One of the reasons I’ve been feeling so much stronger is that my physical therapist has put me onto a workout on what I call a jiggle machine, it’s actual name is the Galileo Vibration Plate; I workout on the Sport model. When I was first reading all the hype about it, I was pretty skeptical, but intrigued. The technology was apparently developed by the Soviet space program in an effort to combat the muscle atrophy and subsequent osteoporosis that cosmonauts are susceptible to when spending time in a weightless environment. It helps build bone density, increase muscle strength, and even reduces blood pressure and combats back pain. My therapist wanted me on it primarily for the increase in bone density and core strength.

The first day I used it, under the watchful eye of my physio, I thought it was really pretty fun, and not a particularly difficult workout; though she only ran me through one set of reps. It’s basically a platform that shakes the crap out of you while you try to do things like squats, lunges, and standing on one foot…  My second workout, I really kept myself focused and concentrated on my form while being jiggled relentlessly; I also performed three reps of each exercise with walking and stretch breaks between each set. That workout was a lot harder, and left me sweaty and a bit breathing challenged.

The next morning I was sore all through my lower body, but I really felt stronger. My third workout and I was hooked. The residual pain I’d been feeling in my bottom and through the front of my pelvis had disappeared and was replaced by a feeling of finally being solid and strong again through my mid-section.  Now when I come to a bit of terrain that slopes downward I just take it on; it no longer gives me that panicky sick feeling that I might fall. (Downhill is really difficult when you’re weak through the front of your hips as it takes a lot of muscle control through that area to walk downhill). Now I regularly challenge myself with hills in my workout routine (uphill for cardio, downhill for strength).

I’m now a full month into thrice weekly workouts on the Galileo and I think my fitness is improving by leaps and bounds. I’m still no where near where I want to be, but I can at least see myself on the road, and I’m really looking forward to getting there.

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The ice cream cake was one of those experimental type desserts; I only remember ice cream cake very vaguely from my youth, my favorite cake was and is pineapple upside down cake so I haven’t had ice cream cake in awhile, but my husband hates cake & likes ice cream so I figured why not give it a go. It ended up great though. I made it in two 9×3 loaf pans and made two types of ice cream to go in it, vanilla & mocha almond. The base was made of crushed Oreos, and I made an inner layer of almond meringue hoping it would give it a bit of crunch, which it did nicely. I also made a chocolate fudge sauce and a raspberry sauce (which was amazing) to put between the layers. It really turned out pretty good. Once they were all set in their cake pan molds, I eased them out and coated one in meringue and toasted it with a torch, the other I coated in whipping cream which I piped into little stars all around it and then sprinkled with slivered almonds. My husband still wasn’t too interested, though he had a bite or two, and I couldn’t get his family to give any a try, but his best friend devoured nearly a whole one by himself, and the folks at work really enjoyed the other.

The pumpkin pie was actually a special order for a friend who’d never had pumpkin pie before. It’s not really common at all here in Australia, no one at work had ever had one, and a lot of people couldn’t really conceive of it. Everyone really seemed to like it though. I sweeten mine with a bit of maple syrup and add a bit of sweet potato to the mix, so it’s kind of a combo sweet potato, pumpkin pie, but it was really yummy. I was a bit disappointed to see it go .

Well that’s it here. I’ve just been cooking, exercising and working of late, haven’t felt the urge to write much though. Hopefully that’ll change soon now that I’m feeling more energetic.

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It’s really only natural that I’d have pain in my hip and groin, afterall the tumor had caused the bones in the right side of my groin to break in two locations, and so much of my hip was engulfed by it, it’s only natural I’d have some pain as the muscle and nerve fibers attempt to re-establish themselves…. still sometimes I have trouble standing up or I’ll have some pain walking, and I think to myself this was how it started. Usually I cheer myself up though with the thought that maybe my healing goes backward from my decline and a little pain in the area is just the nerves coming back. Still the thoughts of the cancer returning are kind of frustratingly pervasive at times. I don’t know where I read that it sometimes metastasizes to the lungs, but I had a wee cold last week, and the thoughts were really annoyingly present, even though I knew it was just a cold. What’s even more annoying to me is that I’ve read that my specific type of lymphoma with my staging etc. has better than a 94% 10 year survival rate (after 5 years if your cancer hasn’t popped in for a nasty reminder visit you’re considered cured and no more likely than someone who’s never had cancer to get it again), so those are really great odds, but still my annoying little brain wants to niggle and worry me. I hate when my brain isn’t logical. I can’t follow what’s going on when it gets all emotional on me, whats more, it never seems even vaguely like a good thing when it decides to be all emotional… it’s not like it gets out of control happy or anything… It generally only uses its amazing powers of emotional persuasion to make me worried, angry or unhappy… stupid brain

I guess it’s not helping that my cat has had two nosebleeds in the last week and a half… that’s a likely sign that HIS cancer is back. I am handling it better this time, but it is so hard to think of having to put him down. It’s not time yet, it probably won’t be for a few months still, but it’s hard when I know that if it were me I’d want to keep trying to fight, and I feel like he’s the same. At the same time I know it’s futile, and I don’t want him to suffer; I just want him to be happy and healthy, and I really hope he knows how much I love him. Currently I’m looking around for a vet that will perform the services here at my house, because he hates the vets office, and I would just like to be able to hold him and assure him that things are all right when he goes. Though I pray everyday that he’ll be healed and I won’t have to go through with euthanizing him.

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I hope I don’t get as tired tomorrow. I’m not crazy about being so wiped out. I really needed a nap at about 3:00PM or so, and I came home and fell asleep on the couch (that could have been because I had an extra unplanned walk in order to get home though too. The bus run was slightly different than it had been before, and I ended up having to walk about a half hour from the bus stop to home… a REALLY hilly half hour at that . Still, it felt great that I could do it.

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Anyway that’s the progress report. Inches and weight both still shifting downward. Go weight loss

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I’m also really down over the death of Paul Newman. I don’t really know why, other than that he’s from Cleveland too, and he was such a great guy. It’s not as if I knew him though. I guess in some way I’m mourning the loss of the type of person he was, especially now when the media counterpoint for his death is the bailout we’re considering for our banks. I can’t believe there’s still all this bullshit floating around about how providing these greedy bastards with a big fat welfare check will eventually benefit us all because they’ll share the wealth. When have these people EVER shared the wealth. Does anyone really think for a minute that one of these institutions would even forgive an ill person’s late payment on a mortgage because it’s proven everyday they won’t. These are the same bastards who whine on about the social burden of welfare, yet here they are with their hands out for a bigger check than any welfare mother has ever received or will ever receive. Is it some sort of societal sickness that we want to begrudge every penny to someone truly in need and while at the same time seriously considering a financial bailout of the magnitude of the currently proposed bailout? It’s funny how any mention of a universal health care system is just evil socialism attempting to corrupt our beautiful capitalist society, but blowing this much money on bailing out multi-billion dollar corporations who’ve gambled and lost is… what? I’ll tell you what, an even more evil form of socialism… providing a safety net for the richest of the rich while preventing the people who pay for that safety net from ever being able to use it. The devotion to PURE capitalism that would allow bankers to gamble ever harder and risk more and more, disintegrates in the face of the reality of facing the consequences of said risk taking and suddenly a little social welfare sounds like a good thing, but not for some starving homeless person… no, for some bastard in Armani who’s faced with losing their country club membership. I won’t even start on his daughter’s “Sweet Sixteen”.

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I’m such a techno-goof. I’ve actually made up an excel spreadsheet tracking all of this stuff, with formulas for converting centimeters (which I measure in for my dietitian) to inches, and tallying my total losses and charting them. I love a good chart I guess, and it’s nice when the lines show a steady decline at this point . I’m also using it to track my blood pressure and heart rate ranges throughout the day and chart those… super goof! Anyway it inspires me to look back on it all I guess. Especially my bp and heart rate ranges. My resting heart rate was near the 90’s in August, now it’s down in the sixties; hopefully it’ll keep improving if I keep challenging myself.

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I have to admit I’m in a place where I don’t really even think the term “diet” as in a short term eating plan for weight loss. I’m going to be monitoring everything I consume for a really long time. I’m imagining at least a two year journey to even get close to where I want to be, and even then I think I’ll always have to carefully manage my portions. That I think is my biggest downfall, I’m absolutely no good with portions, unless I’ve been given guidelines and I use a digital scale to measure everything. Strangely I’m pretty good at eyeballing quantities; I just have no idea what a portion is without guidelines and measuring. I think that’s where my dietitian has been invaluable. She’s laid out portions for me for nearly everything I eat… It’s all still such slow going though.

It’s also a bit disappointing when the quickly lost water weight falls away, and you’re left with the ever so slow going fat loss, and balancing what you’re eating so that you’ve cut back enough to be losing fat, but you’re still eating enough to keep up your metabolism is a frustratingly inexact pseudo science. It was a challenge last week to not be down over actually gaining weight in spite of staying very strictly within a calorie range which in and of itself should have ensured a loss; add in the fact that I’d also doubled up on both the speed at which I was walking and the duration of my walks, and it could have really been a downer. Luckily for me all the exercise must’ve really revved up my endorphins or dopamine or some other magical brain chemical because I really took it in stride, & I’ve even managed to step up my workout game a little more again this week; well that, and I take measurements across the whole of my body, and my mass had shrunk. I continually bolstered myself with the knowledge that at least I’d physically shrunk, even if my weight had increased (all the while praying I don’t become the most dense thin person ever… a size 8 who weighs 200 lbs .

I occasionally read things people write about how easy it is to lose weight, just put down the fork and do something, and it makes me laugh because it’s obviously been written by someone who’s never actually had much weight to lose. Fat can really be stubborn, and weight fluctuations are some sort of voodoo when you’re actually in the trenches. You read so many stories of people doing everything right, but gaining or plateauing, and so many stories of people breaking a plateau with a fat slice of pizza or a sugar binge. It’s sometimes seems like a joke your body is playing on you, and at least in the short term, it’s a lot more complex than calories in / calories out would make you believe. Still calories in / calories out over time does do the trick. You just have to keep moving the bar all around the place because one of the many amazing things about the human body is how readily it adapts, and it sure adapts quickly to exercise. I take it as a mental challenge as well as a physical challenge. Figure out when my body has adapted to one form of exercise and think of a way to change things up to trick it back into burning fat like I want it to. Staving off Alzheimer’s while defatting my form

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Top that off with having gained a kilo since last week, in spite of upping my exercise and staying within a range of about 1500 – 1800 calories a day all week. At least I lost centimeters in all of my measurements, so I can delude myself that I’ve put on muscle and it weighs more than fat . Heck it may even be true. That or the surgery may have caused me to retain some water weight. Still sucks though . Maybe I should make my weigh ins a monthly instead of a weekly affair, but it does become a bit of an obsession. I’ll just continue feeling good about the loss in surface area though until the scale catches up with me.

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