WEEKLY HEALTHY LIVING CHECK-IN NOVEMBER 17TH 2018

@PoliteOcean I went to Starbucks for the first time in 13 years today. I'm not agoraphobic, but I was housebound because of my shoulder and back injuries. I cannot be in places where there is alot of commotion, and florescent lights bother my eyes pretty severely. I cI annot be in environments where I am over stimulated, an usually there is a big crowd at Starbucks, but today it was really easy to get what I wanted without standing in line. I cannot stand up longer than 10 minutes at a time. This is a huge victory.

Things are just staying way harder than I like. I went to the gym this last week at least. I have been making it at least every other week for a while, sometimes consecutively.

I took it easy and closer to the end my trainer was worried about how I looked, but I was actually feeling better by then compared to the beginning. Even with factoring in that I wasn't making it every week consistently, considering how easy I took it I was way more sore than what I should be if my body was responding as it does during better phases. After I went to bed fairly early, woke up in the middle of the night feeling horrible, stayed up for a little bit until I crashed out again and slept for a long time - I think the 2nd sleep alone was at least 7 hours. I don't know if it's just overreacting to the stress of working out or if I'm actually losing some function right now from who knows what. Far from ideal but without being able to get answers I'll just keep on pushing through - whether that be working out and feeling horrible after or taking a week off from set exercise so that I can manage other tasks. As long as I don't get symptoms to suggest what I'm doing is really harming me I'll keep it up so I don't lose strength and endurance even more. It sucks as if I was healthy I would just take how awful I feel afterwards as I sign I need a break, but when I feel like this for longer periods I don't see how resting that long is going to help me long-term.

The tracking app is at least working well, I've looked a few but I think the only other option is paid and what I'm using seems to meet most of my needs. I'm using flaredown. It allows both conditions and symptoms (just type it in, so no need to be common stuff) to be tracked on a five point scale - not active to extremely active. Those are the 2 best tracking features. Beyond that it has treatments, health factors (foods & another set for tags) plus a little journal to leave a note about every day. There's a weather feature too, but I can't get it to work. On top of that there is a weather option based on city or zip/postal code, but it won't work for me. Might just be enabled for certain countries? I'm not sure.

It will show charts of everything plus it's possible to just select a few things to chart them together to notice patterns. The data is also downloadable as a CSV file. On top of that there is a chat feature to see posts based on tags. I find there's not a whole lot on there though, and if does get busy just seeing it via tags will be a PITA, a site like this or forum would be more useful for that kind of thing.

I think I need how I change I record some things. I've been putting in exercise just with tags, but I think I'm going to switch them to either a condition or symptom. The 'not active' option is a smilly face, but in terms of tracking I think it will be easier - although a dot does show up on the chart for tags each day. I think I'll also include general activity as a condition or symptom. This way I can adjust for a really hard workout vs. a day I take it easy plus include things like if I just laid in bed/on the couch 99% of the time or if I was out running errands, playing with my nephews, etc on that 5 point scale.

I haven't paid attention much to the analysis, but I did at least test the download. I think I need to find some useful weather data I can also easy download (maybe high/low pressures for the day? I know that I can get that info, not sure if I can get it in an easy automatic format so I don't have to type it all in myself). I have noticed that lately my fatigue and reactive lymph node are associated, and my medication schedule also appears to influence that - so I think I will get useful info. Hopefully I can also combine this with info from my fit bit - my husband just painted it for me to prevent rashes from the clasp.

I have no plans to really switch up what I have been doing until Jan. For now, just being in the regular habit of inputting the tracking info is what I'm focusing on. I've been good with it, doing it most days and if I miss then every other day so I'm remembering my symptom levels quite well. I am surprised how well the email reminders work - I thought that push notifications/texts on my cellphone would be better (I don't know why this isn't an option), but certain emails popup on my computer screen (I don't know how it selects these) and flaredowns are included with these so that works well for me.

I was doing pretty badly earlier this week, but the last couple days haven't been too bad. I started walking, and right now I'm up to about 2 miles completed. I also ate some creamed spinach that was about as healthy as decent creamed spinach could get. I missed some assignments via the power of procrastination, but I'm going to try to do better this week.

This week I'm going to continue walking, and I'm going to try to run as much as I can. I also plan to do some exercises at home and maybe go to the gym a couple times a week. I also want to cut down on the sugar and find some healthy recipes. I'm also going to remember to brush and floss regularly.

My perfect week would be getting my assignments done on time--no, early--and learning a bunch of new words in sign language, all while walking/jogging every day and eating like I care about the state of my poor internal organs. Oh, and I'd love to get some art done while I'm at it.

As for Thanksgiving, I totally forgot it was coming up and got dragged to a get-together, which actually turned out to be more entertaining than it usually is for me because I'm usually pretty anti-social.

Highlights of my week? Well, apart from Thanksgiving, I ran for almost half a mile, which for my out of shape self is quite the achievement. I also finished reading some fanfiction that, while I admit it took a chunk out of my study time, was really, REALLY good. And I'm slowly making progress on my art projects, which is nice. My weekend plans are to study and finish a project for my journalism class as well as work on my weekly biology assignments, and focus my creative juices flow on one art piece I've been avoiding.

Finally, what I want to talk about... I said last week wasn't too good. I was feeling pretty hopeless, felt like I would never change. Had multiple high stress moments, though whether or not they could be classified as anxiety/panic attacks, I don't know. I keep going through this cycle of success and failure, and all my good habits and coping strategies and whatnot never seem to stick. My overall motivation drops a little more each time I go through this cycle. I want to be better, but every time I try and fail, I just think, "See? You'll never get out of this. This is who you are now, this is your life. Don't bother making goals, setting high standards, or trying in general. Just give up and accept your inevitable fate of failure." Right now I'm better, as I said, I've started exercising, I ate well today, etc. But I still have that voice in my head that's telling me this will end just like every other time I've tried to improve myself.

Started back at my gym classes after an injury , I had hurt my achillies tendon and took four months to mend . so started more gym classes now as made a full recovery . not as easy starting back as I thought I am used to doing the classes so my fitness fell to the wayside , but glad it is a start just a shame its winter time and I have to push my motivation to go , any tips would be appreciated :)