Health

The restorative power of a really long walk

As I type this, the Fitness app on my watch is reporting that I have completed:

  • 31,878 steps
  • 25.31 km

This is not just higher than my average daily going-out-and-aboot, it’s way higher. Was I tied to a runaway horse? Yes! Well, no. I decided to go for a walk to Burnaby Lake, to take photos of birds and soak in nature for awhile.

Weirdly, I chose to start this at 7 a.m. (I got up and had breakfast at 5:30). I got there shortly after 8 a.m., spent some time at Piper Spit, took about 350 photos, then continued to walk the entire lake loop and back home, returning just after 11:30 a.m.

A few observations on this early morning trek:

  • It was chilly starting out–only 2C. By the time I was back, it was up to 8C and fairly comfy.
  • Despite the chilly start, I only felt a little cold while snapping pictures at Piper Spit, since there was a breeze coming off the lake and my hands were naked while holding the camera.
  • Speaking of Piper Spit, there were only two people there, both at the far end of the pier with absurdly gigantic telephoto lenses on their cameras. I believe they were taking photos of the recently-returned swallows.
  • Speaking of Piper Spit even more, a lot of birds were snoozing at 8 a.m. and most were farther away from the pier, possibly because there was a noticeable lack of free food supplied by the public.
  • Even though I walked over 20 km as part of the trip there and back, it felt entirely manageable, as I broke it down into chunks, stopping and taking what were effectively breaks when I saw things to take pictures of.
  • The weather was perfectly decent, with little wind, and the sun eventually came out. I wore my lined hoodie and t-shirt and this was quite adequate. I also wore pants.
  • I didn’t see as many birds as I had hoped, but I still saw a bunch, plus two bunnies! No squirrels, though. Maybe it was too early for them.
  • I am very glad I went out.
  • Going early was aces, as the kids say. It’s already light at 7 a.m. and the only people around are joggers and people walking their dogs and wishing they were still in bed. So peaceful and still.

I will post select pics in a follow-up post. Yesterday was bad, but today did a lot to erase the bad, or at least smear it around so it’s less easily identifiable.

A shift in perspective (YAPP)

UPDATE, April 7, 2022: A fitting (?) coda to this post: This morning, a week after my first symptoms, I tested again and still came back positive. Boo. This is not unusual and I'll test again tomorrow or the next day, but it's still a bummer.

For the last two years, I have considered myself an observer of the pandemic. I was affected, of course, right from the early days when toilet paper suddenly became scarce, to working remotely, to facing mask mandates, and restrictions on where I could even go.

But in all these things, I was just like most everyone else: Inconvenienced, maybe a little annoyed, but ultimately understanding why things were happening as they were.

But that changed this week when I felt a scratchy throat and a few days later, with the symptoms of what felt like a head cold settling in, I tested positive on a rapid response test for COVID-19.

There is always a chance that the result was wrong. In fact, just after the scratchiness began, I took my first test and it came back negative. I read today that about half of cases similar to mine (Omicron variant, fully vaccinated) can produce false negatives if tested too soon, because the virus takes a little more time to show up in these kinds of less-than-lab accurate tests. My partner had been sick and had tested positive, so I did entertain the idea briefly that the negative was a legit result, but I know now that’s pretty unlikely.

And so I have now had the virus and become an active participant, a statistic, if an uncounted one. How does it make me feel?

I’m not entirely sure yet. My immediate concerns were getting better and minimizing risk to others by resisting the urge to run into the street and randomly hug strangers (ie. self-isolate). Now, as the symptoms have largely cleared up (hooray for being fully vaccinated + booster) I ponder.

How likely is it that I’ll get sick again? What will it be like if I do? Will I experience “long covid”? Will I just be fine and dandy?

I suppose in a way I feel…unclean? Uncertain? I thought I would escape the pandemic without getting sick and now that it’s happened, I realize it was a bit of a faint hope once the variants started getting more and more infectious. In the last few months I’ve gone from knowing no one who had COVID-19 to knowing…more than a few. And that quiet little part whispering about my mortality—that’s there, too. I think of how it would have gone if I’d gotten sick before the vaccines had been developed. I’m not in my 20s anymore, even if I mostly act like I still am (I don’t know how to act “old”, but maybe I’m just fooling myself and I’m six months away from lapsing into “How do you do, fellow kids?”).

I may have further thoughts on this, but that’s all for now—other than hoping this whole stupid pandemic wraps up (for real, not just in some people’s minds) by the end of the year or something.

YAPP = Yet Another Pandemic Post

COVID-19: The List

For my edification in the future, here is a list concerning me and my favorite pandemic virus, COVID-19.

Symptoms experienced (in order):

  1. Scratchy and then sore throat
  2. Excessive phlegm/mucous in throat
  3. Intermittent cough (began after two days)
  4. Intermittent sneezing (began after three days)

Symptoms not experienced:

  • No fever
  • No body aches
  • No shortness of breath
  • No exhaustion (though the coughing in particular did leave me feeling a bit tired after a while)
  • No loss of smell or taste
  • No loss of appetite, but less snacking due to feeling unwell (a banana or toast each day)

Notes:

  • Cough persisted for two days then waned
  • Sore throat persisted for one full day then waned, replaced by intermittent coughing
  • Weight loss began the day after symptoms appeared and persisted for the next four days before weight began going back up (see chart below)

Weight loss corresponds almost perfectly with onset of symptoms, and weight gain starts with recovery:

Positively annoying (Sick: The follow-up)

Good news: My sore throat is no longer sore today!

Bad news: My nose is stuffed up, and I’m now coughing intermittently. But I think I am overall on the mend.

Not surprising news: Once again, getting sick is a great way to lose weight. This morning, I weighed in at 175.7 pounds, my lowest of the year. If only I can keep it off. Without getting sick again, that is.

Appalling news: I took another rapid test tonight and this time shoved the swab far enough up my honker to make myself sneeze (I am glad this didn’t take place in a clinic), so I think the result was more accurate. And it was positive for COVID-19. Boo.

Two lines is bad. Unless you like viruses.

Day 4 and 5 of self-isolation are tomorrow and Monday, so I’ll test again on Tuesday to see if I am still unclean. If I am, I will curl up in a ball and weep quietly. And then probably stay home for another day to be on the safe side.

I was hoping to escape the pandemic without getting sick, but despite working from home since March 18, 2020, no such luck. It was a good run, though. The last time I was sick was in January 2020 (with symptoms that were suspiciously COVID-like in retrospect); I don’t think I’ve ever gone 26 months of my adult life without getting sick with something.

Sick!

For the first time since January 2020 I am sick!

And I don’t like it.

Right now it’s a sore throat–scratchy and all gummed up, so I’m constantly clearing my throat, to no avail. I’m hoping this is the worst of it, and will be on the mend by tomorrow morning.

Here’s the sequence of events:

  • A few days ago, Jeff gets sick and stays home
  • Yesterday, and after he has largely recovered, he describes his symptoms, which make tiny alarms go off in my head
  • I advise him to use one of the rapid response COVID-19 tests we have (five total). He does. It comes back positive.
  • At this point, my throat is feeling very lightly scratchy, but I attribute it to singing loudly with the earphones on earlier in the day. I take the test. It comes back negative.
  • My throat gets worse overnight and remains sore today. I start canceling outings and planning out five days of isolation.

I am tentatively planning on taking a second test tomorrow morning to see if my negative result persists. I strongly doubt the sore throat is a coincidence and unrelated to COVID-19, but you never know!

But yeah, being sick for the first time in over two years reminds me how much being sick bites. Bleah. Do not recommend. If it is COVID-19, I suppose I can take solace in escaping it for so long and being triple-vaccinated by the time it caught up with me.

On the plus side, I went out today to Hume Park and took pictures of birds, which was a nice distraction. I stayed clear of other people, feeling a strong Typhoid Mary vibe happening. Some shots are pretty decent, too. Woo!

Weight loss report, March 2022: Up 0.3 pounds

Yes, I was up slightly. Boo and all that.

Early in the month I was tracking downward, then mid-month something shifted and the trend reversed. I’m not entirely sure what happened, as I totally for real did not start scarfing bags of cookies. The trend then began going back down in the final week until a weird 1.1 pound gain overnight and then stalled, so for the month overall it was basically treading water. Or retaining water.

And that got me thinking. Because I’ve worked out nearly every day this month, is it possible I could be gaining a bit of muscle mass? I went to grab the cloth measuring tape to find out, but it has vanished, so I’ll need to get a replacement, then read up on where exactly to measure (that’s what she said :drumroll:).

My sub-quest to reach 160 pounds by June 1st is thus more difficult now, as there are 61 days and 17.7 pounds between now and then. To hit that number, I need to lose an average of 0.29 pounds per day, or just over two pounds per week. Two pounds may not sound like much but again, look over the last month. I should have lost about eight pounds and gained 0.3 instead. Oops.

So for April my plan is thus:

  • Continue to workout like a madman, or at least someone who works out a lot
  • Swear off all snacking save for the following items:
    • Bananas
    • Other types of fruit I am not currently consuming
    • Vegetables

Easy peasy! I’ll report back in a month, when I will no doubt be…

169.7 pounds–or less!

Ho ho.

One tiny bit of good news: The 0.3 pound gain did not offset the 0.4 pound loss of February, so I am still down overall for the year to date.

Stats:

Weight:

January 1, 2022: 180.6 pounds
Current: 172.4 pounds

Year to date: Down 8.2 pounds

April 1: 177.0 pounds
April 30: 172.4 pounds (down 4.6 pounds)

Body fat:

January 1: 23.2% (42.1 pounds of fat)
April 30: 20.8% (36 pounds of fat--down 6.1 pounds)

The day after the day after (and bonus pandemic update)

The sun was out, so I asked my legs for permission to walk to the mall (a 30-minute walk). My legs were, “All right, but we reserve the right to yell at you in all caps later if it turns out to be a bad idea.” But it was fine. The leg muscles are still sore, but in a distant sort of way. I can feel the soreness, but it’s buried down below.

While at the mall, I contemplated getting something to eat at the food court–how post-pandemic of me! Except in the end, I couldn’t find anything that grabbed me, and skipped it.

And speaking of the pandemic (queue segue music)…

The Omicron variant wave is ending, and we’ve been without a mask mandate for just under three weeks now. A few days in the past week have seen hospitalizations in BC go up (though they did drop today) and looking around the world, it appears that another surge is all but guaranteed, this time courtesy of the Omicron sub-variant BA.2 (“The most infectious variant yet! For now.”) During BC’s now-diminishing Omicron wave, we saw:

  • A high degree of vaccination
  • A wide public mask mandate
  • Caseloads go through the roof anyway. Basically, everyone ended up knowing someone who got infected with COVID-19
  • Hospitalizations managed to stay below critical levels, though

Now, with an even more contagious sub-variant taking hold and the mask mandate lifted, what will happen? I figure a lot of people will get infected again, hospitalizations will go up again, then peak before going critical, and the wave will subside in time for summer.

If the pandemic continues as it has for the past two years, we’ll get a very brief respite before yet another wave starts with a new variant that can infect people who just happen to exist at the same time as the virus or something. I mean, I don’t know. It all seems kind of silly and unending now.

My new hope (“Help me, Obi Wan!”) is that the pandemic will be considered effectively over, even if COVID-19 is not gone, by the end of this year. That would be nice. I like nice things.

The day after

Not to be confused with movies about nuclear war.

Today was the day after my first 5K outdoors in months, which also featured 8 km of walking to and from the lake. And how did I feel?

Tired. Very tired. I napped in the afternoon.

Sore, very sore. My legs are like, “What have you done to us? We treat you so well with the mobility and such and this is our reward?”

As of writing this now (around 5 p.m.) I have managed a 15-minute walk to limber up without overdoing it and I have a little more energy. I suspect most of the fatigue and stiffness will be gone by tomorrow, but it is an interesting and fun (?) reminder of how keeping in shape requires…keeping up with regular exercise. Weird, I know.

Here is an animated gif of a cat running as reward for reading of my suffering:

Weight loss report, February 2022: Down 0.4 pounds

The good news is I was down again, yay. I was not down as much as I should have been, boo.

And it was totally my fault. Boo again. But I am still overall encouraged, as I will explain.

Good things:

  • Being down is always better than being up
  • I did 19 workouts on the treadmill. Burning these extra calories helps!
  • My body fat has dropped 2.7 pounds so far this year, which demonstrates that–assuming the readings are accurate–I am actually shedding fat and becoming leaner
  • The exceptions that curbed total weight loss are special cases (I swear)

And here’s why I didn’t lose more weight:

  • I made the last batch of brownies from the megabox we got from Costco. I wanted to get rid of them to clear up space in the pantry and to get the little devil cakes out of the place. They ended up in my tummy, which is perhaps not the ideal location. But they are gone now!
  • Yesterday I bought a tin of smokehouse almonds because they were on sale. These very rarely go on sale and are normally expensive enough that I’m never tempted to buy. Yesterday I was tempted and their salty, “just one more” quality led to a lot more than one more. I think I actually gave myself stomach cramps. So dumb. To my meager credit, I did not devour the entire tin in one day.

I am thus overall encouraged. The workouts will continue (until morale improves) and I’m continuing to eat leaner ‘ meaner with more lean meat and salads and stuff mixed in. I am hoping to accelerate the weight loss in March. We’ll see!

Stats:

Weight:

January 1, 2022: 180.6 pounds

February 1: 178.5 pounds
February 28: 178.1 pounds (down 0.4 pounds)

Year to date: Down 2.5 pounds

Body fat:

January 1: 23.2% (42.1 pounds of fat)
February 28: 22% (39.4 pounds of fat--down 2.7 pounds)

Weight loss report, January 2022: Down 2.6 pounds

A Christmas miracle has arrived! In January! I am down 2.6 pounds for the month. Curiously, this is also exactly the amount I was up in December, but if we track back to December 1st, my total weight loss since then is 0.6 pounds, Less impressive, but sustained actual almost-for-sure not a rounding error weight loss for two entire months? I’ll take it.

The key was likely related to a couple of things:

  • Much less snacking, especially in the latter half of the month when I started seeing regular dips in weight
  • Frequent 30+ minute workouts on the treadmill. I think my body got a bit used to exercise and may have started burning a tiny bit of fat from it as a result (16 workouts for the month, so an every-other-day average. Not bad!)
  • And of course, no donuts

In all, a nice trend and one I hope will continue.

Stats (rolling over yearly stats to this month, but for reference, I started January 2021 at 174,2 pounds, so I’ve got a ways to go just to catch up to where I was 12 months ago, let alone my target goal of 150):

January 1: 180.6 pounds
January 31: 178.0 pounds (down 2.6 pounds)

Year to date: From 180.6 to 178.0 pounds (down 2.6 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 23.2% (42.1 pounds of fat)
January 31: 23.5% (41.8 pounds of fat) (down 0.3 pounds)

Weight loss report, December 2021: Up 2.6 pounds

The tragedy and triumph of the month that is December when it comes to waistlines and the expansions thereof.

I started the month well-positioned for weight loss, 1.4 pounds under 180. 170 here I come!

By December 4th, I had dropped to 177.9, which would sadly turn out to be my lowest point of the month, because…December. By the 8th I had ballooned up to 180.8 pounds, and it took 16 days to finally get back below 180. I held a glimmer of hope that I could carry the downward trend onward. It lasted two days. Even after a lot of exercise and old-fashioned calorie-burning yesterday, I was still up this morning to my highest point of the month at 181.2 pounds. Sigh.

However, while I am always striving to do better, I am no longer making promises to myself. I will hazard a prediction that I will be down at least a little in January, if only because the worst indulgences of the holidays will be past. But we’ll see.

Stats:

December 1: 178.6 pounds
December 31: 181.2 pounds (up 2.6 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 181.2 pounds (up 7 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
December 31: 23% (41.6 pounds of fat) (up 2.5 pounds)

Did I have COVID-19 in 2020?

According to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, the answer should be no, and yet…

In January of last year, I detailed having a terrible case of the flu (first referenced in this post). This was pre-pandemic and hardly surprising, as I usually don’t get a flu shot and rode public transit five days a week and worked in a large, open office at a college. People were constantly around me, and people are fantastic at sharing horrible things like cold and flu bugs.

When I wrote on February 16th about the cold I had, COVID-19 was not on my radar at all. I knew of it, but only on the periphery–it was yet to reach pandemic stage. But looking back, the symptoms I had match up almost perfectly with COVID (while acknowledging that they also match up with having a cold or flu)

  • Loss of smell/taste
  • Coughing
  • Fatigue
  • Sore throat
  • Body aches
  • Sinus issues (plural, because I hit both extremes of plugged/unplugged)

The loss of smell is a real red flag here, because it’s so specifically tied to COVID-19. In the end, it doesn’t really matter much, as I recovered with no apparent long-term symptoms and have been successfully dodging the super-contagious Omicron variant as I await my booster (third) shot, expected sometime in January. But it’s fun (?) to think that as I worked to avoid catching the virus, I may have actually been one of the first to have had it.

Anyway, here’s hoping the pandemic actually ends in 2022. That would be nice.