I am over it.....

It's like I turned 60 and all kinds of weird shit starting happening. Well, I'm done with it.

I've been getting these weird stomach pain. It feels like my entire bowel system is inflamed and it's even sore to the touch like I press on my abdomen and get pain. It's horrible. It flared up a couple of weeks ago and I posted about it. Well, that was not the first time. It was probably the 3rd or 4th time. Then Sunday or Monday night it woke me again. Around 3 am I woke and felt the pain starting. I was laying on my right side and remembered some silly Facebook meme about sleeping on your side and your stomach opens when you do...I really don't remember it well, but I thought, hmmmm.....let me switch sides. So I rolled over to my left side and the pain passed. My stomach was a little funky all day but I was able to function. So, in my stupidity, I thought boom, figured it out. Then on Thursday, I woke with excruciating pain in my right knee. Like I could hardly walk pain. I wore my step counter that day and I got less than 2,000 steps all day. It was that bad. But I discovered that the pool helped. I could move it and walk and do some simple PT on it in the pool. It gradually got better. By yesterday, Saturday, I was pain-free again.  Which leads me to yesterday. We went over to a friend's and hung out at the pool all day. I didn't eat anything in the morning. By 1ish I was starving so had a slice of peanut butter bread. Went to the friend's house and had 2 beers, hamburger patty, chicken, coleslaw, hummus, pretzels, veggies, and that's about it. Well, about 2 hours ago I woke up with the pain starting in my stomach again. Only this time I was already lying on my left side. So I took my pillows, stacked them up, and then laid on my back with my upper body elevated. That worked. But still, the tummy is feeling a little funky.

This has to stop. I cannot live like this. Once school starts, I can't be waking up at 2 am and be half awake all night then go teach all day. No. NO. NO.  So I things have to change. Starting right here, right now. First off is walking. I'm going back to getting my 10,000 steps a day in - NO MATTER WHAT!!!  I start class again tomorrow and I have that wired. I walk from the park and ride to school. I walk at lunch and then I walk back to the car after school. That easily gives me 10,000. The week between my class and school starting is going to be slightly harder. I will need to get up early to go walking before everyone else gets up.  Then I'm going to need to focus on moving during the day. I just have to. I also need to add some kind of workout in. I think I'm going to get Beach Body on Demand and do some workouts in the living room when I get home. I need to move more. Then the food. Let's talk about the food. I'm going to keep a food journal for a little bit to see if I can isolate what is making this happen. I thought it was bread, but I had an episode when I didn't have any bread. I'm wondering if it's alcohol.  So I'm going to get back on the eating track and also keep a food journal for a while to see if I can nail it down. This has to stop and it has to stop today.

Getting serious

After last weekend's post, nothing changed. Monday was the same, no exercise and lots of crap eating. Tuesday I woke at 3 am in pain. My stomach hurt - really, really bad. I could hardly move. I was in agony. I didn't go to class because I couldn't walk let alone ride my bike. I woke at 3 am with the pain and it took all day to pass. It wasn't until 11:30am that I could get off the couch and move without dying.  As the afternoon progressed I got better slowly. I did go out to dinner that night because Chris was here and he was leaving the next day. So we met Janna and Mike at Native's for dinner. I did not drink and I ate pretty conservatively.  The next day I went to class with the intention of trying to get my stomach back in order. Luckily the snacks that day were healthy. I ended up eating a lot of sugar snap peas and not much else. For lunch, I went to Qboda which is basically Chipotle. Felt pretty good but still not completely normal. On Thursday I woke up and kind of felt like crap again. I decided that I needed to shake things up. I needed to get back on track in a big way. I decided to fast. It was day 2 of 3 shift so I decided fasting would be a good idea. I drove to where I park and then walked instead of riding my bike. It's not far, about 10 minutes. Wonderful. I was determined not to eat anything but the girl who brought the snacks brought donut holes and mini cupcakes. Ugh!!! I could only resist for so long, then I caved big time. But I was determined that the day would not be lost completely. At lunch, I headed out on a walk and walked around campus for about 30 minutes. Then I stopped at Starbucks and got a cold brew and a protein lunch. The rest of the day was good. We had decided to go out for dinner for our anniversary, 30 years - wow!!!  So we went to Mingo's. I had jambalaya and frozen drink with mango and rum and it was awesome. But I woke up on Friday feeling really, really crappy. My stomach felt huge like it would get in my way when I sat down huge. I had little energy and really didn't want to do much of anything. I don't like feeling like that. I want to feel good. I want to have energy. I want to feel like I did last year. So I said, fuck it!!!! Time for things to change. First thing was I meditated. I have let that fall by the wayside and I am feeling the effects of that. So meditation it was. Then I went for a walk. My thoughts were that I would walk until I felt better. I did 2 laps around the neighborhood and by the end of the 2nd lap felt my old self returning. I had a spring in my step and I found myself smiling for no apparent reason. Yes!!!  Then we ran a bunch of errands. Came home and finished up my homework for my class. Did a little packing. Then it was off to jumping class with Maverick. I ended that day with over 18,000 steps and felt amazing. I was tired, but it was a good tired. Yesterday came and I started it with meditation. Then it was off on my walk for 30 minutes. Then it was packing, packing, packing. Then RunBuddy. And finally off to a friend's for pool, relaxation, and dinner. I was so good. Once I start to feel better, I'm not even tempted by junk food. She had made lasagna for dinner but I didn't eat it because of the pasta. Same with the homemade garlic bread.  I did not eat anything outside of shift yesterday, though there was plenty around, and I did not drink. Again, by the end of the day, I was tired but it was a good tired. I noticed that my stomach did not feel so huge yesterday. I felt like I could actually suck it in, not much, but I could. Today I woke up and the first thing was meditation. Then I was off on my walk. As I was walking I noticed how I felt. I felt good. My stomach is not sticking out past my boobs like it was on Wednesday. I still have some slight residual pain from the episode on Tuesday, but that is slowly passing. My back hurt halfway through the walk but considering that I haven't been walking and my stomach has been so huge, it's no wonder. Time to work on mobility at night. I needed to stop and write this because it feels good to feel good again. This is how I want to feel. I honestly don't care about what the scale says. I don't. I just want to feel good in my own skin. I want to be able to sit down and not think how my stomach is sticking out. But by the same token, I don't care what size my waist is. I'm in this to feel good and that's what I'm after. I'm done chasing a size or a number or any other weird social measurement. I just want to feel good.

No exercise in sight

I do not know the last time I worked out. Actually, I think I do. I did some running here and there a couple of times. But the last time I worked out seriously was in January at Laveen Crossfit. And the fact of the matter is I feel like crap. I need to change things. I have a ton of excuses for why I'm not exercising; taking classes, hot outside, too hungry, too tired, too focused, whatever, it's all bullshit.

So what to do about it?  At the moment I am taking a class from 8 - 4:30, Mon-Thurs. Well, last week I rode the bus so I had to be up by 4:30 to walk the dogs, shower, and get out of the house by 6:30 to catch a bus. Then I wouldn't get home until 6 pm. This week I will have the car so I probably won't have to leave until closer to 7 and I should be home by 5:30ish.

You know what, regardless of the freaking time constraints, I need to exercise. I need to do something. Last week I rode my bike from the bus and I'm going to ride my bike again this week but that is not enough. I need to work out. I can't make excuses anymore. It's time to just suck it up and start doing it again. Time to remove the emotion from it and just get it done. Time to use my mindfulness to get it done.

Summer lethargy

I've fallen into the summer slump and I need to get out of it. I have a summer pattern that goes back to old ways of thinking. Let me see if I can ferret out where this all started because I didn't use to be like this. So my views now are constantly that I need to rest and relax. If I have downtime I will do absolutely nothing. There were times in my life when I was very, very busy. I was going to college, I worked, after that I worked a full-time job 5 days a week, then I taught 5 days a week and summer time. Somewhere in there, I got the mindset that I was super busy and needed to rest whenever I could. Now that in and of itself is okay except that that belief hung on long after I was no longer so busy. Fast forward to today. I'm sitting at a desk that is an absolute mess, I have 2 classes that need to be finished up as quickly as possible, I have things I 'want' to do, and yet I've sat for the last week on my ass not doing a thing. I've played a stupid game and scrolled thru Facebook far, far too many times. All because I have this idea stuck in my head that I need to rest and relax. I don't need to rest and relax. I need to recharge my batteries and I can do that by doing things that I enjoy. I like walking in the mornings. I like working with Mavy. I like doing my craft projects. I like taking photos. I like being active mentally and physically. So I need to change my thinking. I need to set up my day so that I can actually do things and not sit on my butt. So, starting today (as soon as I'm done here) no turning on the computer in the morning. Unless I'm going to work on my classes, otherwise it stays off. Walk as soon as possible in the morning. I need to get moving before the heat so I will get up early and walk with Mavy. Work on things that bring me joy. Reading. Crafting. Photography. Whatever. Make time for my classes to get those done. Clean up after me. Seriously, this desk is a complete disaster. And no more thinking that I have to rest. I've done enough resting. I'm tired of resting. Time to do things.

Summer has begun

May 16th was the last day of school. I have been on serious break since then. Serious. The first weekend I didn't do much of anything. Watched some TV and that was about it. This week has been slightly better, but not a whole lot. I've started a couple of things but not followed through, just haven't been motivated to push myself. I've been walking a bit. Not as much as I'd hoped to, but some. I have not worked out much at all. But I was also allowing myself time to kind of decompress from the school year. But things have to change. Not only did I get a scholarship to take a class this summer, actually 2 classes, but I also have things that really, really, really need my attention. So, rest is over, it's time to kick it into gear.

I'm going to set a kind of schedule for myself. Walking in the mornings before it gets hot, then working out in the afternoons before dinner time. Nothing I do is so strenuous that I can't do it in my bathing suit, especially since my bathing suit is a sports bra top. So walking and workouts will happen every single day. Meditation will also happen. I've been slacking on that, need to get it back into the rotation. Need to set a schedule so these things happen on the regular. Something like this:

• get up/coffee/meditate
• walk
• shower
• walk dogs
• breakfast
• work, work, work
• lunch/pool/read
• work, work, work
• workout
• work Mavy
• dinner/pool/relax
• bed

Something along those lines. There will be days where we need to run errands and I will fit that in either in the morning or afternoon. There will also be days where I will consume alcohol and that pretty much eliminates productivity for the rest of the day. I'm okay with that, but no more than 2 times per week but preferably only once. That's pretty reasonable. If I get up at 4:30 I have lots and lots of time to do everything. 

So there is my summer plan. I need to have a schedule and a focus or else absolutely nothing will get done. So this is good. 

Day 8 - Why do I want to do self-care?

So I'm supposed to list out my reasons for wanting to do self-care. I'm going to go with free-writing and just see where that takes me.

I want to do self-care because I want to feel amazing. I want to have the energy to do the things I want to do like hike and work with Mavy.  I want to do self-care because I want to have the patience to work with Mavy and he needs a lot of work. I want to do things and experience things and not just sit around my house getting old. I am currently not taking any medication and I want to continue that way until I'm 70 and 80. I want to feel amazing for all the remaining years I have. I don't want to grow old gracefully, I want to take age on full force. I want to be that person that people say, I can't believe she's X years old. I want to be an example to people around me. I don't want to sit in pain like I am now. I want to be healthy and active really able to enjoy the rest of my life.  I want to not care what people think of me. I want to be me and no one else. I want to be confident in my abilities. I want to know that I'm doing the best I can for me at any given moment. I do not want to ever end up sick and on lots of medicine like some people around me. I do not ever want my life to be something that I dread living. I want to live a joyful, happy life for as long as I possibly can.

60

Tomorrow I turn 60. In many ways, I can't believe it. Honestly! I never thought I would live to see this age. I grew up during the height of the cold war and we used to have atomic bomb drills. Hello!!! Then there were the 70's and 80's. Lots of drugs, lots of drinking, lots of partying. Live fast, die young mentality. The year 2000 was coming and everything was going to change anyway. I honestly never thought I would live to see 60. But here I am, staring it in the face.

I always wanted to be that wise old woman. I'm not. I have learned a lot in my time here, but most of what I learned can't be passed on well. Most of the things I've learned have to be learned individually. Also, you have to be open to learning these things and most people are not. So I have learned, especially in the last few days, to keep my hard earned wisdom to myself.

But here are some things I have learned:

1. No one can make me think, feel, or do anything I don't want to
2. I can't make anyone think, feel, or do anything they don't want to 
3. I am in control of my thoughts and actions
4. Anger is something I just don't have time for
5. Looking forward or looking backward takes your eyes off this moment
6. All we truly have is this moment
7. Exercise is super important, especially as we age
8. Working is actually something I truly enjoy and will do as long as possible
9. Find pleasure in the small, quiet moments
10. Do things that make you happy, life is too short to be unhappy

Is that everything, no. But it's a few of the things I've learned over the years that have really stuck with me. Most of these things didn't come from age but from experience. Which I guess I couldn't have if I didn't get older. 

I'm finally comfortable in my own skin and feel like I really know myself. If this is 60 I'll take it.