Remember how I said in my last post that I thought I'd pulled a muscle in my calf? Well I'd taken it really really easy that week, and this Monday my calf was feeling much better. I was all excited to get back to working out on Monday and not even 10 minutes into our plyometric heavy workout I feel the pop and seize again and down I go. Joy.

Now that I'm in PT for my shoulder I went ahead and used the opportunity to talk to my therapist about this just to see exactly what it is and make sure I haven't done anything permanent too it. Good news, I didn't pull it. Bad news, my therapist (who is the sweetest girl ever) said that I have an incredibly angry muscle. There's a knot in my calf about the size of my fist (and a somewhat smaller one in the other calf), and she advised that I stop all plyometric movements until I can get these (essentially) permanent charlie horses in my calves to release. So I've not worked out (aside from my PT) since Monday, and I've spent a lot of time with my heating pad wrapped around my calf. The knots have become less painful and a little more pliable, but they are definitely still there. I hope that I'll be able to start working out again soon, but knowing me I'll get impatient and push too hard too early and be right back where I am now. In the mean time I'm focusing more on my diet, which has been going well.

I've lost about 15lbs so far and I continue to feel better. I spoke with one of my doctors yesterday about how since I've cut simple carbohydrates out of my diet I've noticed that my appetite in general has really gone down. I asked if this was a placebo effect or if there was something actually happening there. He told me that since I'm not spiking and crashing my blood sugar over and over throughout the day that my body is at a much steadier pace and I'm able to better feel my bodies energy needs, as opposed to constantly trying to balance my blood sugar out. I feel like I should have guessed that. It seems like a pretty obvious effect of not eating simple sugars. So anyone out there thinking about kicking the sugar habit, it sucks at first... a lot; but once you give yourself enough time to get equalized you really do feel better. Less cravings, and a much steadier level of energy.

On the PT front, my sessions continue to hurt like hell. We continue to focus on retraining muscles that haven't been used correctly in decades. My external rotator muscles are so incredibly weak that I can only do the bare minimum on exercises. My therapist said that its unusual in that most people don't have the issues in the places where I do, but it makes sense given that I was a swimmer for so long and during the years of my life where I went through all my growing and hormonal changes. Posture continues to be one of the most important things for me to practice and improve upon, which has been hard because my shoulder blades really don't like to sit where they're supposed to sit. Instead they like to fall down.

Well I'm just rambling now.... TL;DR talk to your doctor if something hurts, posture is important.