Yoga Today!

I was planning on doing some yoga today, mainly in an effort to help stretch everything out after swimming yesterday.  I worked until 9pm tonight and thought I would do some right after work.  That didn't exactly happen; instead, I ended up doing yoga at 2am.  Better late than never!

Because I haven't done any yoga in a long time, I decided to just do 20 minutes of 10 Minute Solutions Yoga for Beginners.  Sure I know how to do a lot of the advanced poses in my other yoga video.  But my muscles really aren't strong enough to hold a lot of them, so I thought it would be best to start at the beginning and work my way back up to more advanced stuff.  I really want to avoid hurting myself in any way, so starting slowly and working my way up to more advanced things is really for the best.  With that in mind, Yoga for Beginners was a great place to start.  Today I did the Yoga for Strength and Toning segment (which was honestly mostly sun salutations) and the Yoga for Balance and Flexibility. 

My mom has asked me to do some sort of workout dvd with her every Sunday.  We haven't started doing that yet because I was super busy this past Sunday.  And I've asked her if we can postpone it another week because I have some other plans for this Sunday.  So hopefully if I can do this video a few more times before then (or something else), coupled with a few more swimming afternoons, I'll have built up enough strength to tackle whatever video we decide to do on the 8th, which should be our first exercise dvd afternoon.

First Time Swimming Since the Summer!

This was my first time swimming since August!  And wow did it feel good to get into the pool.  I'm feeling rather tired now, and most likely will be a bit sore tomorrow (I'm using muscles I haven't used since August, after all).  But I made a point of stretching a bit in the pool while I was swimming and again right at the end, so hopefully that will help a bit! :)

Like I said in my first Life Update, I completely forgot to record all of my swimming activities last fall.  So I wanted to make sure I didn't make the same mistake this fall.  Last fall, I started by using the skiing method for dealing with my glucose (25-30% basal, 30% bolus at lunch or supper time).  And I went too high.  I'm just looking at my old log book, and apparently even in there I didn't keep very good records.  On Nov 5, 2014 (which was not the first swimming day) I attempted a 40% basal and 40% bolus with dinner.which looks like it did ok (other than the fact that I started a bit high and stayed high, but there wasn't a huge jump afterwards; of course I can't tell if I corrected my glucose when it started going higher in the aftermath).

So this time around, I was going off of that.  Knowing that this was the first time swimming and that I didn't want to overdue it, I opted for a 45% bolus with lunch and a 45% basal starting just before lunch.  My glucose at lunch was 5.2 mmol/L, so it was a bit lower than I would have liked.  I carbohydrate counted so I knew exactly how many carbs I was eating, and so was able to do exactly 45% of a bolus with lunch.  Right before we left for the pool (1:55pm), my glucose was 10.8, a perfect level to start (not too high and not too low).  After I got out of the pool and rinsed off I was 8.3 (2:42pm).  So everything was looking great.  But then about an hour later I was 13.7 (3:50pm); at that point I did a correction, which seemed to solve the problem nicely. So next week I'm going to try the same strategy, but I'm going to do a correction right when I get out of the water. We'll see how well that works!

Life Update - October 27 2015

 I still haven't hit 10,000 steps.  On the days that I work and walk to work, I come pretty close (generally between 8000-9500).  On days that I'm not working, if I don't specifically decide to go for a walk (and a longer one at that) I don't come even close!

Anyway, here's all the numbers for today:
weight: 209.8lbs
fat percentage: 45.7%
hydration: 37.3%
muscle: 26.8%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2344

I'm currently maintaining weight between 208-210lbs. So I need to start taking some steps to start bringing it down (lol rather literally if I want to start cracking 10,000!)  I think I also need to add in yoga and pilates to help strengthen my body.  I've started getting sore in random places and I honestly believe it's because I'm out of shape (and probably also thanks to being a bit overweight).  So it's really time to get healthy!

In related news, I'm going swimming for the first time since this summer this afternoon with my dad!  I'm going to write a separate post later about what I did and how it all went.

Unexpectedly Hard Time Playing DDR

So while at the show the other day, I decided to play a bit of DDR.  I had been sitting for awhile (it was a movie marathon) and just really wanted to move around a bit.  I chose my regular difficulty (standard) and the regular songs I play on the arcade machine (Dam Darian and La Senorita on standard, then finish up with Abyss in Heavy).  I usually play those three because Dam Darian and Abyss are my favourites.  Plus they're not on any of the versions I have.  And La Senorita has a nice pace, which is perfect to go in between the two.  

Well, I haven't played any DDR in quite a long time.  So of course I failed Abyss on Heavy (I can only reliably pass it about half the time when I'm playing more regularly).  But wow was I stiff even playing Dam Darian and La Senorita on standard!  I guess it really has been awhile since I've played (far longer than I realized); this was another example of why I really need to be more active!!!

Grant for an Artificial Pancreas Project

My mom sent me the JDRF Insider newsletter because of this article.  The US National Institutes of Health have granted a Canadian research team $2.5 million to test artificial panreases.  They want to see if the dual hormone (insulin plus glucagon) version is worth the extra complexity and expense over the single hormone (insulin only) version, and how they stack up to conventional pump therapy.  I personally believe the dual hormone version is the way to go, but we'll see.

At the end of the article, they said that artificial pancreas technology should be commercially available within 5-7 years.  And I cried when I read that.  It may not be a cure, but it's probably the best treatment we're going to get until we have one.  And it's not just within my lifetime that I'll see it but within the next decade!  

So now that's even more incentive to be as healthy as I can; if I can avoid damaging my body in the next decade, I should have even better technology that will help me avoid complications!!!!

My A1C Results are Available Online!

I'm super excited - the place where I go for blood work has a new service that lets you check your test results online!  That means I'll get to see what my A1C is before going to my doctor!  

I just registered for this service today.  The lab technician who gave me the information for it told me the results should be up tonight or tomorrow night.  How cool is that?

Life Update - October 20 2015

I didn't specifically decide on a day to give my weekly update, but I was thinking about weighing myself this morning so today seemed like as good a day as any.  I currently weigh: 208.2lbs, fat percentage: 45.1%, hydration: 37.7%, muscle: 27.0%, bone: 10.7%, cal: 2336.  While I seem to have lost about 2lbs, I don't want to celebrate just yet: my period just ended, so most likely that's how I lost the weight.  But the fat percentage came down slightly, too, so that's good (last time it was 46.2%).

Thinking of body fat percentage, I don't even know what a healthy one is.  According to Gaiam a healthy one for a woman my age is 21-33%, while according to Built Lean it's 25-31 (although they don't break it down by age).  So I guess shooting for the 25-31 is a pretty good target since that's right within Gaiam's range.

Since getting the Fitbit, I've spent the week sort of doing what I normally do while walking.  I wanted to see how I'd do while working and just sort of going about my day.  I thought at work I've been moving around a lot more in recent months.  Turns out that's wrong.  On Saturday I specifically didn't walk to and from work at all and only walked 4,974 steps.  Now on days where I was able to walk to work once, I've taken over 9000 steps.  So right there, it looks like I need to walk to work whenever I can.  To date I have not cracked 10,000 steps, but I have come really close.  10,000 seems like a good goal since I remember hearing a long time ago that that's how many you should take each day.  

On the swimming front, I have not gotten my membership yet and have not gone (even without one).  My dad wants to go once a week with me, so we'll have to figure out when we want to start going.

On the eating front, this week I've been eating up some open bags of chips and other crap.  I also made a point of not going out for dinner repeatedly with friends.  I'm hoping that eating more home cooked meals will help a little bit.

So for this coming week, I need to decide on when to go swimming with my dad (and actually go once, even if I end up going alone) and try to crack 10,000 steps!

Life Update - October 15 2015

Things have gotten rather out of hand.  I feel very unhealthy and with good reason.  Back in July I said that I need to be doing better.  And while my last A1C (from the end of July) was 7.5%, much improved from the 8.1%, I have failed to do any other tests (basal, insulin to carb ratios, etc).  I've also failed on the being more active point, too.  Well, not entirely...I did buy a new pair of runners and so have started walking more, particularly to work (now that work is currently stable for the moment).  I went swimming a few weekends in the summer with a friend, which was great fun.  But then that stopped, too.

Rather than just kind of carrying on as I have been, I decided to make some changes in my life.  I looked it up today, and my BMI has tipped into the obese range for my height (30.1).  I currently weigh about 210 lbs (I didn't weigh myself first thing in the morning because I forgot. I'll have to do that maybe tomorrow to get a more accurate weight).  I tried looking up my body fat percentage, which is something I've never done before; it came up as 27% based off of a calculator I found online.  That sounded way lower than I was expecting so I tried another calculator and got 39.1%.  And then I remembered the scale I bought awhile ago gives body fat percentage and other measurements.  It took me a bit to figure out how it worked, but I got a reading: fat percentage: 46.2%, hydration: 36.9%, muscle: 26.5%, bone: 10.7%, calories: 2355 kcal.  I don't know that I really need all of those statistics (or how accurate they are), but I figure I'll use them to keep track of how things are going.  Oh yeah, and I measured my waist (37 inches) and hips (44 inches).

So that's what I'm currently at.  I've read that for my height (5'10) a healthy weight is under 175lbs.  I honestly don't think I've ever gotten that low (or if I have, that was it - I've never gotten beyond that and have never been able to maintain it).  So I'm thinking that rather than shooting for the 160lbs I attempted back in 2007 (wow has it really been that long since I started this blog???) I'm going to shoot for (and try to maintain) 170lbs. That would mean losing about 40lbs.

So what is my concrete action plan to do this?  For the immediate future I want to focus on exercising.  To that effect, I bought myself a Fitbit Zip today.  I want to take a look at the exercise/walking I'm currently doing before I'll start really trying to tweak everything (ie do more).  My mom asked me if I wanted to do an exercise video with her every Sunday, which will be great: I've been wanting to add yoga and Pilates back into my life but have had a hard time maintaining any consistency (ie I've done two 20 minute videos in about the last 10 months).  Going to my mom's place will help keep me motivated to do it.  Plus her living room has way more space than mine does for yoga and Pilates.

In the next few weeks, I'm also planning on starting up swimming again.  It looks like I completely failed to record my swimming adventures from last fall here, but for a few months I was going once or twice a week.  Over the last many years I apparently forgot how much I absolutely love swimming; being in the pool was great.  Unfortunately just before Christmas I fell off that bandwagon and never got back on (with the aforementioned bit of swimming during the summer).  I'm hoping to go twice a week, at least for a month (once I get a month-long membership at the local pool): one afternoon with my dad a week, and one night after work.

And of course all of this will have to be accomplished while balancing my Type 1 diabetes.  That never goes away, and tends to actually get in my way most when I'm trying to exercise.  Take today, when I wanted to walk with my mom; we made it twenty minutes before I went low and we had to call it quits.  While I have strategies that work well enough for most of my activities (at least most of the time), I have yet to develop something for swimming.  So that's going to be a major goal for the next month - get through swimming without going low and without going super high afterwards!

I've decided to label this post and any other related to it as "Life Goal" because the whole point of this is to be healthy and feel good for life.  And I'm not going to arbitrarily assign it a date (like I did when I first started this blog).  I will lose these 40lbs in however much time it takes me. I'm going to try to do weekly updates with weight and body fat percentage for the next little while mainly so I can keep track of things (that's my new "progress" label); once I hit my goal I'll probably do them less often, but will try to do them here and there to see how well I'm doing maintaining things.  Wish me luck!

The Runners Saga

Oops, I forgot to tell you how the runners saga ended. Last time I posted, I said I had bought a new pair of runners to replace my old pair, which had started hurting my feet. Unfortunately I have a wide foot, and so have a hard time finding good shoes. But the place I went to had Saucony runners with wide width, and so that's what I ended up buying. When I tried them on in the store, they felt fine. Unfortunately on my first walk, they were hurting my feet (it felt like my little toe was being jammed into the shoe, which is not where I was expecting them to hurt). So I ended up taking them back.

My go-to shoes for the last many years have been wide-width New Balance Runners. So that's specifically what I went looking for. Unfortunately this store didn't have any in stock (I have bought wide-width New Balance from them before). But they had a wide-width New Balance walking shoe instead.

I wasn't fond of the colour (I live in my runners year round, so that white will get dirty fast) but since it was my only choice at that store I decided to take them. But this time just wearing them around the house a bit I found I had the same problem as with the Sauconys. These shoes don't have mesh around the toes (the entire shoe is made of a harder material), and so they were rubbing against my baby toe. I've actually worn shoes out in that spot before; I never realised it was a quirk of the way my feet are shaped. So back these shoes went. I ended up getting a replacement pair of Go Walks, which, while great because my old Go Walks also needed replacing, did not help me with my runner quest.

So at that point I went to a different store. While a bit more expensive than the first store, this one had a bunch of wide-width New Balance runners. I fell in love with the first pair I tried on.

I've been basically living in them since. :)