Food struggles during an injury

Being out of commission kinda sucks, to put it bluntly and not at all eloquently. Not only am I frustrated because of the pain (which is getting better, but still oscillating between nagging/sore and medium/bad), but on top of that, I can't work out or rough-house with the puppies, or clean or do any of those things that help make graduate school more manageable mentally.

On top of this, I of course have concerns about weight gain. I have been quite active for the past year, almost year and a half. I really rely on being able to run and lift and then eat to support my activity. Part of what has helped me so much while dealing with the eating disorder is to begin to see food as fuel for my body. The better/more I eat (within limits) the better I perform both mentally and physically. Seeing the lifting numbers go up, running numbers go down seems to make up for the weight on the scale staying roughly the same. It's taken a while to get to that point, but I'm glad I got to it.

Fast forward to now. I haven't worked out "for real" in about two weeks, nor will I probably for at least another. When I get to the point that walking feels ok, I may start incorporating light jogging in, but it's going to be slow.

So, given that I'm not working out, what am I doing about food? I knew I would have this issue if I were to ever get very injured. It naturally begs a few questions:

Q-1). How do I start seeing food as fuel in general for normal body functioning and not just for training?

Q-2). If I cut back because I'm not training, how much do I cut back?

Q-3). How scared should I be that cutting back may send me back into a downwards loop of trying to see how low I can go -- at least for the time being?

Q-4). How do I deal with any possible weight gain I see on the scale?


So, I don't have concrete answers to any of this of course but here are my tentative answers the way I see them now:

A-1). I try to realize that recovery requires more work than just existing, that repair of damaged nerves and muscles needs rest -- but also fuel, and that the faster I heal the faster I get back to training.

A-2). I've honestly been trying to listen more to my body and just go with less than what I have been while training, but more than 1200. I usually hit 1300-1500 now...although some days this has been a struggle. I've also cut out more "junk" as in no ice cream on weekends after hard workouts and fewer less healthy snacks.

A-3). I think this depends on how long I have to do this for. However, trying to see it positively, this is good practice for any other future injuries or times when I need to take some time off.

A-4). Trying to do this now. It's harder than I thought **

** I have been taking Prednisone for inflammation. This is a steriod with one possible side effect of water retention. Now, while the "tiny" increase on the scale is most likely from that, I still get paranoid.

Long roads...

Long roads to recovery -- those seem to be the only type. I don't think I've ever had the experience of a "short recovery".  My shin splits in high-school turned to stress fractures because I refused to stop running on them. Those took a while to heal, thank you stubbornness. My shoulder dislocation also took a while to heal, and this new nerve pain/injury...it's going just as slowly.

For the past 7 days I have rested, iced, stretched, took meds, heated, repeated. And by repeat, I mean the whole or part of this processes every day 3-8 times a day. While the constant rest has probably helped the muscles relax a bit, it's still in a decent amount of pain sometimes and my mind is going crazy.


Despite how enticing laying in bed can be after a hard workout or a long day, laying in bed for 3-4 straight days is mind-numbingly boring...even with my physics textbooks and code to distract me.

Thankfully I will be seeing a physical therapist and my doctor again tomorrow morning! I have no doubt I will need to keep repeating everything I have been doing, but at least I will have more data to present and possibly new information to gather (like when I can actually start working out again and what to do to prevent this in the future!)

Injury Sadness :-(

It has been a while since I posted on here. I get very excited about writing about working out and fitness...but that requires actually being to work out. I have been cutting back recently due to the injury on my back from lifting (most likely).

History:

1). When I felt the initial pain in my lower back the first thing I cut out was deadlifts -- even though I loved them so much, they were putting such a strain on the lower back muscles.

2). The next thing I cut out was half of back day -- more the lower back half which included deadlifts, hypers, etc.

Ok, admittedly not just back pain keeping me from deadlifting this...

...but I still kept feeling pretty badly...

3). So, the next thing I cut out was most of leg day. Squats put a lot of pressure on my back, as did the leg press and glute bridges.

By this time the pain was in the lower lower back, also in the butt/glutes...and it seemed to be getting worse.

4). So I basically cut down to three lifting days a week (Arm day on Sat, Chest/Arm day Tues and Cardio/Upper back/shoulders either Sunday or Thursday). Needless to say at this point I was sad. I was disenchanted. I couldn't do some of my favourite lifts and even after lifting with other muscle groups my back/butt was still quite sore the next day.

The "bad day":

I've continues with this cut back routine for almost a month: until last Saturday.

Last Saturday was bad. I worked out (Arms and Cardio) in the A.M. and then went to volunteer at the shelter. I had the good fortune of being able to work with one of the timid dogs whom I like very much -- but she was a medium sized dog and I had to pick her up, carry her, put her down, repeat multiple times. I felt my back getting worse throughout the time, but figured it was just sore from lifting weight (squirmy weight sometimes!) from off the ground. A couple dogs I had also pulled quite a lot, which is usual, but seemed to bother my back more than it had every other weekend.  After this, we also did a bunch of housecleaning and walked our own dogs. By that night I could barely move. In fact, I had to get Ryan to help pick me up out of bed because everything was so sore.

I stayed in bed most of Sunday and Monday with little reprieve. Tuesday, the pain was so bad that I went to the doctor. I had a PT appointment schedule for the following week (in 3 days actually!), but I could barely walk, so I took the first appt. available.

So what is it?

The verdict: Sciatic nerve pain due to severe swelling of the sciatic nerve. In fact, it's so swollen its easy to feel and almost even see.

The prescription: The doctor gave me steroids (ha!) and pain meds to reduce the swelling. I have been taking those for several days combined with heat & ice, stretching, wonderful massages courtesy of Ryan, and puppy kisses, courtesy of the doctor doggies.

Doctor Q.

Guess at a cause: In researching this type of pain, I found at least 3 or 4 common causes, including herniated disks, slipped disks etc. I finally came across one that seemed the most plausible: Piriformus Syndrome. This is basically a tightening of the muscles in the butt/glute/hip joint. When these muscles get pulled too tightly (like possibly from overlifting, or lifting with poor form, or both of these combined with lack of stretching!) the muscles become inflamed. The problem is the poor little sciatic nerve runs in between these muscles and so, when the muscles swell, they pinch the nerve. This sounded like a likely cause.

When I was mostly a runner, I had very limber, loose, flexible muscles. When I started lifting 4x/week, not running a lot and not stretching, I felt all my muscles, especially those in my hip/back get a lot tighter. I would put money on this being the cause.

Ice, heat, rest, meds, stretch

The plan: Rest, ice, heat, stretch, take it easy...until I feel good enough for light activity. I will, of course, start with walking and running at an easy pace. I will also probably do arm and chest lifting workouts. Eventually, if I recover fully I will ease my way back into a harder routine.

Building up the arms & shoulders

When I began lifting I was scared of getting bulky. I didn't know enough about lifting and diet at that point to realize that unless I really ate to bulk, lifted very low rep and high weight and did little cardio, that probably wasn't going to even start to happen. 

I don't supplement heavily, I eat a moderate amount (1500-1800 calories most days), and lift in the 8-12 rep range. I'm not bulking. But what I am trying for is nice, visible muscles. Now, different people put on muscle differently and even for the same person, different muscles will be easier or harder to grow.

I have always had trouble putting muscle on my upper body, as I've mentioned before. To that end I do 2 (ish) arm workouts a week. I say "ish" because one is a hard, solely arm workout and the other one I combine with my chest day.

Today I noticed a nice line between my bis and tris when my arm was down at my side doing shoulder rotations on the cable machine. That got me pretty stoked!

Either way, there is still a long way to go between me and the muscle I want on my arms.

Current Arms

Hopefully one day in the future -- arms

Unmotivated - II

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been very unmotivated to lift. I have boiled this down to four main reasons:

1. Pain
2. I can't do some of my favourite lifts because of injury and increasing aforementioned pain
3. The nice weather
4. The gym switch

1 and 2 go together, so let's start there. Over a month ago, I injured my lower back pretty badly doing DLs. I'm pretty sure I tore something, as I could barely move, twist, or bend for a while and even after that got better, picking weights up off the ground caused pain. So I rested it, I stretched, I foam-rolled, I got Ryan to give me back rubs (amazing bf that he is!). And I thought it helped. Eventually I could do normal everyday things without pain. Instead of going back straight to DLs, I decided to try light squatting instead. By light I mean the bar up to my BW. Pre-injury, my sets started at BW and worked up to 1.75 BW. So I figured this would be ok. The squats themselves actually didn't feel bad at all. What felt terrible was waking up the next morning and the morning after that.

So here I am, in pain still (didn't even try squatting on Sunday) and not able to do some of my favourite lifts (DLs, squats, and hypers). Talk about de-motivation. :-(

3. The nice weather. Nice weather encourages me to be outside. I love outside. I moved to the south primarily for the warmer weather. I'm one of those people that can handle 90s and almost never turn on the car AC. That said, the last thing I want to do on beautiful days is workout inside. Beautiful days are for trail running, walking the dogs, swimming etc...not for lifting in a gym. Especially if the gym happens to be very dark...

.....which brings me to number 4. The new gym. I'm not gonna lie...it's not my favourite. It has been more crowded recently (probably due to summer), and it's very dark inside. Dark, and full of sweaty lifting guys and high school kids. I only work out there on Thursdays and Saturdays now. I try to go to Duke's gym on Tuesday during the day and Sunday I sometimes trade lifting for running, or I go to Duke.

I feel like, in order to stay motivated and healthy, I need to spend a little less time lifting and a little more time outside running or doing other activities. If I find that this really decreases my strength and physique, I will switch back. In my opinion however, it's better to be able to stick with something for the long hall, than to burn out.

Lacking Motivation....

I'm finding that with lack of motivation to workout and lift comes lack of motivation to write about working out/lifting and general fitness things. Somehow they must be entangled...

This lack of motivation has been kind of creeping up on me for the past week or two. Whenever it comes time to go to the gym to lift I find myself feeling mentally and physically drained. When the weather has been nice I have found the motivation to run outside, but to me, running isn't terribly mentally draining as I tend not to have to focus so much.

One of the possible causes for the drain could be that I work out at different times now, and I workout at different times of the day depending on what day of the week.

I used to consistently work out in the mornings. During the week (Tues/Thurs) it was between 7:30-8 start time, while on the weekends (Sat/Sun) I slept in a bit and started around 9 am.

So accurate sometimes...

Now my schedule is:

Toss-up Tuesday: Sometimes it's at 8 am, more often it's during lunchtime, but also sometimes if I'm busy it's after dinner with Ryan.

PM Thursday: Typically I've been going to the new (non-Duke) gym after dinner with Ryan on back day.

AM Saturday: We have been going to the new gym on Saturdays, but usually around 10 -- not quite as early as we used to head to Duke.

AM Sunday: I actually haven't done my past 2 leg workouts. One I replaced with a nice run around the golf course and a walk with the pups. The other I just didn't do much. See? Lack of motivation.

I'm not quite sure what to do about this other than just plug through it. Maybe change up my workouts a bit? If I figure it out, I'll be sure to post!

A trail run sort of day

I've posted a lot about lifting on this blog. Probably because there's a bit more to write about it. I find running entries tend to be very short and succinct, because when I run, I just run. Not a lot of frills or thought put into it, just me and the pavement.

A combination of factors led me to forgo my scheduled Arm day at the "Great Hall of Fitness" and opt for a run instead.

1). It was 67 degrees out. And sunny. And a bit breezy. Could you ask for better running weather? Nope!

2). I was exhausted from the combination of staying up late thinking about optics and getting up early for Dog Orientation at APS! If there's anything that could get me up at 7 am on a Saturday, it would probably have to be cute, fluffy, and of the canine family. When I'm mentally drained, lifting isn't the best activity for me. I need a lot of focus while lifting; not so much running.

3). The pup pups needed a good run.

So off we went to the Washington Duke trail.

We don't actually let them get this far ahead of us....only for pictures!

It was a perfect day to run, and I have the perfect running partner. Now I know I'm not supposed to play favourites with the pups. However, amoung her many talents, Emmy does not possess the one that says running should be done at roughly a constant speed. Emmy was bred to herd, meaning that she can go 0-60 in no time, run like a maniac until her job is done, and then stop and sniff/plod along for as long as she deems fit. This doesn't suit my typical running style, although for sprint workouts she'd be great. So I took Q instead, while Emmy walked with Ryan.

Oh hey Emmy

Q is the most amazing running partner. She's pretty shy with people so she never feels the need to run ahead and investigate. She can keep a damn near constant pace. She's a bit prancy, meaning she's enjoying herself and everyone we pass think she's the cutest thing. She's also good at keeping a step or two ahead of me on the hills which is great motivation for me. And on this particular run she learned "easy" which means to brace and slow down on steep declines. She's awesome. And unlike Emmy, she doesn't feel the need to stop and take a poo when we are the furthest place possible from a trash can. :).

<3

The run made me realize that I've been in the gym lifting a bit too much. Lifting is fun, but not therapeutic in the same way that running is. As it gets nicer out, hopefully I'll be posting a bit more about running!

The little track star.

And her daddy.