Note to self

Dear Self:

Yes, you are feeling great. Yes you are able to move a whole lot more. However, you still must exercise caution about some things, as no matter how much you believe you can do them, they are still a bit out of your league. Take yesterday afternoon's furniture moving for example. Yes, it is a good idea to really vacuum your mattress, box spring and pillows very well about once a month. Yes it cuts down the amount of dust mites, dander, potential bedbugs, alien space craft and unicorn fluff that will find your bed as comfy as you do ( and consider you to be like a free Thanksgiving banquet). However, queen sized mattresses are heavy, ungainly things to move , even with a partner who is doing most of the moving.The action of lifting the behemoth and standing it up against a wall will put strange types of stress on several muscles and joints. Just because you can do a Warrior lunge does not mean you can compete with "Burly Guys Moving Company". Yet. And if you do decide to engage in furniture moving, when a movement makes you audibly wince and then say ouch, it means stop doing this- not just try to adjust your stance so you can do more. If you pay attention to these things, you will not wake up swollen, stiff and in pain.
                                        Sincerely,
                                           The Managment

So today finds me very stiff, very achy, with a knee that feels very iffy. Not a good day to focus on any kind of Yoga or walking, but an excellent day to get in Wii rowing , cycling and boxing in a chair . For some very odd reason I am noticing the more I devote to upper body workouts, the more mobility and stamina I have with my lower body. It does not make sense along the conventional lines, but perhaps it is an indication that I hold my upper body in such a way that it puts unnatural pressure on my lower spine that begins the pain train. I also notice that I work up much more of a sweat with upper body work than lower body. Perhaps it is because with upper body work I am in less pain and able to go harder or something. Don't know why, but I will take it ! They say that we have to involve the lower body, bigger muscles in order to get a good calorie burn in. If so, why is rowing about the best calorie burning exercise ? Things like that make me question conventional exercise wisdom. I think that it ultimately comes down to finding an exercise that you can do comfortably and enjoy enough so that you can do it for a minimum of 30 minutes to get your blood pumping, lymphatic system flowing , build muscles and increase your flexibility. I could be totally wrong , but this is the conclusion I am drawing from considering the entire health and wellness state of the body.

Tomorrow is weigh in and I am hoping that we found the right balance of snacking with Nick in order to get him back on track.It has been a struggle helping him make better choices this week, but at least this time he is a lot more "present" and understands fully the results. It will be really hard to cheerleader him into continued good habits if the scale shows no progress or a gain !