Weigh Day (week thirty-seven)

Here is my workout schedule from this week:

Sunday – Legs & Core; 40 mins with Neil (11,434 steps)

Monday – physical therapy; 15 mins with Neil; 45 mins with Denise; 45 mins power yoga (15,490 steps)

Tuesday – whole body; 25 mins with Neil (13,710 steps)

Wednesday – arms & abs; 45 mins of hiking with my girlies – it was too nice of a day to be in a gym for any length of time (14,733 steps)

Thursday – abs; 40 mins with Neil (10,837 steps)

Friday – physical therapy; abs & arms (12,298 steps)

Saturday – 3 hours at the Zoo with my girlies (17,229 steps)

Despite all of that activity, I have nothing *new* to report on the weigh in front.  I hit an all-time low on Wednesday (which I already shared) leaving only eight pounds left to 100 pounds.  Since then, though, I have bounced up and down within a 0.6 range.  This morning I weighed in at exactly 223.0 again.

I must admit with my *huge* loss last week I expected nothing too substantial this week.  Any week I have lost over four pounds has been followed by next to nothing the week after.  However, I still managed a 1.4 loss this week, which is certainly respectable!

Physical therapy is going well, which I truly believe is helping me tremendously (not only in healing my knee, but with working out in general).  Friday’s therapy was insane!  They kicked my butt – seriously.  My legs were trembling and on fire!  As a matter of fact, my legs are still slightly sore today – yeah for new muscle growth/development!  Hopefully this means I will be back to my regularly scheduled programming of running, lunging, jumping, and squatting SOON!  I simply cannot wait!

On a side note, I have been watching documentaries this week that pertain to our industrialized food industry and fast food.  The two I have watched so far are Food, Inc and Fat Head.  I found them both incredibly interesting.  Food, Inc made me want to give up all meat again (which I have done in previous years) and Fat Head made me want to eat more meat.  Go figure, right?  I will definitely be looking into more humanely acquired meat and animal by-products (such as milk, cheese, and eggs).  The thought of animals being mistreated in those factories just breaks my heart.  As I watch more documentaries, I will share with you in case you would like to watch it as well.

GOAL TRACKER:
9 weeks; 5 days
23.2 pounds

What kind of week did you have?  Was the weather nice enough to take your workout outside?

-Erica

An Update On This Knee

This knee…is a serious pain in my…knee.  My first physical therapy appointment was yesterday afternoon.  I honestly expected to get a “that’s not that bad” or a “that’ll be easily fixed.”  Let me tell you, that is *not* what was said – ever.

It turns out that my knee is worse than I imagined.  When she marked the edge of my knee cap and then asked me to flex my quad (still lying flat and not bending my leg at all) the shock on her face said it all.  She then marked the edge of knee cap with my quad flexed.  The result?  My knee cap deviates to the left *more* than half an inch when I flex my quad.  I do not even have to bend the stupid leg to dislocate the knee cap – just flex.  My outer quad is *that* much strong than my inner quad.  Go figure.

The other bit of bad news is that my right knee does the same thing…I’m just not symptomatic on that side – yet.  So, all the exercises/stretches I will be doing for my left knee, I will be repeating for my right knee.  Hopefully this will prevent me from doing as much damage to my right knee as I have my left (and, of course, hopefully that prevents the right knee from ever hurting this way).

When the physical therapist checked the strength on all four sections of my quad, it was surprising.  My leg is very strong in three directions, and weak like a child in one (which, of course, is the inner quad).  This imbalance is what is causing my malfunction.  Additionally, my quad muscles and hip flexors are extremely tight, which compounds the problem.  I stretch every day (usually multiple times even), but evidently I am not stretching efficiently enough to properly lengthen/loosen my muscles.  So, they showed me ways to properly stretch…and, who knew a stretch could hurt so bad?!  When she started to stretch the front of my thigh, I almost shot off the table and said an abundance of sailor words!  Sheesh.

In light of this information, I am seriously debating whether continuing with Zumba is a good idea.  I love it, and I seriously want to go back.  However, all that bouncing around and squatting/lunging is strictly forbidden for the sake of not grinding any more of my joint away.  Decisions, decisions.

Looks like this will be a challenging road to travel…and this certainly means more alterations to my workout routines.  I *must* be very aware of how I move my legs and when I flex my quad.  Should be interesting.  Thank goodness I have Denise – she always knows what to do!  🙂

-Erica