Week 6 of Maintenance Calorie Trajectory
As some may recall, last week I held steady at an average of 1545 cals/day, but I rearranged my cals so that I was able to eat more on my birthday. That went well, and I had a wonderful b-day weekend filled with many relaxing, beautiful, peaceful moments. I definitely hit my fun time cals at 2323, but didn't go past or if I did, it was not by much since as we all know most caloric estimates are approximations.
I also burned a good amount of cals yesterday as I made sure to get my strength training routine in and both my mother and I got in our fair share of steps at the wild life refuge we visited.
I did note subtracting 100 cals/day in order to give myself some fun food cushion worked out well. I didn't feel like I was starving, but I did observe being hungry before I went to bed some nights.
As planned, I'm going to continue to hold steady for another week longer at an average of 1545 cals/day and see where we are next weigh in. I won't be subtracting any cals like the week before, so the below trajectory are the correct markers. I did not weigh in this weekend because there's no point after a 2300 cal day. It doesn't provide any significant data. However, I did use my calipers on Saturday morning and I'm still holding steady at 22.8 % body fat, which I'm absolutely okay with.
Strength training and weights continue to go well and I find myself vacillating between shortening the cycles between increasing reps or keeping it where it's at. Some workouts feel like I might easily increase the reps earlier than planned and some have me thankful I have a few more workouts before a planned increase. It's the "MS fatigue" that keeps me reticent.
I'm verily aware when I began this venture 20 months ago and didn't know I had MS, part of the reason I had a "flare-up" to begin with is that I was over-exercising. I was putting too much in one session and it was too much on a system that was already being compromised by its own T-cells. I don't regret this, because without that flare up we might have never caught it until my butt was in a wheel chair instead of a walker.
Needless, to say when I got out of the hospital I tried to keep up with those intense workouts of yore, but MS comes with some intense fatigue because the brain has to find workarounds and access other parts in order send out signals, kind of like a back up generator. It can find the workaround, but in order to do it other parts get compromised and the exhaustion can feel so intense it actually effects the vocal chords and it's difficult to talk much less move. It's not all the time, but intense activity for long durations can bring it on for sure.
I finally gave in and split up the routines in Oct. 2017, making cardio on one day, weights and resistance training on another, and yoga couched in between. I go 6 cycles of this before I increase reps. Honestly, it was the best thing I ever did. The immuno suppressant kicked in about that time too, so the inflammation in the body started to come down and recovery time shortened.
That was 46 lbs ago. On one had this body has A LOT more stamina. However, regarding the MS fatigue - stamina has nothing to do with that, because it's neurological. So, I think I'm going to hold steady with the 6 cycle approach a bit longer and if I have a steady run where I don't feel like I'm battling neurological fatigue - I'll give it a shot and shorten the cycles between rep increases.
And, yes I'm aware this is not how most folk approach strength training and weights, but that last flare up landed me in the hospital for 5 days with a $5,500 dollar bill. It's one thing to risk a flare up unknowingly, it's whole other to push one's luck. My white blood cells have already dropped 1% point, which is by no means critical, but I haven't been sick yet, and I rather veer on the side of safety.
Besides, I'm not seeing a reduction in these guns - they may just be growing at a slower rate. It's all good :-)
Have a blessed week, everyone!
