Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

16
Jan
2021

That problem… well, eventually fixed itself.

categories: personal; word count: 263 words

Miraculously, I found out that the trouble I’d been having with my treadmill was due to the belt being loose.

Once I found the right tool for it, tightening the belt was actually extremely simple. From there, I experimented with how tight the bell was to come to a satisfactory setting that kept the belt from moving every time someone was on it but was tight enough to provide some resistance for in terms of exercise. Now all I have to do is attempt to align it so that walking on it is more comfortable (or get used to the incline that… seems to come part and parcel with it). Ideally, I would like to walk on a treadmill that is as close to flat as possible, although I can tell that I may not be able to do that with this one. But at least I have one, am I right?

But I am going to see if I can get the treadmill as close to flat as I can before I plan out any sort of exercise regimen, because the angle at which the treadmill is raised off of the ground will determine how long I walk and how frequently I walk for that length of time. It might also decide how far I walk on it as well since the treadmill does have a neat little gadget at the front that tells me useful information about my walking on it.

At least the issue of “the belt keeps moving while I’m trying to walk on it” has been solved, though…

20
Nov
2020

That didn’t go that bad… I hope it didn’t.

categories: personal; word count: 359 words

I feel like my disability hearing went alright. It could have been a lot worse than it actually was, but I’m bracing myself for the potential impact of being denied and having to continue to fight for disability benefits by putting in a new application after the sixty days that I can appeal the judge’s ruling have elapsed. Just as with the presidential election, I brace for the worst possibility and hope for the best. I’ve begun to see the local pain management clinic, and they put me on Gabapentin since I had been on Topamax for years and… well, it didn’t seem to be working that well if I was having migraines at this frequency and severity. I was also put back on Fioricet, which has worked better for me than any triptan ever has, although I’m to take less of them a month. I guess that’s because we don’t want this to stop working like the triptans obviously have.

We’re also in the midst of another COVID-19 (coronavirus) spike, presumably because people still took their kids out for Halloween in spite of the consequences and risk. Bub and Monster stayed home with a bag of candy that I had intentionally bought for them to give to them on Halloween, and I had to explain to Monster a few times that we weren’t going out for Halloween this year and why in a manner that he could more easily understand. I don’t think we’re going to have any problems come the Thanksgiving that we… don’t celebrate for ethical reasons, simply because we’re not inviting anyone over or really even going anywhere.

I need to fix my treadmill, too. The track that you walk on (do you call it a track? I’m not going to look this up right now)… moves from left to right as you walk, if that makes any sense, rather than staying firm on the treadmill and only moving backwards when you walk. This has contributed to me being clumsy on the treadmill. I’m going to get a lot less out of it if I have to walk slower and constantly watch myself using it…

13
Nov
2020

I still need to come up with better subjects…

categories: personal, simulators; word count: 274 words

I’ve decided not to walk every single day on my treadmill, because my lungs aren’t acclimating to it as fast as I thought they would… for someone who went into this knowing that it would take them awhile to get used to exercising anyway, especially with the severity of asthma that I have. Some people have told me that “if I keep at it”, “it” being exercise, that my body and lungs will “get used to it”, and that’s how I’ll get fit and have better lung function… but in spite of almost literally trying this six ways from Sunday, I’m not seeing those results, so I’m going out on a limb here and speculating that those people are understating the frequency and severity of my asthma. For some reason, that seems to be something that happens. People think they can make the most “helpful” suggestions, and then when those suggestions don’t work, it’s like it is a personal offense to them. And it’s not as though I don’t tell these very same people that I have asthma.

For some reason, our copy of The Sims 4 on the PC isn’t quite working as it should. Several panes on the ground are purple and have “?” in them, and Sims are literally getting stuck ridiculously easily. I’ve tried the fix where you manually unstick them (“ResetSim”), but then they get stuck all over again… and no, I’m not running any mods. Hopefully repairing the whole thing through Origin works, because everything else on this computer works just fine and I had to fight like hell to get everything else on this computer to work just fine.

05
Nov
2020

I figure I should start an exercise tag, so…

categories: personal; word count: 358 words

So I’ve been walking 0.10 kilometers per day on my treadmill now that it’s together, although one of the things that has bothered me about it is the fact that the belt (thing you walk on, whatever you should call this) is a bit looser than it should be, and that was messing with one of the side railings on the bottom of it… but I think I got the side railing “on there” hard enough for it not to start to come off any more when I walk on the treadmill, which is a slight improvement from where we were. I’m able to walk that 0.10/day slightly faster than I was when I first started, although it continues to be the same strain on my lungs as when I started, which may be and probably is attributable to my asthma. No surprise. You get what you pay for.

And part of the reason that I did get this treadmill was because it was comparatively more affordable.

Once walking this far every day gets easier, I’m going to look into the virtual races that I’ve mentioned here and sign up for an easy, light one. Some of the sites that I’ve seen have five-mile ones that you can do entirely at your own pace, so that might — probably will — be where I start. You can also log your times on the actual website or in apps that they come with, of those that are a bit longer, since I still have to hold onto the arm rails to use this treadmill and my arms not “moving around” won’t track movement for walking purposes for my FitBit. With time, I hope that I’m able to confidently walk on it to the point that I don’t have to hold onto the arm rails, although this may involve finding a way to completely straighten it if possible…

I suppose the only way to figure out how comfortable I will get with the treadmill is just a bit more time, although like I’ve said, this has a lot to do with the slightly loose belt coupled with the incline that it’s still at.

1 2