Day 602: Nurture Yourself

 

                                                                                            🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤

 " If you nurture your mind, body, and

 spirit, your time will expand. You will

 gain a new perspective that will allow

 you to accomplish much more." 

~Brian Koslow~

                        

It's Day 602 of Nutrisystem. Today was a better day, thanks to the rain and the passage of time. Over the past 602 days I've gained a lot of perspective in many areas of my life and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am finally starting to take care of myself. There is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to my physical health as it's been years since I've seen a doctor.  Believe it or not, shame about my weight (and fear of what they might find) kept me from doing that so it will be a definite goal for 2021. In spite of the challenges 2020 has brought I've made a lot of progress toward achieving all of my goals and I feel pretty blessed about that. Some days I wonder if I'm too focused on myself but then I think back on all of the years that I neglected myself. I'm pretty much making up for 20+ years of always putting myself last and it that makes me self-absorbed, so be it. Knowing what I lived with I try harder not to judge people by what I see or hear on the surface. We all cope in different ways.

Another good update on Tommy Riv's today. They put a speaking valve in his tracheotomy so he was finally able to speak to his wife. She says he had a lot to say and that they can only keep it in for 20 minutes at a time as he gets tired quickly.  Baby steps on this long road but he is continuing to fight !

Breakfast was a 2.8 ounce 150 calorie package of pancakes with sugar free syrup and a 5.3 ounce 80 calorie Light & Fit strawberry cheesecake yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 4 ounce 220 calorie barbecue chicken melt with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was a 1.4 ounce 190 calorie Great Value peanut almond & dark chocolate protein bar. Dinner was a 4.7 ounce 250 calorie meatloaf sandwich with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a 1.8 ounce 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1150 and I got 64 ounces of water in. 

Since I was up pretty late last night it was that much harder to haul myself out of bed this morning. Still, I did it and started the day with a 25 minute interval walk in St. Lucia with iFit trainer Stacie Clark. After a couple short warm up intervals at 2.8 mph we progressed to 2 minute intervals at 3.1 mph with 1 minute recoveries at 2.8 mph. As always she threw in some max incline about halfway through. My lunchtime workout was another in St. Lucia with Stacie. The pace was all over the place on this 23 minute walk, ranging from 2 mph during the steepest inclines to 3.1 mph when the terrain flattened out. There was a lot more incline than I expected ! After work I tackled a 45 minute studio incline workout with iFit trainer Chris Clark. This was part of the incline challenge and I knew there was no way I could sustain 10% incline. I opted to put my incline at 4% and increase the speed to compensate a little. So I walked at 3.2 mph for most of the first 25 minutes. It was intervals so whenever the studio slowed down I would slow to 2.8 mph for a minute. After 25 minutes I increased my incline to 5% and kept my pace at 3.2 mph. The last couple of minutes I increased my incline to 6 and then 8%. I debated the incline issue for a while but in the end I realized it was causing too much anxiety and making my workouts less enjoyable. I was dreading the workout when I should be looking forward to them. Admitting I couldn't do max incline for 40+ minutes felt like a failure but we're talking about jumping from level 1-2 workouts to level 6-7. So I pretty much bit off more than I will ever be able to chew. There are 5 left in the series and then I'm done with incline for a while. I logged 93 minutes, 4.5 miles and 549 calories. After dinner I spent about 45 minutes on the Total Gym so I am back in my groove ! Fitbit says I did 17,000 steps today !

I find rain and thunderstorms very relaxing so I enjoyed sitting out on the front porch to work today while it rained. It was chilly so I closed all the windows on the porch, just leaving one partially open for some fresh air. The storms that came through my area were nothing more than a little thunder, a few cracks of lightning and some rain. I heard they were more severe in some areas, with trees down and power out, so I was fortunate. By afternoon it cleared up some and got warmer. After work I walked over to the drugstore and picked up the antibiotics the dentist prescribed. To my surprise there were 2 antibiotics and a bottle of pain killers. I guess he is pretty worried about the infection and wanted to be sure I wasn't in pain. I didn't ask for pain meds but it's only 800 mg ibuprofen. I didn't even take any Tylenol today because I don't have a lot of pain. The one antibiotic has to be taken with food and side effects are common. Fortunately I bought some 45 calorie bread so I'll be making toast twice a day for the next 6 days ! The alternative is nausea and vomiting so I'll suck it up and try to fit in the extra calories.

On that note it's time for a shower and bed !