10 pound arms

So yesterday I took Tuvok for a walk in the park. It was beautiful outside and he knew it; he wasn't going to give up until he had a walk. I don't blame him, really. We haven't been to the park in several weeks. It was a leisurely walk. We took the short path, and then the long way back from the short path. I have no idea how far that is or how long we were gone. I know that poor Tuvok was worn out two-thirds of the way through. He doesn't get much exercise in the winter and especially this winter. I felt ok afterwards. Not really energized or anything like you're supposed to be. It was nice to get outside. I collected a few seeds. I might try wintersowing them.

We went to Dave and Froggi's for dinner. We had a good time. I discovered the free Kindle App for my iPhone and subsequently discovered free books. Hehe!

Today was a bad day. I feel exhausted. My arms weight 10 pounds each. I didn't do anything with my arms yesterday, especially not more than I do on a regular day at work. I can only assume it was the walk, and one of the symptoms of "Stupid Tired Disease" (aka: Chronic Fatigue) is significant muscle weakness following exercise. Grr. And then of course Binary DH says, "So you can't even go for walks now?!" Ugh. I know he tries to understand and he usually does well, but today was a bad day for him too. He really wanted us to go to work and me tend his plants while he cleaned his coffeemaker but I just didn't have it. We went to the mall and got him some new suits, courtesy of his parents and that was about all I could do. It was very frustrating for both of us. I was having weak arms and legs the whole time. It is a wierd feeling. I can move them but I can just as easily let them hang limp. They are heavy, like the electrical impuses don't quite make it there efficiently. It's a similar feeling to taking a muscle relaxant like Flexeril.

Anyway, I watched 3 hours of TV on the couch when we got home and ate a snack and felt better. Then I messed on the computer a little more, read some of one of my new free books, and took a long spa-like shower.

The book I'm reading is by a naturopath. I think she calls herself a Natural Hygenist. She began life as a poor malnourished rural Canadian, went to nursing school, mastered in Psychiatry, Doctored in Psychiatry and Gastroenterology or something like that. She kept being convicted by the Hippocratic Oath- she felt that traditional medicine often did more harm than good. She started caring for phych patients in her own home with great success and then created the Great Oaks School of Healing in Oregon. It was successful but stressful so she sold it and then had a series of live-in patients at her home until her death in like the 90's or something.

So far I'm in Chapter 3. I am skeptical of natuopaths as a rule. I like science. But I feel that modern medicine is lacking. There's too much emphasis on the symptoms and not enough on the cause of the illness. Naturopaths aim to fix the cause of the illness. This one believes that the source of (almost) all illness and healing is what we put in our mouths. While I was reading I thought of an analogy. Think of your body as a lawn, or a garden. You want your lawn to be lush and healthy and disease free, so you water it and feed it and mow it. If you do those things in the right proportions, you end up with a lush green lawn that makes you the envy of your neighborhood. However, if you skimp on the fertilizer and water (expensive, you know) and mow it irregularly and cut too much off at once and stress the plants, you end up with a diseased, unhealthy lawn. You can pour chemicals on it but the only real way to heal the lawn is to give it the water and fertilizer and maintenance it needs. So it is with the human body. We need lots of water, high quality food, and regular maintenance to be able to feel our best and resist illness.

It is a very thought provoking book so far. I don't know if I agree with everything she'll say but she makes sense and doesn't get all mystical or whatever. All of her theories and practices are based on real life things (not energy or chi or anything) and she tested most of the practices on herself. She tried all the different types of fasts to figure out what actually worked best. She experimented with foods and stuff. So at least at this point, she has earned some trust. We'll see if she goes all wacky later in the book.

My plan is to continue to eat as much whole, healthy food as I can and avoid as much processed junk as I can. I'm not going to be perfect but I hope that as I eat more good food and start to feel better it'll be easier to say no to the 'comfort foods'.

Also, I realized that even though my fasting blood sugar is 90, I still experience pretty severe hypoglycemic symptoms when I don't eat RIGHT NOW!!!! So I should treat it like hypoglycemia and see if that helps. So instead of only eating one type of thing as a snack, I'll make sure I get all three macronutrients each time I eat to keep my sugar stable. The naturopath lady mentioned something in the introduction about not mixing food groups but at this point it seems like the best way to deal with the weak shaky sick faint feeling I get when I need to eat RIGHT NOW!!!!!

So yeah. Hardly anything got accomplished this weekend. It wasn't a very good couple of days for my body. But tomorrow is another day.