obviously doesn't help me get through a workout. Between having no energy and not having my normal amount of lung capacity, that really hindered my ability to have a good workout. My reflux decided to act up a bit too (that's the part where I had to try not to puke) - I definitely got the burps and I could feel stuff coming up my throat a bit as I was stretching. It fortunately didn't get any worse than that.

At any rate, I'm proud that I made it through in spite of the fairly massive hurdles that my body put in my way (and that I didn't pass out nor puke). I'm thinking that tomorrow is a rest day though! And that I'm going to do less and go more slowly in my next workout so as not to have a repeat of today. I feel utterly wiped out now and I'm definitely resting for the remainder of the day and tomorrow too. I'll revisit how I'm feeling on Wednesday and go from there. I may have a slower, more gentle workout on Wednesday if I'm feeling reasonably well.
 
Update 10/20/15: The cough is back today. :( Ugh! Not sure if it's because of my workout yesterday or what. Clearly I'm not yet totally over this cold/cough. Very annoying! So, my to-do list is, 1. get over this stupid cough already, 2. start iron infusions to get rid of the iron deficiency and get some energy back. Once I tackle those two things, I think I'll be able to work out regularly again. Right now I'm still waiting on my GP to figure out what he needs to do to order the iron infusions (he said he needs to check with hematology, I'm not sure why that is). Hopefully soon I can start the infusions.
 
10/23/15: Nothing new to report unfortunately. I'm *still* coughing - yesterday things seemed to be even worse, breathing hurt a bit. It's been over 2 weeks now with this cold/cough and I'm seriously frustrated. Haven't been to the gym since my failed attempt on Monday. I'm also *still* waiting to hear back from my GP about getting iron infusions. I'm getting so impatient and grumpy! I just want to feel better! Ugh.
 
Update 10/26/15: It's been a week since I last went to the gym and I'm getting impatient, plus my hips aren't happy (when I'm idle, my arthritis starts to ache more) so I think I'm just going to give it a shot today. Yesterday I felt quite good, I managed to walk the dog and didn't cough at all and had a decent amount of energy. Today though I'm back to coughing (had a massive coughing fit this morning) and I'm feeling pretty exhausted. So I don't really know how the gym is going to go, but I'm going to give it a try. I guess I'd rather try and fail than not try! So little gym on my lunch break today, going in with very low expectations, and if I can manage to have a halfway decent weights workout then I'll be satisfied.

Hopefully my days of low energy are coming to an end - I should be getting a call today to schedule my first iron infusion! I called my GP's office first thing this morning to see what the status was, and they said they had contacted the infusion center on Friday and the infusion center should be calling me today. Finally! I hope I can get in soon, hopefully I won't have to wait too long for my appointment. I just want to feel better already and I feel like this could be huge for me in terms of my energy levels and being able to work out more.

Edit: I've decided against going to the gym today after all. I'm still coughing and my lungs still kind of hurt - a gym session is just going to make that worse. Beyond frustrated, but I'll rest yet again. The good news is, I got my iron infusions scheduled, so I get my first one a week from today. REALLY hoping that helps a lot. So, I may end up resting another week - just going to take it day by day. Really hoping that once the infusions start, then things will dramatically improve.
 
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10/29/15: I feel like a broken record, but still no gym for Cat. I think I'm finally over this cough (knock on wood) but I'm still dealing with fatigue. Monday is my first iron infusion so hopefully after that the fatigue will start to dissipate. Ideally I'd love to hit the gym on Tuesday! Will just have to see how I'm feeling and play it by ear. Lately it seems like I barely have enough energy to make it through work and that's about it. My boss is concerned, she keeps asking how I am. The only answer I seem to be able to give her is, "I'm alive and functional but not much more than that". When I told her how long it's been since I last went to the gym, she was shocked and said, "That's not like you!" I know it. I hope to get back, soon. I am really hoping the iron infusions are the answer to this fatigue!
 
Update 11/3/15: I went to the gym today!!!! :D :D :D :D

I should back up. So for anyone who follows this thread, you may recall that my iron and ferritin levels have been really low lately (iron at 30 and ferritin at 4) so my GI said I need iron infusions. And I had my first iron infusion yesterday afternoon. It mostly went well. The only issue was that my stomach got pretty upset yesterday evening after the infusion. I had some pretty wicked d, gurgliness, cramps, etc. The nurse had warned me that might happen - she said that some people react the same way to the infusion that they'd react to the iron tablets - nausea, etc. So I definitely had that starting yesterday evening. Took some Zofran this morning and started feeling somewhat better. Didn't sleep well last night so I woke up tired, and wasn't really sure where my energy levels were at. As today has gone on, however, it's become clear that my energy levels are indeed noticeably improved from where they've been, so I've had some good results from the infusion along with the tummy symptoms.

Because of the increase in energy and because the Zofran seemed to help calm my stomach somewhat, I decided to just try a workout today. It's been weeks and I just wanted to work out already! So I went to the gym. Didn't have a stellar workout, my stomach was pretty unhappy the whole time. But I made it through (didn't do anything involving my abs obviously!). I was okay the whole time energy-wise which is very encouraging, so I think once these infusions are done and my stomach properly calms down, then I'll be okay to work out like I want to and to push myself in the gym. I'm really looking forward to that! :)

So yeah, a bit of a mixed bag, but all in all it's a definite improvement. I have two more infusions to go (one next week and one the week after), so just a couple weeks to go and then things should settle down. I am very encouraged that my energy has improved so noticeably after just one infusion and I'll be interested to see how much more energy I have after my next two infusions are done. For the time being I'm just going to play it by ear, will work out if my stomach is feeling well enough but will rest if my stomach feels like it does today. My next infusion is this coming Monday, so maybe later this week or on the weekend I'll work out again - hopefully my stomach will have more fully calmed down by then.
 
Update 11/4/15: I probably shouldn't have gone to the gym yesterday. My stomach felt really rough for the rest of the day, I ended up lying on the couch with my heating pad on all evening and feeling sorry for myself. Doing somewhat better today although I haven't had any solid food yet so we'll see how that goes.

If I'm feeling reasonably well tomorrow, I want to go back to the gym. :p I'm probably insane. Next week I promise I will not hit the gym the day after my infusion, I will give it a few days next time. For the time being, I need to make my focus just getting through the infusions. After the infusion on Nov 16th, I'm done, so after I recover from that one then I should be able to get back into the gym as often as I want to and push myself. But for now, it's infusions first and gym second.
 
Update 11/5/15: I was feeling reasonably well today - decent energy and stomach only slightly upset, so I decided to try going to the gym again. It went okay-ish. Since my stomach was feeling not completely wonderful (although when is it ever?), I knew I should once again (as always, really) avoid abdominal exercises. But, I did a set of push-ups, and I guess that was juuuust enough pressure on my abdomen to set things in motion. As soon as I finished the push-ups, I felt a mild-ish acid reflux attack start up. Not good, because it happened as I was doing my warm-up! I still had a whole workout left to do. And I did make it through my workout, but I had to be extremely mindful of my abdomen and keep myself upright (meaning, no glute bridge) to try to keep my stomach acid from coming up my throat. Not a super pleasant time, but I did make it through the workout and I feel pretty proud of that. It was tough but I pushed through - that seems to be a theme with me this week. :p

I'm tentatively hoping to do another workout on Saturday. Tomorrow is my birthday so no gym, I'm going to stuff myself with sushi and other delicious foods. :) Saturday though I'm thinking I am going to have to work off some of the calories that I eat tomorrow! Ha ha. Sunday I'm having a birthday lunch with my parents so again I'll probably be stuffing myself with food and likely won't be working out. And Monday is my next iron infusion, so I'm planning to rest up afterwards. Will likely rest Tuesday as well - my previous iron infusion did a number on my stomach, with nausea and gurgling and crampy pain and diarrhea, the works. So I'm planning on having a few days to recover from this infusion, will re-assess on Wednesday or so and see if I can do a workout then.
 
Update 11/9/15: I didn't do a proper workout on Saturday, but I was quite active. Hubby and I walked the dog, and then we raked the yard. We definitely worked up a sweat doing that! So I was satisfied with that amount of activity.

I'm feeling well, suspiciously well. My guts are so quiet, I can't help but think that they're up to something. You know how when little kids are very quiet, that usually means that they're getting into some sort of trouble? That's basically what I'm thinking my guts are up to right now. :p It's hard to enjoy the good days when you know they won't last and are just waiting for whatever's coming next.

Today I have my 2nd iron infusion. I have learned from the forum that although the first infusion is usually pretty rough, subsequent infusions tend to not be nearly as bad, so hopefully I won't get the nausea, d, etc that I had the first time. So, hopefully I'll do well and will be able to get back into the gym pretty quickly. Will just have to play it by ear and see how things go! If I'm able to, I'd love to work out again tomorrow!
 
Update 11/11/15: I did experience a bit of d and stomach upset (mostly acid reflux symptoms like belching and vurping) after my 2nd iron infusion, but the forum advice I got was correct - it wasn't nearly as bad as the aftermath of the first infusion. I probably could have worked out yesterday, but I wanted to give myself a full day to recover just to be on the safe side.

Today I feel fine - solid stools and stomach feels fine. Slightly tired as I didn't sleep great but that's really my only complaint and it's a minor one. So I'm definitely good to go to the gym today. The tentative plan for the next few days is this: Today, weights in the little gym. Tomorrow, stationary bike in the little gym. Friday, weights in the little gym. Saturday maybe a rest day, Sunday I'm thinking we'll rake the yard again. There's a large maple tree in my neighbor's backyard but a bunch of it hangs over my yard, and it always waits until the last minute to drop its leaves. So hubby and I raked what little bit had fallen last weekend, and the tree has dropped some more leaves and we'll probably rake again this coming weekend. The last of the leaves won't fall off of the stupid tree until just before it snows, though (that's what always seems to happen) so we find that it's best to just rake periodically to get most of the leaves out of the yard. That way if it does snow before we can rake, at least we got most of it raked up already. So yeah, that'll be a workout in the form of yard work. Two birds with one stone.

One more iron infusion (next week Monday) and then I'm done! So next week I'll probably rest again Mon & Tues, and hopefully will get back to the gym on that Wednesday. And from there, I hope to be back in the gym regularly with few breaks in between workouts. The iron infusions have given me the energy I need to work out, so as long as I can hold onto my iron and keep myself feeling reasonably well, I should be okay! :)
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym a little while ago and felt really good. Reflux was mostly quiet (I had a couple belches but that was it, no vurping nor anything coming up). I was able to properly work up a sweat and do everything I wanted to do - including a short (20 second) plank! My guts didn't even get mad about that which was very encouraging. Can't remember the last time I was able to do any type of abdominal exercise without repercussions. I feel really good now, too. My whole body is just like, Ahhhhh! :) It's great to be feeling well and to be able to exercise properly again. It feels like it's been a very long time since I've had a workout this good!

One of my issues is, when I'm feeling this well, sometimes I get lazy or cocky and eat something I shouldn't. That's when I run into problems - particularly back in March, I was feeling really well and got cocky about it, so I decided to eat some frosted mini wheats cereal. That turned out to be an extremely terrible idea, it set off a month's worth of bleeding which started off this iron deficiency anemia to begin with. So yeah, I'm endeavoring to behave and continue eating reasonably safe foods and not get lazy nor cocky about things. I really want to continue to feel well and to be able to exercise with some intensity. I feel like I should also pay a lot more attention to the iron content of the foods I'm eating, particularly with my last iron infusion coming up - I feel like once that's done with, I'll need to maintain a good level of iron in my system. So I'm making an effort to pay better attention to my diet. I don't want to make my body unhappy again if I can avoid it.
 
Update 11/12/15: I hit the little gym for 30 minutes on the stationary bike and that felt great. My legs felt so fresh! Which seems odd because I just did a workout yesterday, and I was doing a lot of bodyweight stuff with my legs like calf raises, lunges, squats, wall sits, etc. I figured my legs would be tired today but they felt great. Maybe it's because I'm still just getting back into the swing of things in the gym. After all, today was actually my first cardio workout in over a month - I've done a few weights workouts but no cardio for quite awhile.

At any rate, I had good energy and felt good all the way through. I'm just amazed at how well I've been feeling since starting the iron infusions! So much energy and oddly enough my guts seem calmer now that they've adjusted to the infusions. It's been wonderful.

I mentioned diet in my last update, and so far so good on that front. I'm still doing a protein/vitamin smoothie for breakfast (I don't really do solid foods so well first thing in the morning so a smoothie has been my go-to for awhile now) and overnight oats for my mid-morning snack (mid-morning is usually when my body is ready for solid foods so I guess in a way it's breakfast). I add chia seeds and frozen fruit to my oats, and soak them overnight in cashew milk. Very yummy and healthy! Today's lunch was sort of a fancy breakfast-ish type sandwich. I have this English muffin bread, which I toasted and then spread some cream cheese on. Then added a fried egg and some smoked salmon. Yum! The salmon and egg gave me good protein for after my workout (I always eat lunch right after hitting the gym, since I can't have any solid food in my system for a few hours before working out, thanks to my GERD). Dinner will be spaghetti squash prepared like pasta, with a light cream sauce. I know cream sauce isn't the healthiest but my GERD prevents me from doing tomato sauce, so my options are limited. We have some frozen chicken meatballs and will also throw in some mushrooms and onions, so that'll be a nice pasta-ish veggie dish.
 
Update 11/13/15: Change of plans, unfortunately. Gym is not happening today after all. There's been yet another nasty cold going around and I seem to have caught it. For those keeping score, this is the 3rd cold I've had this autumn. Lovely. I'm not feeling too bad, but I can tell I'm a bit run-down and my sinuses are definitely messed up and congested and I can't smell things today. Somebody at work made microwave popcorn and that disgusting smell always seems to permeate the whole building - but I couldn't smell it even when I was near the microwave.

So, today's an impromptu rest day. Going to just play it by ear and see how I'm feeling day by day. We are supposed to have nice, warmer than average and sunny weather this weekend, so I'd love to get out and enjoy it. My dog needs walking and the leaves need raking. But it'll all depend on how I'm feeling. Right now I'd really just like to take a nap and have some tea (maybe not in that order). I'm just hoping this cold doesn't last too long. I don't want to be out of the gym for weeks again like last time.
 
Another quick update for today: My body has decided to throw some random waves of nausea and stomach pain at me this afternoon, so I'm glad I didn't go to the gym. Tummy issues are common for me when I have a cold - it seems to me that it's like, my immune system turns on to fight the cold, but it also decides that while it's on that it might as well attack my digestive system as well, because that's just what it does. I don't know if that's what's really happening, but I always do get an increase (usually slight and temporary, thankfully) in tummy symptoms when I catch any type of cold or virus. So yeah, at any rate, I was pretty much expecting this to happen and I'm glad I wasn't in the gym when the pains and nausea hit me. I was out shopping at the time but I held it together and I had some Zofran with me which helped.

Also, oddly enough, shopping seems to help. I'm sure it's just mental. The first year that I was ill, I wasn't eating so much and I was losing weight because I was flaring basically that whole year, so I would often comfort myself by buying tiny, cute clothes. Today, once again, I was feeling nauseated and not up to eating so what did I do? Went out and bought myself some (medium sized, not tiny anymore) cute clothes. And that helped me forget about the nausea until the Zofran kicked in (it usually takes 20-30 mins to start working for me).

I'm still not feeling great though - slightly dizzy because the sinus congestion is messing with my ears, and I'm feeling pretty tired and run down too. With how I'm feeling now, I'm definitely resting tonight & tomorrow. Will re-assess on Sunday but I'm mentally prepared to rest all weekend plus Monday & Tuesday too - my final iron infusion is on Monday, so I'll need to rest that day and likely the next day as well. So, at this point, I may not get back to the gym until Wednesday. Not ideal, but if it's what my body needs then so be it. I still plan to keep somewhat busy this weekend - I have some sewing and crocheting to do, so that'll keep me occupied. I can rest and do crafts, that'll be a cozy weekend. I may need to have my hubby deal with the raking and dog walking.
 
I seem to be mostly over the cold. Still a little sniffly, but it's raining a lot today which always tends to affect my sinuses, so I think today it's more allergies than the cold. I feel okay other than that. Guts are a bit unsettled because of my iron infusion yesterday, but not too bad at all - I can eat and I haven't had to take any Zofran, so I'm not bad. I'll be resting today since my body seems to need about 24 hours to recover from the infusions. The plan is to hit the gym tomorrow for weights. I'm tentatively thinking, if I'm doing well, I'll do weights tomorrow, cardio (stationary bike) on Thurs, and weights again on Friday. Saturday, I am going to a college football game so it'll be a rest day but I'll be outdoors in a freezing stadium and shivering, so I'll be burning a few calories just from shivering. :p Seriously, the high temp that day is like 33 degrees F, which is pretty cold to be sitting outdoors for hours. I hope my hips don't get too mad. Sometimes, if I'm out in the cold for too long, my arthritis flares up and my hips become quite painful. So I'll have to play it by ear - if the hips are painful after the football game then I'll rest on Sunday to let them recover, but if they're okay then I'll do weights again on Sunday. That's the tentative plan anyway.
 
Update 11/18/15: I hit the little gym on my lunch break today. Felt great, no issues whatsoever. I was mildly sniffly but that didn't really affect me and could have been allergies rather than the cold - sometimes my nose does just get drippy in the gym due to allergies anyway, so I do think I'm fully over the cold. So yeah, workout was good. I had a lot of energy, guts were quiet, reflux was quiet, arthritis was quiet - I felt very good the whole way through! :) I did everything except I meant to do a plank but forgot, ha ha. So I inadvertently avoided abdominal exercises, even though I probably could have done a plank easily. Next time!

Still sticking to my plan - tomorrow planning to do the stationary bike, Friday will do weights again. Saturday football game, and Sunday, who knows. :p Sunday I'll either rest to recover from the football game, or I'll rake the yard, and/or walk the dog, or I'll do weights... some combination of that. The yard really needs raking, and the dog needs walking, and hubby works all weekend long so it all falls to me. If I'm able to, I'll do everything I can. Will just have to see how I'm feeling after I get through Saturday. Oh, and the weather report is now saying that we're getting snow Friday night and Saturday, so that's just great. I'll be sitting outside in not only the cold, but the snow too! Eek!
 
Update 11/19/15: Hit the little gym for 30 mins of cardio today - did hills on the stationary bike and I feel good. It's still amazing to me what a difference the iron infusions have made! My energy levels are way up, my guts seem calmer, I can make it through a work week without needing to rest the entire weekend, and I can make it through a work day without collapsing on the couch for the entire evening. I can actually do things and it's no longer a monumental struggle just to get through something which requires my effort and attention. Is this how normal people feel all the time?

It's been so good to get back to working out properly again. I feel good, going strong. I could have done more than 30 minutes on the bike, but that's all I had time for since I was working out on my lunch break. 30 minutes was great, though, I feel tired but in a good way now. Still planning to do weights tomorrow and then will see how Saturday affects my joints and go from there.
 
11/20/15: Slight change in today's plans. I need to run an errand on my lunch break today, so I've decided that I'll work out at home after work instead. So it's still all good, I have good energy today so I'm sure I can do it. And working out at home will be a nice change of pace from working out in the little gym. I've got enough equipment at home to do a really good workout - I have a barbell, some dumbbells, weight bench, balance board, yoga ball, kettlebell, etc.

My only issue is that there are so many distractions when it comes to working out at home. Like, I get home and I can't just work out right away. First I need to feed my dog and give my cat her medicine. Then I get distracted by chores, like laundry and dishes - "I'll just pop in a quick load of laundry before I start working out" but it's never just a quick load of laundry, it turns into me cleaning my house or reorganizing all the closets because I'm distracted. So, once I take care of my dog and cat, I need to focus on working out and only on working out. All the other chores can wait.

Really wish I had a room that was just a dedicated home gym and that's it. My house is small though, so the guest bedroom doubles as the workout room at home. If it were just a gym, I think it'd be distraction-free. But as it is, I can see that the rug needs vacuuming and maybe I should reorganize that closet. :p It's still distracting. This is why going to an actual gym, whether it's the little gym at work or the big paid membership gym, is much preferred. There are no chores for me to do at either of those gyms! So I can just focus on working out without being OCD and the distractions are kept to a minimum. But I can't go to the big paid membership gym tonight - wish I could, but we have a winter storm warning (there's some heavy snow headed this way tonight) starting at 6 PM, so after work I have to zoom home so I can get home before the snow hits. I hate driving in snow. So yeah, working out at home it is.
 

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