What's In A Number

I ate a lot of kale last night with some leftover pork. The pork's not as good as when freshly carved off the bone after cooking for 14 hours. It needs moisture. It's too salty. I toss lots of kale atop the shreds of pork to season it, and to soften the pork. The kale was great. The pork, not so much. I pan fry a few slices of under-ripe avocados and am surprised at how much better they taste: they soften and actually have flavor now! I'm sometimes over-eager to cut into an avocado, fooling myself that the slight give when I squeeze it means it's ripe. Sometimes it needs another day. You can always tell perfection because the flesh seems to peel out of the skin by itself!

This morning I ate yogurt with my vitamins: I didn't want to run out of steam at the gym. And surprisingly, my old Nano iPod and wired ear buds worked very well to block ambient conversations. I still have new wireless earbuds on order at Amazon though. Prices have come down, and $20 seems reasonable. I just wish the ear buds were truly wireless so I didn't have to tangle them into my hair to keep the wire off my neck. I'm wearing one of the cheap tanks I bought from Old Navy. It's a weird pink or salmon color. Salmon, because in certain light, it gets orangey, but it's not coral. It has a racer back and trim silhouette, unlike the other tanks, which seem more billowy. Or maybe, just more. All the other tanks are gray. One has a neat cut out back, but I have a hard time photographing it at home. Today is Cardio Day so I know I'm going to be horribly sweaty. All the tanks promise stay-dry technology to keep the user cool. Right.

All the ellipticals are busy when I get to the gym, but I didn't want to start with Intervals anyway. I need to warm up on something else, so I do 15 minutes on the cross-trainer. Now that I'm nicely warm, I proceed with pull ups and push ups and basic core moves. I stretch out my hips but dropping down and my elbows are on the mat. College Soccer, a middle-age woman who looks like an ex-college jock, tries to suppress a smile. Because it's probably unexpected. And funny.
Now I can hit the elliptical, especially since they're all vacant. I only do 20 minutes. On Cardio Days, I choose three different machines. Today is cross-trainer, elliptical and step mill. I suppose I could've added the Expresso bike, but I only fit into one of the four machines, and it's occupied. I don't know how people can do the Step Mill at slow speeds. I start with 1 and click up to level 5. But after a minute I'm bored and click up one more. Level 6 is a good pace and in 15 minutes, I'm drenched and warm enough for most of the Mat Stretch.

I keep an eye on the clock because I have a doc appointment later and I don't want to be late. If anything, I'm usually 10-15 minutes early, and the doc usually runs late no matter how many or few patients are in the waiting room. My vision tests at 20/20 on the verge of 20/15. But my pressure's are unexpectedly bad: 15 and 16. When the doc does a pressure re-check, the IOPs are even worse at 19! Ugh. Looks like I'm going to have that cataract surgery after all. First I'll need to do a new Visual Field exam. Then I'll have to return for lens measurements. Finally, a friend will have to drive me to the hospital to have one eye done. Wait two weeks and then the other eye.

The doc explains that I have narrow angles, which makes this surgery more difficult. It's possible that the removal of the thickened lens will cause my iris to drop down and open the angle, allowing better fluid drainage inside my eye. Or allow more room for a micro-stent. The micro-stent would be positioned to drain into the angle. As it is now, my eyes don't seem well-suited for that type of solution. I may be forced to consider more invasive surgeries, but only if this fails. My body seems very resilient, but in this case, it's not optimal because the iridotomy and SLTs no longer provide increased drainage. And in spite of three different eye drops, my IOPs have increased. Ugh. After the cataract surgeries, I won't be able to do anything strenuous for at least a week. No lifting. Nothing that requires exertion. I guess I could do a slow jog on the elliptical and some planks... Or maybe just sit in the sauna?

Well, at least the gym scale was kinder today at 111 lbs. And I got the cargo pants from 5.11 Tactical Gear shop. (Aramark keeps emailing me sales ads to get me to buy more stuff, but the stuff I just ordered hasn't arrived yet, so that's truly annoying. I hope their pants fit because they charge a restocking fee on returns. Ugh.) The summer weight khaki cargo pants (size 2 unhemmed) fit great, with just 8" of extra fabric that will need to be cut off. The heavier charcoal pants (size 4 regular) fit fine as well, but with more belly room (good for layering in the winter), and only 3.5" to remove off the legs. Now I know what size I wear, at least in this brand.

A friend recommended LA Police Gear and I checked out their website. It looks as if they might stock my size, but hard to tell. Even though I checked off Inseam 28/Waist 28 in the Search function, the Men's sizes are more or less Small/Short vs Medium/Reg, etc. Which leaves me guessing as to just what size the items really are. There are women's pants, but the sizing chart only refers to waist size. A size 0 is 29.5", and there's no hip size. There's also nothing shorter than regular, which is about 30". It gets longer the bigger the waist size. I'm a little hesitant to order a size 0-regular when I'm wearing a 2 or 4 elsewhere... I'm wondering how the Aramark pants will fit. I hope they fit. Regardless, they all need to be hemmed.

Cardio Friday

15 min x-trainer
Calories 123
Miles 1.94
HGPU 26
Push-ups 60
Elbow Plank 60s
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

20 min elliptical
Intervals
Calories 204
Miles 1.80
Average Heart Rate 147 / 175 max

15 min StepMill
Level 5
Calories 117
Steps 795
Flights 49