Bummed back, bummed knee and bummed out!

"Pain is weakness leaving the body"

This has been a difficult week to say the least. My back was aggrevated all week with a disc problem(you know when it feels like your hip on one side is up under your arm pit when you walk!) add to that the ongoing problems with my knee and I have to say this has been a very long week.

I had my second osteopath session this week and the accupuncture relieved some more inflamation in my knee and back. I am never quite sure if she is actually doing any chiropractic work as she moves her hands gently up and down my spine and back, but I'm not sure if she is adjusting anything.... I always imagined that you would hear bones popping and feel things moving when having chiropractic work done. I have also been doing a lot of stretching with my trainer, which has helped tremendously.

Another thing I am looking at is limiting Gluten in my diet. I did this for most of last week and must say, I feel a lot better. Both the bloated feeling is gone and I feel stronger, so I am going to see if I can do this for another week and see if I see some more changes. I am still incorporating the clean eating method into my diet and also a bit more of the concept of food combining to see if I can shake up my body.

I am hoping to get back into doing some swimming next week. I am unable to run at the moment, so I am hoping by doing non weight bearing exercise my knee will continue to heal.

Fingers crossed that my knee heals soon, the CN tower stair climb is fast approching and while I haven't quite determined if he is joking or not, my trainer seems to think I am going to be climbing the tower not once, but twice, as in climb to the top, elevator down and climb back up to the top - as in 300 floors!!!! while this scares the crap out of me, I love a challenge :)

Another day done!

Well I slept in this morning..... ok so I hit the snooze button every 15 mins from 5:30 when the alarm went off until 6:45 when i finally rolled out of bed. The good news is I went to the gym. Normally I would have talked myself out of it but today I went. I did 10 mins on the stationary bike, 10 minutes (20 floors) on the stair master and then swam lengths for about 20 mins. Not the most challenging workout, but the positive was in the going, rather that what I did once I got there. I also managed to go grocery shopping on my way home, have brekkie, make lunch and get ready for work and out the door before 9:00. Mind you I looked like hell today, but whatever!

I also am trying to incorporate the clean(er) eating concepts this week, so today I had:
- 8:00 - 1 cup steel cut oats with blueberries and raising, along with a hard boiled egg for breakfast; timmies large double double
-10:00 - slice of pumpernikel bread with hummus and a slice of lean ham
-11:00 - timmies large double milk, no sugar
-12:00 - slice of pumernickel with hummus and ham, plus 1/2 cup butternut squash soup
-2:00 - quarter of the leftover soup
-4:00 - quarter of the leftover soup
-6:00 - wrap with hard boiled egg slices
-6:00 - slice of pumpernikel bread with hummus and a slice of lean ham
-6:00 - cup of tea with 2% milk and 1 tsp sugar.
-8:00 - fat free soy milk with blueberries and 1/2 scoop of protein powder

It actually looks like a lot of food, but the portion sizes are quite small. It's definitely not perfect, but I am grasping the concept still. I feel like I am getting my metabolic furnace revved up at breakfast and keeping it burning like crazy all day long.... we'll see if the scale is kind next Tuesday.

Out of the Blocks

Plan for the day

- Just back from the gym and a 45 min - 1500m swim

- meal 1 done- steel cut oats with blueberries and raisins and a boiled egg

- meal 2 is still an unknown at this point - I think some blanched almonds

- meal 3 chicken fajita on a whole wheat wrap with peppers/onions and tzitziki sauce

- meal 4 chicken fajita as above

- meal 5 will be dinner out tonight, my goal is to order a vegetable soup

- meal 6 If required - fruit smoothie with protein powder.

Note: I will drink 500ml of water with each of these meals, giving my a daily intake of between 2.5 and 3L for the day.

That is the plan, here's hoping I can execute this.

I should also mention that my weight this morning was 248.5. Not 100% accurate as I have been having some IBS issues of late probably due to my crappy(no pun intended) diet. *I will not step back on the scale until next Tuesday morning*


The Reality of my day!

-exercise was done
-oatmeal for breakfast and an egg done
-meal 2 was missed, unless you count a coffee with double milk
-lunch was two fajita's (combined meals 3 and 4) fyi, the torillas are the small ones
-meal 5 was a tortilla with a chopped egg inside (whole egg, including yolk)

The good news was that our dinner out was cancelled so I didn't have to worry about ending up caving and ordering fish and chips or something.

The bad news- one of the law clerks at work brough in some cake that she made (she is from Romania) that was covered in chocolate and coconut, and well ya I had 2 of them!

I am off to shop for some more good choices and make sure I plan better for tomorrow.

On an off topic: Does anybody else feel extremely hungry after swimming? What is that about, and any tricks to quiet my stomach after a swim?