I have started getting manicures and pedicures again. I stopped for a long, long year, but now that I've gone back I remember why I loved them so. There is just something so lovely about sitting there getting your nails cleaned and clipped and shaped, with all the colors to choose from, and admiring your glossy colorful nails afterward... and that time to aimlessly scroll through your phone, or flip idly through gossip rags, or (more my life these days) respond to work emails while doing grocery shopping while paying off bills, that makes me feel very productive even while I'm getting pampered. For my first manicure in probably nearly two years, I upgraded to the salt scrub and moisturizing paraffin wax to try to slough off my dry skin and treat my hands. All the hand washing and alcohol sanitizing of this past year has been rough on my already-prone-to-dryness skin.
I went to run an errand a couple of weeks back and ended up buying a super comfortable floral dress at Zara. Viscose, I am a huge fan. I am also pleasantly
surprised to discover that I am back at my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm
not sure how that happened because I was really despairing over losing
the remaining 5 or 6 pounds this summer, and I certainly have not
stepped up my exercise regime, but I am fitting back into all of my old
clothes (well, with some exceptions especially around the armpit and
belly area). It has been a nice surprise, which has inspired me to boldly venture back into my dusty wardrobe for sheath dresses and slacks that I hadn't touched in well over a year (I ballooned so quickly during my last pregnancy that the entirety of my wardrobe very quickly became inaccessible), and also started to shop for jeans and shorts and other waistband-specific clothing that I had previously culled from my closet. I may have been a little too enthusiastic about my current physique though, because I splurged on a pair of Frame jeans that very well may have been a size too ambitious. Let's face it - the weight may be back to what it was, but my hips, rib cage, and belly are not what or where they used to be.
While the weight loss has been a positive and pleasant surprise, the diastasis recti I continue to struggle with has been a huge spot of denial that I am currently working up the courage and energy to address. I just feel like I need a lot of mental energy in addition to physical energy to focus on this, and I don't have it in me to be shuttling in additional physical therapy appointments or doing the actual exercises on top of everything else. Of course this item should be the priority over everything else, but of course it's also the one I most want to avoid.
I am kind of addressing it by going to a post-natal pilates class on Fridays at a lovely, intimate studio on the south side, which, while time consuming and inconvenient, makes me really happy. I'm not sure how much the pilates is helping or hurting (the tricky part about diastastis is that a lot of exercises are actually bad for it, because when done wrong is quite harmful, and there is a lot of conflicting advice, even among pilates instructors and supposed experts), but I do know to always be careful on my exhales and to focus on my pelvic floor. Last Friday, I knew it was Friday, and I knew I had my usual class, but I just completely forgot to go. I don't even know/cannot even explain what happened, but I looked up at 11 AM and realized I had just completely missed it.
I also freaked myself out, likely through over-thinking, in recent weeks about diabetes. There had been a few instances where I had had dessert, maybe with a glass of wine, and then either crashed spectacularly, or else felt so nauseous, that I started to fear something else was at play. Granted, each of the three or four times that I crashed was when I was working very late at night and pretty tired from an early morning start of about 6 am, so it was hard to tell what factor was driving what.
I went to see the endocrinologist last week to better understand my risk of type 2 diabetes and whether I could be prediabetic. I got this cool/crazy sensor stuck to my arm which helps me track my blood sugar simply by scanning my phone next to it. The sensor works for 14 days and helps you easily track your sugar levels. I wish I could have used this during pregnancy and avoided all of the pinpricks!! Unfortunately there are some chemicals in the sensor that make it inadvisable for pregnant women. It has been largely reassuring to have the sensor - it seems my blood sugar is always within normal range and actually the times I felt nauseous were when my blood sugar was too low. I go back in two weeks to better understand this data and to test if I have a "fatty liver," which is apparently one of the main warning signs.
No comments:
Post a Comment