"Side effect" of training: water retention/bloatin

[Ava Odoéména]

Like I mentioned on the introduction thread, I do jump rope. Apart from riding the bike and walking everywhere, this is my first "real" physical activity, I'm (still) overweight, kilos coming off very, very slowly. I've always had difficulty keeping slim, veganism didn't change anything for me here. I eat between 2500 and 3500 kcal a day.

Skipping / jump rope is my first hard training experience and I'm enjoying it a lot, but one strange side effect is that I bloat and retain a lot of water in my body, making me look puffy. When I stop to train for three days it normalizes, when I train, next day I'm ballooning. I have no experience with this stuff, so I don't know if this is normal or not. My knees have been fine since the initial, scary injury and I can feel my muscles developing all over my body, it's a great feeling.

Another side effect I have is slight headaches, but these seem to be fading as the body adapts. Sometimes I can hear my blood rushing by my ears in a very high pitch sound, but this may be related to the increased osmotic pressure from the water retention.

[Ava Odoéména]

Yesterday I trained very intensely and today I woke up with a continued dizziness/fatigue and a feeling as if I have cotton in my head. Foggy somehow. That bothered me a lot, since I'm more of a "mind person" (my sense of self is like I'm sitting in my brain with the body being a space ship I operate) and anything interfering with my thinking structures is even less welcome than physical injury. I don't drink alcohol or other drugs because of that for example, but I'm not straight edge about it. I'd have no problem using hemp as anti-cortisol medication for example.

I'm wondering if the energy from the bounce after landing on my feet each time, travels up the spine to be partially absorbed by the skull may be causing my brain to have a slight contrecoup effect (the impact to the head can cause the brain to move within the skull, causing the brain to impact the interior of the skull opposite the head-impact). But then, I should have this more often, but it doesn't happen every time.

I didn't do training because of this today, even though I wanted to.

What I like a lot about doing my training on a fixed spot in a public park is that as I'm starting to be known and while doing my skipping, sometimes people approach me. Yesterday a woman with Korean migratory background and the claimed age of 61 asked me for the rope! She was impressive for her age and showed me a new step. She also told me that she suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes, and I tried to explain to her that with a vegan diet she'd be off all her medication in about three weeks. But I'm afraid I didn't really "get through" to her with the info, I suppose she was probably doubting that something as simple as a change in diet could have such profound effects.

[Ava Odoéména]

Some of my symptoms like dizziness and cottonheadedness are solved: dehydration. My sense of thirst is even lower than the common low level. Given I'm still new to the glorious world of fitness, I'm still learning to balance my body. But I'm drinking much more now, especially since it's so hot! Love, love, LOVE summer.

I have some days with very intense training, involving skipping, HTFU cycling through forests on hilly, sandy paths (fuck me) and swimming in rivers! I had completely forgotten what good swimmer I used to be - apart from that I think it's lovely that some rivers are swimmable again. I'm very enthusiastic with how my body and stamina is developing, given that a couple of months ago, I was a "flesh" memory card to my PC.

I overtook some guys today on a hill with the bike and they tried to catch up with me but I didn't let them:-) Was wearing my vegan T-shirt. Pwned! :-) Maybe I will make a new T-shirt with this text on the back: You just got owned by a vegan girl. Hahahaha.