A rough and wild week

On 3/17 Owen started having random bruising and petechia.  We took him to a doctor and they recommended we keep an eye on it and take him to the emergency room if it spread.  It didn't appear to get any worse for the next day, but then on Saturday it seemed to spread, so we made a Monday morning appointment for a blood draw.  Test results came back Tuesday and we were told to take him to OHSU's Pediatric ER immediately.  His blood platelet count was 5,000 (normal is 140k to 500k, so he had around 1 or 2% of the normal platelets).  The doctor later told me it was the lowest platelet count he'd ever seen.

We immediately jumped in the car and went up to Portland.  After a few hours, the doctors there decided that Owen had ITP, which is an immune response where the body attacks its own platelets.  There is no treatment, just give the body time to sort itself out.

Today we took Owen for a follow up blood test to confirm his platelet count is rising.  Hopefully this will be the end of it.  

In the middle of all of that, I had a stomach virus and my cell phone died.  So nothing was going our way.  But it looks like we are coming out the other side of this, I just have to get back on track (my diet and exercise went out the window, mostly because I was sick).  

199.4 - mostly better

Not sure if this weight loss is permanent, I was definitely eating less for a week while I was sick.  But I could also still be dehydrated and once I start lifting weights again, I'm curious to see if my weight bounces up.

But I feel mostly better and today will be the first day I'm back to eating 100% normal.  I went to BJJ last night, but kept it moderate.  Just trying to get back in the swing of things.  

Took a BF reading this morning, it said 20.1%, so I'm also curious to see if that changes with hydration levels.  It's possible I lost some muscle, but I don't think I lost pounds of muscle.  I'll check again in a few days and see if both my weight and BF return to their pre-sickness figures (202 lbs and around 18.2% BF).

199.6 and sick

I'm just about over it, but I've been sick for about 4 days.  One silver lining is that I was under 200 lbs this morning, although I expect my weight to go back up to 202 or so in the next week.  But I'll take that brief moment of seeing 199 on the scale just to know it's possible.

First ice bath

Tried cold shower, couldn't do it.  Ran cold tub, did 10 minutes but only got half my upper body under.  We'll see where this goes.  Definitely was breathing hard and started sweating.

201.8 and 19% BF

Good news and bad news.  About a week ago I noticed my sodium intake was high (from looking at my food log in the FitBit site), with about 4500mg on some days.  I realized the majority of that was the "all natural" sliced turkey if been eating daily.  Salt is natural, but I didn't realize that about 250mg per ounce of turkey had been added.  I was eat 4 to 6 oz a day.  

So on Monday I switch to chicken breast that I baked myself.  Looks like the lower sodium made me drop some water weight, as I was suddenly down to 291.8 this morning.

The only bad news is that my BF % rose, since I guess those extra pounds of water were making my numbers look better than there were

Choked a guy out & Owen got a Gi (pic)

I choked my first person totally out today.  It was a guy who used to be better than me, but he stopped coming in as much, so I've caught up.  He didn't want to tap, so I left him face down and sleeping.

It was fueled by ego on both sides, but I'm happy to finally be coming out on top of those kinds of battles.

204.2 and 18.3% BF

Weight keeps bouncing around but hitting new lows every week or so.  Got my Omron scale and had a body fat of 18.3%.  

It gave some other numbers, like Visceral Fat of 8, BMI of 26, and a body age of 59 (not sure what that is about).  My reduced calorie diet might be giving me s low resting metabolism and effecting the body age calculation.  It gave me a resting metabolic rate of 1950 calories.

205.4

Had a week of no weigh loss, started to lose the drive and focus.  That's when feelings of "I'm still doing the same thing but it's not working anymore" start to creep in.  But when I really look at it, I'm not going at it with the same intensity.  I fell into a routine, cut corners a bit here and there.  Was going for 2 or 3 miles runs, then dropped that to 1 or 1.5 mile runs, etc.  

So yesterday I stepped it back up and am feeling good again.  The scale rewarded me for my efforts, even though obviously I was still losing weight before, I was probably just retaining water or something.  

Either way, things are going good, it will be great to get under 200 lbs for the first time since I crossed 200 lbs at around 13 years old.  

For my birthday I'm getting an Omron full body composition scale (scale with handheld part to give more accurate body fat %).  It's supposed to arrive today, so I'm excited to finally start tracking BF.

Ran 8:26 mile

I don't usually try for fastest 1 mile times, and my jogging pace is usually 9:30 or 10 minute miles (or worse).  So, I was happy with an 8:26 mile.  It was raining and my legs were sore, so I'm hoping to improve that time soon

207

Overall, feeling great and making good progress.  There are days, like today, where I feel the down side of calorie restriction/deficit, but it usually doesn't last long and I just try to keep some light activity going.  

I'm feeling the increased energy, focus and improved attitude when I workout or train BJJ.  I've been able to make some real progress in the last month or so, finally hit some collar chokes last night on a guy who is pretty equal to me (for months we've rolled mostly to stalemates, but I caught him twice last night).  

Things are looking good, if I can keep this up for another 2 months, I should be pretty close to my goal of 190.  Then I want to get a body fat percentage taken to see where I am.