We made it

we are officially on spring break. Yes!!! I have things to do, but at least during spring break I can do them in my own time. Yes!!! I have a few things on my mind this morning so let's jump right in.

First are some physical issues. My knees are killing me. They are incredibly painful. It hurts to walk or stand or sit or lay down. It is miserable. But if I do keep active, standing, walking, etc, eventually they start to feel better. Hmmm? I don't know. I'm leaning towards arthritis but in both knees to the same degree, at the same time? Seems a little sketchy to me. I'm also leaning towards the fact that it might be my weight. I am at the heaviest I've been in a while and I'm exercising quite a bit. I'm trying very hard not to jump or run or create any jarring movements on my knees, but last night I did jump twice off high boxes. So yeah, there's that.

Then I have this numbness going on in my hands/arms. This is really bothering me. My hands will go, not exactly numb, but almost like they have fallen asleep and it does not feel good. My left arm/hand is by far the worst. It is happening now as I sit typing this. I have no idea what this might be and frankly it kind of scares me.

The problem with both of these issues is that Medicare starts on April 1st. That is just 24 days away. Since my Medicare coverage is so, so much better than the coverage I have now, I'm really trying to wait it out. But the hand/arm thing is really, really annoying. It was really bothering me yesterday but when I went to strength training last night it was fine. I don't understand it and I can't figure it out. But I will hold on and try to wait it out so I don't have to pay a fortune for it.

Okay, now the bigee. Metabolic flexibility.

Metabolic flexibility is the ability to adapt to changes in metabolic demand. It's also defined as the ability of skeletal muscle to adjust how it uses substrate pathways.

I have heard about this for years and years. When I was following Jason, he talked about this all the time. He would tell us that this was the key to losing weight and that we had to get to a state of good metabolic flexibility in order to really be healthy. Of course, getting there involved things like good sleep, low stress levels, exercise without stress, eating well, etc. Turns out he seems to be right, but there was no way to actually determine if you had good metabolic flexibility or not. He had some things, like being able to fast without too much issue and regular intermittent fasting. Also, if you have good metabolic flexibility your cravings go away. Things like that. But a lot of this you could white-knuckle and think you have goo metabolic flexibility but you really don't.

Then along came Lumen. I've been seeing these ads for years now and kept wondering if it really worked. Can blowing into a little device really help you lose weight. Well, the other day I did a little more digging into it and discovered that it helped you gain metabolic flexibility. By breathing into it, it can measure what you are burning. The more acetone in your breath, the more fat you are burning. Simple and actually pretty easy. So you blow into this device first thing in the morning and then at various times throughout the day to get not only a picture of if you are burning fat or carbs, but how food and exercise affects what you are burning. It then recommends a diet for the day based on what you blew that morning. So yesterday morning I blew a 5, almost exclusively carb burning, so it recommended a very low carb diet for the day, 75grams I believe. This morning I blew a 1, fat burning,  and it still recommends a low carb diet, but today it's 125 grams.  Over the course of the first 2 weeks it is learning me and my patterns. After the first 2 weeks it will have more focused recommendations. I'm very excited about this. I feel like I'm not just floundering in the dark anymore when it comes to my weight or what to eat or what I burn. I feel like I am finally getting some good, usable information that will help me finally take control of my health and my weight. 

Okay, I think that's enough for today. Also, the formatting on this post has gotten all screwed up and I'm tired of messing with it.