I don't use much salt in my cooking. I put a little on my steamed eggs, but don't keep a salt shaker on the table. I also don't add salt to any of my cooking (baking notwithstanding), but rely on herbs for flavouring. For the past week or so, I've been craving salty foods: nachos, popcorn, salted peanuts, etc. I've not given into the cravings, but found them out of character. I talked to Syndi, and she said it could be because of a potassium deficiency. So I did a bit of research, and she's right. It could very well be that and/or adrenal exhaustion. Yesterday, I had a banana first thing in the morning, and lo and behold, I had no more salty snack cravings.
Is it psychosomatic, or am I actually low on potassium? Either way, eating more broccoli and bananas isn't going to hurt me, so I'll be amending my shopping list this week to include more potassium-rich fruits and vegetables.
There may be a connection between potassium deficiency, adrenal exhaustion, and my use of asthma medication. Ugh.
I've been scaling back my intake of
Symbicort. I was already at less than the pediatric dose (just one puff in the morning), but now I have been drinking a big cup of coffee in the morning, instead.
Coffee is a bronchodilator, and if it will do the trick instead of Symbicort, I'm going to try that instead. Symbicort has
a few nasty side effects, including increased risk of death due to asthma, ironically enough. Another side effect is
hypokalemia, or potassium deficiency, and yet another is calcium depletion. Osteoporosis runs in my family, and I have the classic build of someone prone to it. My teeth are constantly crumbling to bits, and I would not at all be surprised if the puffer is one of the causes of this.
Reading through the side effects makes me raise my eyebrows. There are quite a few of the side effects that I've been experiencing. Is it purely coincidental, or because of my medication? I don't know.
I will continue to use Symbicort, however, when I get sick and/or my breathing becomes laboured. I carry a puffer with me when I leave the house. I'm trying the caffeine thing as a control. I still have a bit of a cough in the morning, but honestly, it is no worse than usual, and this despite it being September, which is a
notoriously bad month for asthmatics.
My distrust of pharmaceuticals grows almost daily. I'd so much rather regulate my health through proper diet and exercise than through pills and inhalants. Ever since my early twenties, I've been doing my best to increase and maintain my bone density through natural means. In my early twenties, I did a lot of high-impact exercises to increase bone density. After 25, I cut back on the high-impact exercises because of diminishing returns, and switched to low- and medium-impact exercises. I try to eat a lot of calcium-rich foods (eg. dairy, sardines), and I continue to exercise like a fiend.
That being said, I just took an ibuprofen capsule because I woke up with cramps, and they're just not going away. Gah. Sometimes you gotta do whatcha gotta do.
Fear of decrepitude continues to be one of my strongest motivators.
In other news, I have switched my workout routine around yet again. I think my current plan is a good one, and I'll make minor tweaks here and there.
Here's what I did yesterday:
A brisk walk to and from the gym (pretty much par for the course, and makes a good warm-up).
Full jumping jacks: 200, broken into 4 sets of 50
Plank: 90 seconds each for front plank, straight-armed side plank, and straight-armed reverse plank. I put these in between each set of jumping jacks.
Kick squat: 30. I need to increase these. I do a full low squat, all the way to the floor, and am sure to chamber my front kicks.
Dragons: 30. I need to increase these, too.
Unassisted pull-ups: 3. I definitely need to increase these, but this will take time. Two years ago, I couldn't even do one.
Each of the following are broken into three sets of ten repetitions.
Front squat: 60 lbs on an Olympic bar (45 lbs, I believe)
Romanian deadlift: 70 lbs on an Olympic bar
Dumbbell bench press: 20 lbs
Bent over barbell row: 50 lbs
Arnold press: 17.5 lbs
Bench dip: 30 (these were too easy, so I need to find a way to make them trickier, but not impossible)
Reverse grip barbell bicep curl: 20 lbs for first two sets, then 30 lbs for final, almost impossible, set.
Captain's chair leg raise: 30, total
Decline bench crunches with chain punching: 30, total
Seated calf raises: 360 lbs
Normally, I would add back extensions and poi practice to the mix, but my lower back has a pulled muscle in it from moving just wrong while taking eggs out of the fridge a while back. As a result, I took exceptional care with my form, so as not to make the pain any worse.
Normally, I'd also add poi practice to my warm up, but the gym was crazy busy, and there was no room for me to practice.
A couple of guys were doing calf raises while I waited for them to do their sets. They were each using 110 lbs, and obviously straining with it. When they were finished, they started to take the weights off, and I said, "Oh, just leave 'em, thanks. I need to stack more." I have to admit, I snuck a peek at them while I was lifting 360 lbs, and got a bit chuffed by their raised eyebrows. My legs have super powers. *grin*
On my off days, I want to do cardio and/or yoga/Pilates.
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knightky, so we go looking for brontosauruses to ride. We choose our mounts and sit up on their backs. I give mine a kick, but she doesn't really feel it and keeps grazing. Kyle's isn't going anywhere really fast, either. I yell at mine to giddy-up, and her head suddenly veers toward me at high speed on its enormous snaky neck. I barely dodge out of the way, and then she starts to lumber along, all while that horrid "California Girls" song plays over and over.
