Day 20: I've Got Some Good News; I've Got Some Bad News
OK, so the good news first. On day 8, I did my Week 1 weigh-in, and I'd lost 3 lbs (303-300 lbs). Yay!
While cool, there's probably some variance in there. In the past, I've seen my weight vary by several pounds throughout the day, so it's entirely possible that my initial weigh-in was high, and my Week 1 weigh-in was low. Over time, that variance evens out, but I know enough about how my weight can fluctuate throughout the day to not get too excited, or too disappointed over any single weigh in.
I walked 14.6 miles in week 1, and climbed 448 steps. That's not bad, for a start. but my goal at this point in my program (and where I feel I'll begin to lose weight, and get healthy) is to be walking around 25 miles per week, and climbing around 600 steps per week. I understand I'll have to build to that point (boy, do I ever understand that, as you'll see as you read on), but that activity level just doesn't add up to a legitimate 3 lb Week 1 weight loss.
With all the bad crap that's happened lately, though; I'll take it.
And now, the bad news: my feet and knees are screwed up!
In my last post, on Day 5, I posted about the dizzy spell I had while out walking. That really freaked me out. I felt out-of-sorts for the next several days. On Day 6, I did the stairs at work before leaving, and walked Lily a mile that night, but I still felt strange, and just a little bit dizzy while doing so. My feet hurt, too.
I decided to take Day 7 off. I felt better on Day 8, and did two miles. The foot pain persisted, and I felt a little twinge in my left knee. I got a half-mile into my walk with Lily on Day 9 when I began to feel pain in my left knee that was exactly like the pain associated with the ligament strains in my knees in Fat Guy Walking 1.0 back in 2006. As soon as I felt that, I made the decision to put the entire program on hold, right then and there. I turned around, and slowly limped home.
I'm writing this 11 days later, on Day 20. In that time, I haven't walked, I haven't climbed any stairs, I haven't even walked Lily, and that hurts. She loves her daily walks, and not giving them to her breaks my heart, but I simply cannot allow these injuries to get worse. I am absolutely determined to continue my program, but I am on total rest until the knee and foot problems are fully resolved.
In that time, my knees have gotten a little better, but despite my staying off of my feet as much as possible, they've actually gotten worse. The pain is in my heels, and in the balls of my feet. At it's worst, the ball-of-foot pain has even caused pain and numbness in my toes. The pain is actually at it's worst when I first get up in the morning; I can barely walk. As the day progresses, and I move around, the pain abates. If I'm off my feet for 30 minutes, or more, though, the pain actually gets worse for awhile.
I've done a good bit of research on this, and I'm pretty sure my heel pain is plantar fasciitis, and my ball of foot pain is metatarsalgia, and Morton's neuroma. The primary recommendations for treatment of these conditions are rest, and shoe inserts. I'd already gone to Dr. Scoll's gel inserts, and have added metatarsal and ball of foot pads, but so far, no good. A friend of mine swears by a place called Ideal Feet, but their inserts are really expensive. I'll check them out if things don't improve soon.
What really pisses me off about this is, it is all my fault. I was living my life, which included a lot of time on my feet, and walking Lily a mile a day with no foot problems whatsoever. I decided to start a walking program, so, as I always do, I jumped in whole-hog and overdid it; not just in the amount of walking I did, but in adding in climbing the stairs at work, parking as far as possible from the entrance at work (more than 2/10 of a mile), etc. All of that, and more, would have been fine, but they needed to be added in gradually, giving my body a chance to adjust. According to the multiple Ideal Weight calculators and charts I've checked, I should weigh between 160 (RIDICULOUS), and 247lbs (too much). While those are extremes, most place my ideal weight between 180 and 210 lbs. Split the difference, and you get 195lbs. That means I'm carrying more than 100lbs of extra weight, and my feet and knees have to support all of it. It should have been no surprise to me that so quickly adding so much more stress to the feet and knees having to carry all that dead weight caused problems.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
When my feet and knees are healed, and I get back to this, I'm going to do so on a very specific schedule, with a gradual ramp up in mileage and additional activities.
Oh, and my week 3 weigh-in? I went from 300 to 301 lbs.
While cool, there's probably some variance in there. In the past, I've seen my weight vary by several pounds throughout the day, so it's entirely possible that my initial weigh-in was high, and my Week 1 weigh-in was low. Over time, that variance evens out, but I know enough about how my weight can fluctuate throughout the day to not get too excited, or too disappointed over any single weigh in.
I walked 14.6 miles in week 1, and climbed 448 steps. That's not bad, for a start. but my goal at this point in my program (and where I feel I'll begin to lose weight, and get healthy) is to be walking around 25 miles per week, and climbing around 600 steps per week. I understand I'll have to build to that point (boy, do I ever understand that, as you'll see as you read on), but that activity level just doesn't add up to a legitimate 3 lb Week 1 weight loss.
With all the bad crap that's happened lately, though; I'll take it.
And now, the bad news: my feet and knees are screwed up!
In my last post, on Day 5, I posted about the dizzy spell I had while out walking. That really freaked me out. I felt out-of-sorts for the next several days. On Day 6, I did the stairs at work before leaving, and walked Lily a mile that night, but I still felt strange, and just a little bit dizzy while doing so. My feet hurt, too.
I decided to take Day 7 off. I felt better on Day 8, and did two miles. The foot pain persisted, and I felt a little twinge in my left knee. I got a half-mile into my walk with Lily on Day 9 when I began to feel pain in my left knee that was exactly like the pain associated with the ligament strains in my knees in Fat Guy Walking 1.0 back in 2006. As soon as I felt that, I made the decision to put the entire program on hold, right then and there. I turned around, and slowly limped home.
I'm writing this 11 days later, on Day 20. In that time, I haven't walked, I haven't climbed any stairs, I haven't even walked Lily, and that hurts. She loves her daily walks, and not giving them to her breaks my heart, but I simply cannot allow these injuries to get worse. I am absolutely determined to continue my program, but I am on total rest until the knee and foot problems are fully resolved.
In that time, my knees have gotten a little better, but despite my staying off of my feet as much as possible, they've actually gotten worse. The pain is in my heels, and in the balls of my feet. At it's worst, the ball-of-foot pain has even caused pain and numbness in my toes. The pain is actually at it's worst when I first get up in the morning; I can barely walk. As the day progresses, and I move around, the pain abates. If I'm off my feet for 30 minutes, or more, though, the pain actually gets worse for awhile.
I've done a good bit of research on this, and I'm pretty sure my heel pain is plantar fasciitis, and my ball of foot pain is metatarsalgia, and Morton's neuroma. The primary recommendations for treatment of these conditions are rest, and shoe inserts. I'd already gone to Dr. Scoll's gel inserts, and have added metatarsal and ball of foot pads, but so far, no good. A friend of mine swears by a place called Ideal Feet, but their inserts are really expensive. I'll check them out if things don't improve soon.
What really pisses me off about this is, it is all my fault. I was living my life, which included a lot of time on my feet, and walking Lily a mile a day with no foot problems whatsoever. I decided to start a walking program, so, as I always do, I jumped in whole-hog and overdid it; not just in the amount of walking I did, but in adding in climbing the stairs at work, parking as far as possible from the entrance at work (more than 2/10 of a mile), etc. All of that, and more, would have been fine, but they needed to be added in gradually, giving my body a chance to adjust. According to the multiple Ideal Weight calculators and charts I've checked, I should weigh between 160 (RIDICULOUS), and 247lbs (too much). While those are extremes, most place my ideal weight between 180 and 210 lbs. Split the difference, and you get 195lbs. That means I'm carrying more than 100lbs of extra weight, and my feet and knees have to support all of it. It should have been no surprise to me that so quickly adding so much more stress to the feet and knees having to carry all that dead weight caused problems.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
When my feet and knees are healed, and I get back to this, I'm going to do so on a very specific schedule, with a gradual ramp up in mileage and additional activities.
Oh, and my week 3 weigh-in? I went from 300 to 301 lbs.
posted by Sean at 9:03 AM
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