Alligatorob's Diary

I think the actual time of ours, late November, dates back to the US Civil war when Abraham Lincoln declared a holiday of thanksgiving for winning some battles.
Days of thanksgiving were kind of common in more religious times, I think. You want to give the people a half-holiday without upsetting the puritans? Call it a day of thanksgiving and everyone´s happy because it´s officially about gods but people can still feast. That makes US Thanksgiving not a harvest festival, by the way, which explains the timing. Canadian Thanksgiving IS officially a harvest festival as far as I can tell.
 
No festival here Rob. We used to have lots of religious feasts October , all saints day , all soul days etc etc but that seems to have died a death although I'm sure they still exist. No feasting on them though but lots of praying years ago .
 
since Washington, Thanksgiving was celebrated, but before Lincoln, there was no set date. Lincoln's proclamation set the date as the last Thursday in November which was later amended to the 4th Thursday.

"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving..."
 
It was a good day, I ate well, exercised and feel pretty good tonight. I spent an hour and 50 minutes at the gym and almost another hour doing my physical therapy exercises, lots of exercise today. I can tell that the physical therapy is making my shoulder stronger, problem is it doesn't hurt any less. I am mostly getting better at figuring out how to exercise and do things without hurting too much... If its not better in a few weeks I guess I may need to get an MRI scan, the doctor says there is not much more he can do without it. Damned rotator cuff!

I have decided to up my calories a little, now I will target 1,600, about where I was pre-surgery. My weight has been down a very small amount, and I don't want to be losing weight. We'll see how it goes.
Days of thanksgiving were kind of common in more religious times, I think. You want to give the people a half-holiday without upsetting the puritans? Call it a day of thanksgiving and everyone´s happy because it´s officially about gods but people can still feast. That makes US Thanksgiving not a harvest festival, by the way, which explains the timing. Canadian Thanksgiving IS officially a harvest festival as far as I can tell.
I think our Thanksgiving has a kind of complex origin, according to the History Channel "on Thursday, November 26. In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations " Thanksgiving 2020 . However, I am not convinced the connection is very real, I kind of think the whole Plymouth/Wampanoag story was not connected to the holiday until much more recently.
No festival here Rob. We used to have lots of religious feasts October , all saints day , all soul days etc etc but that seems to have died a death although I'm sure they still exist. No feasting on them though but lots of praying years ago .
That's interesting, so is there some connection between our Halloween and Thanksgiving?
Lincoln's proclamation set the date as the last Thursday in November which was later amended to the 4th Thursday.
I suspect that if more of my southern redneck friends and relatives knew about the Lincoln connect there would be less celebration!
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    142.5 KB · Views: 0
Congratulations on raising calories in maintenance - that's great news! Sorry to hear the rotator cuff isn't getting better - did you get that crossbow permit?
 
Halloween is the eve of all saints day, not originally a day of thanksgiving either. I hope you can get that rotator cuff problem fixed; human shoulders are a marvel but sadly easy to damage.
 
It sounds like getting an MRI might be a good idea, Rob. I think it's almost always best to know exactly what the problem is. Upping your calories to at least 1600 also sounds like a very good idea.
 
Today was a good day, I ate well, got some exercise and feel good tonight (except for the shoulder anyway). All I did was my physical therapy exercise, but I have increased that a bit so its a little closer to a real workout, light one anyway. I slipped on the stairs tonight and caught my fall with my left arm, the bad one. Now the shoulder really hurts. I don't think it did it any great damage, but it will hurt a bit more for a while.

I was down another pound this morning, did not expect it, now I am down 2 lbs from my previous low so I will stick to the higher calories for a while and see what happens. Hard as it is to say this, but I really know I should not lose a lot more weight. Seeing the scale going down is still kind of exciting... This makes me down a full 12 stone since I started here last year, a milestone I never imagined I would make.
Congratulations on raising calories in maintenance - that's great news! Sorry to hear the rotator cuff isn't getting better - did you get that crossbow permit?
Thanks Err, I think maintenance is going well, wish the shoulder was doing as well. I got the acceptance for the crossbow permit, but cannot actually get it until next year, but its a done deal now. All I have to do is figure out where and how to use it! Have you ever bow hunted? My only experience is with the crossbow for gators.
Halloween is the eve of all saints day, not originally a day of thanksgiving either. I hope you can get that rotator cuff problem fixed; human shoulders are a marvel but sadly easy to damage.
All of our holidays have interesting origins, some are more complicated than others. To be honest I believe I first damaged the shoulder long long ago, when I was 15. It has recurred from time to time, I suspect the weight lifting aggravated it this time, but who knows...
It sounds like getting an MRI might be a good idea, Rob. I think it's almost always best to know exactly what the problem is.
I am not going to give up on the physical therapy and exercise just yet, but if its not better, or gets worse in the next couple of weeks I am going to do the MRI thing.
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    143.9 KB · Views: 1
It's good to see you raising your calories again: you're basically reverse dieting at the moment and I hope it'll help your metabolism get back to something like normal. Would probably be helpful for your muscle activity as well; I'm assuming your body still tries to get you to slump outside of exercise in order to conserve energy.
 
Today was a good day, I ate well, exercised and feel good tonight. Did an hour and 20 something minutes in the gym and my physical therapy stuff. I did feel pretty tied after the gym work, and did not stay as long as usual. I could have safely, I was the only person at the gym when I left this morning.
It's good to see you raising your calories again: you're basically reverse dieting at the moment and I hope it'll help your metabolism get back to something like normal. Would probably be helpful for your muscle activity as well; I'm assuming your body still tries to get you to slump outside of exercise in order to conserve energy.
Thanks LaMa, interesting insights. I looked "reverse dieting" up and I guess that is what I have been doing, without knowing it until today. Yeah maybe my body does slump outside of exercise a bit. I have felt tired more than I did 40 pounds back, at a time when I was doing at least as much exercise and eating a lot less...
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    155.4 KB · Views: 1
Makes sense: your calories are still very low for a grown man so your body tries to conserve energy. But you'll get there.
 
Today was a relatively good day, I exercised and feel good now. My calories were a bit under plan, had an unexpected evening interruption and could not find good food. Not bad though.
Makes sense: your calories are still very low for a grown man so your body tries to conserve energy. But you'll get there.
Thanks LaMa, I am working on it!
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    152.5 KB · Views: 0
It was a good day, I ate well, exercised and feel good tonight. Actually I ate a bit late, loaded calories into my evening "snack", but came out fine for the day. Went to physical therapist today, no real progress but I will stick to it for a couple more weeks and hope for the best.
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    152.5 KB · Views: 2
It was a good day, I ate well, did my physical therapy exercises and feel good tonight.
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    125.8 KB · Views: 0
I am now curious what kind of exercises you do - always looking for new ideas to steal...
Took me a little while to figure out how to get it into a pdf.

I modify a little, one thing is I always exercise both shoulders, the good one with the bad. And I add some weight to some of them.

The one entitled Rob's exercise program 1 is what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks, the other "Rob's program" is new, just got it Saturday. I do both, but there is fair overlap.

As I say this is low impact exercise designed to help the shoulder, but it takes a while to get through and I try to push things to make it harder.
 

Attachments

  • Rob's program (1).pdf
    306.7 KB · Views: 3
  • Rob's exercise program 1.pdf
    227.3 KB · Views: 1
The kid doing the "standing row with resistance" shows terrible form (the written description is fine though), I wonder why they included that. Otherwise all very familiar, thanks for taking the time to get it into PDFs! If you can do all those without pain and without evasive movements you're well on your way.
 
It was a good day, I ate well, got some physical therapy exercise and I feel good tonight.
If you can do all those without pain and without evasive movements you're well on your way.
Not without pain, but the pain is bearable and it's usually less after than before the exercises. In fact when my shoulder is hurting sometimes I do the exercises to relieve the pain. Problem is so far it is not getting any better, but no worse so I will just give it some more time.
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    154.3 KB · Views: 0
Just posted the entry I typed yesterday, apparently did not get it posted.

Today was also a good day, I ate well, exercised and feel good tonight. Did 2 hours in the gym and it felt good. However I skipped the PT exercises, will get back on them tomorrow. It is Pearl Harbor Day here in the US, not a date remembered so much now. For those who may not know it's the date Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in 1941, bringing the US into WWII.
 

Attachments

  • Printable Nutrition Report for Alligatorob.pdf
    144.7 KB · Views: 0
I feel like I should thank the Japanese for that, awful as it must've been for the people on Hawaii. No knowing how long the war would've lasted otherwise, and even if it had ended with Hitler losing the Russians would likely not have left Austria in 1955. Or ever. Of course JFK wouldn't have entered politics without the war either; wonder what would've become of him.
 
Back
Top