This new schedule is still tough and I think that it is going to require some careful work, especially in the evening, but I think that overall things are really starting to click into place for me with this plan.
The exercises is really one of the big linchpins of my weight loss program. It starts with ankle pumps, I do twenty five of them, very simply to get the blood flowing. I then move into these leg pumps where I pump both my legs out and into a stretch and hold it for five seconds before repeating. I do this twenty five times as well with both legs. From there I move into sweeping my legs to the side and back to the middle. I do twenty five of these with each leg. Then I do heel presses with my knees bent. This presses my heels into the bed and tenses up my thighs where I have some bad lymph-edema. I do this twenty five times and then I move into muscle contractions of my butt and my abs. This may not seem like a lot, but doing these twenty five times each and holding for five seconds with all of these exercises really adds up and I can feel the burn in my muscles from it. I finish it all off with twenty leg lifts with each leg, holding it for twenty seconds each time.
That is what I used to do, but since then I've added several more exercises that I do while sitting up on the side of the bed or in my chair. I start with just kicking out my feet fifteen times, then I do ten knee lifts and then twenty ankle pumps again while sitting. It's worked out well and I am starting to get more comfortable with these exercises and doing them a bit faster, resting less between each of these. I repeat these first a half an hour after I wake up and then I do them again in the hour before my dinner.
I think take a chair out into the front room two times a day to do my walks. Because of my size I can't walk for a long time without a break. I measured out my walking distance in my living room and it's sixteen feet across. So a lap for me is walking that across and back again for a 32 foot lap. You may think this is nothing, but next time you want to go for a walk, try slapping on an extra five hundred pounds and see how far you can walk before you need to stop for a breather. That's what I'm doing.
What I walk varies from day to day. I am trying my best to put forward an idea of doing as many laps as I can and then calling it. I don't want to push too hard and risk a fall or not being able to pick them up later. Yesterday I managed 11 laps in my first bout of walking and 15 in the second. Today it was 7 and 10. This mornings was more because of bodily needs rather than not being able to do more and the schedule was tight for reasons I will get into in a moment.
The big obstacle that I am seeing in my schedule and with the walking is the evening walk which occurs after dinner. Right now I am exercising before dinner, then I am sitting up and having dinner out with my family which is always strenuous on my legs and back because I need to constantly adjust myself. But then I need to move into my laps for my walking. To do the laps we need to pull the commode from my room because it is at this perfect height that allows me to stand without straining, making it ideal for the way I do my laps. We don't have anything else that would fit.
My commode we keep super clean so there is no worries about germs, it's just a bit big. With my knee and back issues and general instability, I can't reliably move it on my own. My mother is recovering from neck surgery so she can't really either, my sister has a bad back from her work and we don't have a caregiver in the evenings. Right now we are having to group up and manhandle it out there and then back in when we are done. We can't leave it out there because 1 no privacy when I need it for other purposes and 2, we put it in front of the door and can't leave it there.
This leaves me with two factors which are making this section of my day difficult. The first is the just big stretch of using up a lot of energy right there. I need to exercises and burn off calories, no doubting that, but if I am too exhausted, I can't get as much out of the walk as I would like. The second real big factor is the problem of moving the commode or finding some other seat. We've discussed trying to find wood or something to raise the chair I have out there. If it was a couple of inches higher, as long as it were stable, I wouldn't have these same issues and that could prove to be the solution.
Despite this, my exercises are really clicking for me. The only thing that is really not clicking for me right now is my home care situation. The agency we use, Synergy, they decided to randomly change my schedule today and not tell me. I expect someone to be here at my house at 10 am to give me my morning shake. Around 10:25 I called them and asked where the caregiver for the day was. Turns out they scheduled him for 11:30. This ended up throwing off my whole morning routine, though we did our best to keep to it.
It just highlights the need for a new home care worker, hence the interviews we have been doing. I must confess, I've been spoiled for choice with this. We've got a couple of really good candidates, three that I am trying to decide between right now. I've got one more home care worker to interview tomorrow, but that is it. I've taken down the advertisement for now. Even if this last person doesn't end up working out, I still have three people I really like to decide from and I don't want to tell any of them no.
Each has their pros and cons. One is really well experienced and is on the ball with so many of the things that I need. He's a bit more quiet and reserved it seemed to me, but that could have been nerves. My sister and Patti both met him at a training session by sheer chance and Patti reported very favorably as to his confidence.
Another is very vibrant and energetic. She's not had as much experience, but what experience she has is with twenty four hour care so it's really intense work. She's very friendly and seems very caring and I think would bring a very good energy to my life and really help keep me motivated with what I am doing.
The third is very well organized. He's again less experienced, but he has that twenty four hour care experience that makes it a bit more intense. He's also helped someone with weight issues and is still helping them. His organization and that specific appearance will do a lot to help keep things on track. The main problem is that he's also very busy with a lot going on in his life and he's already got some days set out in the near future where he needs stretches off and I don't begrudge him that. But given how busy he is, I worry how that will work with the home care situation with me.
All three are nerdy, geeky, gamery in their own ways to greater or lesser extents, which is something that I was wanting and looking for in a home care worker. It's a stark contrast to my situation at Synergy where things are generally rough with some few bright spots. Here I have three people I all think would work and I don't like having to tell any of them no.
I am considering speaking with them and seeing if two might like to split the hours and do 42 hours in a month each and ask the third, whichever it ends up being, if they would like to remain on call if there is an emergency or a vacancy in the future. I have four days that need filled, including the weekends. If they are fine with splitting those shifts and one taking half and the other taking half, we may be able to afford people whole weekends, give them more time to take another client as well on the side which is quite common.
This isn't an easy decision, but at the same time, I'm glad that this isn't an easy decision, because it means there are a lot of good candidates here and there are a lot of possibilities. Once we get this situation settled, however it plays out, I think I will be in a very good place going forward.
Even the evening meal situation is getting better. As I said last time, we got a lean cuisine selection that I should like. Today I had the breakfast sandwich variety. Since they are half the calories of the other meals I ended up eating two and then having some carrots as well to help bulk it up. It felt like a bit of a light meal overall, the meals we usually have are more, even when we have been trying to watch the calories. But this is much more tightly controlled and I actually really liked the breakfast sandwich from lean cuisine. This bodes well because I will adjust to the smaller sizes and this will do a lot to help me achieve my goal.
April 2nd I will be weighed in. I am shooting for 756.6. This is a very attainable goal, 1.18 pounds a day of weight loss. I can do this.
July 4th is the goal, 650 pounds. 781.3 and counting.
Confucius It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop via photopin (license)
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