gwennefarrell

Dry February finally came to an end yesterday, after 33 days I had a glass of wine. To be clear, it was only 1 glass. I have decided that since there were such positive effects from going without alcohol for a month that going forward I am going to limit my alcohol consumption to weekends (Saturday/Sunday) only. I admit this will be fairly easy because I don’t finish my final workout until 7:30pm during the week. I have also already decided that when I go to the trailer for Easter (a place where there is usually a fair amount of alcohol consumed) I’m going to take some of my favourite near beer with me to make it seem like I am camping but without the impacts.

This past week I trained hard. By hard I mean fully back to the level I used to train at when I got serious about losing weight. I put in at least 3 hours of workouts Mon-Sat (not including 5 days of strength training and doing my senior’s dog walking). I averaged 30k steps each day, more than met my zone target, far exceeded my km goal, and for once in a long time hit over 2500 calories burned each day. The result, I feel great. I’m back to being determined to keep going and my head is so much clearer. I still don’t get that exercise high that I keep hearing about but I do feel such an amazing sense of accomplishment.

But this week things really turned the corner for me. If you recall from my last blog I had done a 6km run for the first time in a long while. Well, this past week I did 4 6km runs (ok, yesterday’s was actually 7km as I miscalculated the distance). How did these feel, quite honestly it felt surprisingly good. Even after working out on the flat treadmill for all this time, tackling the minor hills around the city weren’t as challenging as I thought they would be. Rather, they just made me feel like I was working hard which is what I want. Next week I plan at the end of the week to do a ‘long run’, 8km. I’ll see how that feels and maybe give it a few tries before I do a 10km. Yes, I am getting close to being back to my fitness goal.

I was emailing with a client this week and when she was providing me with the meetings I need to be at next week I mentioned I was in training. She too is a runner so she asked me if I was training for another 1/2 marathon. I explained no, I am training to get rid of the laziness I have experienced over the last 6 months and it apparently it is working. I mentioned to my husband that I realized since I went back to being committed to serious training more than 6 weeks ago I have only missed 1 session (the day we had to frantically go fridge shopping). In actual fact I have added Sunday’s to the mix (though it is only 1 session of speed training) and I admitted I am pretty proud. In fact, I am smiling as I am typing this as I think, you’re back baby!

Today was my annual physical. My doctor was pretty impressed with how well I am doing (except my weight is more than I anticipated but I assured her I am working on that). We went through all the medications that I no longer take and she was surprised to realize I don’t take anything any more. My blood pressure was on the high side when she took it but when I told her that it averages 105/75 normally and she agreed it was likely white coat syndrome. I assured her that the next time she sees me I will be back to 54kg and my A1C will be 5.0. She sighed and asked if I understood that my A1C is normal, not normal for a diabetic but absolutely normal. I told her yes, but I need to have a goal to keep me on track.

Yesterday I opted to run to the coffee shop to meet my friends. It was a bit cold and of course it had snowed the day before and frozen over night. I decided I would just go at a pace that I was comfortable with. I should have realized that this was not going to go as well as I hoped when I approached my first intersection and a man in a van didn’t even look (or stop for that matter) and just turned through the intersection. His hurry? Why dropping his kids off at school and there is nothing I respect less than a parent teaching there kids that driving like that is ok.

As I continued my run I was stunned at the number of people who had not cleared the sidewalks in front of their homes. This is an extremely busy time of day in my neighbourhood with kids walking to both the nearby elementary school and the high school. At some points it was so unsafe that I was running in the street which was not much better as there was some black ice. I think the sections that bothered me the most was where someone had gone out and shoveled a small path in the snow, by small I mean about a foot wide. How those people seriously think that is an appropriate way to ‘clear’ their sidewalks is beyond me.

I did make it to the coffee shop and after the usual political discussions in which my group solves most of the world’s problems I decided I was going to do a longer run (the coffee shop is only 2 km from home). I thought it would be much safer since I would be running on sidewalks in heavily populated areas. Boy was I wrong. When I was running on one of the main roads I finally decided to give up with the hit and miss sidewalk and just simply run on the busy street. I figured running in that heavy traffic was far safer than risking a major fall on walkways that were mainly ice covered snow.

I get that there are people that may have physical challenges that prevent them from clearing the snow (even though they are legally obligated to make sure it gets done) but that is not likely the case in most of these instances given the types of houses where the snow isn’t cleared. There is one near my house where the occupants had done nothing in terms of snow removal (though I note they had done their driveway). This is a house that was recently on the market for $3m and I know a younger family lives there so there is no excuse for this. In our immediate neighbourhood, my husband (who by the way is a senior citizen) had cleared most of the sidewalks on our side of the street and one of the ones he hadn’t done simply didn’t bother to clear their section. Not sure if they did that out of spite because he hadn’t included them in his clearing adventure but quite frankly he does this for our friends and the other seniors in the area, not for everyone.

Ok, I’ll stop my rant now and end on a positive note. My run actually went quite well and I was a bit surprised to find that doing 6 km wasn’t too hard. It felt so good that today I went out on another run and found the same. I guess I am at the point that I really don’t need to be working so much on my endurance with interval training. I think I’ll do several 6k next week then start adding in an 8k or two. Still a way to go before I get to where I want to be but after the past 2 days I know I am on the right track.

Well I have done it. It is February 28th and the end of Dry February. I have gone for a total of 30 days without any alcohol and plan to do several more. I acknowledge that I feel great and am reaping the benefits of taking a break from my wine. What really continues to show for me is that my blood pressure is so good right now. I think until at least my Easter Trip to the trailer I will keep my alcohol consumption to a minimal amount and see if I can keep this going. Having said that, it is lunch at a craft brewery on Sunday so I know there will be a couple local beers consumed.

I hinted last week that I was upping my game again but I had changed my planned post to report on my health so here is what is going on. I decided it was time to go back to the level of training I was doing way back in 2020 when I got serious about losing weight and being healthy. So what does that mean? Well, it means that I am focusing a lot of time each day on training. I have broken my week into 6 days (Sunday is optional as to whether I do anything). 3 days a week I am doing endurance interval training and today I started doing 6 minutes of running with 1 minute of walking and I was surprised how easy it was to move up to that level. The other 3 days a week my main training is speed. Again this is interval training but I am now doing several intervals at about 7 kph. This is the training I have been doing for the last 4 weeks and I am happy with how well it is going.

But last week I decided it was time to add on to what I was doing. So, I have added a second 1 hour walk which is in addition to the above. I do this walk right after dinner leaving myself enough time to wind down before heading off to bed. Ultimately my goal is to be doing more than 25k steps each day and burning at least 2,500 calories. Last week went exceptionally well with me doing at least 29k steps each day. Yes, it takes a lot of hours out of my day to do this but I am so resolved to get myself back to where I want to be.

I am also working on upping my strength training. Yesterday I added additional reps to both my weights and my core training. I admit, the weights were the harder part but I know if I keep working at it within a few weeks I will be doing even more. I think my next move for weights will be moving from 5lbs up to 8lbs (though will initially drop the number of reps). I already note that my arms are back to looking nicely toned so I want to keep the momentum.

What I am finding so surprising about all of this is that I felt I had lost my drive for so many months but now I really want to do this again. There is no complaining, no trying to find excuses not to work out, instead there is just a great feeling that I am accomplishing something again. Tomorrow, if the weather is decent, I might even try a gentle 5km. Wait until Thursday when I give you the update.

Today is one of my ‘light’ days so I only do about 2 hours of workouts. Still, I target getting in at least 20k steps which is my minimum to do at least 6 days per week. I did an early morning run training set (despite having gone to see a play last night and not getting home until late) and then put in a good walk after lunch. I didn’t get me to my 20k steps but fortunately I had some shopping to do to pick up stuff to take up to the trailer next month. I am happy to report by 2pm I had made my goal.

I usually plan what I am going to say in my blogs several days in advance and I had one all planned out for today. That was until yesterday happened and it was so positive I just had to share.

For me, February tends to be my health check month. I see the dentist (that happens on Monday), get my eyes tested and see my doctor for my annual physical. The physical is necessary because of technically being diabetic. The appointment with my doctor doesn’t happen until next week so yesterday I had my annual battery of blood and urine tests. Unlike many diabetics the rest of the year I only get one test done which is my A1C (this is the one that measures how your hemoglobin is holding glucose so it provides an estimate of your glucose levels for the past 3 months). Even the A1C is usually every 3 months for most diabetics but for me it is only every 6 months and truly I can mess up a lot in 6 months.

I am always nervous on test day. This is because when I was diagnosed as diabetic in October of 2018 my doctor at the time, knowing that I was going through probably the darkest and most stressful period of my life, opted to run the full gamut of tests (I should note that despite the fact I had a family physician I went to a walk in clinic where my previous, semi-retired doctor was working because he knew me and my family so well). At that time so many of my test results were abnormal (most were high) and I was a mess. Because of this on test day I tend to obsess over getting my results and check online pretty much every hour. Yesterday was no different. By 6pm all the test results were in an I was a bit shocked at what they looked like.

Now I have to acknowledge I had been falling off the fitness wagon for a bit but really, I still exercised and ate fairly healthy. Well, that apparently worked because all of my test results were absolutely normal. My glucose fasting level was 4.3 (normally I struggle with this which tends to be in the diabetic range), my cholesterol levels are well in the normal range, all tests for my kidneys came back showing my kidneys are in excellent shape, even my ionized calcium levels are finally normal (there’s been lots of testing on this one as they kept reading as high and eventually it was thought it wasn’t causing much of a risk). And the one that indicates how I am managing my glucose, the A1C, well it was well into the normal range.

The bottom line is I am healthy. I am at a place so far away from where I was in October 2018 that it is almost like I am an entirely different person. Oh wait, I am because I am now healthy and fit.

And the deep freeze has begun. Yesterday was our weekly coffee group and normally I would run to the coffee shop and back (2 km each way). However, we are in the midst of arctic air coming through our area which brings freezing cold. When I got up in the morning yesterday I checked my weather app to find that with the wind chill it was bloody cold. I opted instead of running to do an extra 1/2 hour set on the treadmill during the day.

About 20 years ago I was diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure) and trust me it was bad. I had just gotten a new doctor and when I went for my 1st appointment with him he checked my blood pressure and it was 190/100. That’s pretty bad especially since I was only about 37 years old. However, I worked in a high stress job where I was often putting in 60 hours per week and I was obese. He put me on some medication which brought my BP down to around 140/85 which is still high. Hence, I stopped drinking caffeine (though I made it clear if my BP didn’t come down I would be back on my beloved coffee) and that helped get me into the normal range (though just barely).

Why is high blood pressure (hypertension) such a concern. Well, over the long term high blood pressure does significant damage to your arteries. This then can lead to some pretty major risk factors including heart attack, stroke, vision loss and kidney failure to name a few. Obviously these are all life threatening risks which is why it is so important to try and keep your blood pressure within normal range. I do acknowledge that medications have improved over the past couple decades but interesting some of my family are on the same medications that I was on for so long.

So, what can be done to help with high blood pressure? Certainly medication is helpful but it is not the end all be all of reducing blood pressure. Lifestyle changes are extremely important in helping reduce blood pressure levels. This includes exercising. To be clear, it is not about exercising the way I do. The current recommendation from the American Heart Association is for 150 minutes of physical activity each week which means a nice 30 minute walk 5 days a week. Other things are eating a healthy diet, limiting alcohol, managing stress, maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking, taking medications as prescribed and working with your doctor.

As you know, I implemented many changes into my lifestyle nearly 3 years ago. The important ones for me were exercising and losing weight. This resulted in me being completely taken off my blood pressure medications. Today my blood pressure averages 105/75 which is awesome. I know I have mentioned that along with Dry Feb (can’t believe it is day 23 already) my husband has started exercising at least 5 days a week. He is focusing on the recumbent exercise bike as well as some weight training. Now my husband is on medication for hypertension and he acknowledges that he needs to lose some weight and so he is working on things. But yesterday after 3 weeks of his exercise regime something happened, his blood pressure for the 1st time in years was in the normal range. We aren’t getting too excited about this as it was only 1 reading but it is a sign of hope that he too can get healthier.

So, if you suffer from high blood pressure, talk to your doctor about changes you can make to help it get lower. I am the poster child of showing how following most of the recommendations can get you to a healthier place. Now I’m hoping we can do the same for my husband so that we get to grow old together. To me, that is the ultimate goal.

I kind of surprised myself this morning. I upped my interval training to sets of 5 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. I was dreading this a bit as I thought it would be difficult. Much to my surprise I was absolutely ready for it. Don’t get me wrong, by time I was done I was covered in sweat and felt like I had done a good workout (most of it in cardio zone) but at no point did I feel like I wanted to quit. Instead I just kept thinking, I got this. I realize that within the next couple weeks my endurance training is going to be doing 6km runs and quite frankly I am really looking forward to it.

One of the things I have done over the past several weeks is that I have gone back to doing strength training at least 5 days a week. I really don’t know why I had stopped other than apparently I had really gotten myself into a bad head space where I had lost all of my motivation. But I have been pretty diligent since I started back on my fitness journey and it is starting to show.

I admit, despite my bad behaviors my arms hadn’t lost all of the muscles I had developed, they had just receded a bit. But I have kept up with doing my weights recently, going back to all the sets I used to do before I got lazy. Yesterday I looked in the mirror and was surprised by how toned my arms are looking again. The muscles have become nicely defined and I am confident now that they will be back to where I had them before within the next few weeks. If I keep at it by time I get to the condo the end of April I will once again have really buff arms.

I have also noticed that I can feel my ab muscles again. Part of my strength routine is working on my core. This involves doing modified crunches (modified by my PT to protect my spine but give my abs a good workout) as well as bridge exercises. For the bridges I make sure I hold the position for at least 3 seconds and during that time I am keeping my abs and gluts tight. My husband keeps telling me my butt is looking better each day so it must be working.

The strange thing about all of this is how I am once again really enjoying the transformation that I am seeing. Funny, it is like what happened 2 years ago when I decided to push myself to lose even more weight past my original goal. I am motivated, I feel great, I am loving how I am starting to look and most importantly I am proud every time I kick it up a notch and get through tough workouts.

Bottom line, my head is so back in the right place and my body is working on getting there as well.

For some reason the weather gods just don’t seem to want to cooperate with my plans for running to the promenade and back in the next week or so. Yes, we are heading back into another cold snap with the potential of snow. I asked my husband if he had been serious when he told the group this week that he had put away the snowblower for the year. He said yes and I told him that I now blame him for the upcoming cold weather. Next year I am going to make sure that the snowblower stays out until at least the middle of March.

So I am finishing up 3 weeks of significant training as well as Dry February (having started January 30th) and I think things are really starting to change for me. I still haven’t braved getting on the scale but it is becoming obvious that my face is thinning out again. Moreover, some of the muscles that had loosened up in my butt and arms are getting tight again. This morning I noticed for the first time in months that the veins in my arms are starting to become prominent again. Hmm, maybe this is starting to work.

Ok, really I do know it is working because of how good I feel. Despite having tossed out my blood pressure medication more than a year ago my BP is awesome. This is despite the fact that for the first time in years I am drinking caffeine again (note when diagnosed with hypertension about 20 years ago I had to give up caffeine along with taking medication to keep it in check). My resting heart rate which usually is in the normal to good range is now firmly in the excellent range. My cardio fitness is well into the very good range (though I hate that it also says ‘for a woman your age’). I am sleeping a bit better though it seems that my average sleeping heart rate has significantly dropped. I’m testing my glucose levels pretty much every day and they too are well within the normal range. These are all amazing signs that I am firmly back on my journey.

The other thing that has come a long way very quickly is my endurance. This week I have been doing interval training at 4 minutes running with 1 minute walking. Today I was watching a movie while doing this and for the first time since I started training again I didn’t have to chant mantras in my head to keep me motivated. As a matter of fact when I was finished my hour workout I felt awesome. It wasn’t just that sense of accomplishment but it just felt good again. It kind of makes me wonder how I allowed myself to step away from this for so many months. Now having said that, next week is intervals of 5/1 so I may have an entirely different opinion come Tuesday when I do the first set.

I guess I have to admit a couple things. Firstly, taking alcohol out of my diet (which I have done several times at various intervals over the past 3 years) has really made a difference in my training. As such I have decided that I am going to consume minimal alcohol even when Dry Feb is over (the exception may be when in Mexico where the amount may increase). Secondly, I want to be fit and healthy, I love seeing my metrics every day and know they are improving. It makes me excited to see what I can do next.

And so after 3 weeks I am feeling great. I plan to up the ante a bit next week but am going to hold off on mentioning what I am going to do until next weekend just to make sure I can pull it off.

Yesterday was the usual Wednesday morning coffee with the gang. This is always a fun event as most of us have for years been political activists and we drive my husband crazy because there is always an issue for us to debate and discuss. He always tries to ‘ban’ politics from the conversation and we just laugh at him. Yesterday was a nice day so I decided to run the 2km to the restaurant. My ebook stopped working which meant I had to put on one of my favourite soundtracks to run to. The first song was very upbeat and that got me running at a good pace. 15 minutes later and I was at the restaurant. Wait what? that meant I was running at 8 kph. Where the hell did that come from? My husband drove by me and told me later I was really running at a good clip. Hmm, my current training seems to be working but then I give credit to the much improved treadmill that I now use.

But overall my training went to crap yesterday. I am a very scheduled person. I know what time I am getting up, when I am working out, if I have other things to do during the day I have them all timed out, I go to bed at the same time every day and in general I just like to have everything mapped out. Now occasionally a curve ball gets thrown my way and I make adjustments to make sure everything gets fit in. Having said that, if I don’t have enough notice it stresses me out that my plans may not happen.

Tuesday night just before going to bed we realized that our fridge, which we have been babying along for a couple years now, packed it in. That meant frantically scrambling to empty everything in the freezer that had not started defrosting into the chest freezer in the garage. Fortunately my husband hoards coolers so we were able to empty out the fridge into the coolers and put them on the deck (note the weather is cooperating and keeping everything cool). Since there is no way we can go for long without a proper fridge, appliance shopping was a must yesterday.

After coffee off we went to find a deal on a new fridge. There is nothing really close to us (ok, The Brick but we doubted a good deal would be had there) so we had to find some discount and clearance centers which of course were a bit of a drive. After searching a few places we went back to the first store we had gone to and got what we felt was a good price and were particularly happy that they could deliver the fridge today. Now we are just waiting for it to arrive.

But this just screwed me for the day. The challenge was I had no idea how long the search was going to take meaning I couldn’t reschedule everything in my head. On top of that, as stressful and expensive as this was, Dry February prevented me from trying to relax with a glass of wine. By time we were done my day was wrecked and I didn’t get the workouts done that I had planned. This of course just heightened my anxiety level as I have done so well lately.

I had to sit back and acknowledge that in reality my day had gone to crap. But having said that, I still got an intense walk in first thing, a short run and then my volunteer walk with a senior’s dog. So how far off from my 20,000 step goal for the day was I? I actually still did 17,500 steps and got in all of my zone minutes. Ok, maybe it was just in my head that the day went to crap, really I still worked hard and those lost 2,500 steps isn’t going to make any sort of real difference to my overall health and fitness goals.

Time to stop beating myself up and keep moving forward.

The other day I came up from my workout and asked my husband if he had moved my treadmill. He seemed to be a bit shocked but said he had moved it over about an inch. I advised him it was far more than an inch. He asked how I knew and I explained that usually I can see my reflection in the glass windows of the door into the house and I use that to monitor my posture when I am training. Now I could only see a sliver of my left arm. Needless to say it got moved back and will not be shifted again.

When I came back home from Mexico last month I vowed to get back on track and I am doing it. I am on day 16 of no alcohol (tonight valentine’s day I will be having a small glass of non-alcoholic red wine), I am doing training at least 3 days a week, I am watching what I eat and I am hitting at least 20k steps a day. I have been checking both my glucose and my blood pressure pretty much every day and both are awesome (today’s BP was 95/74, a new record for me). I am motivated and am feeling great. I also have been bragging a bit about this and so others in the household have taken notice.

My husband could definitely lose some weight (no offense Babe) and suffers from hypertension. So, when we got back from Mexico he decided that he too needed to do something about it. He now uses the recumbent exercise bike pretty much every day as well as is doing some strength training. After only 3 weeks he too is seeing the results. His blood pressure is slowly coming down and his cardio fitness is going up. Neither of us is really checking the scales but instead are just committed to working hard. He joked today that one of us is going to fit into my 2-piece by time we head back to Mexico the end of April and here is really hoping that it is me.

Even my brother is getting into this. If you recall 1 1/2 years ago my brother had to have one of his legs amputated. Now he has a litany of health issues that prevent him from doing the kind of workouts that I do so there is no expectation of that. But, he is coming to Mexico with us on the next trip and while he does well with his prosthetic, he really can’t walk far mainly because of the fact that the remaining part of his leg was never meant to be the part that you walk on. However, he is determined to be able to walk with us on our trip so each day he takes the little dog out for a walk and most days he is doing a walk on the treadmill. The goal is that in 2 1/2 months he will be able to do at least 4 blocks. This may not seem much but for him it is huge and I know that even that small amount of walking each day is going to do his health some good.

Yep, getting fit and healthy is becoming infectious in this household. I have to say, when we are all working on our various goals together it really makes a difference when it comes to feeling supported. There’s no looking back now, we are becoming a more healthy family.

I am at day 13th of Dry February (remember I actually started on Jan 30th) and quite frankly it is going better than I expected. After nearly 2 weeks I am seeing the positive outcomes of not consuming alcohol. I am actually sleeping better (4 days this week with my sleep score in the ‘good’ range) and my resting heart rate has dropped. Most impressive is my blood pressure which has been in the normal range for a couple years now but today it read 96/74 which I am really happy with. Ok, some of this might also be from the training I have been doing for the last 3 weeks but I think going dry has also helped. I should note that for Superbowl tomorrow I have found various no sugar, low calorie non-alcoholic beers including a stout that I tried out yesterday and absolutely loved.

Out of the last 14 days I have managed to do at least 20k steps 12 days (Mon-Sat). Ok, I admit I am counting today because I know if I am short steps after my after lunch walk that I will simply do a quick walk on the treadmill after dinner. I am really dedicated right now to getting myself back to peak form. Yes, I know it has only been 2 weeks but I am back to having the determination that I did 2 years ago when I started training. I also concede to the fact that I am feeling better than I have in months. That tells me that I need to turn my mind back to the fact that I need to keep doing this for as long as I am able to.

But I am working hard right now without overdoing it. I make sure that my training is only 3 days a week and not every day. Days I am not training I get in 2 5km walks (oh, and of course my walk with Keeva for Elder Dogs). As well I am keeping up with my strength training at least 5 days a week. Because I am training pretty hard I have had to go back to doing mantras in my head. I find that the first 1/3 of my intervals are the hardest and I need to talk myself through it to keep myself from backing off. My latest mantra is ‘working hard will get me there’ and it seems to be working. The middle 1/3 of the workout for some reason is the easiest I guess because by then it is like I have passed the point of no return. The last 1/3 of the workout is when I am just determined to finish and regardless of how much I am sweating or how much my body is starting to complain I know at that point I can do it. I just keep repeating that mantra in my head which just seems to encourage me.

The bottom line is I am really starting to feel good and am already getting to that impatient point where I really want to ramp things up. Instead, I will increase my intervals each week until I know I am ready to start doing full runs again. Once I get back to that I plan on never letting that endurance ability slip again. Here’s to having my journey back on track.