Good morning & happy Friday!
I love Fridays for the obvious reason plus it's my day off
Going to be joining my co-workers later for my birthday lunch. My pick? Thai! I freaking love pad Thai! And I haven't had it since my last birthday lunch. Good thing I have a lower body workout today because I'm going out tonight for my birthday dinner. Teacher workday for my daughter's school, so she & I just got back from walking Stella. Beautiful day so far even though it's cloudy and supposed to rain. So much green & blossoms. But my spring allergies are killing me right now. I took sudafed, 3 ibuprofen, and a 24-hour allergy tab this morning and am hoping they will kick in soon (I also took a 24-hour allergy tab last night AND two benedryl. It's a wonder that I'm awake & functioning). Today I'm doing STS Hypertrophy Disc 20.
It's sounds like a couple of you are teachers (or almost teachers)? If so, thank you! Such a challenging job! My 6th grader is at a first-year charter school this year. Boy, those teachers have REALLY been challenged! Looking forward to an even better second year
All of you talking about yoga makes me want to go take a class
It's been a while. The good thing is that I live in a huge neighborhood that offers several fitness classes including zumba, tai chi, and yoga. I used to take a belly dance class here, and it was tons of fun, and surprisingly, a full body workout. I wish that they would offer that class again. I've never tried tai chi, but I've got a feeling that it might be a little too slow for me. Who knows though? I need to find our neighborhood newsletter (but my house is a wreck, so good luck to me) and look up the days/times for the yoga class. It's nice because it's just a drop-in class, $10. Zumba is only $5.
Cookie---I'd def get your thyroid checked. So many women have hypothyroidism. It usually rares its ugly head in your 40's. I started having symptoms around age 43, I think. It starts off very slowly. First it was just slow weight gain. I'm short, so any weight gain is very noticeable to me. And I've always been very trim, so when I gained a few pounds one winter (like I usually do) and couldn't take it off that spring, I was like, huh, that's weird. Guess I'm just getting old and my metabolism is slowing. Then the next winter, I gained a few more pounds and couldn't take it off the next spring either. None of my old dieting tricks to take off the winter weight would work. Now I was starting to get a little pissed. So of course, I ramped up the workouts and cut my calories. But nothing worked! At one point one (or maybe more) of my kids said that I worked out all the time. That made me realize that something just wasn't right. But I just ignored my gut instinct and kept on working out and dieting. But things only got worse. I'd sleep over 8 hours and still be so exhausted the next day that I'd go back to bed and sleep several more hours. It was like I was drugged. Then I noticed that my hair was thinning (and I've already got thin hair
). One upside though, I now have very little hair on my legs. I rarely have to shave
. But the real kicker was when my heart started racing for no reason. I could just be standing there having a conversation with you when my heart would start racing. All I could hear was my pulse swooshing in my ears. That freaked me out because my 42-year old brother had just had a heart attack a few months prior to my symptoms, and I was 45. I went to the doctor, and the jerk was like, oh, you're just getting older. And the racing heart is probably just stress. I tell you what, the only thing stressing me out was that jackass of a doctor. I asked him to run a basic thyroid test, the TSH, and he reluctantly agreed. Of course, it came back high, indicating hypothyroidism. I switched doctors and started T-4 replacement drugs. I was so happy to finally know what was wrong. But after being on the drugs for a long time, my weight gain never came off. The other symptoms resolved though. After doing some research, I learned that synthetic T-4 replacement often does not help with the weight gain caused by the extraordinarily slow metabolism as a result of hypothyroidism. Well, I had kind of accepted that "that was that". I'd had a good run. I had been trim all my life to this point, and if nothing else, I had certainly learned to be empathetic for others who struggled with their weight. Then, after my knee injury that rocked my workout world and my transition to primarily strength workouts (and Cookie, you are right. If I want a cardio challenge, I just lift faster, basically a muscle endurance workout vs strength or hypertrophy), I finally seemed to find the key to revving up my metabolism---muscle gain. And I was always pretty muscular, so I was surprised at how effective building even more muscle was. And I'm not some juiced-up looking kind of muscular. But I am pretty darned ripped for an old lady
If you've never had your thyroid checked, and you struggle with your weight despite working out and eating a pretty clean diet and have other symptoms as well, go have at least a TSH test done (though it's not the best way to detect hypothyroidism, it's the one docs usually go to first).
You ladies are truly inspirational! I mean that! Most of my friends are marathoners/tri-athletes, soccer players, boot campers, crossfitters, occasional work out people, or people who never work out. It's so hard to find women who work out regularly at home, and of course, working out at home isn't very social, though I'd swear that if I ran into Cathe or her crew, I'd half expect them to know me with as much time as I've spent with them over the last several years
I was just telling one of my co-workers that I don't really know any women who are serious workout-at-home people, especially for strength. Most of my strength friends go to CrossFit, which just wasn't the right fit for me
I've really enjoyed reading all of your posts, and I'm encouraged to continue with what I'm doing and also to add in some occasional challenges, like yoga, to shake things up a bit.
Hello to everyone else, and I hope you have an awesome Friday! ---Vicki
