Tag: health

Favorite Physical Activities

Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?
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You know there is one physical activity… the real, honest answer for nearly all of us… you know… when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…

Now that that is out of the way, what is my second choice? There are two that come to mind. One is going to seem obvious if you read the previous post. The other is a little bit of out of the box thinking.

First, I like to go for walks. Imagine driving into the city with my beloved wife and a camera or two, then just picking a neighborhood and walking around while enjoying the company and the sights, and snapping off a ton of pictures that I can post to this page after we get home. That’s a quality piece of physical activity right there. The setting can be swapped out for other places. For example, instead of walking around Boston we could walk around a Disney World theme park. Perfect.

My second, less conventional idea for a favorite physical activity? Band practice. Yeah, you read that right. There’s no running around or anything like that, but band practice generally results in a bumped up heart rate and working up a serious sweat. You heard it here first. Band practice is cardio, babie. Rock and Roll.

Both of those are much more fun than the exercise I did just before I wrote this post. I ran in place for 45 minutes. My legs feel like rubber. I’m toast. I literally sit down and post something after my morning faux jog (pronounced “yog”, with a soft “j”) just to give myself some time to recover. That’s what I do for exercise every day, but it sure as hell ain’t my fav.

Ouch

I woke up at 2:30am with a bad stomach ache. Not one of those killers that leave me in a fetal position on the cellar floor, but a normal you-ate-too-much stomach aches.

It’s 3:10am now and it’s starting to lighten up a little now. Here’s hoping I’ll get another 2+ hours of sleep tonight.

In summary though… ouch.

Happy Thanksgiving

Do you live in the U.S.A.? If you do then Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but it’s been pretty screwed this year. The kids are at their father’s house for the day. He just moved into a new house so this is the first holiday, so it makes sense to spend the day there. We will do our family Thanksgiving on Saturday. We’re actually boycotting the Macy’s parade as I type this (it started 10 minutes ago) in the hopes that we’ll watch it Saturday. Jen and I were supposed to go to my sister’s house but they have a real estate issue going on and they had to cancel. Now we’re mostly staying home. I want to go visit my dad (he was supposed to go to my sister’s too) but I haven’t figured out the timing yet. Mostly because of my stomach fun from yesterday.

I woke up a little after 6:00am today and felt pretty nauseous. I moved from the bed to the couch along with a big bucket to puke in if needed and slept a couple more hours. Vomit-free. Thankfully. Now I am feeling okay. I just drank 12 ounces of water over a span of about half an hour. I had my morning vitamins too. So far so good, but I think I said that yesterday too, didn’t I? In about 10 minutes I will be clear to eat something. I’ll have a protein bar and see how it goes. Fingers crossed my stomach is done with whatever hell it tortured me with yesterday. I don’t want to be sick on Thanksgiving, you know? I don’t want to be sick when I visit my father.

So again, to all of my American friends out there, Happy Thanksgiving! And may your gastric-bypass-rewired stomach not give you any shit today! HoHoHo and all that stuff!

Goals

Despite the fact that I’ve spent the last 10 hours feeling seriously sick with stomach pain and gas and all sorts of badness, I still managed to hit my daily water goal (64 ounces) and my daily protein goal (80 grams) as well as closing all three activity rings (calories, exercise, and standing) on my AppleWatch.

I just hit the water goal a minute ago. I’m going to wait 30 minutes and see how I feel. There is a little part of me that wants to try to eat a little something before I sleep. I probably won’t, but let’s see how I feel in half an hour, yeah?

Bad Day Continues

My stomach is still a mess. Is it better than it was when I last posted? Maybe a little bit. I had a very small protein snack an hour ago and while it initially made me feel worse, maybe it opened the door to some minor improvement. Who knows.

Again, if the occasional day like this is the price I have to pay for the weight loss success that gastric bypass surgery gave me, then I absolutely will pay it. No hesitation.

That doesn’t mean today hasn’t sucked though. Oh, it has.

So Far, So Bad

Whatever was going on with my stomach as lunch time approached, it was definitely not pain caused by emptiness. I had lunch and the pain never went away. It’s been about four hours and it’s just as bad now as it was at its worst.

I knew something was wrong when I first woke up this morning, but it went really wrong about 12:30pm and it’s just hanging on for dear stomach-achy life. It’s made this afternoon very difficult. I can’t concentrate, I can’t focus. All I can think about is how my stomach hurts. What did I do wrong? Am I going to end up laying on the floor in a fetal position? That’s happened twice over the last 18 months and both times it was the middle of the night. I don’t think this is as bad as those times, but it sucks quite a lot.

As always though… if this is related to the gastric bypass that allowed me to lose over 200 pounds then it is totally and completely worth it. I will take this every once in a while over how I felt before the surgery every single day. I am definitely having a bad go of it right now, but it is still better than how it used to be. Amen and Huzzah and all that.

Now that I have made that clear… my effin’ stomach can go ahead and stop hurting now, thank you. Amen and Huzzah and all that.

So Far, So Good

I have made it to lunch time and nothing disastrous has happened yet. My feeling that today is going to be a bad day has not yet come true, but I still have half the work day to go. Fingers crossed that everything stays quiet.

I have been having a couple of issues. My stomach is not having a good day. The frequency of gastric bypass side effects does seem to be getting smaller with time, but today has been noteworthy. I was feeling a little off this morning while drinking water and doing my exercise. By the time I had my protein bar breakfast in the car on the way to work I was okay. Three hours later though I started having that empty-stomach-ache feeling. I had a small snack and felt better, but it only alleviated things for about an hour. Now the stomach ache is back, but I just started eating lunch so hopefully that will put an end to it.

The other issue I am having today is one that I hinted at in a post last night. I am completely exhausted. I got about 6.5 hours of sleep last night, which is a little less than I was hoping for. I still wear my Apple Watch to sleep to keep track of various sleep related data. One data point that seems really important to how rested I feel is called Sleeping Heart Rate Dip. The SleepWatch app says that a dip between 10% and 20% is average. Over 20% is excellent. Under 10% is not good. The last two nights I have been under 10%. I don’t know why. The app recommends exercise as a way to encourage your heart rate to dip more while you sleep, and I have exercised a lot the last couple of days. I’m not sure what to do about this, but I am so tired today that hopefully my body won’t have a choice but to have a good night’s sleep tonight. I guess we’ll see how things look in the morning.

Until then… fingers crossed that my sense of impending doom is not warranted. Here’s hoping!

So Tired

I’m exhausted. My last few nights sleeps have been short and bad. I’m going to try going to sleep an hour-plus earlier than normal in the hopes of better results.

Think it will work?

I’d create a poll so readers can choose yes or no but I’m too tired… and way too lazy.

Sweet dreams, oh my gentle readers and only friends.

Out and About

I went to the drugstore today and got myself a couple of vaccine shots. I got a flu vaccine and a shingles vaccine. I’m still not far enough removed from my Covid-19/Disney World experience to need a Covid booster, so I’ll probably get one of those next month.

I drove through downtown so here is the obligatory clock/downtown pics. You’re welcome.

On an unrelated note, the guitar shop posted some more photos of my guitar today. I think it’s done. New bridge, new frets, new nut. Here’s hoping I get another phone call from them tomorrow. Fingers crossed.