Cat fun

I posted some video of the cats (well Sonny) playing with the red light.  Ruby has no interest what-so-ever and doesn't get what the fuss is about.  The other two, seem to enjoy playing. Sonny especially. We got the laser light in hopes that we could help Ziggy become more active. He is getting older, he will be 10 this year. And he is overweight. The vet had said not to worry too much about his weight as long as he seemed active, happy, etc. However I know that with cats, as with people, carrying too much weight is not a good thing. And we have noticed that he is starting to have trouble jumping on the bed. So, in order to help him, we have put the cats on a diet. We were using self-feeders, which is very convenient - for us, and for "piggy" to eat as much as he wanted. Ziggy is the one that has a problem with over-eating.  Ruby is if anything underweight.  Sonny is very close to ideal weight for his size.  He also likes to eat a lot, so he could end up with a problem if he doesn't get enough exercise.
So how do you put 3 cats on a diet? Well, I researched on the internet (google is my friend), and decided we would get food that is for overweight adult cats, and mix in with their regular food.  It isn't good to suddenly switch foods without allowing a period for their systems to get used to it. We moved the food upstairs to the kitchen where the water bowl is. Instead of leaving the self feeders out all day, we are now monitoring how much they are eating. And we are limitting the treats.
Exercise is also important. So I bought several toys to try to see if I could get them motivated to play and run around. The laser light is a big hit! Both Ziggy and Sonny will run around and chase it - especially if the room is dark so the light shows up that much more. The light is motorized so you can turn it on and set it down and it will flash the light around the room, but they seem to like it more if we move the light. It becomes more interactive that way. Sonny really loves it. M thinks that maybe he is still young enough to need something like this to help him come out of his shell.  Plus there are times that we hear him going around the house crying looking for someone to play with him.  Ziggy plays with him, but then gets tired out before Sonny does.  So I think the light is helping Sonny as much as Ziggy, even though the original intent was to get it for Ziggy.  Ziggy will run around like crazy chasing the light for a few min, then we can tell he gets worn out and flops down, and then just watches.  M says it is age and the extra weight.  Ok, so I can relate.
Ziggy is my buddy. If playing games with him and putting him on a diet will extend his life and make it more enjoyable then it is more than worth it.

The ride and recovery, and knees and things

So we survived the MS Bike Ride.  M did the whole 25 miles - she claims she actually did more like 27 miles due to getting lost with another MS Biker that had trouble following the course.  I only made it less than 3 miles.  I did at least 2.5, but less than 3.  So I guess that makes me a 10%-er.  Kind of fitting in a way.  I am a leftie - like supposedly 10 % of the population.  I am gay - another supposed 10% of the population.  Who knows there is probably lots of other things I am that matches only about 10% of the population. 
Saturday was extremely hot - it was almost 90 at 6:30 when we arrived to register.  Plus the heat index.  The route was all rolling hills, and not gentle ones.  I don't do well with hills.  Especially steep ones.  My knees can't handle it.  So after pedaling what I could and walking the bike up the worst of two really big hills, I was on the side of the road catching my breath.  Wondering the wisdom of even being out here in the heat, when a SAG vehicle came by to ask if I was ok.  I took him up on his offer of a ride back to the start/finish.  He said no shame in calling it quits.  Which I didn't feel any shame.  I got out and I struggled and I did what I could handle.  If I had kept going, I could have gotten myself in a serious mess.  M asked me if I was sure I didn't want to keep going, and I said no.  I did the right thing for me.  I did what I set out to accomplish. I raised over 1175, and I went out and tried.  Next year, we are opting for a "flatter" event.  Flat and gentle hills I can handle.
Other than trying to ride on a day that was way too hot - temp & humidity, I've been enjoying being back on my bike.  I am making an effort to get out and get more exercise and to eat healthier.  I know that if I was to lose some weight it would help with my knees.  Course that too is a catch 22.  If I felt better, I would feel more like exercising, if I lost some weight my knees would feel better, making it easier to exercise to lose the weight to feel better to exercise.  Oh well, it is easy to procrastinate, and find excuses.  It is time to just get busy and "do" and stop waiting for something to magically happen. 
I am trying to decide whether I want to plan to have a knee replacement next year or not.  I want to lose some weight and get physically stronger, and get my knee especially physically stronger before doing that.  Originally my osteo wanted me to wait until I was 52 at least.  Now he seems to think I'm a candidate now, whenever I want to do it he will refer me (he doesn't do that surgery, he does the non-invasive stuff, and surgical alternatives).  So seems to me he is saying it's getting time to do it.  My concern is that I want it to help give me more of my life back.  But what if it doesn't? Not being in pain all the time would be a great thing.  If it gave me the ability to exercise and not constantly evaluate things as to whether or not my knee will allow me to do this or that... those would all be pluses.  On the other hand, I've also read and heard it isn't for people who are looking for some miraculous cure, or that it won't eliminate all the problems, just will help with the pain, that with a replacement you aren't suppose to run or jump (ok, not that I do either now anyway), but I also can't kneel, crouch, etc.  One reason I was always told to wait, and hold off is that the life span on the knees (the plastics) is only 10-15 years, and since you can only replace the knee 2x per knee in a person's lifetime I didn't want to end up not being able to walk at the end of my days.  The other thing I keep thinking is that if I keep putting it off and wait for some magic time frame to arrive, what if I wait too long, and MS strikes and I can't walk anyway.  So, I've decided I just have to determine if it will help me today. if so, then I should explore doing it.  If it won't help me today, then I should wait.

Diet, Bikes and exercise

This summer I was full of good intentions.  I joined weight watchers and started counting points with my daughter J (24).  She did great, the first week I think she lost 10lb.  I say it is easier when you are younger.  I started out pretty good, I lost about 5 lb the first week, and gained 1 or 2 back then lost again, and then it seemed like the bottom started dropping out of my world.  First I found out that my blood sugar levels are elevated.  Need to watch my diet and exercise more.  It seems my fasting blood sugar is hovering around 130 which is high.  My A1C is 6.0 +/- is not so bad.  So basically I need to start watching what I eat.  Went to some diabetes education and nutrition classes.  Learned a lot so that was good.  But it seemed like I kept going to the Dr and hearing things I didn't want to hear - and I rebelled as a result.  So I sort of was a weight watcher drop out and went on and ate unhealthy stuff - part of which I suppose was a poor poor pity me approach to all the news I was getting.  Strangely enough when I had the blood tests 3 months after eating even worse than I was the 3 months prior (when i was "watching" what I ate), my fasting blood glucose was down a couple points and my A1C dropped about .3 points.  During the diabetes classes I had my blood sugar tested (in the afternoon not long after eating a not that healthy lunch and a snack of fruit) and my blood glucose was only 86.  Apparently the thought now is that my liver is producing glucose while I sleep and then my body doesn't know what to do with it.

So anyway, fast forward a couple months, now I've been diagnosed with MS.  My neurologist tells me I need to watch my diet and need to exercise and be more healthy.  My regular Dr tells me I need to watch my diet and exercise to watch that my blood sugar doesn't get out of control.  I'm seeing a trend here.  Everyone wants me to suddenly become more healthy.  Actually so do I.  I have pretty bad Osteoarthritis (bone on bone) in both my knees.  My orthopedic surgeon says I should lose some weight and it would help my knees. Personally I know that when I am exercising and am at least a few pounds lighter then I feel better.  So its time to do something about all this again.  So my goal now is to get back to watching what I eat.  I like food so eliminating it all is not an option, I need to do something that I can live with long term not a quick fix.  So I need to start watching portion sizes - that I believe is the big thing.  And go for more of the healthy stuff and limit the not so healthy.    It won't be an over night change but I think I am ready to tackle this again.  I was doing pretty good before I started finding out about all these other health issues.

The other part of this is exercise.  M and I went bike shopping on Saturday.  Learned about what kind of bikes would work for what we wanted to do.  And unfortunately we could only find one such bike in stock, so she bought a new bike.  On Sunday we went with W and took the dog to a local place with bike/walking paths and M and I took turns with the bike, and the dog.  We all enjoyed being out and moving around.  The weather was great.  I ended up doing about 6.5 miles on the bike - not bad for not having been on one for several years.  Now I'm all revved up to get my own bike.  I ordered it yesterday, they say they will have it by the end of the week for me to use it next weekend.  This is going to be a good thing.  The biking felt great.  My knees were a little stiff yesterday, but actually the exercise is good for the arthritis.  The only other thing I noticed was that I need to bring more water - I was very thirsty and finished my bottle and part of W's.  I have trouble with hills if they are very steep, still getting the hang of shifting down and I seem to run out of steam.  Also seems to relate to the dry mouth feeling and needing more water.

I think the biking thing is going to be a great activity for all of us.  W loves it, he's been biking for several years and was very into it in Colorado (they are more geared for biking and have more of the bike paths on the major roads etc) than we are in Pennsylvania.  I think he's glad to see us getting into not just so that he has some one to go biking with but also because he thinks we both need to get more active. (we do.)

SO... by the end of the week I should have my own new bike, and I'm pretty excited about that!!!