Played a VERY light game of tennis this evening - first activity (other than a few short, slow walks) since I wrenched my back last week. Took a long time to stretch well before and afterwards. Foot feels ok so far and back is a little sore, but not in an alarming way.
We’ll see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow, as that’s usually when the PF pain is the worst 
I’m really eager to get back to my normal level of activity.
LOL - I find more reasons to not run, besides just the heat. Today I walked around the neighborhood.
Although it is highly unusual, there is a small bear roaming around my town. It must have gotten separated from its mama bear. On Monday when I was running around my usual lake trail, I overhead somebody say “I was an eagle and a bear”. I thought how nice she had gone up to the mountains. Later on NextDoor app I learned that the little bear had been up in a tree at the lake and had also been caught on Ring cameras.
Now the odds of me running into this bear are quite slim. And my main worry would be if mama were also nearby, and so far it seems she is not around (possibly even dead). But at 7am it was easier to turn over and sleep in than to decide about being out by the lake.
@Colorado_mom about 6 years ago a half grown bear was reported in our DC suburb. Sure enough a day or two later it was in our yard and H took pictures (I was not home at the time). Made me a bit skittish about running/walking in the neighborhood for awhile. Just yesterday a friend who lives about a mile from my old house posted pictures of a bear in her backyard!
As for fitness: I am in a pretty good routine now of running 4X/week, yoga 3X/week and a lot of walking. This week has been a bit different as I am without a car (long story). Living in the city though I just walk where I need to go. I am logging a lot of walking miles with trips for errands, library, etc.
Since we are a small city in a rural area, we have bears from time to time. H’s school used to have them regularly on his field. It’s toward the outskirts of town and surrounded by woods. However, they have since installed a 6’ fence. It was supposed to be for active shooter safety, but it has kept the bears out!
There was once one in a cemetery 1/2 mile from our house and a couple have been downtown, but that’s really rare. Just a few times in 30 years.
Husband says we biked 213 miles this week. Plus we did some hiking and just walked around a fair amount.
Today I went swimming for just 30 minutes. But yesterday I did a lot of gardening. Finally I trimmed all of my fruit trees, then I dug a big hole, full of hard clay, tomorrow I will move my Asian pear there.
Today I repeated the aerobic workout I did Tuesday, and I was much more my old self. I had a pretty mild case of Covid and can’t imagine what recovering from a severe case would be like.
Today, I did 45-40 minutes of swimming. But tonight I should be able to do more gardening. It’s cooling down. So far this summer I wasn’t able to lose as much weight as I had anticipated because I didn’t know I couldn’t garden when the weather is hot, you can’t move plants, they will die, but I’m down 1 pound in total from last year. Not too bad, now the trick is not to gain anything in my upcoming vacation.
27 outdoor biking miles in the heat.
Yesterday I worked for several hours, then went to dinner with some friends. I didn’t start working out until probably 9 PM. But I did 5.2 miles on the elliptical.
I think my “streak” on my watch says I’m at close to 140 days closing all of my rings. Since I retired in March of 2021 I have walked at least 4 miles, ridden at least 18 miles, played pickleball for an hour (usually 2) or some other activity (elliptical, rowing) pretty much every day. I’m guessing I’ve “missed” maybe 10 days, but that’s a wild guess.
This morning I weighed the least I’ve weighed since I was a marathon runner. I have been afraid that I wasn’t really losing weight but that I was losing muscle because my weight training hasn’t really been what I want it to be, but I put on some shorts I hadn’t worn in a few weeks and, by golly, they fit looser and differently. Sometimes it pays not to overthink things.
I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it here, but the different thing this time around – well, one different thing – is that I have been doing the hard work of not eating my feelings. Man, I had no idea how difficult it is to not tamp down the feels with food. I guess not doing it isn’t the difficult part … it’s feeling like crap when you make the right decision and then have to deal with all the emotions. A couple of months ago I asked dh whether people who don’t used food for solace feel like crap all the time. lol And I still occasionally make the choice to have the ice cream just because I want/“need” it, but it’s nice to make it a conscious decision and not automatically reach for food without thinking. Can anyone else relate?
After a crummy stretch of illness and injury for much of this summer, I’m finally having a good week. I’ve hit 10k steps for three days in a row, played 45 minutes of pickle ball yesterday snd an hour of tennis today. It feels great to move again.
Has the Blue Zone concept been discussed here? I found this interesting…how many of the Power 9 lifestyle habits have you embraced?
I think I’m reasonably good on 1,3,5,6, 8 & 9. Would love to find 2 and can certainly work on 4, but 7 probably isn’t in the cards for this atheist.
No 6 or 7 here, even though we’re normally a C&E people, Christmas and Easter, now my husband just put on the church service streaming from England.
Failed #1. 
I’m out.
Interesting. I think I do forms of all the things but probs not to the extent the writer would have me do. For instance, I lift weights so maybe that’s not “natural,” but we also mow our own lawns rather than hire it out, have never had a garage-door opener … that kind of thing.
Back to intermittent fasting again a couple of weeks ago. I always feel better when I do this. I am not big on getting on the scale and weighing myself often, but I can tell I’ve lost a few pounds just by the fit of my clothes.
I’m also back to doing my weights consistently 3 times a week which I got away from a bit this summer. Things are looking good.
Thanks for the link. Power9 is new to me, interesting. I’ll first recap the list…
Power9 lifestyle habits:
For me, reasonably good on most of the items in recent years. I am most lacking on #4/plant, #5/80%, and #9/tribe. But certainly being on CC forums is helpful resource toward improvement on all.
Regarding “moderate alcohol consumption,” recent news appears to indicate any alcohol is not good.
After all, you’re drinking ethanol. For the record, I don’t drink alcohol at all and haven’t for a few decades.
The NHS had similar study about drinking wine not too long ago.
Regarding weight lifting, in the last 2 days I dumped 2 very heavy compost bins, I’ve been working through them. My compost is like black gold. Many steps back and forth filling one peony bed, that’s #1. They are full of clay, so the compost should help. I’m dreaming of beautiful peonies in the Spring. That should be #3, stress reducing.
And for lunch we ate a big plate of lettuce with a tiny bit of protein, fish almondine with olives, that’s #5.
yeah, I thought 6 was interesting/curious. It makes me wonder if a different variable is really responsible. For example, if you partake in a glass of wine after work, is it really the act of relaxing between work and the awaiting household chores (cooking dinner) that is the benefit? If you have a drink with dinner, is it really the act of sitting down to a meal that is the benefit, if you have a drink with a friend and catch up, is that social connection really the benefit…and so on…
