28 November 2024

Fitness + craft: worlds collide!

So, with a 300km 3-day ride on the horizon, obviously I need more than one pair of shorts—I’m thinking I need 3, so I have a fresh clean chamois each day!

But shorts/bibs are not only crazy expensive, they also tend to not fit right. They don’t accommodate my hip-to-waist ratio, or my long torso. 

But then Discovery Fabrics was having a sale! And they have a sewing pattern for bike shorts! The only question remaining: where to get a chamois?

I emailed Discovery, and they said that while they don’t sell chamois, I should check their Facebook group, because someone there would have the answer. And they were right! I have a chamois order in at Aerotech, and meanwhile my fabric and pattern arrived from Discovery:

Because obviously if Im making my own bibs, theyre not going to be basic black

So excited to get to work on these!

02 November 2024

Food experiments

So, I have never been a believer in, or really understander of, macros. I eat what I like and make an effort to get all my vitamins and minerals from food, but the whole thing where you tweak the ratio of fat to carbs or whatever is just lost on me.

But I was reading a discussion about it somewhere, and a particular short-term muscle building plan someone was on, and their struggle to get enough protein without going wildly over in the other areas, so I googled “40-40-20 diet” because I couldn’t wrap my head around what that would actually look like:

“A five-foot-seven, 140-pound woman needs just under 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight. If she follows the 40/40/20 protocol, she should consume 200 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, and 44 grams of fat per day.”

Whaaat 200g of protein per day? I rarely get as much as half that. I wondered, could it even be possible to eat that way? What would it look like? 

So, kidfree weekend and all, I thought I’d give it a shot: 


Not exactly right... would have helped if I had the idea first thing in the morning, before I ate a scone with butter and jam! was really difficult to force myself to eat this way. Did not want those chicken breasts at all, but felt I should eat something, as I had a massive deficit, and also got my second Shingrix jab yesterday, so didn’t want to skimp on nutrition. But as you can see, I failed on every measured nutrient except B2 (niacin) and my favourite, sodium.

I know this type of eating plan is only supposed to be a short term thing for people who do it, but yikes!

10 October 2024

Too busy to blog—F4LBR #1

Wow another 5 months gone… time flies when you’re busy.

This year I have biked more, run more, walked more, and everything-else more. And now, I’ve signed up for my biggest challenge yet—the Friends for Life Bike Rally! I opted for the three-day version, but that’s still ~300km of riding. Toronto to Kingston. Kill me now. 

Actually the real killer is going to be raising the funds—I need to raise almost two thousand dollars, and so far I have $35 (that I donated myself). So please! Donate! It’s a good cause!

Also, in the interests of not dying on my big ol’ cruiser, I got a new (to me) bike—a little red road bike. Red means it goes fast. Here’s me on my first lil ride, trying and failing to take a selfie with the timer on my phone:

Me in a striped cardigan, striped scarf, and jeans, looking down at a red Schwinn vintage road bike
Me and Lil Red

A Bike Party friend helped me find it on Facebook marketplace, and is going to help me get it kitted up with toe clips, new grip wrap, etc. Will it get me all the way to Kingston? Camping along the way?! I sure hope so… 

22 May 2024

Up and down

Oh boy, haven’t posted in months, whoops.

Cough study was a bust, pretty frustrated with that for numerous reasons, more on that another time.

10k was also a bust, I decided again running because it was cold and rainy, but apparently it was terribly mismanaged again so I’m glad I didn’t waste my time. No washrooms, no traffic control, no water, no medals. Just shockingly bad.

A tooth that was supposed to be a root canal split in half, so I needed a bridge, and last year’s bridge broke, which is not supposed to happen. 

But in good news, I played tennis last week for the first time in forever, and have doubled my average summer mileage this month so far. The weather is gorgeous and it’s lovely to be outside. My garden is mostly planted (just need to sow some lettuce and other greens).

My ferritin is good (did I blog about that yet?), my blood pressure is low, my weeks-long period finally ended, and I’m sleeping better. 

Overall, pretty good! I have to remind myself of that sometimes...

12 March 2024

Cough study update

Went for my first in-person appointment today! Was moved up a couple of weeks when I realized I had double-booked with my mammogram, and it turned out the clinic had a cancellation. Whoo!

This morning, I spent three hours getting bloodwork done, various pulmonary function tests, providing medical history, weighed and measured, informed consent, urine sample, blood pressure, oximeter, etc. etc. Now I’m wearing a device to monitor my coughing for 24 hours. Next, I will get a chest x-ray.

I have two or three more visits before I am “officially” part of the study. Then I start my medication (or placebo). Then we shall see what we shall see.

10 March 2024

Got new tennis shoes!

So of course it's snowing!

Also made this hoodie to throw on after tennis or a group run on a cold day.



01 March 2024

Three more weeks

Till my initial appointment! Wow this trial process is long.

In other news, they have asked me to keep taking the PPI for now. Meanwhile I only today made the connection that my crazy ravenous appetite seems to have begun when I started taking the PPI. Maybe will stop taking it now, whether they like it or not. Having bad heartburn again today.

Or maybe it was PMS... spotting today, which would be 26 days since the last one, which is pretty normal I guess. 

OH MY GOD I was thinking it seemed like a lot less than 26 days since the last one... I was counting from 3 February to 29 February, forgetting the period that started 10 days ago...

Forgive the histrionic formatting but if ever there was a reason to be histrionic this is it

28 February 2024

The next steps

Heard from the researchers this morning, asking if “the GERD medication that was prescribed to you improved your cough partially or completely?”

Sigh. I wish.

I let them know nothing has changed; in fact this week has been terrible! Hoping to start the trial medication soon (crossing fingers I don’t end up as a “control” with a placebo.

26 February 2024

Another Monday check-in

Yesterday was the worst for coughing. I went to bed last night thinking, “must remember to write a blog post about how bad today is so I don’t forget.” And I’m still coughing this morning!

I think my follow-up call with the doctor is supposed to be this week. I’ll reach out to them if it’s not. Because this does not feel good. 

19 February 2024

Monday check-in

It’s a holiday Monday, and I’m grateful that I got to sleep in today after a weekend of hiking, archery, attempting a high ropes course, and sleeping on a camp mattress that was profoundly uncomfortable. Very grateful to remember I had some Aleve in the cupboard. And that I pre-booked a visit to my physiotherapist.

Also, I had spotting yesterday, and seem to have my period today, 17 days from the last one (16 if you count yesterday as the beginning). Previous was 84 days. Just a slight fluctuation. Sigh.

This has also come with an upset stomach. Or maybe that’s from all the processed food I ate over the weekend. Either way, I’m still taking the PPI, and it still doesn’t seem to be helping my cough or my digestion (TMI processed food gives me terrible gas... I wonder if it’s related to my sensitivity to propylene glycol, an ingredient found in everything from shampoo to salad dressing).


15 February 2024

Overdue check-in

Said I was gonna do this daily, whoops...

Firstly, my physio asked me to keep track of how long it lasts when he “fixes” me, quantified as “when can you do a shoulder check on your bike.”

Last time he fixed me was Friday. Saturday was fine. Sunday was twingy. Monday I didn’t ride but tried turning while walking and it was twingy. Tuesday was definitely the “this hurts” stage. 

Secondly, the proton pump inhibitor (PPI—did I remember that right?) effect. 

So far, no change to cough.

Had one night last week which was extremely bad, up in the night with heartburn on top of coughing and indigestion. Things have settled down but I am still coughing. Also having mucous in stool, which is weird but not a problem otherwise.

08 February 2024

Stuff about GERD and me

So the med I am taking for the cough is pantoprazole sodium, which is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) designed to reduce acid in the stomach. It usually takes 2-3 days to show results, but could take 1-7 days. To know if it’s really having an effect on GERD, you need to take it for 4-8 weeks.

So the fact that I had a coughing fit last night doesn’t really mean anything yet! Gotta be patient.  

From what I gather, the cough is caused by esophagitis which is caused by damage done from the stomach acid. So in addition to stopping the stomach acid from going where it’s not supposed to, I need to give my esophagus time to heal. 

If GERD is even the cause! We don’t even know that yet. On the one hand it seems possible; on the other hand all the lifestyle risk factors don’t really apply to me. I barely drink at all, don’t smoke, not overweight, don’t snack at bedtime, etc. The one risk factor that seems possible is caffeine, but I don’t drink a ton of coffee (although I did when I was younger!) and not after noon.

Anyway for now I guess I just have to keep track of what (if anything) changes, and see what the doctor says.

06 February 2024

The cough.

My cough. My doctor once told me they could tell I was in the waiting room because they recognized my cough. And yet, they never really did anything about it... oh I had all those inhalers on my foray through asthma but the cough never went away and I just accepted it.

Well, I recently saw a pitch for clinical trials of a medicine for chronic cough, and thought—sign me up!

So I’m starting that process. Part one is Rule Things Out. Which is to say, in an interview with a doctor during which I tried to remember all the inhalers I tried, they asked, “What about reflux?” Well, my regular doc brought it up once as a possibility, sort of floated the idea and let it hang in the air and then moved on to something else and never tested the theory. 

So, now we’re testing the theory.

I started taking meds for GERD (I forget the name, and it’s late so I’m too tired to go look at the bottle) last night, one pill a day, half an hour before dinner. Yesterday I thought, was this better? Tonight I was at the theatre, so of course I extra hate it when I have the urge to cough at the theatre, and yep, it hit me. 

Maybe the meds are something you need to take for a while to know if they work? I will try to remember to look it up tomorrow. Meanwhile I’m keeping track here because otherwise I won’t remember (did my cough getter better while I was on the gastritis diet last summer? I don’t remember). So expect a lot of boring cough reports, I guess.

03 February 2024

Period

Today. Twelve weeks exactly from the start of the last one. Pretty light. 

03 January 2024

An epiphany?

Posted this elsewhere but those I’d park it here for future reference.

My shoulder has been a mess. Two visits to physio so far and another this Friday… normally it should have gotten better after the first go, but nope.

Anyway a friend of mine was dealing with shoulder issues last year which she initially thought was a rotator cuff injury, but turned out to be “frozen shoulder” related to perimenopause. I wondered if my current shoulder issue is perimenopause-related as well, and that’s why it’s not improving.

And then it occurred to me… what if it was perimenopause the first time and people just didn’t know about the connection yet?

I’ve also been getting wicked headaches, another symptom I experienced before going on BCP.

Maybe later I will dig through my old posts  and see if there are any correlations between me going on BCP/HRT and the shoulder getting better. I do not like this, whatever the cause.