Looking forward

Hello – thanks for stopping by.

First of all – apologies I’ve not posted for a couple of weeks.  Obviously being on holiday was a factor in that, and I wanted to make sure I had something meaningful to talk about this time.

I suppose the immediate good news is that I’ve not really felt any pain in my foot for a couple of weeks now (the most notable exception being on the flight home).  I think that’s quite a good sign really, especially when you consider the amount of walking I did while I was away.

I’ve also been swimming another couple of times this week which is quite handy.  It’s good to get the exercise and it gives me time to focus on what this is all about.

I’m not seeing the physio again until next Tuesday (11^th) but I’ve got some more physical exercises to do in the interim (think jumping up and down holding a football…) so hopefully I’ll get the go ahead to run somewhere next time!

I got my marathon acceptance letter and magazine through the post while I was away. I’ve not opened it yet as I don’t want to start getting ahead of myself by looking at all the training plans and reading all the articles about how hard it’s going to be - I’ve got a fairly good idea of that already…

The most difficult thing this last week or so has been getting my blood sugar back to some semblance of normalcy.  I was keeping an eye on it while I was in Las Vegas, but didn’t test it as often as I would at home.  As I may have posted before, trying to maintain a correct blood sugar level if you eat out for one meal is difficult, so doing it for a week is nigh on impossible.  Even the advice you get in clinic is “use your best guess” when eating out.

Having recovered from crippling jet lag by drinking an unhealthy amount of caffeine and sugar, I thought it would be easy to correct my sugar levels over the weekend and be back on track immediately.  It’s not been quite that straightforward but I think I’ve just about got a handle on it again.  I’m probably 1 to 1.5 mmol above where I’d like to be but nothing too concerning. (Educational segue – blood sugar levels should be around 4.5 to 7.5mmols (or so I was always told) and I try to average about 6 ish.  I’ve been around the 7.5 to 8.5mmol level for the last few days but that’s not too bad – I’m probably being harsh on myself).

Anyone who follows me on Twitter may have also spotted that I dipped into the low end of the blood sugar spectrum on Monday night just as I got to Hillsborough Leisure Centre.  Fortunately I managed to find a few rogue jelly sweets in my bag and got through it OK.  I’ve also been waking up early (4am) feeling a bit on the low side these last few days, but I’m managing to get back to sleep until my alarm goes off.

I think it’s a pretty natural part of adjusting from eating a very different diet for a week (not to mention eating at irregular times and flying messing with my insulin doses) so I’m fairly happy that things are back under control.

Weight wise, I’m still at 198lbs.  I’m tempted to feel bad about that and hammer my diet even more but the truth is I eat so few calories for 5 out of 7 days I can’t.  Plus I know being on holiday affected my weight so I think I just need to continue doing what I’ve been doing and I’ll continue to lose it.

I’ll post an update next week to let you know how the exercises have gone, what the physio says and whether or not I can be trusted to run even just a mile or so.

As always, thanks for reading.  At the risk of sounding like a teen drama series, if you want to get in touch for a chat about the themes of this blog, then you can always drop me a line on broomowl@gmail.com or find me on Twitter (@BroomOwl).  Of course if you want to chat about something else, that’s equally welcomed and encouraged.

Take care

Andy