Tag Archives: exercise

Routines, Reflections, Dollars, and Desires

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This summer has been anything but routine for me.  I hurt my back in late May and I was out of commission for six weeks.  I rarely spent any time outside and didn’t travel.  I went to the park maybe three or four times in the six weeks my back was mending.  Normally I go to the park three or four times per week during the summer.  I haven’t done any traveling as I haven’t been outside my hometown since late May.  I haven’t driven much and have actually developed a slight phobia of driving.  I guess I never gained my confidence back from my accident last October.  While I got my car fixed I still haven’t heard anything back from if I can get any kind of settlement.  Progress is insanely slow in some cases.

I haven’t been outside around the complex much this summer.  It seems that most of my neighbors have been more short tempered and irritable the last several months.  I don’t know what to make of that.  I still have the one neighbor who always in a foul mood and never has anything nice to say about anyone.  Apparently he won’t be moving out any time soon.  It’s kind of tough living in here anymore.  Three of my most interesting friends in here died in 2014 and 2015.  Since I live in low income housing, who we get as neighbors is luck of the draw.  There are days when I’m depressed I would love to move out and start over.  But I don’t think any where else in my hometown would be any better.  With my mental illness and disability pension I can’t afford to move to a larger city.  I don’t want to move back in with my parents as their hometown has far less to offer than my current town.  I really don’t know if I can move to my brother’s hometown because of my disability pension and transferring to a different state.  If I were to move to another city, I’d love for it to be to a place with reasonable public transit.  I hate driving anymore.  I’d never drive again if I had the choice.

I don’t suppose schizophrenics do well in large cities.  I hear horror stories about people with mental illness ending up homeless or in jail in large cities. My schizophrenia being what it is, it’s not like I can start over with a job that pays enough to give me a decent living if I were to leave disability.  I was anxious working as retail store clerk and factory worker. I used to have panic attacks so bad I’d vomit from the anxiety before I went to work.  I fear the idea of working with the public.  I have been verbally abused enough by customers and coworkers in my previous life as a customer service worker that I never want to experience that again.  And blogging about mental illness will never pay the bills even if I am providing a good service for others.

It’s not the money I care about, it’s what the money can buy that I’m concerned about.  I don’t need the status of a high paying job to satisfy my ego.  I don’t need the large house in the suburbs or the high end penthouse in a skyscraper.  I don’t need the large pickup truck or high end foreign car.  I can get around just fine in a twelve year old four door sedan that is as good on gas mileage as anything besides the really small Japanese cars.  If I need to move something with a pickup truck, that’s why I have friends and family members with pickup trucks.  It’s amazing what one can accomplish with a phone call, a little elbow grease, and offering to buy lunch or a tank of gas.

I really have my basic material needs but I can get by with almost no splurging.  I have learned to live inexpensively on my disability pension without a job.  I am happy wearing t-shirts, sneakers, and pants from K-mart and Wal-Mart. I can get all the music I want for free via youtube or pandora radio. I don’t even have music CDs anymore.  I haven’t even downloaded music from iTunes in over a year. I would rather watch Netflix at home, sit on my own couch, and eat a delivery pizza than go to the movie theatre. I would rather go for a walk in the park or shovel snow in the winter than spend heaven knows how much on a gym membership.

Splurging for me is grilling bratwursts and spending cool and overcast autumn Saturday afternoons watching Nebraska Husker college football games on my flat screen tv.  Splurging for me is buying a bucket of KFC and a couple side dishes instead of eating off the dollar menu.  When I need new furniture I talk to friends and family who are moving or having estate sales.  I got my couch, lamps, and recliner after my grandfather died.  I got my bed and dresser after my grandmother died.  I got my house plants from helping my mother.  All I had to do was help my family clean out their places for a weekend.  The most I gave for a piece of furniture was $50 for my all purpose heavy duty table I eat from and use my computer on.  So a person can live quite inexpensively if you use your family and friends’ connections and help people out once in awhile.  The only time I go to restaurants that aren’t fast food is when I’m entertaining out of town family and friends. I have stayed out of debt for two years even without a job.  I managed to save up some emergency money that could fund my life for a couple months even without a disability pension.

So I’m not concerned about getting rich.  For the first few years I was serious about writing, I was hoping to make some money as a writer, travel on the speaking circuit, and donate a bunch of money to my college as some of my happiest memories are from my four and a half years at York College in York, Nebraska.  Now that I know how to live on less than I thought I could and I see how much stress my brother is under with his job, I know it’s not the high paying job or successful business that I need or even want.  The big thing that I want now is for my experiences and writings to make a positive difference for whomever happens to read these entires.  I have no delusions I’ll make much money writing a mental illness blog.  Schizophrenia my involve delusions but that’s not one of my delusions.  I don’t care if I make money off  my writings and blogging.  I really don’t even care if I make above poverty level wages.  I just want to make a positive difference in the lives of whomever reads my blogs, whether you be a mental health patient, support person, or just someone who cares about the problems of the mentally ill.  I don’t desire riches.  I desire to make a positive difference in at least a few lives.

First Day Back Exercising

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Today was the first day I did any real exercise since I threw out my back six weeks ago.  I can tell I have gotten real rusty and out of shape in the six weeks I spent mending my back.  I walked for only ten minutes, enough to get the blood moving but that’s about all.  I’m not sore from walking but I can tell I am out of practice.  It is quite hot in my hometown as late July and August are always the hottest times of the year.  I’m still not quite adjusted to the heat as I haven’t been outside much while my back was mending.  And it was quite a cool and wet spring this year, so I was used to exercising indoors this spring.

I’m going to start lifting arm weights again.  I’ll start that tonight.  It has been kind of an odd tradition for me to lift arm weights and do stretching while watching Star Trek reruns. A friend of mine got me started on that last summer.  I’m most of the way through Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise.  But when my back was healing I didn’t lift any arm weights or do much for stretching.  I’m sure I’m going to be just as rusty with the weights as I was the walking.  I’ll have to use the light weights for a couple weeks until I’m back to normal.

I also starting tracking what I eat again.  I got discouraged for the last few months and was lazy about tracking.  I was especially lazy when I couldn’t exercise outdoors and then after I hurt my back.  Before I hurt my back I had some unexplained foot pain that limited my walking for over two weeks.  So I haven’t been able to exercise hardly at all since the weather warmed up.  And I had to exercise indoors this spring because it was chilly and rainy almost every day.

When I was at my psych doctor last time, I had gained twenty pounds since the start of the year.  That was one month ago.  I’m sure I’ve gain some more as I was not exercising because of my back.  But my back is good again.  I can sleep in a regular bed again after weeks in a recliner.  I get more sleep in a regular bed but I fall asleep faster in my recliner.  I can’t figure that one out.

Because of my back pain and lack of activity I’ve been more depressed and irritable than usual.  I’m sorry I don’t make a very good patient.  But in the handful of times I’ve been in a hospital I make it a point to never get irritable with the nurses and doctors.  I force myself to be on good behavior I suppose.  When I’m healing on my own I can be more short tempered and depressed than usual.  I got angry with two of my best friends over a week ago.  I’m still embarrassed about that.  One of these friends I got mad at I hadn’t ever had an argument with and we’ve been friends for fifteen years.  Another was my best friend from high school and we have raised our voices to each other only a handful of times, mostly when I was in the grip of a mental breakdown.  I’m embarrassed I let those things happen.  I grew up in a family where we rarely yelled at each other and never had instances where we stopped talking to people.  We may not talk to each other every day but we will drop everyone for one of our own in crisis.  Even my extended family is like this to each other.

I’ve mended from my back issues, finally.  It was one of the longest six week stretches I was ever part of.  I’m beginning to exercise again.  I’m starting to socialize again.  I’m beginning to track what I eat again.  I haven’t yet got my blinds fixed but that is coming.  I might even get new carpet by summer’s end.  After months when almost nothing seemed to go right I think I’m starting to turn the corner.  Maybe things will start to get better.

 

 

Getting To Some Kind Of Normalcy

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After six weeks of being on a different medication I am now adapting to the changes brought about.  I usually don’t need as much sleep so I now usually wake up earlier.  I have found myself slightly more sensitive to caffeine.  So I usually shut off the coffee and black tea after four p.m. unless I want to be up most of the night.  I have been spending more time outdoors and restarted the exercise routine a few days ago.  I am still kind of rusty but I hadn’t been doing much exercise for three weeks because of the weather and medication changes.

I am also regaining some of my lost emotions. I have felt a little loneliness over the last few weeks.  For months I have been content to spend the vast bulk of my days in isolation with as little interaction as possible.  I never did well at socializing, especially growing up in a small farming village where most people didn’t share my type of interests.  But I am now wanting to socialize again.  I find myself leaving my apartment at least a few times a day.  Previously I used to leave my apartment only once or twice a day if at all.  I have had days I didn’t leave my apartment, especially in the winter. I also feel a little more happiness.  Used to be the only real feelings I had for a couple years were anger and quiet contentment.  I didn’t relax and feel happiness because I didn’t know how.  But the ability to feel happiness is beginning to come back.   I am now able to feel a little anger and irritation without fear of going psychotic.  I haven’t had a psychotic break since I changed my medication.  I switched back to an old medication I had been on for several years.  The DNA tests I took shown that this medication worked really well for me.  So it confirmed something I already suspected.  I’ll see my psych doctor again at the end of the month and we’ll look into changing a second medication then.  I knew this would be a long process when we started.  But it’s certainly better than having psychotic breakdowns every six weeks.

I admit my physical health and exercise has taken a lower priority since I started this medication change.  I have gained a few pounds in the last few weeks. My endurance has really dropped off. It’ll probably take several more exercise sessions before it really starts coming back. But I’m getting back into exercise again, especially since the weather is warming up.

 

So Long Winter

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Winter is all but over now.  The weather has been warming up and the days have gotten longer.  It will be staying light longer since time change is this weekend in my country.  As a result I’ve been feeling better mentally and been more physically active.  I had forgotten what is was to be able to go outside all the time and not worry about the cold and snow.  These last couple months have been the longest stretch of mental stability I have had in months.  Between the increased physical activity, the better mental health, and the better weather, these last two weeks have gone remarkably well.

Made a couple road trips in the last two weeks.  Went to the family acreage for the day yesterday.  Got to relax, catch some sunshine, see some wildlife, and spend time with the family.  I rarely go to my hometown anymore except for holidays and family gatherings.  There just isn’t much holding me there anymore.  I can get and do pretty much anything I need and want in my current town.  I have a few more road trips planned for the spring.

The stabilized mental health has made it much easier to enjoy this spring.  Didn’t enjoy last fall as much as I normally enjoy fall because a few flare ups of the mental illness.  But that seems to be in the past now.  Been an enjoyable last two weeks and I’m anxiously looking forward to the rest of spring.

 

Early Start to Spring Routines

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It seems that spring is starting a couple weeks early this year, at least where I’m at.  So I am taking full advantage in this apparent early end to winter.  I started going to the park to walk and get sunshine (I need sunlight almost as much as a houseplant) a week and a half ago.  Slowly building up my walking times.  I can go a little longer now than even a week ago.  I knew I would be rusty as I hadn’t been able to walk outside much since my car accident back in October.  But I barely made ten minutes walking on my first day of my restarted routine.  It was embarrassing.  I could easily make thirty to forty minutes last summer with no issues.  It just shows what four months of low activity can do.  Maybe I should have gotten a gym membership after all.  But after making walking everyday for a week and a half a part of my routine I am starting to get back into the swing.

I started tracking exactly what I eat too.  I was losing at a regular clip when I was strict about tracking every day.  I wasn’t very fun at family and friendly gatherings when I wouldn’t eat as much as everyone else.  But it worked.  And it was something I had gotten out of the habit of tracking for the summer and fall of 2015.  Since I was lazy about tracking I gained weight.  I didn’t gain for most of winter once I consciously cut down on eating and got heavy into weight lifting.  I finally got back into the habit of tracking a week ago.  But I know I’m eating less already.  Took a few days to adjust but it is easier now.  It is a start and I expect things to only get more active and better as the winter officially gives way to spring.  Survived another winter and I’m already enjoying the warmer, brighter days.

Getting My Car Back, Going Back To The Hospital, and Looking For A Sense Of Routine

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It’s been a month since I went to the ER and the doctor found an ulcer forming in my stomach.  On Tuesday I go back to the hospital to get my stomach scoped again to see just exactly what is going on.  Between going to the chiropractor three times a week, going to my psych doctor once a month, my therapist every two weeks, it seems like I’m going to appointments every time I look up.  My routine for the last month has been go to appointments during the day and watch science and history programs on netflix and youtube for much of the night.

One change to my routine coming up is my car is fixed and ready to be claimed.  Had been driving a borrowed car for almost three weeks.  I actually got used to driving a different car.  Might be a bit of a change adapting back to my old car.  But it’ll be great getting back to some resemblance of routine.

I’m also getting into my late fall and winter diet and exercise routines.  I’m tracking everything I eat far more diligently.  I’m starting to exercise indoors.  The weather is still nice enough I only need a light jacket most days but it gets below freezing most nights.  Won’t be too long and we’ll be shoveling snow.  In Nebraska we usually get our first snow around Thanksgiving.  But we can also get several days of almost summer like warmth in mid to late November before winter finally takes over.  But with the warmest days behind us I have to exercise indoors most days until at least late March or early April.  I have struggled with my weight loss and health improvement routines this year.  Didn’t have nearly as much success in 2015 as I did in 2014.  But I’m not giving up on my health improvement routine.  I’m going to learn from this year’s mistakes and shortcomings and adapting.

A Sense of Normal With Mental Illness

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This summer has not been a typical summer for me.  I served as a groomsman in a friend’s wedding.  I lost a grandmother who influenced my life for nothing but the better.  I also got kind of lazy about watching what I ate and gained 15 of the almost 70 pounds I had lost overall.  But I also went through the entire summer with only one flare up of the schizophrenia.  This happened back in early July.

Summers are usually tough times for me.  This is when I feel my most irritable and easily agitated.  Some of my worst flare ups occur in July and August every year like clockwork.  I’ve seen research suggesting that a good portion of people have more problems with mental illness during certain times of year.  I think my problems in summer are made worse by the heat of summer.  It’s a dry heat most of the time in my home state of Nebraska.  When it does rain the humidity can be rough.

Things have been settling down and getting back to more typical for the last three weeks.  I’ve gotten serious about dieting and exercise again and have lost 10 pounds since my grandma’s funeral.  My problems with irritability, anger, and anxiety are subsiding again.  We also had a week when it was unseasonably cool in the middle of August.  It was an early preview of the fall that will be starting in a few weeks.  We haven’t had an unbearably hot summer this year but it was hot enough for several weeks just enough to limit outdoor activity more than I would have liked.

Setbacks in Weight Loss

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I haven’t posted for awhile so an update is in order.  I have been struggling with the diet and exercise routine for the last two months.  I gained around 15 pounds since the middle of May.  I admit I haven’t been as compulsive about tracking what I eat since at least early May.  I’ve been exercising at least 4 to 5 days a week, but it’s apparently not enough exercise to keep the weight loss going.  I work on losing weight as I have a family history of heart and high blood pressure problems.  I refuse to be one of those who dies in their 40s of something they could have prevented.  Overall, I’m still down 55 pounds.  But this summer has been much tougher than the last.  Heck, I was even having much better success losing weight in the winter than I am now.

I want to get back into tracking what I eat again.  That was really working. I became haphazard about it. I even quit tracking for most of this month.  I must be consuming far more than I thought.  In spring 2014, it took only one day of tracking before I figured out I was eating way too much to hope to lose weight.  I’m getting back on that again.

The exercising was going good since I got back from the Black Hills until I pulled a muscle in my lower back this morning.  Looks like heat packs, ibuprofen, and not exercising for the next day or two.  But if I was taking in more than I was burning off, then the exercise was essentially being nullified.  So the day or two away from the exercise will allow me to get reacquainted with tracking my food consumption.

Highs and Lows of Losing Weight With Mental Illness

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I’ve been working on losing weight since spring of 2014.  In that time I’ve lost at least 70 pounds.  But I’ve hit a plateau lately where it seems like nothing I do is making the weight go even lower.  It’s essentially ground to a halt for the last two to three months.  I still exercise at least 5 to 6 days a week.  I still lift weights 3 days a week.  I still track what I eat.  I’m cutting how much I eat to even less than what I ate during the winter.  Yet, oddly, I still haven’t lost hardly any weight since the end of winter.  And I’m more active now than I was in the winter months.  I know what I’m doing is right and has worked in the past.  But, it is taxing to not see much in the way of results.

I am a numbers man to the point everyone I’ve met considers me a statistics and measurements geek.  Which is odd considering how bad I struggled in high school calculus.  I really go by what I can see, what I can measure, what I can quantify, and not much on how I feel.  Yes, I feel so much better now than I did this time one year ago.  But I look at all the medical statistics and facts that state, considering my weight, age, and body build, I am severely out of shape even after dropping 75 pounds.  I haven’t seen my general practice doctor since I started losing weight.  Last time I saw him he pretty much told be ‘get busy losing weight or get busy dying.’  Granted, he was more tactful than that but the message got through anyway.  So I’ve been working myself senseless losing weight and tracking what I eat to the point that most people think I went overboard.  But desperate problems need drastic solutions.  I won’t die before I’m 45 as long as I have any control over it.

While I am doing what needs to be done to get back into good health, it is still frustrating to see that the results aren’t coming as quickly as they once were.  I’m sure I probably hit a plateau or a point where the body is readjusting to the new normal for me.  I know I get lost in the day to day grind, especially when the results aren’t coming like they once were.  I have to remind myself every day that I haven’t been this is the healthiest and ‘lightest’ I’ve been since 2008.  I started having problems with sleep apnea in 2007, so when I finally do break through this current reset point it probably won’t be long before I stop having problems with sleep apnea.

This also isn’t the first reset point I’ve had in this project.  I had my first reset last autumn after having lost 45 pounds.  And that reset took over two months.  It should be noted, especially for myself, that exercise and the human body are more like chemistry sets and less like math problems.  In a chemistry set reactions happen often slowly or not at all until a given threshold or tipping point is crossed.  It isn’t just as simple as eliminate ‘x’ number of calories or burn ‘y’ number of calories in exercise.  The human body has built in survival processes that kick in if the calories or activity it was getting changes for long enough periods of time.  This worked well for most of the human experience as food sources weren’t secure and physical activity was part of every day existence.  Those age old processes are what make weight loss tough, but fortunately we can see this and compensate for our biology.  It takes daily work and it takes a lot of time.  Time is what I have in abundance as I’m semi retired at this point in time.  I’m just going to keep doing what I have been and I’ll break through this reset.  It’s just a matter of when.

Exercise Pain, Spring’s Renaissance, and Gradual Improvements

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I enjoy the spring season more than any other.  The weather is turning warm, the trees are blooming, the grass is turning lush green, and everything is brimming over with new life and new possibility.  I even enjoy the rain and occasional storms.  Spring is the annual rebirth of nature.

I live in a small town with several parks and lots of hiking trails.  I have visited a few of these parks on almost a daily basis for the last month.  The trees, bushes, flowers, lakes, and wildlife in these parks offer the added benefit of being able to relax and enjoy a little of the natural world while exercising.

Speaking of exercise, I’ve been doing that for longer times on an almost daily basis.  Walked in the light rain and humidity this morning for twenty minutes.  I was unhappy at first that I had to stop after a short time before the aches and pains came on.  What I didn’t take into account was I had been walking forty to sixty minutes four days a week for the last six weeks.  On the other days I was still doing at least twenty to thirty minutes a day.  I track all my exercise and eating on webmd.com in addition to keeping written logs.  When I reviewed these logs, I didn’t realize just how few days off I had.  I think I’ve had only two or three days of no exercise since April 1st.  Last year I made it a point to take at least one day off per week.  My aches and pains are no doubt from pushing myself harder and taking fewer breaks.

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Fortunately my mental health hasn’t suffered.  I probably should go back to the take one day off per week to stay fresh.  When I started exercising and losing weight, I wanted the project to be sustainable weight loss and small changes enacted every so often as my physical well being increased.  I never intended for this to be temporary or drudge work.  Last spring I started tracking everything I ate.  Last summer, I started keeping tabs on how much I exercised.  Other changes I made included decreasing my carbs intake.  I rarely buy or eat bread anymore because I feel sluggish after eating more than a couple slices. I love things like bread, rice with Chinese food, and spaghetti.  So this was a large transition.  It got easier because I felt better mentally and physically on days I kept the carbs low.

A big change I made starting on New Year’s was light weight lifting.  I did this for three times a week for four months.  I gradually increased the weight involved as well as the repetitions.  Gone easy for the last week as I was beginning to over do it.  My muscles let me know I was going too hard.  But it really helped me keep exercising and eating right during the winter.  Some days the weights would be my only exercise.  In spite of the decreased activity of winter, I still lost an average of one pound a week.

Been going pretty hard on the exercise since the first warm up in early March. I haven’t had many days off from exercise. I’m starting to feel it physically.  A couple days off from the grind are in order.  Need to reset and take a little time to reflect on how much has already been accomplished during the previous year.