This past week I have been trying to boost my exercise a little bit. It still feels very hard, though. I think while I was sick, my body must have cannibalized a lot of the muscle I had been building and that just sucks. But it is what it is so all I can really do is work on rebuilding. Before, I was exercising 4-6 days per week, with a mixture of both cardio and strength training. Now, I have two days a week where I'm required to be consistently walking quickly for an hour plus per day for work and I don't have the time and energy to do an additional workout on top of it. I'm trying to do at least two half hour workouts during the week at this point, and hopefully increase it as I get some stamina again. Funny how three weeks basically entirely in bed will mess you up pretty badly, eh?
If you're wondering why I'm stressing the exercise so much, here is a really great article on why it's so important to work out even if you're losing weight just fine without it. Does it boost weight loss? Generally yes, as long as you don't eat all the calories you burn additionally (but do add a little extra protein if you're building muscle), but they're finding that exercise improves issues with insulin resistance, lowers cholesterol, controls blood sugar levels, as well as improving cardiac health. Before I got sick, my cardiac fitness VO2 max score was 27.4, which actually put me slightly above average for women my age! I had worked hard for that because before I started working out, my cardiac fitness was in the fair to poor category. With the sedentary month, my cardiac fitness score had dropped to 23.1 which is below average, and I didn't want to see it slide any further. There have been many real, measurable signs of how the exercise was benefitting my body and that stopping it erased those benefits. That's a good lesson on how important consistency is. I think it's much more important to try and exercise regularly than to try and push intensity, if you're just working on improving your health. I mean obviously a ten minute slow walk is not going to have the same effect as an hour long aerobics class. But if you can only manage the class once every week or so but you could walk every day? Go for that walk. Get your body into the habit of moving! And as you improve your baseline health, maybe you'll want to boost intensity a little. Something is always better than nothing.
Fortunately, this week my appetite regulating hormones have died down so I am back to eating my regular portion sizes on Ozempic and I'm much happier with that. I still get hungry regularly, but don't need to eat large portions to feel satisfied. I don't want my appetite to go away entirely. First of all, that's risky for me as a T2 diabetic since my blood sugar can and will go hypoglycemic if I don't eat every few hours. This is why programs like intermittent fasting do not work for me. I start to feel sick if it's been more than a few hours since I've eaten and I do much better on my meal plan of three meals and three snacks daily. But secondly? Hunger is a fine sauce for food and it makes it taste better. It's normal to be hungry and to learn to manage those feelings. Once the Ozempic removes the intense nagging hunger and the neverending desire to eat more, what's left is what I assume "normal" hunger cues, and I want to experience how they work and to teach myself to eat properly. I do think I will be on this medication or some variation forever because of my diabetes, but building healthy habits is never a bad thing.
While my weight loss has slowed down significantly due to all this upheaval in my life, the scale is still trending down, and I'm happy with that. Approaching some big milestones soon and looking forward to it!! Nearly a year on Ozempic, nearly 100lbs lost (total, including weight lost before Ozempic), nearly to ONEderland. Those will all come at different times and weights but it's exciting to see them so close by!
Start Date: November 7, 2022 0.25mg
OZ Week 3 gain: 2.0lbs
OZ Week 36 gain: 8.4lbs
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