Festive Fat Felling

It sounds far more adventurous than calling it weight watching, doesn’t it? I’m Festive Fat Felling!

Since last writing I’ve really stuck to my calorie reduced living. I’m not dieting as such; all I do is note down the calories in what I eat, try to stay around 1200 calories a day and drink plenty of water. Sometimes I’m just over and most times I’m just under. I’m still eating platefuls of delicious food and drinking my beloved gin and, most importantly, I don’t feel as if I’m dieting. For instance, tonight I’m having an Indian takeaway meal and I have plenty of calories left in the bank for a gin or two!

And I’m losing weight! So far I’ve lost 8lbs or half a stone in 13 days. I should know how much that is in kilos, but I really don’t care. I’m an imperial/metric crossover kid, still old enough to remember doing imperial maths at school and still young enough to remember being shown a 50p coin and gasping at its alien form. Some things I do in imperial measure and others in metric. It’s probably annoying but, again, I don’t care.

I’m back at work and I have to admit that the three weeks I took off at Christmas have given me a false sense of wellbeing. When I do next to nothing I feel great. I’ve been back at work a week and I’m knackered. Not just sore, but very weary. I’m getting worn out by the constant pain and there is nothing I can do about it. I take the pills I’m prescribed and have a couple of (allowed, medically and dietary) G&Ts a night and then I try and get a night’s sleep. Those of you who have endured long term chronic pain will understand that there is no position of comfort for any length of time, whether it’s standing, sitting or lying. I’ve taken to sleeping with a pillow under my knees to try and take the pressure off my back. I can’t sleep on my left side because I still have bursitis and sleeping on my front hurts my back. So I try to move between lying on my back and lying on my right side as gently as I can. It hurts whatever I do so I rarely have a really good night’s sleep and that adds to my tiredness. Something else for me to moan about!

I’m really pleased, though, with my weight loss. I’ve said that I’ll try to lose a further 30lbs, with my goal being me being even lighter than I was when all this started. I might not achieve that and, to be honest, if I could just get back to my pre-injury weight, I’d be happy. Another stone would do that, so it’s not much to ask of myself and it would probably help with  my recovery post-surgery.

I’ve no news on that front. My doctor suggested a four month wait from referral, which takes me to April time. Whether that’s to meet the neurosurgeon and discuss options or not, I don’t know. I’ve scheduled a regular doctors appointment to keep on top of pain management and developments, which is helping me feel a little more in control.

Again, if anyone wants to befriend me on MyFitnessPal, I’m Paintergirl21. I’ve amassed a few very supportive contacts already from all over the world. We support each other’s achievements and give advice when its asked for.

And, as runners, we all know about motivation…

 

 

The Wall of Used To

My running blog has rarely been just about running. If you can be bothered to look back, like many other running blogs, it’s often been about coping with injury and how that has affected the running that I’ve done. In many ways it became a ‘victory over adversity’ type blog, living up to its title ‘A Running Battle’. Of course adversity is presently having the upper hand and a year long battle with pain has meant that this blog is now chiefly about the ups and downs of pain management! It isn’t the blog I want or ever intended to have and I’m not sure what I can do to change that.

Many of my former followers have drifted away, probably bored by the lack of running stories. If I’m honest, I’ve stopped reading many running blogs because I’m not in the right frame of mind to read them without huge pangs of envy. How I haven’t run a jogger over yet is just a feat of mind over matter and hearing how my new-to-running friends are doing is pure perjury. Of course I admire them and encourage them, but deep down I am as jealous as hell. Walking past a wall full of medals collected over the last five years doesn’t help; it’s the Wall of Used To.

Yesterday I travelled to Carlisle to talk about my disability. It’s the first time I’ve been to Carlisle in ages, certainly the first time with the mobility scooter. Planning a journey to anywhere presents a whole lot of new issues which before I wouldn’t have considered. My husband summed it up perfectly at the meeting when he said “I look at disabled people in a whole different way now.” I was asked, as part of the interview, if I would be able to go to Manchester. Yes, of course, but I would have to Google it to death, I replied. We’ve recently changed the car to an automatic which would help with driving through town. Once there, I would have to think about where could I park so that I could access areas without the need to climb stairs. Once parked, I would need to have room to get in and out of the car (opened the door to its full extent and turning round in the seat to stand up using the roof to pull myself up), and then get the mobility scooter out and together. Then I’d have to navigate a route using decent drop kerbs (because some are like steps, rather than slopes!) and pedestrian crossings (because you can’t just step off the kerb and cross) and doors that open automatically. It takes planning. Nothing in my life is spontaneous any more. Every journey, every weekend away, every night out has to be pre-planned to the nth degree. It’s tiring. And sometimes degrading.

Today I climbed on the scales and got the shock of my life. I’ve put on a grand total of two stones in weight since this time last year. Running was always my way of keeping my weight down and staying sane. I might not have always felt like going out, but I usually felt better coming in! I need to lose weight. So I’ve linked up with MyFitnessPal again. It used to be a way of logging activity rather than weight. I’m hoping that it will be again. For the moment though I need a way of controlling my calorie intake and a way of monitoring my progress. I’ve opened up on their forum and asked for support. If you read this and are a member, look for paintergirl21 and ask for friendship. I need every friend I can get.