In this episode of the Body Tinkerer…

207.4lbs

Look at that! I’m nearly down to my lowest weight, last reached about two months ago! I continued taking walks about every other day last week, which feels pretty good. Food choices are also going well.

However, it seems like I can’t shake this lower back pain for the life of me. (And believe me, I’ve tried to literally shake and shimmy and twist it away, and that just seems to make it worse.) It sidelined me from a walk last week, and again this morning, since it was so bad last night it hurt every time sat down in a chair or tried to get back up again.

Among other remedies, so far I’ve done the following: periodic stretching throughout the day, no more heels, no more period in case that was making it worse, more chiropractic adjustments (my neck sure does feel good now!), taking a week off Yoga, ibuprofen, heat packs, and ice packs. It won’t go away. It sticks around like a bad cold.

I’m beginning to think that I am unconsciously doing some horrible back-throwing-out thing without even knowing it. So I’ve started trying to catch myself in the act of doing bad posture things doing the day and correcting them when I can. Arching my back while I sit typing away at work? I try to hold my stomach muscles tighter to take up the slack. Locking my knees while I stand, hyper-extending my lower back? Keep knees soft and tilt the pelvis ever so slightly forward like a good Yoga student. Lean forward toward the computer screen? Square my shoulders and sit up straight as a church pew. But it’s so hard to keep it all up! I am going nuts with how this back pain is making life difficult.

It really feels like my body is a collection of bad mechanics. I know that weight loss will help a lot with this, because it will simply remove a lot of the strain from various joints and structures. But trying to get there gradually is hard when the squeaky wheel is my lower back, which so happens to also be the universal joint on which almost all body mechanics seem to depend. I don’t know if all my occasional tinkering (stomach in, pelvis tucked, shoulders back!) is working. If only my job could suddenly morph from deskbound writer to bedbound laze-about, I’d be set!

I suppose for now I’m going to keep my head up (stomach in, pelvis tucked, shoulders back!), my choices healthy, and my walks mindful. I’ll be a good little semi-vegetarian aspiring Yogi, with a touch of the reluctant mechanic thrown in for good measure, and hope for the best. I’d love some advice, if anyone has dealt with anything similar!