Sunday Weigh In May 24, 2020

[Barb135]

Good morning.  How is everyone doing this morning?  Everything is going well here.  My state's "stay at home" order has expired and things are beginning to open back up (shopping, restaurants, etc).  We've had a lot of people out and about the whole time of the stay at home order so it doesn't really look a lot different as we've been able to get out and exercise, buy food, go to doctors (those that remained open), etc.  I have mixed feelings about everything opening and large crowds gathering because there are a lot of people who refuse to wear masks in public and practice social distancing.  My husband doesn't like wearing a mask as it bothers his face a lot, so we're still being pretty selective in where we go and when.  

I've been having some severe neck pain for a while now (a few months) and just last week, via x-rays, I found out that my cervical spine is messed up and I have several vertebrae out of place, plus narrowing of the openings through which nerve roots pass.  Apparently, I have a nerve that gets "caught" or pinched when  I move certain ways.    My neurologist prescribed a pain med and said if it doesn't work, I'll need to have pressure point injections... that doesn't sound like much fun!!  My primary doctor recommended that I try a chiropractor and provided a referral.  Although I've always been leery of them, I decided to give it a shot.  

I've had one visit with the chiropractor, aside from the initial visit.  She didn't really do much - just some very gentle stretching, which, did seem to help on one side.  It also helped with the cramping in my fingers, which she didn't think was associated with my neck issue, but may be...  She said she doesn't know if she can help me or not, but would like to try weekly meetings for a month and if the things she does, don't help she will release me back to my pcp, who will then decide whether or not I need to go ahead with the pressure point injections... I agreed that's reasonable, because if it helps, it helps and if it doesn't, she's not leading me on with the pretense that she can help even if she can't.  

My blood pressure was high when I saw my pcp at the beginning of the month, so he has me checking it 3 times/day on a special machine that sends the results directly to his office.  So far my levels have been all over the scale so IDK how long I'll be doing this - I guess when he feels like he's got a good enough sample...

The new desiccated thyroid hormones I was switched to at the end of April seem to agree with me and some issues I've struggled with have actually begun to resolve - a couple of things I hadn't even attributed to thyroid.  We'll see what happens at the 6-week mark when I have to go retest and the doctor decides to lower my dosage because my TSH hasn't come up like he anticipated it would.  

Weight-wise, I haven't lost any but I've managed to hold steady over the past week instead of gaining more... yay me!!  :-)   I'm trying to eat less/better and it's going "okay" but not great.  I can't seem to shake the sugar craving for some reason, which is baffling because I was never really big on sweets.  Of course, getting more exercise would help - I've been holding off on too much until I see the chiropractor again as I know there are some things that would be detrimental to my neck.  I'll talk to her when I see her this week.  

I've been doing a lot of things in my workshop. I'm refinishing a cedar chest and thought I was about ready to start putting new finish on - boy was I wrong!!  Back to the drawing (ummmm, sanding) board on that one.  :-)

Anyway, I haven't weighed yet this morning, but will do that before I start my day and will post it later.  

I hope you've had a great week and that life might be starting to get back to normal where you live.

~~Wishing everyone a wonderful, successful week~~

**Stay safe and wash your hands**

[AnnieBrooke]

I'll be more enthusiastic about life getting to be more back to normal only when there is a working treatment for Covid-19, I think. We're starting to open up in our county, which was one of the last ones in Oregon to do it, but just yesterday they announced a big outbreak in a food processing plant in Vancouver, Washington (right across the river from Portland, Oregon) and nobody is taking that lightly. The places we go (to the grocery store and post office, mostly) have always been open, but nothing about the news is making me want to go out more.

My weight is down either .6 or .8 of a pound again, I think it's .8 just like last week. (I forgot to put last week's small loss on my tracker, and think I remember what it was but might have it wrong.) In any case, there is a slight but encouraging downward trend on my tracker for the past two weeks, and I'm not complaining. During the week I was up slightly, that I do know. Often our Saturday night dinner is a big one but we punted last night and had small things, and that does seem to make a difference in weighing the next morning. (It could be just that simple ... just stop eating so dang much. lol)

I looked out this morning and asked my husband what our dog was eating; he said he had given both dogs nice, big bones. Well, our dog wasn't eating anything resembling a nice, big bone, it was furry and flexible. I was hoping it was a rat, since I don't have a lot of sympathy for them, but also didn't want it to be one because I associate them with diseases or worms (though that's probably not particularly true out in the country, they're not sewer rats out here). But alas, it was a rabbit. Not that we don't have an overly abundant rabbit population, but it's still kind of sad to see little Peter Cottontail being eaten. I think the barn cat brought it in, and the dog took it away.

Oops -- gotta run. Back soon.

[Barb135]

Oh, I definitely agree and I think we'll all be more comfortable when there's a treatment that works.  Although I'd like to be able to get out more, I'm not really anxious to do so at the moment because of all the people who refuse to participate in the safety measures.  

Congratulations on your 0.8 lb loss - it's great that you're able to do that 2 weeks in a row.  I'm jealous!!  I think you might be on to something with the "stop eating so dang much."  lol  I keep telling myself the same thing, but my stomach won't listen...  :-)

I think rats are associated with disease wherever they're found, but probably not as drastic in the country as sewer rats might be... It's just that a rat is a rat, wherever it lives.  :-)   It's too bad the dog's catch (or was it the cat's?) turned out to be a Peter Cottontail, but the cat was just doing what cats do.  
Maybe next time the catch will end up being a rat - one less of those is always welcome, IMO.  lol

I hope it all turned out okay.  

[AnnieBrooke]

Back now! My husband kind of grumbled at going to do the grocery run (they pack them in the store and load them into your car, and for that system to work, we have to be there in a certain time slot). To make him less grouchy, I said I'd go with him. And what happens when it's time to do my wifely duty and go along to the store so my husband isn't all alone? I'm sitting on the computer writing a note about weight loss and dogs eating bunnies! So had to drop the online chatting and jump to it.

I like the grocery ordering and the safety it provides, but without fail, an item or two or three isn't there once the order is actually in our car. It's not always because the store is out, either -- they simply don't list everything they've got, and the picking and packing is a bit casual, too. Often that means if we need a very particular thing we just have to mask up and hoof it into the store. We went to the nearest Kroger affiliated store for the pickup, and then to the local Safeway because they sometimes have dog bones (I had only two things on our "go inside" list, the rest was supposed to be provided at the first stop. Ha ha ha!). Then as we were driving home, we thought of a particular kind of bread my husband loves and has been missing (he ate his whole supply early in the pandemic) which I also can't get from the online version of the Kroger's store, but they do carry. So we stopped at yet another Kroger to get the bread. Of course, once you're in the store you see stuff and remember the tuna you forgot to put on the list and voila the great-looking corned beef in the meat department, and so forth. (I had to literally clamp my husband by the upper arm and drag him out of the wine department, we HAVE effing wine!) I think the order we picked up at the first store was five sacks of stuff, then the Safeway stop went from two things to three sacks, and the second Kroger stop (for bread) produced two more sacks. We were running out of room in the back of the car. When you haven't been shopping in person and then get a chance to, it's just ridiculous how you feel like you're in Aladdin's cave.

Anyway, my new mantra is "quit eating so dang much;" simple and to the point. We'll see how it works this week.

Annie

[Barb135]

LOL - I know how these things go.  

I, often, get frustrated with husband because he doesn't like to shop at more than one store - "just buy it all here and never mind that it's a lot cheaper over there or theirs tastes better..." - but in a sense, I'm probably lucky, since every store does end up producing more items than you actually stopped there for.  Grocery shopping is a lot more expensive and time consuming (for me) when I try to shop at more than one store.  

We've been doing our own shopping all along, but every trip to the store seems to end up with much more than we went for...

I'm sort of trying to "quit eating so dang much" myself.  I don't think I've actually eaten "as much" so far this week, but it hasn't resulted in any weight loss, either.  For me, less eating almost always has to be accompanied by more exercise in order to be successful.