267 (...and boy are my arms tired!)

Actually, my legs are more tired than my arms, but everything's pretty pooped.  The energy drain is still there, and for the most part I still feel rather run-down, but I know that it's doing so for a reason, and I can manage it for a while longer.  It will get better.

I have been really religious with the walking, and that is key.  Pretty much every day for the last two weeks, I've walked at least a mile and a half, and often more.  A regular thing now for me is to walk down to the Fred Meyer's on 39th (the Google says that's .8 miles, so a round trip is 1.6 miles).  Also helps that I live on a pretty significant hill (Mt. Tabor) so the last two or three blocks of the walk to my flat are a pretty decent burn.  I've only occasionally had to stop and rest, typically when I haven't fortified myself for a walk, and my blood sugar is really low.  I now carry a couple of energy bars in my back-pack for just such an occasion.  The Tiger's Milk bars are dense protein and pretty sweet, as are the Kind yogurt and fruit granola bars, and they do the trick.

In the food department, I've been eating a lot of Quorn chick'n tenders.  In a cup serving, it breaks down like this (left).  Aside from the fact that they actually taste really good, are damn versatile and are very gratisfying (my word, I know), each serving has 10g of protein while only having 9g of carbs.  Lately, I've been making some with peppers, mushrooms, onions and garlic and having it over refried black beans as a sort-of tortilla-less fajita bowl.  Damn tasty.  I've been missing the white rice, though, but I found what may be an interesting substitute: grated cauliflower!  I'm intrigued, and will try that tonight.  I think I'm gonna make a burrito with the fajita stuff and use that as rice.  Either way, I can't go wrong: I LOVE cauliflower.

The biggest negative besides the energy thing is that I'm now rather constipated.  Joi.  Very common.  I'm going to go for the obvious-as-a-fart-joke-in-a-bean-cannery line and say "This too shall pass," but it may take some help.  I add bulk fiber laxative into my smoothie as a fiber additive anyway, but it's obviously not enough, so I'm going to start doing a daily supplement with it alone.

Due to my disability, I have bowel control issues anyway, which is one of my big fears about walking.  Fortunately, my regular (hehehe, I said "regular") walk path has a few stores on it that I can duck into in the event that I'm desperate, and it's on the bus line, so I could get a lift if I need one.  But still, I try to go walking only after I know my bowel status.  If anything, it just gives me a bit more confidence, and I'll take all of that I can get.

My knees are starting to complain about all the walking.  No surprise, that, but it's something I have to be mindful of.  I screw up my knees, and I'll grind to a halt.  Can't do.  So today when one of my knees sort-of buckled as I was walking up the hill (just before the point when I start pushing myself to finish off the walk with a bit of energy), I took it easy.  Again, due to the disability, if I go down, a) it's ugly, and b) really hard to recover from.  I can't stand up from being down on my knees (or face) without something to either push or pull myself up with, so if I were to--say--biff it while crossing the street, it would be a huge issue, speaking nothing to the danger issue of that.  But when I got down into the 250's a few years ago, I was actually (for the first time since my spinal damage back in '83) able to stand up from my knees.  I'm looking forward to that again.  That and who knows what else?

Well, I know what else.  My first "goal" now seems within reach again.  Like the view of my flat half-way up on Tabor as I walk up tired and sweaty from blocks below, it's in sight, and I refuse to stop until I get there.  As my teacher Hogen often says "This is your birthright."  I look forward to seeing him again soon.  It's been a while, and I wonder if he'll notice I've lost weight?

Either way, I do.