Oops--life got hectic, and so did the scale:
- Today's weight: 193.5 lb
- Change since 2 weeks ago: +1.5 lb
- Cumulative weight loss: 140.5 lb
- Average weekly weight change: -1.36 lb
Last week I got immersed in a major cooking project, a dinner for eight that I had originally auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for my church. (You can read all about it over here). It was a hell of a lot of fun, and as you can see many of the dishes were surprisingly healthy ... except for the high sodium content from all that fish sauce and soy sauce and other lovely salty condiments. The dinner was this past Saturday ... I enjoyed leftovers for the following three days ... and now my bod is bloat city. Not so bad in my feet and ankles as it used to be, but enough that I can feel it. And I definitely feel it in my hands too, in how my rings barely go onto my fingers instead of threatening to slide off like they usually do. And of course it's showing up on the scale.
Alas, there's nothing to be done except to drink lots of fluids to flush the excess sodium out of my system, and wait for the retained water to follow. I am trying to hasten the liquids release by various natural means. For instance, I just ate some canned beets and their juice as a snack--not only are beets one of the few vegetables that I think taste okay canned, but beets are a natural diuretic. (Plus they make your pee such a gorgeous shade of pink!)
Meanwhile, I have experienced an unexpected and accidental leap forward in my physical exercise progress: somewhere during all the shopping and running around in the past week, I managed to leave my walking cane somewhere. I have no idea where--I just got home and realized the cane was not in the car with me. Now the fact that my knee was so well that it did not remind me that I needed my cane is certainly something worth noting, but it gets better--while I've been sporadically using my backup cane, I've mainly been going without altogether, and while my left knee felt shaky and unstable at first, the muscles around it have strengthened up to match the new load with surprising quickness, and now I seem to only have trouble with stepping down on the left leg while descending stairs.
Mind you, I haven't tested myself walking long distances yet--and I think that, at least for the first experiments, I'd feel safer taking a cane as backup. But already this is a great leap forward. I'd long realized that the cane was causing as many problems as it was solving--allowing the muscles of my left leg to get lazy, throwing my whole body subtly off-balance and thereby spreading stress and pain to other joints in my body. And when you carry a cane, it's all too easy to find yourself leaning all your weight on it even at moments you don't really need all that much support. So I'm really excited at finally reaching the point where I can start doing without the cane again, so that I can quit twisting my bod into a pretzel and take the next step towards healing.
Congratulations Miz Ducky on the loss of the cane!?! I know what you mean about the cane throwing your walking off- I have nasty arthritis in one foot. Even though I have enjoyed 2 weeks of almost no pain, my gait is definately "off". Congratulations also on being so sensible about your "false gain". Loving your perseverance.
Posted by: Heidi | January 31, 2008 at 02:18 PM