Revelations

 It has been a busy week.  We got our first SunBasket, and so far are really liking it.  We had a morrocan chicken dish the first night that had great flavor, a fire roasted tomato shrimp with polenta dish the second, and a belizian chicken stew over coconut rice the third.  We had planned to make our fourth dish on Thursday, but didn't have an oven to cook it with. 

I think I mentioned that after Thanksgiving our dishwasher broke.  We needed to replace it quick, and had already been thinking about replacing our fridge.  It ended up being much more economical to switch from white to stainless steel for everything.  Peter installed the dishwasher after buying it in store, and we had the fridge and microwave delivered last week.  The oven was dented, so they instead delivered it Thursday . . . but had installation for Saturday.  This derailed our plans a little, but we made it work.  The new oven is great, and we enjoyed our vegetarian dish of quinoa with chickpeas, carrots, and onions.  Price wise 4 meals for the two of us is about comparable to two meals of take out, so although it is a little more than what we usually spend in groceries, we are finding it much easier to cook when there is a set plan and recipe already.  Plus, the meal plan we chose has meals that all come out to 600 calories, so it is helping with our portions. 

I've gotten to the pool 3 times this week, which is exciting.  I've done a mix of walking with exercises at the end and swimming.  Back stroke seems to be the best stroke for me thus far.  I had a revelation today.  I had finished the length of the lane, and was catching my breathe at the end.  My breathing was heavy and my heart was pumping, so my immediate thought was I better not push it.  I realized that this thought was born out of 12 years of living in heart failure.  It used to be unsafe for me to push myself, and in some ways I think I've developed an aversion to actual exercise that pushes my limits.  Thinking on it, the few times I have had to keep pushing since transplant, on two hikes that were longer and/or more elevation than expected, I did just fine.  And I was not wiped out the next day.  I made myself keep swimming, and I was a little tired.  But I don't really remember that this is an ok feeling.  It has been over a decade since I could work to feeling out of breathe and tired and not have some negative consequence later.  I think part of my problem with not having lost weight is that I've been going way too easy on myself.  I was using that I was healing as a reason, but its been over 10 months.  I keep falling back on old thought patterns that aren't true anymore.  So I'm going to have to start pushing.  Which is terrifying in a lot of ways.  But also, I still weigh 30lbs more than I should, my labs are starting to reflect that I'm overweight, I'm getting stretch marks, and I'm uncomfortable.  If I don't do something now, when will I?  Yes, my knees hurt and sometimes its hard to move.  But the less I move, the worse it gets.  I am going to have to work through the discomfort. 

I've decided that at my one year appointment, if I'm not seeing a difference from my swimming, I'm going to ask for another referral to cardiac rehab and try a different facility.  I'm also getting an antibody test within the next few weeks, and if I have them, it means the vaccine works and I'm protected, so I would feel much more comfortable about what I'm doing.  I also figure that I'm going to need to up my exercise days to more than 3, but if having the puppy makes me take Bosun on walks with Stella and Peter, than I'd be increasing my steps and that could be enough. Very much looking forward to meeting our little guy.  He went to the vet this week and the vet mentioned how fearless and friendly he is.  Looks like we picked a great one!