Step Away From the Cake

When I took the stroke clinic in July I started feeling really, really good swimming. Then I did the Tinman at the end of July and was on a real high as far as my swimming was concerned. Since then it's not been so good. In fact, things seem to have fallen apart completely. I'm considerably slower than I was last month. My stroke feels bizarre and not fluid at all. Because of this I've been avoiding swimming a bit, not totally, but some. I have not swum at all this week (for a couple of reasons not just avoidance). I told myself last night I WILL swim this morning no matter what. So I picked out a workout and headed out to the pool at 5:45. My warm-up was 10x50 (:15 RI) and they felt kind of crappy; my arm was going numb, I couldn't not seem to get the rhythm, I couldn't get my breath, nothing was going right. The next part of the warm-up was 300 pull. During this set something happened. My stroke smoothed out and I had a great rhythm going. The ends of the pool ke

It's been a rough week for a number of reasons I'm not going to go into here. Let's just say I made it through, relatively unscathed, and am looking forward to the weekend. So training did not go as planned this week. But I am swimming tomorrow and that's what matters. I've been really watching my calories and realized I've been doing it totally wrong. I keep looking at the total calories I've consumed in a day and not taking into consideration the exercise I do. Doh!!!! For a math minor and a chemist I can be pretty slow sometimes. I could not understand why I consistently ate 2000-2400 calories. Well, when your burning 500-1000 calories before breakfast - duh!!!! So I need to take these things into consideration and I'm really doing well. I'm eating clean. Lots of fruits and veggies, meat. I need to up my protein intake some (not sure how) and lose my nightly ice cream habit (at least it's light ice cream :). Okay, off to bed.

and hence I will be responsible for giving Nala her shots. We had a vet appointment tonight to review her x-rays and get a refresher course in shots. Her hips are loaded with arthritis and the knobs of the leg bones have lots of bone growth on them. The vet says, "When there's bone on bone the body sends calcium to cushion it and causes a build up of calcium." So I say, "Why was there bone on bone???" And he responds, "She was born with hip dysplasia." This almost sent me through the roof. When Nala was about 8 months old I she was having some problems with her rear legs and I said it was hip dysplasia. The vet at the time said no, it was her kneecap not tracking properly. Surgery to anchor the kneecap would fix it. So we had the surgery and for years she was fine. I never really thought about it too much. Fast forward 7 years. Turns out the only place that doesn't have arthritis is the leg that had surgery. That's the only joint in her 2 rear

and the body demanded a day off. I have this weird hip pain. It's mid way between my side and my back and it's really deep. It doesn't radiate anywhere, just stays deep in the butt muscle. It gets worse after I've been sitting or laying for awhile. It remind me a lot of plantar fascitis so I'm thinking it is my IT band since they are made of the same material. Anyway, it's weird and can get quite painful but only when sitting. It doesn't hurt at all when running, swimming or biking. I'm going to google it but I think some serious stretching tonight will help work the kinks out.

It's Sunday so it's time to revisit that question again. I did this last Sunday and it really helped me focus this week. So first, lets review. I swam Monday, Wed, and Friday. I ran Mon, Wed, and Sat. I rode my bike Tues, Sun. I did my strength training Tues, Thurs, Sun. Except for the bike it was exactly as I wanted this week to go. I watched my food intake and was starving for 2 days. I kept eating but was still hungry. Also, I only lost .2 lbs this week. Last week, when I felt like I pigged out, I lost .6 lbs. Hmmm, is there a correlation there??? So over a very successful week. I'm happy with it. Now on to the upcoming week. Okay, I want to keep up the activity. I want to add a couple of things namely stretching every night and 100 crunches a night. Other than that I'm happy with the activity level. Food is where I need to do some work. I have not wanted to eat junk this week. I'm been very good at eating lots of fruits and veggies but I spent 2 days really, rea