It's been a minute....

 and I'm not sure how to explain the past couple of weeks. They have been really, really good. But in other ways not so much. Let's see if I can make sense out of this here on in my head. 

I have not been working out much because the back and left knee has been giving me grief. The back has almost constant pain and the knee gets shooting pains, in fact the shooting pains go down my entire leg. I'm almost positive it sciatica as it starts in the low back and goes downward. However, I'm not 100% sure and don't know if I'm hiding my head in the sand by not having it looked at. But I also know that I have been at this heavy weight for the longest time ever. This could be contributing to the pain. In the past, I would get this heavy but then would do something to turn it around. So I'm working on using exercise to get it better but it's hard when the pain from it prevents you from exercising. A Catch-22. However, I have a plan. It seems that Supernatural bothers it a lot. So I've decided to lay off Supernatural for a bit, focus on walking and weight training and see if I can improve it that way. Once I've gotten pain free and am feeling good, then I will slowly add Supernatural back into the mix. That program starts this week. I've been walking Mavy every day after work because the weather is just gorgeous now. So we walk every day. Today, Friday morning, we are going hiking - that will become a regular part of the plan. Saturday and Sundays I will be going to the gym. Saturday will be upper body, Sunday will be lower body. I'm going to stick to this program for a month or so and then reassess. I do need to work on getting my 10,000 steps in per day and I'm just not sure how to  go about it. There are some days I do really, really well and other days, not so well. My steps can range from 4,000 to 11,000 a day. I need to get more consistency and I'm just not completely sure how to do that. Should I set an alarm every time I sit down and get up and walk when the alarm goes off? I just don't know how to do it. I feel like I walk a lot in my classes, I'm constantly roaming the room watching them work and answering questions. So I'm not sure exactly what to do about that. Also, I'm not even shooting for 10,000 steps. My goal right now is 7,500 steps consistently and I'm not getting it. I think I need to put a little thought and effort into that and see if I can turn those numbers around. 

Food on the other hand has been pretty good. I've been focusing on getting more protein and avoiding sugar and things seem to be going well. My energy levels are up. My weight has finally moved a little bit downward. I'm feeling good and sleeping well. Well, I'm sleeping well except for the shooting pains I get in my leg. Ugh! It's all related. Anyway, getting C to understand the amount of protein I need to eat is hard. Really. Really. Hard. While he was gone for the weekend I bought some chicken meatballs at Costco and have been adding them to every lunch. I also bought some sausages and adding that in here and there and it is definitely helping. So that is going fairly well. It's not perfect. Last night I had a malasada - which wasn't that good so definitely not worth eating. I've been mostly doing intermittent fasting but also having a protein shake for breakfast here and there. I'm not super strict on my food - whether I eat breakfast or not, etc. - but I do try to avoid junk food. It is actually getting easier though I have some moments. Yesterday was one of them. For some reason I felt like Grandma's peanut butter cookies and so, without much thought at all, I took some and ate them on the way home. They really did nothing for me, so were definitely not worth eating. But it's the 'without much thought' that really gets to me. Almost everything I do in my life is intentional yet I will put something in my mouth 'without much thought'?  WTF?????? So clearly I still have some work to do. 

So it's been a good few weeks and now that the weather has cooled off (it's 44F right now) I'm really enjoying getting out more. Today Mavy and I are hiking Usery Park up in Mesa. Not sure what trail yet, but definitely going there. 

Okay, I'm done for now. Time to start getting ready. Brrrr......