Pentagenarians & Beyond: W/B 3/19

fox2star

Cathlete
Good morning,

Keegan’s heartworm test ( which tests for more than just heartworm) came back positive for Lyme disease. :( We started him on the meds for it, hopefully it was caught early and they will do the trick. Even though she was not due, we brought Kyle back to the vet yesterday and had her tested, thankfully it came back negative. I guess purchasing anything but the name brand flea/tick preventative is a bad thing. Vet recommends Advantix...I will never try to save money on this stuff again. Not that I understand how this stuff prevents a tick from biting....

Diane Sue, yes, the rebate for a year's supply ( or 2-6 packs) of Heartguard is around $12. What did Mudd get? Glad they are sending you a new phone. Hopefully it is at no cost to you.


Valerie, we also stopped putting on the flea stuff when winter was in full swing...usually had no issue, but then again we were always just thinking about fleas. Not sure where Keegan picked up a tick. The only thing we have seen so far is a robin. :). I used to eat tilapia, but found it tasteless after a while.

Carolyn, great that diet and lifestyle change worked well for you. I hear you on the sugar and processed foods, everyone can benefit from eliminating them. I will have to look at that source you have been using for fish. I keep reading about all the dangers in a lot of the fish out there in the regular markets. It gets so confusing for consumers.

Caitlin, that is horrible about your friend Bill. That pulse rate seems kind of low after a workout. Did you mean 170?

Take care,
 
Good morning ladies,

Yesterday I did Cathe Live Low Impact Cardio Hiit. It was about 35 mins / 236 cal. I did this before Chelsie woke up. :). When the kids finally did get up (they sleep so late!) we had a light breakfast then Chelsie and I did the complete SB BarreAmped Bounce DVD. I followed the advanced and boy it can get tough. The bouncing is not really intense but it is perfect after the deep burn you get from the barre sections. 64mins / 400 cal. My husband is still bouncing! Yesterday he had his headset and bounced to his music. Again he keeps it short but short is still good. He has kept most of his weight off and he knows he needs to exercise more and glad he is doing something.

I did not put the clips on the bungie cords. Right now I have zip ties and they are working great. I was hesitant to take these off and use the clips. They only sent me 10 clips and I have no idea which of the cords are slipping so I am uncomfortable replacing 10 of the zipties. So I am calling tomorrow and asking for them to send me enough clips for every cord. I agree they should replace the actual jumpsport. I should not have to use clips. The person at jumpsort mentioned they redesigned the smaller one to what I have now and there have been issues.

Deb...good that you took klye to be checked to be sure. Chester also tested positive one time for Lyme. It was a while ago and I remember him taking meds and he ended up being fine. Fingers crossed for Keegan.

Valerie...good for you even attempting 30 lbs. your strength gains have been great.

Diane Sue...thanks for the tip cooking fish with foil. Going to try that. Well at least you will have a new phone. But yest setting everything up again takes time. The RWH lift it hiit it lower body is a great workout when you are short on time!

Caitlin..I love my apple watch for HR, steps, and cal. Before the watch I had a Polar FT40 then I upgraded to a similar model that had blue tooth. They both were pretty decent that I could tell.

Have a great day all. We are getting more snow today. Not much but enough to be annoying! Not sure what the workout will be today. I have a few errands to take care so it will need to be a short one.
 
Hi Everyone,

We got a couple of inches of snow yesterday morning. Like Lori said, it was just enough to be annoying. The roads were bad and we stayed close to home until later in the afternoon. The temperature went up and it's almost all melted now. I did KCM Plateau Buster, Combined Premix. I always enjoy that workout.

I haven't started taking the statin yet and I've been reading and thinking a lot about it. I entered my numbers from last year and this year in the American Heart Association ASCVD Risk Calculator, http://www.cvriskcalculator.com/, and for both sets of numbers the result was "no indication to be on a statin". These are my numbers, first set from last year and 2nd from last week:
Total Cholesterol-286 229
LDL 183 147
HDL 94 79
Triglycerides 43 46

I changed my diet a couple of months ago, and was able to drop my cholesterol from 286 to 229. I should mention that this doctor, who has a very good reputation, is close to retirement. He has been practicing for 48 years so is in his mid 70's, and he only works 2 days a week now. I think he is not adjusting to the new guidelines on prescribing statins and still sees them as miracle drugs that everyone should take. I am going to hold off on starting the medicine and continue with my diet. I want to get another test and see if I can drop it a little more before I take anything with all the possible side effects of a statin.

Deb-I'm sorry about Keegan :( I hope he will be ok. We use Advantage Multi on the cats. We buy a year's supply and will get some kind of discount or rebate. I heard the same thing about the flu shot this year, apparently it wasn't a good match for the flu strains out there.

Caroline-My cholesterol issue is related to my diet and probably menopause as my numbers were always <200 total until I turned 50. My diet was high in saturated fat, and even though I thought it was healthy fat (high fat greek yogurt, cheese and coconut oil) it definitely caused my numbers to go up.

Valerie-Great job on increasing your weights! You are getting very strong!

Lori-That's great that your husband is working out so much! I need to help Chris get back into it. He is seeing the effects of taking too much time off and is having trouble getting motivated to start working out again.

Diane Sue-Thanks for the tip on the salmon and using foil. I will try that.

Caitlin-the Apple Watch works well for HR. For a chest strap HRM, I like the Wahoo TICKR. It has bluetooth so you can pair it with a phone, and it has ANT so it works with a Garmin watch too.
 
No workout today. We have family brunch after church and we ordered a new Net gear dual wifi modem which comes today so I will be setting it up. I have the page bookmarked already for Cox cable to do it. I was trying to figure out why our up to 150 mbp modem was only bringing in 28 mbp. Our streaming and Internet dropout is terrible. Cox showed I needed a new modem. Their suggestion was 150 dollars. I got one in their list that has the router built in too for less on Amazon. Hopefully it goes smoothly setting up everything. I got the Vibrant health joint powder formula and my joints are already feeling better after just a few days:) This makes me happy.

Deb, I am glad that you had Keegan tested and went back with Kyle. Meds early should do the trick, I would think. We do not have much of a yard and mostly concrete. The dogs were in the house most of the time. The vet said that a lot of people say that, but there is still the chance they will get bitten. I even spray the yard once a month, which I hate doing because I have to monitor Gertie to make sure she doesn't eat grass. My vet did say that Frontline was not as effective as it used to be. Then I tried that chewable stuff last year when it made Gertie sick. Maybe I should ask when I go back to get more in a couple of months. They did not say which type of tick born illness that Mudd had. On Nextdoor neighbor someone was worn in about the ticks here when people walk their dogs. We have the wooded area and stream across the street. There had been some dogs that were bit and a nurse who walked her dog got Lyme and was in the hospital. I think someone came back and said she died later.

Lorie, I used to put on music and and get out my weighted hoop and I would hoop to Beyonce's put a ring on it :) it was fun. I got pretty good at hooping that hoop up and down the body. I even have two smaller hoops that can go on the arms and can hoop simultaneously. It was a good non impact workout. I think that Jump Sport is not handling their product well. I feel the same about ATT and my phone. I don't think it will be a brand new phone. Mine is only 7 months old and I was reading the paper that they gave me and it says "like new tested phone" worth 609 dollars when I paid 698 for my phone. It is still under warranty and I purchased the extended warranty.
I was eyeing my rebounder yesterday and need to do some of that again. URX MT is rather intense though. I keep thinking I am probably ready. I have been doing some higher impact stuff.
 
Judy, everytime you mention Kelly's Plateau biter I remember that I still want it. I saw her Meltdown and the other one on preorder at Amazon for a little over 10 dollars each and dropped them into my cart.
I don't blame you for holding off on the Statin. Particularly if you have already made some progress. I had a doctor like that that finally retired. He told me to go out and get some sun for my acne. When my daughter was passing out he said it was probably an attention getting thing and if I left her alone she would come to on her own . We changed doctors.
 
Diane Sue-That sounds like something our doctor would say. When I mentioned the side effects of statins, especially muscle soreness, he said people were "doing too much gardening and yard work" and blaming their sore muscles on the drug... He also didn't even acknowledge how much I reduced my cholesterol on my own, and said I would never be able to get it low enough by changing my diet.
 
My right knee is acting up so I did my legs again, Giant Steps. Thanks for the the Apple watch. Iwill be away for a few days.
 
We xc skied this morning, 4 hours. wow I am whipped! I haven't skied much the last few years as we have been short on snow. only went once early this year. I feel like I need to learn all over again so it was a lot more work than it should have been. very icy to start and then unpredictable on the way back down. very pretty outside though and a good workout.

Deb, that is too bad about the lyme disease. If you look at a map, you live in an area with high incidence of Lyme disease. I hate ticks. they are just disgusting insects. we have had them stuck on us before. we always do a tick check after hiking in areas that have ticks. if you pull them off before 48 hours, you are probably OK since the bacteria doesn't transfer from tick to dog or human very quickly. you would have to go over your dog carefully after being outside.
Lyme disease incidence is very low in most of the US. just google "lyme disease and dogs" and you will find out more than you ever wanted to know.. we have been exposed to ticks plenty of times, but the tick has to be carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme .... Borellia to cause the disease. all ticks don't carry it, but it sounds like in the northeast it's pretty common. Hopefully antibiotics will take care of it.

well I'm happy ( thank you!!) I could do the 30 lbs but I think I will stay at 25 plus weighted gloves for a while longer. there are several exercises where cathe is using 15's and I been using 10's , so I will try to move up on those to 12's first. if I wear myself out on the first exercise in the series , I'm, less likely to move up on the others. somewhat of a mental thing, but I feel like the 30's use up a lot of juice with a lot of the workout yet to go..

judy you made great progress on your numbers with out statins! a lot of people use statins just so they can eat whatever they want, and often will freely admit it. muscle and joint soreness is what I hear the most complaining about. DH noticed it right away. he tried several statin drugs, and lower doses, but it didn't help. however a lot of people can take them and have no issues at all. I personally would keep the dietary changes and check annually.
 
Good Morning,
Saturday and Sunday were rest days for me. This morning I did Strong and Sweaty Bootcamp. I got up early for my workout because I have a medical appointment this morning. I'll check back later.
 
Valerie-Thank you! I know my diet was causing the high numbers, as my cholesterol was always around 140 when I was vegetarian. It's frustrating because the doctor says I have "familial hypercholesterolemia" and I know I don't. He won't listen. After seeing how much it dropped after just making a couple of changes, I feel like I can drop it even lower by making more changes.
 
Just a quick check in. I am using my phone data and do not like responding on the phone. The new modem/ router shows a excellent connection but Cox cannot get it to work. First they had my pho e number wrong so part of the reason. I couldn't activate of. I can get so far as to see our name and everything in set up and then Cox goes to error. They are charging me 55 dollars to send a tech out today. My fit bit has to run on Bluetooth so I will probably use something else for workout.
Be back this evening , I hope.
 
There's always a group of people who don't want to take medications and will come up with reasons to not take them, even if they need them and would benefit. with statins, it was the same complaint about muscle and joint pain. it's a lot easier to pop a pill than it is to change your diet, and the cost isn't significant. so I don't think all these people imagine it.

My numbers have always been good, but so has my diet. what is hard to determine is what kind of diet works for each person. I don't think this is a 'one size fits all" situation. I cleaned up my diet in the last year so I'm anxious to see if anything happened to my numbers. a few months yet before I get checked.
did the mammogram thing this morning. probably not alone in saying I don't like them. will hear within a week if there is any f/up needed. of course, I hope not.
we'd planned to road ride right after I got home, but it was only 36 degrees out. will go after lunch instead. not as sunny as predicted either, but not raining. next few days will be wet, so we want to do it.
 
Good afternoon.

Not sure what happened this morning....I got caught up in something and forgot that I had not posted. Not much new around here....got a call from the vet that both Keegan and Kylee's Titers test for Distemper/parvo came back good. That is amazing....they have not had a distemper/parvo vaccine since the first "real" one after their puppy shots.

Carolyn, great that you got a workout in before your appointment....S&S Boot Camp is a good one.

Diane Sue, that's awful about your phone...is there not a place you can take it to be set up? They did mine at the Verizon store where I bough it.

Valerie, I can understand if people do not want to take a drug that has so many side effects...and I think the medical field has been adjusting its thoughts on cholesterol recently. Our vet said that in his own practice he has seen a tremendous increase in dogs coming in with Lyme disease...very scary. John is going to be tested, he feels he has some of the symptoms, and if anyone is in areas where there may be deer tick, it's him! For all we know, he could have brought one home that got to Keegan.

Judy, you are doing the right thing by trying to get your numbers down by diet etc. Like I mentioned, my total went down by 56 points just by me losing 20-25 pounds. Still have really high HDL etc.

Take care,
 
deb, that is a good thought. ticks sit on grass, brush, and hitch a ride, climb onto things that pass by. we've found them on our pants legs, socks, boots, and backpacks. Michael has had them on his back under his shirt. we always have been able to find them and kill them before they ever attach. it takes a long time hours.. to do that. on people they leave a characteristic bulls eye pattern where they attach. John could have transported them to the car or on his clothes, or a pack, and they got to the dogs that way. it's good to wear light colored clothing in tick country, because they're much easier to see on a beige garment than on dark brown pants or socks. with their curly coat, I would think they're b not be easy to see on a dog.
 
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2102&aid=458
this map shows where lyme disease is highest. I think you live there! it would be easy for john to have picked up a tick or ticks on his clothing or a pack, and brought it home. ticks sit on grass and brush and climb onto things as they pass by. they are hard to see on dark clothing but pretty easy to see on beige. we have had ticks several times. yuck! unpleasant. they are disgusting creatures. the tick also has to be carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme disease ... Borrelia, .. it sounds common in the northeast.
we routinely do a tick check after being out in tick country. it takes them hours to attach . on people they will leave a characteristic bulls eye shaped rash. we pick them off and kill them if we find them. it would be easy for them to go from his gear to the dogs, or just be in the car and get on the dogs from there.


also for the future... you can buy Permethrin spray to use on clothing and gear to repel insects. you can buy insect repellant clothes that are pretreated. I buy the spray and treat our hiking clothes and packs once a year. home treatment is supposed to last thru about 6 washing cycles. there has been more publicity lately about repelling mosquitos that carry zika. Permethrin spray is used to repel fleas, ticks, chiggers, mosquitos etc. I think it helps, but I don't think it's 100%. just a thought that you could treat the clothing, and soft gear he uses for fishing.

Did a road ride, 26 miles 2 hrs 20 minutes. felt good!.
 
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Good evening ladies...

Yesterday I decided to try out another Cathe Live and did Keep the Cardio Coming, 55m/445 calories I decided to see if I could do it using my trampoline and it was great. Of couse I did need to modify some moves. Can't do grapevines on a trampoline so I did cross legged jumping jacks. I did real well quickly improvising and it was a lot of fun. When improvising I tried my best to keep the move as similar as possible. I thought the music in this Live class was great too.

Judy, before starting with the meds give it a little more time. If the cholesteral continues to drop then there is your answer. If it stalls and continues to be high then I would take the meds. I m still fighting the battle and everytime I go my cholesteral is a little lower. In December my doctor was fine with me holding off.

Diane Sue...awesome with the hula hoop. No way could I do that now. So funny how as a kid that was all we did. I do not jave the coordination to make it go around even once. I hear it is a great workout and I certainly can see why! Amazing you did the arms too. Well that stinks Cox can't get it to work and then charge you for a tech?

Caitlin...hope your knee pain is just a fluke and better soon.

Deb...funny for you to be so late. Great the doggies test were good!

Valerie...thanks for the map. Looks like I am in the red zone too. Ticks were very easy to spot on Chester. Periodically while walking him I would say "tick check" and he knew to stop and let me do a quick look over. Even though we were good with the tick meds I wanted to make sure non came in the house! GiGi is so dark no way will I see a tick.

Carolyn...hope your appr went well.

Have a great night all!
 
Today I did Kelly Coffey Amped Up Cardio workout 1 , 31 minutes, 205 calories, heart rate, 137 avg./ max 159. I then did Strong and Sweaty Ramped Up Upper 47 minutes, 246 calories. Total time was 78 minutes, calories burned 451. It took the internet tech 2 and a half hours to figure out the problem The problem was the dispatch who kept telling him they couldn't activate that router. I told him it is a Cox certified modem/router. He kept calling people and trying all kinds of things. Finally he asked one of his supervisors a question that got the supervisor to use his phone to show him the Netgear box and he had him send pictures of all of the numbers. I think the supervisor was mad at their dispatch. I could hear him saying "give me the information I will take care of it, they have to activate it, It wasn't long and they activated it and it was up and running. They put that poor guy through so much unnecessary work. He had to call his next stop twice because he was so late.
I got my replacement cell phone and so far the set up and it picking up my apps etc has been pretty easy. Fingers crossed. It is downloading 52 apps.. I was just able to hold the two phones together and it picked up stuff from my tablet. It has been a crazy day though and I feel nothing much else accomplished. For some reason I was awake most of the night last night. It has been hot the last couple of days. Today I know it was forecast to be 94. Yesterday was in the 80's. It is more like summer than spring.

Judy, I think that you are right to hold off the medicine. My last couple of doctors have been more like, here is what options I can give you if you want any of them. They pretty much know I seem to dislike the side affects and would rather not take anything.

Deb, they were talking on the new this morning about us expecting more ticks this year and pretty much every other insect. This will be a good reason to keep on the alert for them. This is the first time I had a phone come to my house and had to set it up. I now know how to get the sd and sim cards out and all kinds of stuff I never have done before. I asked my husband if he knew how and he said he had never set one up before. We always had them do it in one of the stores. They did some extra tests on Gertie this year too. Everything came back fine.

Valerie, I know my daughters and their families always launder clothes in something and use stuff on their clothes etc.. when they go to Haiti. I think they took some medicine a couple of weeks before leaving as well. I am not sure what it was for,

Lori, I have done that with the rebounder before. It can be fun doing another type of workout on the rebounder. Gertie, is good about checks for ticks and anything odd. I just tell her to relax and she sprawls out on her side and I start with paw checks and run my hands all over her to look. I think she kind of likes it.
 
Good morning,

I met my friend for breakfast yesterday...no workout.

Valerie, thanks so much for that link! Very good information. I am going to see about that spray for John's fishing clothes. Everything he wears is a beige color, he said he has seen ticks on his clothes at times. He is actually at the lab now getting the blood draw. His doctor had no issue ordering the blood test.

Lori, doing Cathe Live cardio on the jumpsport was a great idea! I can see how it would be easier to see a tick on Chester, and not Gigi. Ours are tough because they have longer, hair...you cannot see their skin without separating the hair, and they have a lot of black coloring.

Diane Sue, great that they finally figured out the issue with setting up your phone...I think you should get a refund on that service call charge. Wow, your weather is crazy!

Making the dog's food today....class at noon,

Take care,
 
Ticks can transmit many other diseases besides Lyme disease so we try to avoid being bitten even tho Lyme is not common where we hike.
The permethrin spray I use is made by Sawyer company. Yellow pump spray bottle. Most outdoor supply stores will have it. Do not spray the dogs ! ! I spray our outer layer of clothes thoroughly. They are dripping . I do it outdoors and let them dry. The coating will last thru about 6 wash cycles. I spray our packs too and assume it lasts longer since they don't go thru the wash machine. The spray makes a coating that repels insects. The coating physically wears off so I repeat every year . Ticks are most active (out west here) in spring but we always watch for them. Ticks have a hard shell and it takes some force to kill them. Like crushing on a hard surface with a rock.

I'll stick in a link to the spray when I'm on my computer. The wet spray is very TOXIC to cats so be careful where you use the spray. It's ok after it's dry.... the clothing is not toxic. Spray comes with full directions and warnings. I think it is extract from chrysanthemum plants. (Not sure )

https://sawyer.com/products/permethrin-premium-insect-repellent/ ETA this is the stuff. It should not be hard to find since Lyme disease is so common in the northeast. Most outdoor sports places should have it. REI does, Cabela's does. probably other retailers, but I don't know who is "big" in your area. wherever John gets his fishing supplies likely does too. or you can mail order it. Lots of companies sell clothing that is pre treated but it's more expensive and I don't know how long the treatment lasts. with your own spray, you can treat existing clothes several times. HTH.

Diane sue what a PITA with the phone. hope you got it taken care of.
 
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Today I did HiiT 40/20 with some modifications for a few very high impact moves. I like to do some plyo moves, but there are some that I know that I need to modify.

Valerie, I had my mammogram yesterday too. It was the last of the every six months. It's hard to believe that it has been 5 years since my breast cancer. I will be on a yearly schedule from now on.

Judy, I agree that it's a good idea to see how your cholesterol does with dietary changes before going to medication.

Diane Sue, glad that you got your phone and internet working properly. It's so frustrating to have to spend time on technology problems.

Hi to Deb, Lori, and Caitlin.
 

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