Sunday, 7 August 2011--looking ahead to exercise

Diet back to more normal low carb today, although two protein shakes and one meal (cheese, veggies, guacamole), one low-carb pudding and two 1 oz. servings of macademia nuts. I'm not including sugar-free jello, which I probably eat once or twice each day as a bit of a (no carb) treat.

Sleep not as good, still woke up after 2 hours, but up longer before getting back to sleep. Sunday night's sleep about the same, or even less. Soon I'll be back to a normal work schedule and have to see how I can settle into a pattern and be more regular. In a future post I'll outline a plan to improve sleep.

Continue getting better from the surgery, less congestion, although still enough to interfere with CPAP breathing and sleep.

Saturday was incredibly energized. Went to a mall where we walked ca. 2 miles. Then in the evening walked again at our "home" mall, very energetic. Sunday, however, felt tired, logy--walked at the mall but at a slower pace. Decided not to go to an opera at school--a bit too tired and the congestion gets much worse at night. Thought I would go Sunday, but was very tired and more congested (from doing more the previous day?).

Local mall is open for mall-walking from 7-9 every morning but Sunday, so I need to do before work as I work into a regular schedule.

Every day, I should walk, twice if I don't have an evening commitment. Not long, perhaps 20 minutes of continuous walking. Enough to get some aerobic effect. Eventually, I should do either stairs or running in an interval fashion, perhaps once or twice per week.

Then, 3-4 times/week my core exercises: bird-dog, plank, side planks.

3-4 times/week, simple body-weight strength exercises: pushups, pull-ups, leg raises and squats. For this, I'll use a progression from very simple (e.g. wall pushups to knee pushups, etc.) to more difficult (full pushups to one-arm pushups).

Essentially, I'll alternate core exercises with the body-weight ones. All this should build muscle and the core should help my back, long-term.

The progression in the body-weight exercises will come from a book with a somewhat terrible title, Convict Conditioning, but quite a good idea of how to progress from very easy exercises to very difficult. These move through 10 progressively more difficult versions of each exercise, plus recommendations for reps and sets . . . and when you're ready to move to the next, more difficult version. Ultimately there are two other foundation exercises (bridge and handstand pushups), but you can't begin those until you've gotten to at least level 6 out of 10 in the four listed above.

There are probably other things I must do too--some stretching, exercises for my rotator cuff, grip exercises--but those can be fit in to other times and places--at the office, while watching TV, etc.

I'll work my way into these slowly, not all at once. I need to adapt, both muscles and overall ability to do exercise and my normal schedule as I recover from the combination of surgeries and lack of activity this summer.