physical therapy | Fitness is Sweet

Hello! I’m blogging from my dorm room back at school. I’m a senior-Eek!

I wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update on what has been going on with me lately. The good news lately is that I’ve been doing physical therapy for my shoulder, and it’s SO much better. I’ve been getting sound wave and electric stim, and now and doing strengthening exercises. Right now it’s mostly a dull pain, so while I may not be lifting heavy things soon (among other reasons-I’ll explain in a moment), it’s not interfering too much with day to day life.

Moving in to my dorm was a process-we took the first load on Thursday and I got to pick a bed.

Friday I took my bike a few other things, and Saturday night I moved in all the way. I’m going to miss my pets!

Last time I chatted with you all, I mentioned my stomach was flaring up. It got really bad on Wednesday, but I was hoping I was over the hump. Since this has been going on for so many months and I thought it had been mostly gone, I decided to make an appointment with a specialist, and we were lucky and were able to get an appointment for Friday. After talking to the doctor, I ended up scheduling an endoscopy for Saturday morning to see if we could tell what’s going on/rule things out. I honestly wanted to get it over with ASAP! For those that aren’t familiar, an endoscopy is when you get sedated and the doctor sticks a camera down your throat into your esophagus and stomach. For me, he also took some biopsies. On Friday, I was still feeling off but thought the flare was nearly gone.

One of the things we biopsied was testing for Celiac’s. Since I’ve been mostly avoiding gluten, a false negative is definitely a possibility, although I hadn’t cut out every single thing. That evening I ate a few crackers to try and at least have something in my system. Later that night, I felt terrible. I don’t know if it was the crackers or just another flare up over something else. It was the worst I’ve felt in a very long time-plus, I had to fast for the procedure which I was worried would bother my stomach even more, and couldn’t have any liquids from 6am on. (I woke up at 5:50 to chug water and some apple juice).

For the procedure, I had an IV and was given pain meds and sedation. I was definitely not all the way asleep the whole time, and it was not very comfortable, to say the least. It also left me with a sore throat all the way through my esophagus!

The doctor didn’t find anything abnormal-no ulcers or anything. So at this point, I’m just waiting for the results of the biopsy. The last few days have been rough, and I’ve been feeling bad off and on, and I haven’t been able to eat very much at all. My diet has consisted of Luna bars and crackers, although I was able to eat a real lunch today and am feeling so much better than this morning, which is really good considering I’m teaching my first official spin class on campus tonight!

I’m living in a big house this year, so we have an open kitchen and a chef. I was happy to see a really good salad bar, plus amazing avocado salad!

Yesterday was supposed to be an 11 mile run. I didn’t think that would happen after Saturday’s procedure, so I was shooting for 8 and ended up with 4 before my stomach called it quits. In terms of my race, I’m not worried as long as I’m ok for this weekend’s run! But we shall see.

In happier news, I went to my senior welcome on Sunday afternoon. We got champagne flutes with our class year on them, and it was so great catching up with people, especially those who I haven’t seen in a long time.

Also-my puppy visited me today back at my dorm! I may or may not have forgotten a few things to pack..

That’s for me right now-I hope everyone is doing well!

Let’s start this post off with a recipe, shall we? I FINALLY went out and got myself some Designer Whey protein powder, and I’M IN LOVE (note-I was not compensated for this and had to buy the protein powder myself. All opinions are my own). I’ve never had a decent-tasting protein powder before. In my protein shakes, I’d use MAYBE half a scoop because I was afraid I’d be able to taste this. For my first test, I wanted a fairly basic chocolate smoothie. Here it is!

Chocolate Protein Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 scoop chocolate protein powder

1 T cocoa powder

1/2 frozen banana

1 c unsweetened almond milk

1 pinch xantham gum

1/2 vanilla kefir (you can sub yogurt here)

1 handful spinach

1 large handful ice

Directions:

1. Blend almond milk and spinach together with the half banana first so the spinach can get extra well combined.

2. Add all ingredients but ice and blend.

3. Add ice last, and as necessary for consistency.

This made 2 glasses for me, and the total is about 300 calories.

And it was just as delicious the second time!

So now on to my life. Yesterday I went to Target to look at summer clothes, and things besides workout clothes to wear in Hawaii. Speaking of which, it’s still kind of a ways out, but I’m looking for guest posters! Email me at astottler @ gmail.com.

I took the evening off to rest my calf. More on that in a moment. Here’s yesterday’s food!

Lunch was polenta mixed with onion and chive cream cheese and topped with leftover broccoli.

My mom got polenta from Costco, so there’s kind of a ton of that.

Dinner was vegetarian chili, plus a cilantro lime salad. I love homemade salad dressing-it’s amazing how fresh it tastes! It makes a world of difference in flavor.

Also, at Target yesterday, I picked up this:

This has freeze-dried yogurt! It was actually really good-the mix had freeze dried cranberries and blueberries as well, and made the perfect snack.

I’ve talked about it the last couple of days, but my calf has really been bothering me lately. It started about 7 miles in to my long run, but it wasn’t very intense so I figured it was nothing and kept going. It wasn’t really bothering me at the time, but it tightened WAY up afterwards. Yesterday morning I ran a little at Crossfit and it was bothering me a bit by the end. I’m extremely frustrated that this is happened given my race is in less than 2 weeks! I haven’t had any problems this whole time (besides my weird foot thing), and of course this would come up right before my race. I skipped today’s run. If it continues to feel better tomorrow, I might test it a little with a baby run (I’m talking like a mile here) as long as there is no pain. I’m confidant that it will feel better in time for the race (or at least good enough), but I don’t want to take any chances. I went to my dad’s physical therapist today who has been known to work wonders, and I’m going back tomorrow. I’m not really sure what’s going on or how serious it is (as in how much my brain is simply just freaking out on me). I really don’t like the idea of having a problem with the muscle. For some reason pulled muscles give me the heebie jeebies. Joint problems? I’ll take it. But NOT muscle tears/strains. Ugh.

But here’s the good news. I was able to cross train this morning. I took a morning spin class where I was very conservative. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stand on the bike (extremely carefully of course). I also did some front squats and abs. I was going to use the rowing machine but it stretched my calf a little more than I’m comfortable with. So that’s that. Lots of spinning until I’m good to run again. And ab work, which I so desperately need. I’ve been seriously slacking there.

I refueled from my workout with a new-to-me yogurt, apple cinnamon. I’m a fan! I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was good. Plus half a piece of frozen zucchini bread.

I hope you all are having a great week! Send lots of healing vibes my way!

Have you ever been injured right before a race or big event? What did you do?

Archives

The Saga Continues

My New Favorite Smoothie