Be the change you want to see.

This year I've tripped, or misstepped and fallen to hands and knees at least twice. I credit my trainer Etty for the reflexes my body needed to be able to pull back and not *eat it* from falls like that... Both would have been a lot worse if I hadn't been strength training.

I also give myself credit, for showing up, being honest, doing the work, and for letting her teach me to be gentle with my own body. We work not past the pain but with the pain, allowing the pain to educate and to be the boundary holding the workout.

Last night we had dinner at friend's house and they have a saltwater pool (it's very luxe, DO RECOMMEND)

ALSO they have a jacuzzi with jets strong enough to do authentic massage.

It was my first time in a pool in over 2 years I think.

Took a leisurely swim and float, looking up at the stars, chatting with L, one of the daughters of the family, and then I did oopsy daisy over into the Jacuzzi from the pool and had the jets absolutely POUND my sore places in back and hips.

Today, the world is beautiful, and nothing hurts.

7 weeks ago today this puppy busted open and I started squeezing the business out of it. For a long time the keratin exudate that would come out when massaged or squeezed, literally smelled like shit. Bacteria? Idk. It doesn't stunk anymore, which seems like a great improvement!

But I've been at this now, maybe it's only six full weeks, bookended by Sundays, today's the seventh Sunday. Things look a little bit different now.

I forget if I've mentioned that there's multiple drainage points (punctum) over the surface, either 3 or 4 I believe, counting the original that has, I believe, closed. So that's fun, not knowing if or where your efforts are gonna bring stuff to the surface.

The last few days, or few times when I've changed bandages and tried expressing the contents, it's been a tossup of whether I'd get the yellowish cheesy looking keratin or a yellowish fluid, rather like when you pop a blister... (Maybe blood plasma seeping into the cyst?) And because it's fluid and the hole is small, guess what happens? SQUIRT 😂

UNEXPECTED BODY FLUIDS ON THE SPORTS BRA TWO INCHES AWAY FROM THE SKIN

Okay. The fluid is also yellowish, of a similar shade to the keratin stuff. And the ongoing massage and manipulation between squeezing and pressure does seem to move stuff towards the exit.

Today I spent about ten-ish minutes expressing, after noticing the edge of bandage was slipping around slightly, which for the hydrocolloids seems to indicate "done now, remove and replace" for my situation.

I'm down to one each of hydrocolloid bandages and witch hazel infused handywipes, so I'm likely going to CVS tomorrow after my workout.

Also I want to share this update with Kaiser and my doctors.

More other stuff happened today, that gets a separate post.

Came to realize today that working out meets my physical needs but also my depression needs, and my ADHD needs. It meets the depression needs by giving me the endorphins. I always feel better and more cheerful after workout. Meets the ADHD needs by providing structure. Working with a trainer helps give me much needed social time/interpersonal time, and because my trainer is how she is, she provides praise readily and she provides corrections so that I'm doing things right. I always feel calm after working with her because she always tells me what I need to do to make sure I'm doing it correctly, and she praises me when I do it right so there's emotional needs that get met in the course of a workout that I wasn't even realizing.

I'm so glad I can afford this investment in my health. I'm so damn glad.

This whole series is public, if you have any interest in fat folks getting more fit.

One thing I'm realizing/have realized about recovery from the old ACL injury and the surgery ten years after the original injury, is the degree to which the body adapts to such an injury. Ive been working out hard since 2011, first doing prehab, then surgery Nov 1, 2011, then post surgical rehab.

Old snarls and pains and general fucked upped ness persist for years. The injury persisted for years, it's just logical upon reflection, but i had some magical thinking going into the surgery four years ago... Not just about this, but about a number of things, regrettably.

Any road, four plus years of work has already been paying off, in strength, flexibility, confidence, stress management, and a slow but gradual improvement for most of my physical concerns.

Today, however, today was special. For context: Over the weekend i had an unwelcome sudden unexpected back spasm. Spasms like that have been really really uncommon since i started working out with trainers at the gym but used to happen ALL the time, both when i was injured and during my very sedentary, book lovin', inactive childhood. To repeat, since the knee surgery replaced the necessary ACL structure in my knee, i haven't been used to that kind of occurrence, not for around four years.

Today my body felt... Different. Easier. Like, even on both sides of my hips. Like, both legs feeling the *same*. And the tailbone thats been bothering me, also feels eased. Flexibility is surprisingly good today, i could put my foot on the top rail of the stretch barre, and i could squat further without feeling the danger!pain in my knee, hip, or hamstring.

I'm thinking now that maybe that brief back spasm might have been the last of the old adaptations, finally letting go now that the rest of my body has been strengthened and trained and appropriately balanced to do naturally what bodies are supposed to.

(Hint: it ain't sitting on my ass reading and silent for hours every day as i did during my childhood.)

*happy sigh* i love to move, now. It's a joyful thing.

Yesterday I was due to meet my seester at the gym, we were going to work out together. She had car trouble and had to cancel; I was kind of proud of myself for not finding an excuse not to go, but I already had woken up, gotten dressed, had something to eat (a couple handfuls of Cheerios, but still) and had found my shoes. So when she texted me I decided to just go anyway. I'm at the point where, after having neglected to work out for over 8 weeks, shit HURTS. my lower back has been sore like it used to be, my surgery knee has been tender and a bit wibbly, my shoulder is cranky and crunchy, and my middle back makes cracking noises when I touch my toes.

bad news man.

So I haul ass over there. Took the new car. Weird to feel like "I" fit in with the shiny Audi, Porsche, Prius, etcetera in the parking lot, but I did. I blended. (WAT)

And I go and get on the not the treadmill, but the elliptical trainer, because I wanted to have the option to work my arms, back, and get a bit of a twisting stretch in. I needed it. It felt good.

I got tired and bored pretty quickly. The last few times I have been to the gym I was either meeting my trainer, who definitely keeps me engaged and interested (I am a bit sad she isn't working there anymore), or I've been meeting tshuma, wrenb, or I run into angelkatharine and at least have a bit of a chat. But twenty minutes on the elliptical is considerably less fun when you have nothing to do but be in your brain (now granted, I mentally wrote some more for NaNoWriMo) and nobody to interact with. And I got fatigued after only about six minutes. I blame my not maintaining the habit of regular movement. Expect that there's lactic acid or stress chemicals buildup in my muscles and bloodstream.

(Side note: I know the body excretes waste chemicals in something like six ways: through sweat, tears, piss, shit, and from the genitals via ejaculatory fluid or weeping. that's only five, I wonder if I will remember what the sixth is or if I am misremembering. Point being, I wake up nowadays, sometimes, with my eyes just LEAKING. It's weird and a little disconcerting. But I'm guessing it's because I haven't been working out to a sweat very often recently, so my body has to find another means.)

Anyway, I do make myself do the twenty minutes, and then I go to the foyer where there's exercise balls and foam core rollers and mats, and I start doing some flexibility work for my hips, rolling big slow circles while seated on one of the exercise balls. Felt pretty good, and I was waking up my core muscles too.

And then I see Etty. She's the trainer that my former trainer Tal had told me I might enjoy working with. And we get to talking, and I was *sure* I had sent her an email or a text telling her I had an interest in training together, but she said she never received any such text or email. And I shrug, I don't know if I forgot or not... But it turns out she had an appointment be cancelled for the space that starts in ten minutes, and would I like to work out, gently, as a getting to know you kind of assessment and do we work well together. I'd been debating if I wanted to go in and explore the weights again like I had the last time; and I figure, sure! And she's willing to comp me the hour as we get acquainted. It was like the serendipity fairy came by and sprinkled serendipity dust all over us(me) to get me back into working out regularly!

We have a good getting to know you chat where I fill out the goals for working out worksheet and I find out that Etty also used to teach (and she says Israeli kids don't respect teachers the way kids here do, and I didn't disabuse her of her notion, which was maybe kind, maybe not) but she really likes teaching one on one, so physical training is a good gig for her. I tell her I have joined NaNoWriMo and a little about what it does, and she says, "maybe you should be a writer!"

and I think, maybe I SHOULD be a writer.

And then we go work out a bit, she has me do lunges and squats and moving stretches and checks my form (which is almost like I forgot the million little corrections Tal used to give me, in just over two months) and we talk about how important it is to have correct form, which I couldn't agree more on. I make sure she understands about my surgery leg and the tension from all that adaptation my body had to do while it was injured and uncorrected. And I just realized yesterday that I passed the third anniversary of surgery on Nov. 1, and how good my body feels in retrospect, now. So many little things that really add up. Fuck that first surgeon who tried to tell me that I didn't need surgery, that lots of people do just fine without an ACL, because now I can move and dance and work out and I. DON'T. FUCKING. HURT. ALL THE TIME. Not anymore. Seriously, fuck that guy. I'm so glad I got bk2wto recommend his surgeon, that guy was PHENOMENAL.

(end digression)

so we try me on plank position and i can't hold it long, and I keep shifting around trying to hold it and she asks me to hold still, and I make it about another three seconds before I just FOLD. dammit. welp this is where I am now, just need to know where I am now so I can set goals appropriately and then work to meet them.

and then we try my pushups ability in a couple different form factors, and she puts me in this frame to have me hold myself up and lift my knees up for core work and wow that was hard, so we try it on a weight bench lying down instead, like swimming instead of like bicycling I realized after I was doing it wrong. More core work for me! More EVERYTHING for me. *sigh* Okay. Need a little work to get back where I was. And to meet my goals of being able to do inversions and maybe start doing some circus arts work. Fun, playful goals. I need fun playful goals. And having a smart trainer who understands about teaching, is a damn good thing.

So I signed up for a new package with Etty. We start next Friday morning at ten, and I'm looking forward to it.

I have a sadface, on the one hand. OTOH, it was an epic last workout, not an "evaluation" session like I halfway expected.

Tal is awesome, I'm going to miss working out with her. She is great at giving me the little corrections that make my workouts better: like, check your stance, your feet aren't even. Step backwards one step so the cable crosses your body and not your neck. (oy.) Did you see how your body dipped there? Tighten your core muscles. Liz, you can only talk if you are still working out. (grinning, I do talk to her a lot) Make sure your back is flat. (she used to use an image of "there are ants trying to walk under your back, squish the ants, don't let them through!)

What a great year-and-four-months this has been. Such focus, many muscles, wow. (heh heh heh)

I'm so much stronger than I was. I'm much more confident in my body than I was. I wake up with SO MUCH LESS PAIN than I did once upon a time. Some of that is thanks to the knee surgery that replaced my ACL at the end of 2011, but much of it is due to her guidance and encouragement.

She remembered to return a book I lent her, Strong Women Stay Young, and she wrote me a little thank you card. I'm pleased that I had a set of the little gifts I'd made for Burning Man with me, and could give her one. She said she hopes I keep in touch and reminded me that I have her phone number. I think I'll keep texting her. She is just neat and awesome.

What a beautiful day today is.

Oh, note to self: remember to start using the foam core roller on your thighs and IT band. You need it.

Yesterday was all about the matwork. I went in to see Tal with a knot under my shoulderblade (probably time to engage the chiropractor again) and we spent an hour standing above, alongside, and lying on the exercise mat. My hip is better, my shoulders are tight again (I need to get the weights out and do a few warmups or go back over to the gym for an hour) and more gentle slow movement to liberate my spine today would feel great.

I'm proud of myself for my work. I can feel my abs, there's waist definition underneath my curves. I can feel it with my hands and my movement even if it doesn't show at the surface. I'm stronger.

But I can't deny that I'm crazy privileged to have been able to heal everything I've been working to heal for the last six years... Healed my heart and spirit with therapy and the Waldorf program, healed my body with Physical Therapy, surgery, and now working with a personal trainer.

Time to give more back to the universe.

Is your body YOU?
Is it all of you, part of you?
Does your body carry "you" around?
Is your body different from "you"?

I had a knee injury for fifteen years. As of November, that's 1/3 of my life. I had ACL replacement surgery 2.5 years ago.
And I've now been doing prehab, rehab, and working with a trainer for three years.

When do I get used to THIS body? This body is tons stronger and more flexible. This body can Do Stuff I wasn't able to do before. In this body my feet stay parallel instead of duck-footing to try and keep the knee stable. This body can balance on one leg to put a sock on, and hold a high plank position for almost a full minute, and roll out of bed without effort or pain. So many changes.

I keep getting shocked by this body... In good ways, true, and I know intellectually that I've worked hard to get here. But my gut, my feelings, keep expecting ... Like that this is too good to be true? Like somehow, without warning, I will automagically return to pain, and weakness, and brokenness.

Why can't I believe that my body has become strong? Why is it so hard to use that word to describe myself?

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Last night I had a lovely evening, involving dinner and working on an art project with M and N, who I like more, the more time I spend with them.

With dinner, I had a Thai iced tea. I think I maybe need to not do that anymore because OMG I could NOT get to sleep last night.
My lack of sleep was so bad that I cancelled this morning's workout. Four hours or something of sleep makes Lizzie a something something...

Got a good refresh and um-cuddle with Jeff this morning that was worth at LEAST two hours of sleep!

Too hot to work out at home. hoping I will be able to tag along with wrenb to a local public pool today. Gah.

Monday's workout, I've been meaning to talk about, but the details have been fading in my mind. I know I was doing a lot more work for longer stretches than I ever used to think I was able to do. Shoulder strength is coming along, as is flexibility. Yesterday I sat up in bed spontaneously and then held the 45 degree angle while I massaged past my belly fat to investigate the musculature: DEFINITELY coming along.

I lost 6 pounds between weigh in on Monday and the last weigh in 6 weeks ago, at least an inch at my waist, and half an inch off arm and leg. It's data, not cause for celebration. The stronger and more flexible is what I'm celebrating. I also wonder to what degree the Metformin is contributing to these recent changes. Cause it could be partly from that and partly that I've increased my number of accountable, structured workouts. Hmmm.

I find I am more willing to move, to fidget, to do more active things casually, than I did this time last year. Standing around with friends after The Winter Soldier, I noticed I could *not* stand still; had to fidget, move, pace, lean on Jeff, etc. It was... strange, and cool. Strong indicator of the nature of this change.

Last night's art project: I was able and willing to hunker down in a crouch, go up and down from it easily, and could stand in Horse Stance for several moments before I even noticed I was doing it. The EFFORT is just less, because the body is stronger. So very cool.

Awright. I got another bit of writing to complete today; even though I've been dropped from LJ Idol, I intend to complete the prompt.