Happy Spring Morning to you....

I am loving the recent spring weather we have had for the past few days!  I'm so happy with it that I'm not minding the forecast of mid 50 weather for the next few days since my bones have thawed out and I have had a taste of spring weather to come. I noticed today that some trees are budding out, tulips are coming up, etc. However, I was shocked at the electric bill I got last week!  I didn't even have a bill that high living in the desert. I know it was brutally cold and having basically a wall of windows didn't help.  Also, my apartment faces the north so I never get any sun in the house to warm it up thus relying totally on the furnace. It was noticeably warmer in the office area which has a west window with sun than in the rest of the house. I don't have any gas in the house at all so it is all electric but my water heater doesn't use a lot and let's face it, the kitchen stove isn't used that much since I do so little actual cooking.  I admit that I don't hesitate to put on another sweater and turn up the thermostat if I am cold. Oh well.....

To catch you up on the pain management classes in which foods and chair yoga were the topics:

Foods: There is no scientific tests but enough studies have been done to support the theory that certain foods promote inflammation in the body. The bad foods are fast foods, processed foods, the wrong kind of carbs, wrong kind of fats, sugar - all foods I love. An interesting comment was "We may inherit certain genes but what we eat can make the inflammation better or worse."  They recommend going back to "whole foods" which is going back to eating like we did when we were kids. We bought raw meat and cooked it. We ate vegetables out of the garden and mom canned them herself. We made our own bread, etc. I like the theory but I don't think it is realistic for me when cooking for one person. He suggested I can cook up all the stuff on one day, freeze it and eat it during the week but that's more work than I am willing to do. We agreed that there are some things I can do by making better choices in what I get to eat and I will try to work on those.  And I AM NOT giving up my diet caffeine free coke!!!!!!!! He also mentioned that buying deli mean in the deli section where they slice it has less preservatives than what is pre-packaged. Other interesting information was: Stress alone can alter your metabolism. Eat 3 meals a day at regular times is a must for good metabolism. Meals should last at least 20 minutes. Organic pasture butter is better for you than margarine.

Chair Yoga: I have mixed feeling about this. I know the stretching from yoga is good for the body. I cannot get down on the floor so the idea of chair-yoga is appealing where you sit in a chair or stand but don't get down on the floor. There are not very many certified chair-yoga instructors in the area and some of them have a waiting list of people to get into the classes. We went through a lot of the "poses" and I found out that some work for me and a couple of them really hurt my back. She said "don't do this if it causes you a problem" but you don't know if it will or not until you do it. At the time, I didn't know if it was simply stretching unused muscles or hurting the back but now I know that I can't bend 90 degrees forward at the waist or rotate the body at the waist.

This week's class is "Guided Imagery" which I became very good at when flying every week while being a "white knuckle flyer". The company I worked for paid good money for me to see a therapist and learn how to do guided imagery in order to get on a plane. Next week is T'ai Chi which I am leery of after the Chair-Yoga.

That's all for today - time to go for a walk in the warm sunshine....