My plan for today was to post a summary of how I’ve changed in the past 18 months. Then I spoke to the neurosurgeon’s nurse and learned, in brief, the results of the x-rays and MRI performed last week.
It could be worse–I mean, I could have a tumor or something. The results in brief: I have a bulging disc I didn’t have before, though how in the world I injured it, I don’t know. The first injury–to the disc at L5/S1–occurred in 1986 or ‘87, and if I went back to my workout logs, I could pinpoint the day. I was deadlifting without adequate warmup after a deadlifting hiatus of about six months. Don’t try that at home, folks.
The new disc problem was a surprise.
The fact that I’ve got some degenerative stuff going on (another word for osteoarthritis, or "wear and tear") wasn’t a surprise. So that’s number two.
Number three: I’ve also got some narrowing in the lumbar spine (lumbar spinal stenosis). In a word, there’s not as much room for my spinal cord as there should be.
I won’t panic till I hear what the doc says, but surgery may be needed at some point.
I permitted myself four Hershey kisses and a small chocolate heart. Figured a proper pity-party needed a modicum of chocolate.
More later, after I speak with the neurosurgeon on April 1.
Ready for the good news?
On Sept. 15, 2003, I weighed more than ever before–162 pounds, to be shockingly precise. My best guesstimate is that my body composition was about 37 percent fat (gak!), which means I had about 102 pounds of lean body mass (LBM). I was wearing size 14 trousers, and I could no longer squeeze into my size 12 Rider jeans, which have the virtue of running large.
I began a "diet" (Atkins–shudder) and talked my friend Anne into joining Curves with me. Even then Curves seemed awfully wussy for a former bodybuilder, but hey, it was a workout of sorts, and the 30-minute duration appealed to me. About the same time my husband and I began the habit of taking four of our dogs for a 30-minute walk each morning.
By the end of November I’d lost about 10 pounds of fat. By the middle of May I was thoroughly bored with Curves, talked my friend into joining a "real gym," and had lost only about another five pounds.
Along the way, I had punted Atkins. I wasn’t hungry, but I couldn’t sustain even thrice-weekly Curves workouts and daily walks on restricted carbs.
I hadn’t wised up about food yet, however. I still refused to count calories, but I shifted to the South Beach diet.
Last spring was tough, as my father was dying of cancer. My weight stayed pretty much stable throughout the painful process of his death, and I managed to get in the gym about twice a week.
Once I began to emerge from the grief, I started hitting the weights harder and increasing the cardio portion of my workout.
I began 2005 weighing around 145, with a LBM of 109. That means my bodyfat had dropped to about 25 percent. I’d lost 24 pounds of fat and (re)gained 7 pounds of muscle.
By that time my focus had shifted entirely to 1) eating healthy, 2) controlling portion size, and 3) exercising a lot. In late January I started counting calories and doing the zig-zag thing: mild caloric reduction (1,800 to 1,900 kcals daily) for three days, maintenance eating for a day, then back to three days of mild caloric reduction.
Zowie, Batman, did that do the trick. On Jan. 29 I weighed 145; on Feb. 17 I weighed just shy of 140; on March 17 I weighed 135.4 (where I’m currently sitting). My bodyfat is about 19 percent, with my LBM holding steady at 109.
I’m wearing size 8 trousers and size 6 jeans (generous cut, remember?). I have an entire closetful of clothes I bought years ago and can finally wear again. Did I mention that I have tons of energy and feel absolutely terrific (with the exception of the occasional back back-pain day)?
If you want more detail, here’s the routine:
*six days a week, walk dogs 30 minutes
*two to three days a week, work out intensely with weights, 30 to 45 minutes
*two to three days a week, work out intensely on elliptical trainer, 30 to 50 minutes, at 80 to 85 percent of maximum heart rate (calculating max with the 220 minus age formula)
*one day a week, body pump class, 60 minutes
*calorie zig-zag as indicated above, focusing on plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole-grain carbs, low-fat dairy, lean meat, and limited amounts of whatever else I want to eat and can squeeze into my allotted calories for the day.
Jeez, what a lengthy post.
