It's been a banner week!
I'm down a few pounds again (I didn't make it to weigh in last week so two weeks cumulative looked quite nice!), which is good because I'd been "learning to maintain" for a bit. I don't call it a plateau because that implies a certain passivity on my part that I don't want to have in my head. Rather, I know that when I don't lose weight in a given week it's either (1) I've not been as focused as I could be, (2) I've had a lot of "life" happen and that's just going to happen sometimes and "it's just a week or two or three so don't let it derail me and just keep on keeping on" (just letting you in on the conversations in my head, there), or (3) my body is just reshaping itself in mysterious ways and it'll start heading down the right path again at some point. As long as I feel good about what I'm doing, I'm good with it all.
Our 5k training is now up to minute-and-a-half runs with shorter walk intervals. I've been doing great except for Wednesday night's training, which was outside in gale-force winds. I'm not kidding. 35-40 mph with 60 mph gusts--and we did the first half of the run straight into that wind. For part of it we were somewhat protected by trees but it still added to the experience, shall we say. I felt like I struggled more than I'd have liked and when we finished I was feeling a little frustrated with myself. But then, on the drive home, I reminded myself, "Hey. Three months ago you wouldn't have even stepped foot out of the house in this weather. And now you're out RUNNING in it! And you didn't slow down! You're a freakin' beast!" So there, self. I'm choosing to be proud of what I did do, rather than frustrated with what I perceive I should've done. Beast me.
And yes, running outside is HUGELY different from being on the treadmill. I've been doing my two homework runs at my gym and they're stinkin' easy compared to running outside. (I have, however, enjoyed running through Australia and New Zealand!) Now that it's starting to stay lighter longer, though, I may feel comfortable from a safety-perspective doing my running homework on the canal path after work (sans Doofus, though, as he hasn't been able to work up to where I am now--he'll have to be my walking buddy on rest days). I could run with the public runs where a lot of our group members do their homework but that one starts about an hour and a half after I'm done with work. It's hard for me to wait to run with them when I could be done by the time they start. Still trying to figure that one out.
On another front...My strength trainer keeps complementing me on how well I'm doing keeping my shoulders lowered (not hitching them up to my ears) during workouts. All I can say is that I've been working on that one for a long time! Thanks, vertigo-related-physical therapy! (It all blends.)
(August to now. Adorbs puppy courtesy of my sister. I'd have taken him home with me if I didn't already have a critical mass of dogdom underfoot.)
Next week I'm hoping to make another major weight loss milestone. Here's to reminding myself tomorrow morning of why exactly again am I running outside in 20 degree weather????
On another fight-the-funk-front...
I tried a new thing last week. In looking up a local flotation tank place to get my daughter a gift certificate for her birthday, I saw that they also had something called dry salt therapy. Given that the other major cause of my vertigo is sinus issues, I decided it was worth a shot and was able to book an appointment for after work that day.
Salt rooms vary in how they work. The one I was in pumped salt particles into the air; I could taste it slightly on my water bottle spigot and there was a dust outline of where I was sitting on my chair when I got up--you could see the particles floating through the air. I was in there for about 45 minutes. It was certainly a relaxing time as I was the only one in the room. Plus, they suggest you not have your electronics with you as the salt can be corrosive, so I just sat with earbuds in and my ocean-waves-white-noise going while my phone huddled under a pile of tissues on the table. I could feel some stuff start moving around in my head and I had a bit of a cough (they tell you that can happen ahead of time) by the time it was done. But danged if my sinuses didn't feel a whole lot clearer for several days afterwards. Makes sense, as my go-to sinus nasal spray is a saline solution, as are neti pots. It basically just clears you out.
Salt therapy hasn't been studied vigorously so there's some concern about long-term effects of using the rooms regularly but I'm not overly concerned about that for me, as I won't be using it weekly. I may, however, go in a few times during my worst allergy season. Hey--if it takes care of my vertigo, I'm game!
The only other thing going on right now is that I'm trying to figure out why my Apple Watch and FitBit One aren't logging the same number of steps. In fact, there's a significant difference. It's supposed to be quite nice on Sunday so I'm going to do the 20-minute-walk-outside thing to calibrate the Apple Watch (I've never done that) to see if it helps. Still, the Apple Watch is reviewed--and compared by a lot of people--as being super-accurate, so I'm wondering if the difference might be the fact that my FitBit One is in a location where maybe it can't feel the steps as well. In any case, I'm beginning to think I may drop out of the FitBit community because I'm no longer only focused on steps which means my steps can be all over the place, which is a problem in challenges...which is the only reason I'm still in the FitBit community at this point. I'm wondering if trying to have both FitBit and my running apps going is a distraction for me. Haven't decided yet.