Ferg's BACK!

For those of you playing along at home, you may remember that around a year and a half ago, I developed a protruding disc (at L5, no less) in my back. It didn't make my back hurt, it pinched a nerve and made my leg hurt. When it became excruciating just getting in and out of the car, I went to the doctor, who told me the aforementioned things after some prodding and MRIing. I went to physical therapy until the insurance switched, I bought a back pillow, I did exercises, I took lots of drugs. Nothing really helped. I eventually got to the point where I didn't need the drugs anymore, but I figured I would have to live with this for the rest of my life.

Apparently (hopefully), I was wrong. One of the first things I have to do at work is count what's left, which involves bending over and getting down on my knees and bending over some more. This had always aggravated the pain, so I always started the work day off right (there wasn't really any alternative). Last week, I noticed that my back wasn't hurting after I did this. I also noticed that I had to do my lone remaining exercise (hands in the small of my back and leaning back for 5 seconds) a lot less than I used to. This made me very, very happy. But I don't know why it's happening.

I have some theories. At the beginning of this year, I swore to myself that I would take better care of myself, so I don't drop dead of a heart attack next week. I knew that giving up everything bad for me would not work, so I thought that I would try one thing at a time. The first thing I did was to stop eating junk at work. You may know (since I mention it in every frickin' blog post) that I am a baker, and there is plenty of junk to choose from. I have actually managed to stick to this, save for licking my fingers every now and then, but I don't do that as much as I used to. This move, all by itself, caused me to lose 7 pounds, and pretty much keep it off for the last 3 weeks or so. I have been trying to keep my back a lot straighter lately, and I shoveled snow for a week, but that hurt my back really bad. It was right after the week of snow shoveling that I started to feel better. So maybe I was strengthening my back with the shoveling, and the weight loss is also helping. I don't know.

I do know that I have to take another step to lose more weight, as I am still a fat slob. I have to try doing my meals differently. I tend to take a large meal to work for lunch, then I don't feel like doing anything after that. So the next step would be portion control, which is going to be hard because I like to eat. I usually give myself a bigger portion than I give to Sarah at dinnertime, so I could start there, by giving both of us the same portion.

What about exercise? I hear you cry. Don't rush me. I'm on my feet 8 hours a day, exercise is the last thing on my mind when I get home. But I will get there in time. Still hog-tied to the internets though, that's a problem. I have no idea how to take a smaller portion of that.