Wow, today was chocked full. I had so little time to do anything in between. I had a couple of time conflicts today, but a lot of these courses come around again. It just so happens I had to boot the group therapy session to make room in my day to get a work out in this morning. You can tell that I was really upset about cutting a Mind Screw class.
So much good stuff to report tonight! Really one of the best days that I've had in terms of learning new stuff that is so 'real world'.
I did the morning water class and got some steps in too on the Nu-step before classes started. Brian is by far the most complete instructor. These folks are so stinking knowledgeable it is scary. They make you do stuff you never thought you could do, but they know that you can do it. It's really impressive. The more impressive stuff is that they know when you will die too. They kind of trick you into pushing yourself. They ask for 30 seconds of something, and they know the class can do more than 15, and boom they get 20 out of you. Tricky folks. But I left some water in the pool today, didn't swallow my usual volume.
I ran to a class on improving sleep. This is an area I take for granted, I've always considered myself to be a professional. The sedentary lifestyle just adds to the professionalism in this area, but as I've gotten older, my sleep habits have changed. Some, not so much for the better. But it was really incredibly interesting what sleep does for us. With age comes insomnia at times. Stress, outside factors, nutrition, booze, all enter the equation. And when you mess with sleep, so much other stuff can go wrong in your day it's staggering. I won't teach you the course, but if you have issues with sleep, bring it up to your doc next time. Just saying.
Now, to say that I've been intimidated by the grocery store and all that it contains is probably dead on perfectly accurate. I've scouted the basics, tried to make some seemingly intelligent choices be them financial or healthy, but by no means would anyone ever be able to look into my cart and see a vision of healthy eating...just glimmers of a hint of a spec of healthy tendency. But I will tell you. Going to the grocery store with a dietitian in tow is a monumental learning experience. Not to mention down right stirring. In a mere two hours, I had my 'scared straight' mentality solidified. She did it so easily too. I literally could jabber on here for another hour. Things like portion size vs. serving size. Let's start in produce. We explored a ton of items, but for this example, consider those little bitty, purple new potatoes. Normal sized...looking for 3-4 oz. I'm thinking that would translate to 3-4 potatoes. Yeah, WRONG. 1.5 of these would count as a serving of starch. Seriously? OMG. This is going to get hard quickly. I am most worried about making choices that will help me continue my experience after I'm done here, and all this stuff is critical, but they are trying to simplify things for us as much as they can. I made a healthy decision to change my cereal to something called Smart Start a while ago. There is nothing on the packaging that tells me anything bad, but as a healthy choice, it really is only mildly better than other choices. Looking for 5g dietary fiber and under 10g of sugar as a norm...good luck. Smart Start...denied. Suddenly, something that I thought was rock solid in my old world....shattered. The day went on like this....I'll stop. It was really, really, really, eye opening.
Came back to the Center beat up, bruised, and contemplating the future...I do a lot of that now... and went into a fitness discussion that stepped up my knowledge on the science behind exercise vs. diet. Brian again. This guy is so knowledgeable, and I know it is not rocket science to know that I need to be working in a negative energy balance where I need to use more calories than I take in. Basic. This class is the science behind all that we are doing and he explains it brilliantly. It turns out, your body will go to the level that you train it for. If you stop the training, it will de-train itself to economize itself. Good Stuff.
Then, to top it all off, we had our Restaurant visit tonight. Remember, I was limited to 800 calories for everything, booze, appetizers and entree. I managed a cool 630 at the end of my entree, so I had desert! (an apple cider sorbet with tiny little cookies). This really just proved to me that it can be done. I will tell you that I REALLY liked being out of the nursing home dining room for a change. It was a really nice restaurant, and they stuck us in a semi private room. The dietitian brought her scale and we weighed stuff to get it's caloric value. It was a lot harder to guess, but by asking the right questions before you order, finding out what substitutes you can make, in my case I bounced the mashed and doubled my Brussel sprouts. With my roasted chicken, I came in a lot lower than I expected, so I had bread too. I felt full, surprise. I felt good...well, I always feel good, and I was really happy that I could do this off a menu. It may be a different story at Denny's, but it can be done.
I'm really excited after today...although, I will still learn to dislike the exercise part, I'm told this anyhow, today was just good.
Lastly, and on a very personal note. Chaffing. hmmm. enjoy.
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