There Are Days

Then there are days.

I probably should have my butt kicked for not posting any sort of update, but there really hasn't been much to talk about unless I whine. Mostly I struggle to lose several pounds, then the diuretics desert me and I gain it all back. Up and down, back and forth. Just lately, I lost two pounds per day for four days, then gained back four yesterday. I could tell it was gonna happen because my quantity and frequency of urination was not nearly enough. Today, things started out good, but kinda petered out, as it were. I still have to take the other half of my meds for the day, so there is hope that this day might be good or at least break even, but I won't know until I take my daily morning weight.

I have not been doing much in the way of exercising, either. As unpredictable as my legs are as far as just losing feeling and dumping me - I just do not feel comfortable outside walking around away from handholds and chairs to sit in to recover. I've already had one trip to the hospital when I trusted my legs too far, I don't care to repeat that. Next time I might actually break bones and the chance of a severe infection scares me as well. Don't wanna lose a leg because I figured I could make it.

I don't even try at Wally World anymore - I just grab one of the fat bastard lazy riding carts to shop. I can lean on a shopping cart and shop for a while, but I can't take the long distances in a SuperCenter. I did spend about an hour draped all over a shopping cart at the local grocery store the other day, and I pulled it off, but wow, did it ever wreck me. I was beat and useless the rest of the day.

So, I could see this lack of exercise was gonna be a killer should I let it go. So, I ordered this:

That would be this hybrid trainer. I figure I can sit or stand and work out my arms, too, depending on how I feel.

It should be noted that I hate working out with the heat of a thousand suns. I hate working out on machines even more. However, if I want to continue to occupy my little spot on this planet for much longer, that has to change, and change in a positive direction.

So, as soon as it's put together, away I go.

And I've really, really been a sodium Nazi with my food. I went through my cabinets the other day, and pretty much anything that was over ten percent minimum daily requirement for sodium went out the door. I gave it all to Cuzzin Tom, who will pick over what he wants and take the remainder to a food bank in Dodge City. It has been an education in and of itself finding out how loaded with salt our diet really is, and how some claims for heart health are pure bullshit. I'm talking to you, Campbells, when it comes to your heart healthy soups. How can it be heart healthy when your sodium contend starts approaching fifty percent of the minimum daily requirement? Like over forty percent? I read somewhere that when they came out with that line of soup that the sodium was considerably lower (but still high at over twenty percent and well above my cutoff of ten percent), but sales were down until they pumped a bunch of salt in for flavor.

I was buying buttloads of roma tomatoes and running them and other veggies - green bell pepper, onion, celery, mushrooms, carrots and so on into a veggie sauce and cook that down for the better part of a day. I had it all loaded up with a ton of spices, and to make tomato soup I just added some sodium free chicken broth. I'd been a big user of chicken and beef bouillon, but that stuff is basically salt with a flavor added. And I lucked out at the local grocery store - Wally World sure as hell didn't carry this. Hormel makes sodium free bouillon powders in chicken and beef flavors (Herb-Ox is the brand line). The store carried a box with some one cup packets. Turns out they have jars available, but no one around here carries 'em. Amazon sells it by the case, so I'm sitting on a case each of chicken and beef powders.

And Mrs. Dash's hotter flavors really add some zing in food - I've used it in sauces, soups and stews, and pretty much everything else as well. Most of my cooking now has a Tex Mex or Italian flavor with heat.

I even tried mixing hamburger and ground turkey. That worked well for meatballs in spaghetti, but to make a patty and eat that - fail big time. Having the sauce mask the lack of flavor is one thing, but when that crap stands alone - even when it had onion, bell pepper and spices it was crap.

Lesson learned.

And it turns out there is quite a variety of tomato sauces available in low sodium. It's far more convenient to have the canned stuff on hand, but the stuff I made really has that fresh sparkle to it.

I've also purchased a double boiler/steamer pot setup - not much sodium in fresh veggies steamed rather than the sodium loaded canned stuff, or even messing with the frozen.

I've always got fresh  fruit on hand as well - navel oranges, apples, pears, bananas and so on. Bananas really help with potassium levels - when you have to take meds to pee a lot, you deplete your potassium, magnesium and yes, even your sodium levels. So, I have to take prescription strength potassium supplement as well as magnesium vitamins as well. I had to laugh - my last blood test at the doctor's showed I was low on sodium. I can't win for losing.

But anyways, if your levels drop too much, you cannot believe the muscle cramps. Generally they start in my left hand - and if I'm lucky, I can grab it with my right hand and straighten out my fingers and maybe the impulse to cramp up passe. Or not, and I get cramps in my right hand, and just have to sit there and watch my fingers writhe out of control and in pain.

During my second to last visit to the horse pistol I had a cramping episode that lasted over two hours. I needed another Klor-Con pill, but that required doctor's orders, and it took that long to obtain permission. I did talk 'em out of a banana and a couple little tiny cans of tomato juice, but even that really requires doctor's orders, and those nurses are't gonna lose their jobs giving me something I'm gonna get and everyone knows it, but their asses would be out in the wind doing that without specific doctor's orders. This last trip I pissed off the entire process because I had some of my meds with me and I took what I needed rather than wait for two hours. That cramping episode only lasted a half hour instead of two or three.

I was a bad boy - violating hospital policy. I told 'em they could blow me - I had the solution with me and there was no sense in torturing myself just to follow their slow, ineffective thinking. The nurses really agreed with me, but they had to keep the official policy. Job security, yannow.

So, I am eating the correct stuff and frankly, it tastes pretty good. You might have a problem with no salt, but I've learned to get along without it in a healthy manner. I will be getting some exercise, too. I feel like I'm doing the right things or working on getting to that point, at any rate.

And as far as the bouncing weight - I did get back to my original weight after starting keeping records once, but I'm still about six or seven pounds below right now. And many tell me that it took months to get to this point, it's gonna take that to reverse the trend. Even so, when I gain my 'tude gets pretty low, and my need to post stuff here kinda evaporates. Just. Not. In. The. Mood.

But, overall, I'm mostly optimistic and even cheery some days. Hope y'all are doing well in these supposedly closing days of winter. Supposedly, at any rate!