That Kind of Week

It never fails: a once-in-a-lifetime event and skies are too overcast, nah, downright pouring to see anything. So, we miss the rare green comet that comes round every 50,000 years or so. Figures. It's been that kind of week. It is, after all, Friday the 13th and skies are still gray although temps have risen to an unseasonable 54F. Of course, my car's in the shop and I have no way to bring pups to the park once the sun peeks through.

I did get to the gym yesterday although I missed Wednesday because I had brought my car to a local shop, and they said there's nothing wrong with your car. Bring it to the dealership because they'll have to take it apart to find out what's wrong with it. So I'm at that repair shop the next town over and now they're much more stringent about the no dogs in a loaner car rule. So no loaner car. After 1.5 hours, they tell me there's nothing wrong with the transmission or the shifter or the transmission chain. I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined this whole car shifter thing. But I know I didn't. 

However, the faint high-pitched whine I sporadically heard coming from the rear is due to the muffler rotting out. Figures. They can replace that, and by-the-way, you're probably due for an oil change. Well, the car is barely past the 3k mark but that oil change  happened back in July of last year. So, yeah. It's due. This is going to be expensive. But cheaper than buying a new car. Or even a new used car (good luck finding one). The shop gave me a ride home but I have no car and the dogs are confused. I did take them for a walk but once we got to the driveway, they were perplexed. Where's the car?

I didn't sleep well last night. It might've been because it's the first night I didn't take any ibuprofen or gabapentin before bed. Or it might've been the Mandarin Orange tea I drank while waiting during my son's Eagle Board of Review (Yaay, he's an Eagle Scout now). However, I specifically chose an herbal tea that was caffeine-free so I wouldn't be up all night! It must be the gabapentin, or rather the lack thereof. After laying in bed for an hour, I took a 3 mg melatonin pill. I don't feel as if it helped: I did fall asleep although I don't feel at all rested. I'm a little sore this morning--nothing horrible. I'm not able to get to the gym today to loosen up. And there's a cord of fresh firewood tarped in the driveway that needs stacking this weekend, once it stops raining!

I wish I could nap but taking a "coffee nap" has never worked for me, although it apparently can be very refreshing. If you can actually fall asleep after imbibing. Which I can never do. And 15 minutes isn't a nap in my book; it's a painful tease. Which means I'm sleep-deprived and need more than a nap... 

12 January 2023
No Green Comet Thursday

Precor elliptical #3
Program 1
Time: 30 + 5 (5730)
Distance: 2.88
Cal: 322
Avg Hr: 143, 203-83

Skip HGPU 23
(geezer in stretch cage)

Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
15 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

HGPU 23

Busiest Day of the Week

10 January 2023
Packed Schedule Tuesday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 3
Time: 30 + 5 (5678)
Distance: 2.86
Cal: 319
Avg Hr: 139, 182-78


Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
15 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

Incl DB Press s/s Lateral Raises s/s Rev Incline Flys
10 lbs x 25/15/25 warm up
15 lbs x 25/15/25
20/15/20 x 25/15/25 x 3 sets

Push vs Pull

It occurs to me that my sciatic flare-up occurred after I had lugged a wheelbarrow full of fire wood to the house. And then, I continued to pull a load to the house once weekly for most of December. Those movements don't make my back hurt. Rather, my body reacts long after the activity is over. Ugh. 

My husband managed the last load which means it's been several weeks, and my sciatica is improving. He also chided me for pulling the loaded wheelbarrow instead of pushing it. It's true that pulling works different muscles, mostly hamstrings, biceps and lats while pushing is more quads, glutes and triceps. And you can use your own body weight when pushing. So maybe I should push instead of pull? 

Of course, some online resources seem contradictory in their advice. Just look at this from an ergonomics best practices page:
"Wherever possible, choose to push loads instead of pull. Pushing is generally associated with a higher risk of injury when compared to pulling. It is easier to apply force when pushing and there is less stress on the muscles than pulling movements produce. It is also easier to see where you are going if you are pushing an object forward, rather than pulling it while walking backwards."
Don't they mean that pulling is associated with a higher injury risk than pushing? I dunno, they're the "professionals," right?

I've been avoiding exercises that punish my hamstrings because they tend to spasm. Stressed hamstrings also aggravate my sciatica which is why I've nixed the Rip Skulls from my workout. Besides, I don't need bigger arms than I already have!

I got to the gym a bit late after stopping off at a friend's house to pick up almost a dozen cans of cat food her finicky felines won't touch. She was going to toss them in the trash and I convinced her not to. A lot of folks need help feeding their pets these days but she's elderly and not willing to trek to the animal shelter. This weekend I spied a request for cat food from a woman helping out a friend who feeds strays in the TNR (trap, neuter, release) program. She's looking for anything she can donate to help, so I'm meeting her tomorrow to hand off the tins of cat food. It's not a lot of food, but every little bit helps, and at least it won't wind up in a landfill.

It's cold and dreary but it's not snowing or sleeting. I get on the elliptical and pedal, happy that my feet don't go numb. Because I'm late, I can't use the Stretch Cage for pull-ups until after my core and stretch routine. A senior gal is using it and although I've seen her regularly, I've never seen her in the Stretch Cage. Maybe Snow Bird has inspired her? Tomorrow I'll do cardio, core and then DB Shoulders... 

I might not make it to the gym on Wednesday if I decide to drop my car at a local repair shop to have them look at my car's transmission chain. The car is running fine but has twice in the past two months not had the shifter properly engage the transmission, staying stuck in first gear. The repair shop guy said all the Subies he's seen got stuck in Park, not First. So that's not reassuring... Meanwhile, I've kept my appointment for Friday at the dealership repair shop, just in case. They at least can give me a loaner should they have to keep the car.

I did read an interesting article that suggests raw honey may indeed have cardio metabolic benefits that we all thought was mythological. So maybe I start using the less expensive local raw honey in my oatmeal instead of the pricey maple syrup? Maybe...

9 January 2023
Cold Dreary Monday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 2
Time: 30 + 5 (5674)
Distance: 2.86
Cal: 319
Avg Hr: 141, 194-78


Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
15 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

HGPU 23

Cold and Wet Friday

The day started off cold and rainy. The gym was crowded. Lazy Pedals and his buddy were on elliptical 1 and 2. I got on the Life Fitness cross-trainer and cut my cardio time to 25 minutes on a manual program at level 1. The machine allows me to use my arms or not and I choose to only pedal for the first 3 minutes and the last 2. Both my feet are needles and pins numb, not just my toes. It's very disconcerting because it doesn't dissipate until I lay down in the Aerobics Room.

The room is empty and have to motivate myself to finish in a timely manner. I waffle between the step machine or free weights. As I promised myself earlier in the week, I did another round of DB shoulders. It's a bit harder just two days later. But typical of my body, I'm better as I warm up. I toy with the idea of doing a 4th set in spite of shaky arms during the 3rd set of Inclined Presses, but I have pups waiting at home for me. 

Rain or shine, dogs want time at the park to run about, sniff trees and dirt, and most importantly, poop far from the house. This breed of dog (yes, they're mixes but mostly Jindo) is notorious for hygienic catlike behaviors. There's no one at the park because rain makes a muddy, slippery mess of the grounds. Even though temps are in the mid 40s, I'm glad I'm layered in fleece and have a winter parka on: I'm still damp from the gym and there's not a lot to do at the park other than yell "don't eat that!"

One pup is 47% Jindo and 30% Pungsan (another Korean breed) which explains why he prefers to be outside most of the time, giving little heed to rain, snow or sleet. Of course, the minute amounts of Shih Tzu, Pomeranian, and Chihuahua explain the contradictory skittish attitude. The other pup is 63% Jindo and 19% Brittany Spaniel, which might explain his love of wet, and his much more personable nature. The 5% Akita and 4% Siberian Husky make him both vocal and guarding, with a smattering of other breeds. Everyone seems to have a touch of Chihuahua as well. Weird, right?

6 January 2023
Dreary Friday

LF X-trainer #1
Program Manual L1
Time: 20+5
Distance: 2.41
Cal: 195
Avg Hr: 185-112

Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
20 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

Incl DB Press s/s Lateral Raises s/s Rev Incline Flys
10 lbs x 25/15/25 warm up
15 lbs x 25/15/25
20/15/20 x 25/15/25 x 3 sets

No More Cocoa in My Coffee

I used to enjoy masking the stale flavor of day-old coffee with a scant 1/4 tsp of Hershey's dark cocoa powder. Now I'm giving it a wide berth due to the continuing reports of high levels of organic heavy metals found primarily in dark chocolate and cocoa. Well, so much for dark being healthier than milk chocolate! I really enjoyed bittersweet chocolate as well, sometimes flavored with orange, cherry or sea salt. But it's not a daily indulgence. 

Coffee, on the other hand, I drink every day but only one mug and I'd like it to taste good. It's silly for me to brew a fresh pot every day when we don't necessarily consume that much. I'll drink day-old because it hasn't been left on a drip warmer/burner. And microwaving a cup the next day doesn't burn the coffee. Yes, I've been watching YouTube videos by James Hoffman, a coffee expert who is surprisingly amusing. Although he hasn't reviewed any of the coffee we drink, he has provided useful information that even non-coffee snobs can appreciate.

But back to the cocoa in my coffee. A quarter teaspoon is equal to 0.61 grams. Online articles discount levels of lead as a danger but cadmium remains a potential health risk to kidneys, liver and bones. (My grandfather, a portrait painter, died of kidney failure and might've poisoned himself with cadmium red and yellow oils. My mother told me that he constantly licked his brush tips to a fine point. Sort of like the radium girls of last century.) The disappointing amount of flavanols in cocoa powder is not a reason to dust coffee with it. ConsumerLabs found an alarming amount of cadmium (Cd) 1-1.5 mcg per gram of cocoa powder, well above the WHO limit of 0.3 mcg per gram. So, a 1/4 tsp of cocoa powder might equate to between 0.61-0.915 mcg per dose, depending on where the cocoa was harvested. (Apparently South American cocoa has greater heavy metal levels than that grown in Africa.) Yep, time to dump this habit. 

I did go to the gym for cardio (a bit slower today and a bit sore), core and a set of pull-ups. In the locker room, I chatted briefly with a woman I hadn't seen since the Fall. She just got the all-clear to start exercising again after having had a pacemaker installed, then having a wire dislodge and having that repaired. Prior to the surgery, she was having trouble getting her heart rate past the 40s and she'd fall asleep whenever she sat down. Yikes! My heart rate only behaves like that when I'm cold and tired and haven't had anything to eat or drink... otherwise it's all over the cardio machine HR monitors, but never during my annual exam.

5 January 2023
Foggy Fatigue Thursday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 1
Time: 30 + 5 (5644)
Distance: 2.85
Cal: 317
Avg Hr: 128, 198-74

HGPU 23

Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
15 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

Being Sixty Is Different Now

Temps peaked at 64F today and will drop 20 degrees by tomorrow. And even at 44F, it'll be unseasonably warm for January in New York. The gym is crowded, probably because it's mid-week post-holiday season. Not sure how many New Year resolutions are present but I see a lot of regulars from the past year. Cardio isn't as good as yesterday but to be expected since I'm a little sore and a little tired as well.

The side hip bridges don't seem to be offering any benefit so I'm going to delete them from my routine. I've decided that the Inclined DB Presses are a sufficient tricep workout if I do them twice weekly, which means I can skip the Rip Skulls and Skull Crushers. Those were starting to bother my elbows even at the relatively light 35 lb weight. I can't go heavier with less reps without aggravating my sciatica or my glaucoma (no heavy lifting). So high reps it is! And the DB shoulder routine is lots of reps. 

Which means I should be doing this routine again on Friday. I just have to be mindful not to give myself another rusty splinter from handling the DBs. I wear lifting gloves but fingers are still exposed, and the cold dry air makes my sensitive dry skin even more fragile. Remember, I'm the princess who sliced her finger open so that it bled down her arm from a fragment of enamel paint peeling from the pull-down machine handle!

Selma (64) and Flo (63)

I've been enjoying Night Court now that it's streaming on Amazon Prime. I'd forgotten that raspy-voiced Selma died during the series. Not surprising that lung cancer did her in. And that she was replaced for a short time by Flo, who also died during the show (a stroke and then cancer). Both Selma and Flo were in their sixth decade although they both looked a lot older! My grandmother was also in her 60s when I remember being a child, and she looked kind of dumpy like that too. Being 60 is a lot different now, not that Americans are living any longer. I'll be 63 in March. Certainly, there's still a lot of 60-year olds who look like 60-year olds from last century's 60s. I'm just glad I'm not one of them yet. I'm planning on being active well into my 80s. (90s might be pushing it since we all shrink as we age and driving a vehicle isn't going to get any easier.) That's at least another 20 years so I had better stay in shape!

4 January 2023
Rainy Wednesday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 3
Time: 30 + 5 (5588)
Distance: 2.84
Cal: 315
Avg Hr: 139, 202-88

Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
12 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Side bridge planks 12 each side
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

Incl DB Press s/s Lateral Raises s/s Rev Incline Flys
10 lbs x 25/15/25 warm up
15 lbs x 25/15/25
20/15/20 x 25/15/25 x 3 sets

New Year, Same Workout

It wasn't as hard to wake up early as I had feared, probably because I got to sleep to my natural circadian rhythm for the past week. And it was raining instead of snowing. Or worse. I didn't have to defrost my windshield! I got to the gym and pedaled furiously on the elliptical and did pretty well considering I skipped yesterday. Even pull-ups weren't horrible. I added two more reps to the hip bridge and the side bridge plank thing. It's unseasonably warm at 45F in January. I think the gnats are awake.

My feet were starting to hurt in my gym shoes even though I only wear them during workouts. Maybe they're wearing out? I bought myself a new pair of trainers from Zappos (acquired by Amazon) because they have a no-hassle free return policy, unlike FootSmart. These are once again New Balance fresh foam size 6.5 EE in a blue-violet color. This is the only brand of sneaker that has a wide enough toe box without an enormous heel space. Some brands of wide and extra-wide shoes are for fat or swollen feet so they're wide all around. I have bony little feet with no padding, tiny heels and a wide metatarsal base. 

The only problem this time is that the laces are too short to double knot. I pull out the lace from an old pair and measure 45" but that size is hard to come by locally. I know because I went to 3 different stores. And certainly none of the available laces come dyed to match the "night air" color of these athletic shoes. I buy 54" black ones and a white 45" pair as well. They'll be backup laces. I can double knot the laces to my new shoes if I pull them out of the second to last eyelet and re-thread. Luckily, the new shoes have three eyelet spaces at the end of the lace row. The older pairs only have two...

I skipped the second set of pull-ups while contemplating adding seated cable rows back to the routine. My sciatica is better, but not gone. I don't want to make it worse and apparently 70 lbs and more makes it worse. So, will I be happy doing 20 reps at 50 lbs? or 60 lbs? I guess I could take a chance and try it... but asking "What's the worse that could happen?" doesn't work in this scenario. Because worse means being in so much pain I can't even sit in the car to drive. So, there's that.

I do 10 minutes on the stairs and sing to myself. It's raining and the dogs still want to go to the park. I don't blame them. We stay for 40 minutes and only leave because it's suddenly raining a lot harder. Besides, no one else is coming to play. Probably not tomorrow either.

My son has his college applications submitted, and his Eagle Scout Board of Review will be sometime this month. He's also turning 18 in a few weeks. Neither me nor my husband know what to get him because he doesn't actually want anything. But he is bummed just realizing that he won't be able to hang out with our dogs after a day of classes. I'm already bummed knowing that I won't be chatting with him in the car every day when I drive him to the morning school bus, or later to his activities... I read horror stories in the local news about other teens (maimed or killed as passengers because of reckless drivers in other cars) and it makes me depressed and fearful. I should stop reading the news.

3 January 2023
Rainy Tuesday New Year

Precor elliptical #1
Program 2
Time: 30 + 5 (5784)
Distance: 2.90
Cal: 325
Avg Hr: 137, 207-77

HGPU 23

Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
12 Gentle Hip Bridge/Thrusts
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Side bridge planks 12 each side
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

StepMill (L)
Manual 10 min
Speed 6 (52-55)
Steps 546
Floors 34
Cal 80
Hr 144