I am also trying to plan my bullet journal. So far I made a page with full year tracker for exercise and energy levels. I will try to do at least 5 days a week exercise, possibly more. And I'll see how it correlates with my energy levels, which tend to tank at the worst possible moment. Now that I think of it, I should have added the third one on the same page - hours of sleep, but I used the next page already. Sorry about your issues :grouphug:

I took a private lesson yesterday, and then at home before the shower I decided to do some push ups. Then I saw the new dumbbells that I bought in the beginning of December and never used. Decided to try them.They were too heavy for most exercises I used to do, so I switched to the old ones, and before I knew it, I spent 30 minutes doing pretty much full body workout. I knew my triceps will pay for it right away, and sure enough, today they are super sore. I am wondering how they will feel tomorrow, as I usually have the worst DOMS on the second day. Anyway, after weeks of not feeling like doing any exercises, it was great.

I think I didn't do anything since last Thursday, except for about an hour long walk with DS yesterday, but it was pretty slow so hardly qualifies as exercise. I did a 30-minute lesson today, and not sure if I can get anything else done today. I am still thinking about my goals for 2018. I definitely want to keep working out at least 5 days a week (which didn't happen in December), but other than that, I am not sure.

I messed up my eating, so the last two days I managed only one meal a day, was very low energy, and still gained 2 lbs. Of course, no exercises. Meh. I feel better this morning though, so hopefully, I'll do something today before it is time to go and eat more :) Wintermom ~ Great to hear about your tennis! And that you played and felt all right! Soror ~ I hope you sleep well tonight! And I also became more sensitive to when and what I eat for dinner. I used to weigh in at exactly the same weight to half a pound for weeks in a row no matter what. I also ate tons of sugar, didn't exercise at all, and still maintained my weight and measurements. Now it varies much more and tends to jump up as soon as I am not watching. Laurie ~ Merry Christmas and enjoy your family! It's especially precious when normally there is Atlantic between you!

I know most of the digestion takes place in intestines. In my case the food doesn't get that far. It just sits in stomach forever, making me nauseous for days. And I know my acid tends to get low. When I eat vegetables in moderation or in the beginning of my binge, before acid levels drop, I have no problems with them going all the way, no bloating or other troubles. That actually sounds interesting. I don't eat a lot of those, because whatever I can buy is too spicy for me, but I will look into doing it myself at home. Thanks!

I tried vegan diet about 20 years ago. Ended up with terrible stomach pains, although I was doing everything right. Later, whenever I tried to get more vegetables into my diet I inevitably get low stomach acid, so all those nutritious veggies just sit in my stomach and irritate me. Usually, I forget it after a while, and try again, like right now. I feel like I have yesterday's lunch of lentil soup and salad still in my stomach. It will take a few days to normalize. If any vegans/vegetarians can suggest plant foods that raise acid, I am listening. I know dairy does it, and I do get quite a bit of it, but once I start eating more vegetables, it stops being enough.

Sorry about all the stress in your life. :grouphug: But it is great that you stay determined. It looks like you are moving in the right direction! And it is cute that your DH was practicing the steps at work :) I took a private lesson today, so about an hour long workout. I can't believe that 11 day break could cause such a set back. It is not the skills, but stamina. My arm is sore today and I don't feel like yesterday I did anything worth being sore. And by the end of the lesson today I could barely hold my epee up, my arm was so tired. On the bright side, we are at the darkest point of the year, so from now on the days will be longer :)

I know that we need balance, but I at least have fairly strong biceps from lifting and carrying kids and other house activities, and weak triceps. So push ups sound good to me. Again, not sure of it is your case, but maybe you could start with push ups or some imitation and add the pull later. I haven't done anything yet. But on the bright side, I actually didn't gain weight during this vacation. I guess those salads for dinner helped. Still hope to do something today. ETA: I did about an hour of fencing, but less intensive than usually. Nothing else today.

I am back home from our vacation. So travel is over for a bit and I am glad to be home. I am feeling better, too. I didn't do anything special fitness-wise during travel, but we walked a lot and hiked a bit. I tried to watch what I was eating, but I think I still gained some weight. On the bright side, by the end of the trip I felt stronger and stopped having those moment when after doing simple things I felt like my heart was trying to jump out of my chest. I'll try to get back to my routine tomorrow.

Checking your blood pressure is pretty cheap, especially compared to EKG. I think you can do it at a pharmacy and a decent monitor is about $50, probably less. I am surprised it wasn't checked: BP variations, both high and low, can cause such symptoms. OK, so I didn't think about it myself, but it was the first thing the doctor at the competition think about after I complained and ruled out dehydration and low blood sugar. This is great! Congrats! ((Hugs)) You will NOT embarrass yourself, plus, the people are mostly concerned with themselves anyway. Give it a try! I fence with my kids. It does help. I need to feel really bad to skip driving them to the class, and once there I might as well fence. I do my home exercises alone - for the mark in my bullet journal :)

I did 10 minutes on the stationary bike today, taking it super easy. Measured BP, and it was up immediately after the exercise, and went down to normal within 5 minutes, which I think is how it is supposed to be. I do still feel like HR and BP go up way too fast too high, as if I suddenly lost all my conditioning. Later I did 2 sets of push ups. Didn't measure anything after, but I felt very tired and shaky. I hate it. Of course, it is this time of the year when it is impossible to make an appointment with anyone. Cardiologists are not available till the end of January, and the first appointment to order a full blood test is December 27.

I am back home! It's much more pleasant to post from the computer :) SparklyUnicorn ~ Yay! IvyInFlorida ~ Good luck on Friday! That bag punching is one thing I miss from my martial arts days. I even considered getting a heavy bag, but cannot find a good place for it. I didn't do anything today, and plan to take it easy the next few days. I'll try not to overeat.

Hugs! And thank you for the update.

Thanks, ladies! I just took a nap and measured it again. 105/66. After a few jumps it went up to 120/70. At competition it was 164/115 about 30 minutes after I finished fencing. 179/96 at ER, 146/85 when they sent me home. Pulse was 84 at competition, 70s in ER, so slightly elevated. I'll check with a cardiologist because I want to be sure I can push myself physically without cardio risks, but frankly, I am not sure I'll hear anything. It's just a weird experience. And my DD had to skip the competition because she managed to get a huge splinter vertically into her heel the night before, which I couldn't even see until after the competition. Oh well, there is always next time. :)

So, after 5 hours in ER I was discharged with diagnosis dizziness. According to the doctor, they can tell the reason for it in less than half the cases. The blood pressure dropped enough while I waited that they didn't feel comfortable giving meds, but it was still ER high when I came in. U bought the monitor, and today it's fine. If I didn't go to the med booth, I would have just slept it off. I don't even know what to think about it. Several days of stress?

I would skip Griffith Observatory, unless it is absolutely on must see list. If you go, allow ample time for parking, it is crazy lately. I would second Huntington gardens and library. In the library building there are quite a few interesting things from history of science, and it's beautiful. Out of Getty Villa and Center, my kids prefer the villa, but it is less art and more ancient Roman and Greek history. You need to make a reservation though.

Fencing was fun yesterday, but not fun at all today. Started competition feeling off, a bit dizzy and shaky. Fenced terribly, but finished it. Still felt bad, stopped by the medical booth. Turned out my blood pressure was through the roof. Spending the evening in emergency room :(

I did push the elbows in. It was an extra effort to keep them there. And the arm moves in a different plane. I really don't know how to explain that, but it felt different. Also, it didn't hurt too bad to start with, I just didn't want to hurt it more. Two other things I did was doing other strength training exercises with dumbbells, which might have helped with holding the joint in the right position, and taking glucosamine. which definitely helped with the wrist pain. It happens, just concentrate on doing great job most of the day! Easy tennis is still tennis, and definitely exercise! Went to my last fencing class yesterday, and did relatively well. Now the competition and then vacation. Will probably not see the club till the end of December. I'll try to concentrate on strength and cardio during this time, we'll see if it works :)

I did that when I was purely homeschooling, but this time there was an overlap between AOPS online classes and DD's community college classes, so I figured that if we are doing something anyway, might as well do more. She has her final tomorrow, but DS class starts on Monday. I did make sure that he did everything ahead of time, so we can have some time completely off. Yay! I find that if I start working out at certain intensity 3-5 times a week, I get addicted to it. Skip a week or two, and it's a drag again for some time. I didn't do anything yet today, but I wanted to share my happiness of the day. A few weeks ago when I was trying to set up a routine for extra work out at home, I tried doing pushups. After about three of them my elbow started clicking, after 5 it started hurting. Actually, that happened to both of them. I tried to do knee pushups, same thing. So I tried to adjust my form. It was better, but not quite pain free, so I kept playing with it for a few days, then just decided to go ahead with other exercises. Anyway, today I tried it again, and while the new form (which actually is the correct form as it turns out) is more difficult, I did 10 pushups pain and click free! And now that I think of it, my wrist didn't hurt either. So, double yay :) On the flip side, I feel I am absolutely not ready for the competition this weekend. When I registered for it, I for some reason thought that I would improve more.

I did go to fencing yesterday, and I did 30 minutes on the bike today, although at lower intensity. For some reason the last two days I really want to curl up in bed and binge watch something familiar instead of working out or doing anything else for that matter. I tell myself that I need to hold it together until the tournament and then I will have a few days of vacation. We also practically stopped doing school, but to be fair, we started in June and didn't have any breaks to speak of. I am just burnt out.

Greta ~ Glad to see you posting again! and sorry about migraines and food limitations. It does sound very hard and you are totally allowed to complain about it. Can you walk wherever you were running for lighter cardio not in the hot gym? I still feel weirdly exhausted, although I didn't do anything all weekend. I took DS to a competition on Sunday, but it was only two hours of standing. I shouldn't have felt it this morning. The weather is nasty today, so it might be something to do with that. Still, I got myself to go to the private lesson and worked with the tennis ball for another 25 minutes. It is so windy out, I am seriously considering just staying in, especially since DD is still sick, and DS is not excited about going. The rest of the week is going to be messed up, as tomorrow BIL is coming, and on Thursday we are leaving for Portland. The next week is not much better. I really don't want to break my routine.

Yesterday I did 30 minute arm workout, 20 minutes on the bike (I think I'll stop there for a while as I was pretty dead after the last interval), and then 2 hours of fencing in the evening. I barely managed to crawl out of bed this morning. Not that anything hurts, just the whole body feeling tired. The weekend is going to be mostly rest.

:grouphug: Sorry about that. I hope another opportunity comes soon!

December is a difficult month to plan for. Next week we are leaving to Portland, for which I am so not ready. I don't think there will be any working out there, except for the competition and hopefully some walking around, weather-permitting. Then we planned to go for a short vacation, but as of today it is under a big question due to DH's work. Also, we have DH's brother coming for a few weeks, and I don't know yet how it will affect our schedules. Plus, of course, holidays, when we usually have visits with friends accompanied by not too healthy food in unreasonable quantities. So, taking all this into account, I plan to keep the routine that I kind of started to establish as much as possible, and do some planning for January. I need to come up with a better core and abs workout, as right now I am just pulling together whatever exercises come to mind at the moment. I want to establish something where I can see some progress. Also, I am kicking around an idea about starting a blog about how far can I take myself in fencing given my disadvantages (age and height, mostly). I am not sure I can commit to this though. For today I plan to do 20 minutes on the bike and open fencing in the evening. May add the arms, too.

I fenced yesterday and did 18 minutes on my stationary bike. I plan to get to 30 minutes eventually, and then start ramping up intensity. I found that doing it as intervals breaks the monotony enough for me to almost like it. Today I had a private lesson, and hopefully will do core/abs workout a little later.