Friday, October 31, 2014

Friday

So, I'm up a bit - 154.2 - but the walking seems to be paying off, because my clothes all fit. I'm wearing my Gap size 10 skinny jeans, and they're loose around the waist and hips. So I guess I don't need to be getting all weirded out about it. I will continue to try to get my eating away from the candy-laden mess it's been for the past couple of months, because, health, you know, but the muscle-weighs-more thing is surely true.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • scrambled eggs
  • 2 turkey sausage links
  • salad with dressing
  • 3 pats of butter
  • macadamia nuts - not sure how many
  • burger with bacon and cheddar cheese
  • fries with ketchup
  • several dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • 2 potato chips
I think that was it. We were out picking Elizabeth up at the airport last night instead of sitting around eating, so that's good. For what it's worth, I was at Trace ketones last night at bedtime, and have been having a mild set of digestive symptoms this morning, which may have dropped my weight even further.

Sleep was not good. I woke up several times and had to resort to audio to get back to sleep. I'm a little ragged this morning - could be worse, but not great. I don't think that it was hot flashes, nice to say - I was just awake. 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Thursday

Got a walk in last night - before sundown, barely. And at a nice brisk pace for much of it - I think we even hit the 11-something minute mile there for a few moments. On the other hand, I was starving after dinner and ate cashews. I think I need to give up my cashews. Sigh.

153.6 this morning. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • D3 and magnesium
  • 2 turkey sausage links
  • 2 string cheeses
  • about 6 slices of salami
  • an apple
  • about 10 macadamia nuts
  • 1 dark chocolate peanut butter cup
  • a bunch of cashews
  • a hamburger patty
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • a Haagen-Dasz strawberry ice cream
  • a small handful of potato chips
I think that was it - there could have been more. It was a lot, regardless. I don't know, maybe not eating breakfast is a bad thing again. 

I slept reasonably well; woke up at 4 am, unfortunately, for good. So I'm a bit draggy today. I did eat breakfast though - hoping that will help me get through the day without noshing myself into insensibility.

And just for today, I'm not eating cashews.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Wednesday

Didn't make the walk last night - Lee wanted to go eat steak. He plans to be home at 6 tonight; wonder if I can get home enough earlier to get a walk in after feeding the dogs (I think that will still need to be done), since it's starting to get dark around 6 these days. Or maybe I can persuade him to go for a walk after he gets back - but at the gym (sigh). It's really summer-over when we have to walk around the track at the gym. I think the laps are half as long as a trip around the building at work.

We skipped breakfast yesterday in order not to get up - today as well. Here's how yesterday went:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • the innards (roast beef and tomatoes) of a roast beef sandwich
  • a pickle spear
  • caesar salad
  • 6 oz sirloin
  • Southern-style green beans
  • 5 salted dark chocolate almonds
  • 1 dark chocolate peanut butter cup
  • 1/2 cup cashews
So not bad, really. I hit Trace ketosis at bedtime, and am at 153.0 on the new scale this morning. I like the new scale - it does one thing and apparently does it well - not a lot of delay figuring out the number, and I can read it without my glasses from the standing-on-the-scale position. And it doesn't seem to fill the bathroom with blue light, so I could (should I feel the need) weigh myself at 3 am without bothering anyone. 

I did end up eating 3 turkey sausages today, and some vitamin D3 and magnesium. And I have lunch with me. I think I overdid the fasting thing a few years back, and don't want to do that again - it probably slowed my metabolism into starvation mode, and that hasn't been helpful.

Good sleep last night - I fell asleep within a half-hour of lights-out, and woke up a little after 5 am. So grateful!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Tuesday

Reasonably sane day yesterday; increased sleep is helping, and the cold weather is helping provide increased sleep. That said, we went for a walk after work yesterday, and it was freezing out - I think the thermometer said 43, but it nipped at the nose, and the gloves I had on did nothing to insulate my fingertips. We did a pretty brisk pace for much of it, but slowed down on the home stretch to bring the average to 17:04 for a mile and a half.

Eating was pretty good - went like this:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • 2 string cheese
  • about 5 slices of salami
  • an apple
  • 2 macadamia nuts
  • chicken tortilla soup with "carnitas" added in - a fake Mexican Gumbo - and shredded cheddar
  • More of that apple tart (we finished it off)
  • about 1/2 cup of cashews
If I could just stop with that final snack thing! I was feeling quite satisfied and unhungry, but still felt snacky around 8:30 last night. At least I managed not to bring out the entire container of them.

153.6 this morning, so I'm starting to shed whatever was bugging me last week. Thank heavens. The plan (mine, anyway) is to walk pretty much every night this week (okay, probably not on Friday), weather notwithstanding - so I'm glad to see a sunny day that is supposed to be warmer than yesterday!

For the record, ketones were negative yesterday and I slept pretty well - woke up at 1:45 absolutely freezing, so I put the mattress pad back on and pulled the covers up over my head for a while - was back asleep nearly instantly once I got warm, and didn't stir until 5:26. I will so take it.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Monday

Okay. New week, new start. New scale, for that matter - our previous one went all possessed and flickery on us and refused to light up at all after we replaced the batteries. 

I was going to say that the new scale is the reason that my weight is up from last week, but then I looked at my tracking spreadsheet, and I'm actually down. 154.2 this morning. So it may well be as accurate as the last one. 

Eating over the weekend was not great - I'm fighting carb cravings and mostly losing - to the tune of 2 different bouts of eating tortilla chips yesterday, as an example. I also made an experimental apple tart - trying out gluten-free piecrust - which I spent the day smelling and had some of for dessert. And while the crust wasn't perfect (I'd added too much water, so it was more like eating a cracker), it tasted awesome. I haven't had an apple pie since I can't remember.

Anyway, not really doing the heavy lifting for weight loss, this past weekend.  And yet, I lost weight - on paper.

Got in 2 3-mile walks over the weekend. The weather was amazing - sunny, crisp-to-warm, just perfect. Unfortunately, I didn't get credit for either on my FuelBand - due to some issues with their website, I was led to believe that it had developed an issue that required a factory reset, and nothing done since Tuesday was saved. Sigh. It's back working now, and I plan to get a walk in tonight, so we will start again. I did, however, take my phone and used the Running app, so I got credit for both walks there - that's how I know how long they were.

I brought a bunch of macadamias in to work again. I'm hoping that they will help with the urge to snack in the afternoon - either by providing satiety or as the snack. I'm thinking a homemade version of Qdoba's Mexican Gumbo for dinner - we braised a pork shoulder in the crock pot yesterday (to freeze for quick dinners) and I have some tortilla soup frozen that we could thaw out for it.

Sleep last night was good - I think I woke up only once, at 3 am. Hot flashes are occurring intermittently again - don't know how long this bout will last, but undoubtedly longer than I'd want (they've already achieved that).

Friday, October 24, 2014

Friday

Bad week. Awful week. I'm overreacting to minor stresses, snapping at perfectly reasonable requests, eating crap, failing to sleep, gaining weight. 155.something today - the scale is all psycho to boot, so when I bent down to look at the details, it faded out and started flickering. Perfectly justified; yesterday was a complete carb-fest. Apart from a little cheese in the morning and a Jimmy John's unwich, my diet consisted of Mexican food and candy. We did manage a walk, and ended up going to bed before 8. Probably a good thing, too, as temperature fluctuations woke me up good and hard at 11:40, and I didn't get back to sleep until around 2:00. I think that works out to around 6 hours' sleep. 

I need to research what life is like post-menopause. I hope it calms down a bit, because this just sucks. The sort of existence that makes a massive solar flare wiping out life on earth seem like an enticing prospect. Given the utter lack of real hardship, I'd have to say it's a good thing I don't have a hard life or any real problems - I'm poorly suited to handle them, obviously.

I hope I get good sleep this weekend, and that next week is better. I think I might need to spend a lot of time outdoors this weekend, see if that helps at all.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Thursday

153.8 this morning. I don't really have anything to add.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Wednesday

I had to fight to get a walk in last night. On the way home, Lee suggests that I go eat dinner with him at the golf course, rather than heading home. And of course the service was slow because I was in a hurry. Anyway, I made it - got home just before 6 and there was still some sunlight available, so I did about 2 miles at a 14-and-a-bit pace. Not bad. And I think it burned out some of my irritation at the day - irritation I could not vent at dinner because one of Lee's fellow club members showed up and he can't not invite people to join us (we are polar opposites in terms of how we relate to the human race). So I had to be polite and discuss the weather and such all during the meal.

Anyway, I'm feeling proud of myself about that. Unfortunately, that pride translated into 4 dark chocolate peanut butter cups, 2 pieces of cheese, and a bunch of cashews throughout the rest of the evening. The snack craving is strong in me.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • 2 string cheese
  • an apple
  • naked cheese steak sandwich
  • a pickle spear
  • cottage cheese
  • 4 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • 2 pieces of Gruyere
  • a bunch of cashews
153.0 this morning. Annoying, but there it is. I will try hard to get another walk in tonight; it does seem to help. Sleep was adequate - I remember waking twice during the night, once for overheating, but got back to sleep pretty quickly. Ketones were at Trace last night.

I am happy to report that, even with the extra weight, some skirts that weren't fitting last year are fitting this year, so maybe the walking is adding a bit of muscle - that, or the weight is being carried somewhere other than my thighs.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Tuesday

I practiced what I preached yesterday, and slept a lot better. Got a walk in - to and from a dinner of smoked turkey and a salad. Came home and read things on paper - left the iPad completely alone. Changed to pajamas without sleeves. It all helped. I intend to do similar things tonight.

Here's yesterday's eating:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage (2)
  • 2 string cheeses
  • an apple
  • about 6 slices of salami
  • 1/2 lb smoked turkey
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • an after-dinner mint
  • a small slice of cheesecake
We found the cheesecake in the freezer when cleaning it out on Sunday - a box of 4 quarters, each a different flavor. I think the diameter is probably 8", and we sliced one of the quarters in half. I tried to avoid the crust, but ended up eating some of it. I don't think it will kill me.

I don't recall dreaming last night - may have been just too tired. I also don't recall being bothered by hot flashes. Bedtime ketones were at Trace (barely), but my day wasn't deliberately ketone-generating, either.

Dinner on my own tonight - Lee has a golf meeting at 6. I will walk first, then figure out what to eat. I have a flu shot this afternoon, which normally doesn't affect me, but will hold firm to my plan just in case. 

Monday, October 20, 2014

Monday

Wretched weekend; got to last night and it just felt like we hadn't had one. Which wasn't true, but I'd spent Saturday feeling poorly - migraine, I think - so we really only had Sunday, and it felt like there should have been another day after it.

And then I went to bed and pretty much failed to sleep all night - instead, I played the "wrong temperature" game for hours. I know for sure I was awake at 10, 1:15, during the 2-3 hour off and on, pretty much all of 3-4, and finally fell asleep sometime before 5. And woke up after 5 but before the alarm went off. I'm surprisingly un-tired this morning, though. Hope it lasts well enough for me to get home tonight.

I ate a lot of carbs over the weekend - including an entire Domino's gluten-free pizza, several handfuls of potato chips, and more candy than I should have. I'm struggling hard to get control of things right now, and mostly failing. 153.4 this morning, if the scale was accurate (it appears to be low-battery and acting up this morning, so I'm suspicious it's wrong - probably too low). Quite discouraging.

In the course of trying to sleep last night, I succumbed to the lure of live radio. I don't think it's a good idea, and I shouldn't have done it. I don't know if using an OTR playlist would have worked better - the problem is that menopause was waking me up, not audio stimulus. But maybe I would have been more asleep without the audio and might have slept through the heat waves.

I hate this. I want to enjoy being warm, but I'm stuck with 2 options - freezing to death or sweating. There's no middle ground anymore. And I keep thinking it's done, that I can start living normally again, and then it returns. I will grant that this bout is less severe, but it's still severe enough to mess with my sleep.

For this week, I think the focus needs to be on eating healthy things and getting walks, and trying to get my sleep under control. Maybe then I can focus on the weight thing again.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Friday

151.2 today. Chinese for dinner yesterday, probably why. I notice that it causes a weight gain every time. I was not hungry this morning - in fact, I had a slight stomach ache - but ate breakfast anyway.

No walk, either. If I were truly committed to a walk, I would insist on doing it, but apparently I'm not. I may try for one late this afternoon, because I have a nighttime bout of work and will probably truncate my daytime work a bit on its account. We shall see.

Sleep was okay - midnight dog interruption, but I got back to sleep pretty quickly. Ketones were at Trace last night.

Other than that, not much going on. Still struggling with my mental state; at a minimum, I guess I should go take my vitamins, increase the levels of Vitamin D and Magnesium, since they're both mood-enhancing a bit.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Thursday

Apparently the slow increases in weight over the past 3 days were a good sign. I'm at 150.4 this morning, which is my lowest yet reading on a Thursday (significant only because, owing to gaps in the data, I decided to use Thursdays as my weekly tracking day).

I have more or less stopped the detailed nutrient tracking - especially in light of my recent reading that indicated I might be better off with a more protein-focused approach while my hormones are out partying. Nonetheless, after a day's eating that included the following list, I was showing Small-Moderate ketones last night. So interesting. Here's the list:
  • tea with cream
  • a piece of Gruyere
  • 3 almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
  • 2 sticks of string cheese
  • about 1/8 pound of roast beef
  • flank steak - more than 1/4 pound, but no idea how much
  • spaghetti squash with browned butter and ricotta salata cheese
  • 2 more almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
  • some cashews (unmeasured)
That was it - again, probably kinda carby, but a short list, which has worked for me in the past.

No walking last night - I didn't even get home until about 6:15. Sleep was not great and not terrible, I guess - Roscoe was coughing a good bit and that kept waking us up, and it was warm out, despite the weather forecast, so I did a lot of leg-exposure stuff to cool back off. I don't recall dreaming, but certainly may have done.  Woke up for good around 5 am, I think.

Similar mid-day eating today - and again, no real breakfast in an attempt to make 10 minutes extra laying around make up for the broken sleep (I think we're deluding ourselves here). Something burger-y for dinner. Maybe a walk. We'll see how the day goes.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Wednesday

We managed a walk last night - to and from dinner. It was nice, but it's starting to get cold out; I suspect our gym days are approaching pretty fast. Turns out it is 1-1/4 mile from home to the nearest walkable restaurant, so we got in 2-1/2 miles last night. Not bad.

Eating - well, could have been lower carb, I guess, but on the real food index, I did pretty well. Here's the list:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • 2 strips of bacon
  • an apple
  • 2 pieces of string cheese
  • about 1/8 pound of roast beef
  • 2 almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
  • a 1/2 pound burger with cheddar cheese
  • sweet potato fries
  • 3 more chocolate chip cookies
151.6 this morning. I'm not sure if I'm happy about the slower increase this week (usually, I'm bouncing all over the place), or if it indicates "real" weight gain.

I'm happy to say that my urge to eat wheat-flour-and-crisco-and-sugar cookies has diminished, thanks, I'm sure, to the "paleo treats". I've noticed a big uptick in "paleo" versions of dessert lately; seems like folks need to step back and remember what the whole paleo approach to food is about again - and it's not about mirroring the tofurkey on the dessert side of the meal. Maybe it seems a bit odd to say that when I'm working my way through a batch of cookies, but in my defense, I do try to avoid doing this as much as I can.

Sleep was less than wonderful - not awful, but the dogs woke us up in the middle somewhere, and it took a while to get back to sleep. I did dream, again, toward 4:30 or 5:00 am, and then woke up. It seems not to have been very restful; I'm draggy this morning and moody. Still trying to work out ways to cope with the stress and looming approach of the black dog (SAD, anyone? At least, I'm guessing it's that.), the latter of which is starting to make it hard for me to even fathom doing anything constructive right now. Probably not a good time to be increasing carb consumption.

Hoping for another walk tonight, and we have a marinating flank steak and probably spaghetti squash with browned butter and "mizithra" cheese for dinner. And a good thing, too, because I am starving - we didn't eat to make it easier not to feed the dogs (one of them has a procedure involving anesthesia this morning).

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Tuesday

151.4 this morning; given my eating yesterday, I got off easy. Here's how it went:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon (2)
  • 2 pieces of string cheese
  • a bag of M&Ms
  • a naked burrito (Qdoba) with chicken, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole
  • 1 piece of gruyere
  • about 5 almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
I think that was it. I decided last night, after a day spent resisting a cookie craving (day 2 of that), and succumbing to the "anything chocolate" alternative craving, that maybe I should just make some. So I used the Primal Palate recipe (almond flour, maple syrup, eggs, butter, chocolate chips) but used a 90% cacao bar and a 70% cacao bar, chopped up, for the chips. They are less sweet than when made with Nestle's Toll House chips for sure, but good - although maybe eating 5 of them last night was a bit over the top. Still, a scant half-cup of maple syrup split over 45 cookies can't be too bad. I figure it's a way to cope with what appears to be a fresh bout of hormone swings.

Happy to say that I slept well last night - heaven knows I needed it! I fell asleep multiple times during the evening (before going to bed), I think, at least once or twice while in bed watching for the weather report (never heard it), and woke for the first time really at 4:30. Having dreamt that I was amputating a guy's leg with a saw. Weird, I know - especially as he didn't appear really to need an amputation. It wasn't a disturbing dream, per se - not a nightmare, anyway, although it did wake me up.

We did not walk yesterday. We were both exhausted. Life really isn't tough these days, so we should be coping better, but we're not. So be it.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Test

Somehow, my post-via-email setting got disabled. Not quite sure how or why, but this is to test out if I managed to turn it back on.

Monday

Just like clockwork, the weekend ends, and it's Monday again. I guess that's the whole point of clockwork, to show time passing. 151.2 this morning; 152.something all weekend, and I'm a bit surprised to be down, truly, given that, for me, at least, yesterday was a sugar binge. Here's how it went:
  • tea with cream
  • bacon (3 pieces)
  • an apple
  • gruyere cheese
  • "wedge" salad with tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, blue cheese dressing, and another 2 pieces of bacon
  • 5 salted chocolate almonds
  • a bunch of cashews
  • ultimately, 3 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • about 1/4 pound deli roast beef
  • 2 string cheese things
  • a small handful of cherry tomatoes
  • about 5 pieces of chocolate coconut candy
I think that was it. What I really wanted was a cookie, and obviously, that's not something we keep around our house, so I ate a lot of sweet stuff to make the want go away. It didn't really work, but eventually the day ended, and I don't much want one this morning. Eggs and bacon for breakfast today and string cheese for whenever I get hungry.

The weekend wasn't a great de-stresser for me; we didn't get out for a walk at all, and sleep was weird all 3 nights - either so deep that it nearly hurt punctuated by being awake once an hour, or so full of dreams that it was just chaos. Last night was the latter. I could not tell you anything about any of the dreams, other than that they were constant and frenetic in nature. Blecch. And while I'm not having hot flashes, exactly, I was too hot a lot - in a room that was probably 55 degrees. 

Trying for a walk tonight - either outside, weather permitting, or at the gym if it's rainy again. I hope that will help with the sleep.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Friday

Did I say that I wasn't very stove up yesterday? Nor I was. Today, however - or last night, truly - is a different story. My shins and my hips are, well, tolerably painful, if that's a thing - they're not killing me, but they did a very thorough job of keeping me awake overnight. I know I was awake at 2:00; I had been awake before that, but not constantly. I was asleep when the alarm went off, but had been awake at 5:00, a half-hour before. Prior to 2:00, I'd had cramps on the tops of both feet - between toes on both sides (4 cramps in all, 2 per foot) - simultaneously, and they were painful enough to disrupt my sleep but not enough to wake me up completely. Suffice it to say that I'm pretty exhausted this morning. I did manage to collect enough of my wits to get up at 3:20 to get a piece of cheese and some aspirin; that may be what helped me to fall asleep finally - an hour and a half later. Ugh.

152.2 this morning. Eating yesterday went like this:
  • tea with cream
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • minimal supplements (multi, magnesium, vitamin D3)
  • a Jimmy John's unwich with turkey, bacon, and cheese
  • several cheese cubes
  • a strawberry and a segment of pineapple
  • a couple of nuts
  • a meatball (maybe 2)
  • a glass of Chardonnay
  • chips and salsa
  • a cheese enchilada with green chile
  • 3 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
We attended a cocktail party from 5:30 to 7:00, then went out for dinner (which I didn't really want, being exhausted and just wanting to go home). My hopes a couple of weeks ago of getting a handle on my stress levels have not panned out too well this week; that's 2 nights in a row where the workday blended into after-work crap that just never ended. Oh, and last night, after I got home, we had work - a deployment. 

Weather today is rainy, but I think, if I see a break in it, I may go grab a walk. I think it's supposed to clear up a bit this afternoon. I have to take care of myself; it's just too important. 

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thursday

First, 151.2 this morning, a nice drop from yesterday, especially as I know I'm a bit swollen from doing a race yesterday afternoon. So it might be less than that, really.

My eating was good - breakfast, cheese, a banana, dinner (filet with blue cheese topping, spaghetti squash with stuff on it), a single peanut butter cup, and about 1/4 cup cashews. Oh, and a glass of wine.

Minimal if any ketosis at bedtime - did I use them all up? I'm kind of thinking so.

But I really want to talk about the "5K" we did at work yesterday. It was actually just shy of 3 miles per my running app. And I did it in 41 minutes flat. Kinda impressive. I haven't seen sub 14-minute miles in quite a while, so the walking this summer must be having some sort of an effect. And while I'm a little stove up this morning, I'm not disabled, by any means. So that's all good.

On the other hand, I'm extremely pissed off about one aspect of that race. I won it. I was absolutely hands-down the first walker across the finish line. I registered as a walker and had walker on my "bib" (this was a bit of a band-of-merry-amateurs production and they used giant sticky labels). Did I get recognized for that win? I did not. I don't know why, but it went unnoticed when they were handing out the gimcrack "medals" to the top 3 finishers. Apparently, racewalking doesn't look enough like walking or something, or the fact that I had on a tech shirt from another race and "real runner shorts" made me look too serious, or maybe that I was the first walker in by over a minute. I suppose I could have raised a stink at the time, but I didn't - it was just a "fun run" after all. Even so, I'm still looking for a way to casually mention to the right people that I was a walker, and have them come to the guilt- and angst-ridden realization on their own that I got gypped out of my 3 cent piece of shiny plastic.

I need to get over myself, I know. It's just really annoying.

Ran across something online last night that I want to look into a bit more - an approach to eating for menopausal women that is more focused on protein and stress control than ketosis per se. Still low carb, but the theory as I understand it so far is that cortisol is at play right now more than before, partly because of reduced estrogen/progesterone levels and partly because menopause is a supremely annoying physical state, so reducing stress and getting to satiation with fewer calories (I know, that word...) is more effective than straight HFLC. Anyway, I want to do a bit of digging before I dive into anything - but my stress-reduction weekend certainly helped me a lot, and quickly, so the concept rings true. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I focus on that side of the equation first, then change my diet if it makes sense to.

Cocktail reception tonight for Lee's leadership program thingie, so no stress relief for this introvert there... I just hope they have veggies and dip.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Wednesday

153.2 this morning.

Slept with the aid of Advil-PM last night; still groggy. I needed the sleep, though. Feel like I still do.

Binge-ate salted dark chocolate almonds after dinner last night (binge to me means 10-12 of them, I think). Once they started tasting nasty, I stopped. 

I'm still quite stressed. My mental state is that of someone in one of those horror movies who knows something is wrong, but not what, and isn't sure how it will attack or from where. High alert for the unknown. I do not like it. I cannot soothe myself to sleep with WWII news broadcasts anymore; I need live radio. Because something might be happening. Really bad, this.

No walk last night - my mind was not up to it.  Brats and kraut for dinner. And a few tortilla chips. 

I think for now, I'm just going to have to do the best I can. Lots of forgiveness for snacking, and making my best attempt to keep it light and reasonable. And get walks in wherever I can, to burn off the adrenaline.

5K at work today. I was of 2 minds last night as to whether I should even do it, but I'm going to. It can only help, right?

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Tuesday

Weird eating day yesterday, but we got some exercise, and I kept the snacking to a minimum. 151.4 this morning, a wretched night's sleep (ending at 3:30 am, unfortunately), and I've already had a Red Bull. Worse yet, I don't know if it will last very long.

I'm finding myself hacking at night, which isn't helping the sleep. Don't know if I filled my sinuses with gunk in the corn maze, or if it's related to the "paleo cold" I though I might have had on Sunday. I'm still a bit draggy, which could be that or the lack of sleep.

I brought an apple and some cheese to work this morning, to keep me from eating fortune cookies - although the fact that I ate all 3 of them that were in my desk yesterday would probably solve that issue for me regardless. Apart from the fortune cookies, I had a normal (egg and sausage) breakfast, salad and smoked turkey for dinner, an after-dinner mint, a bit of cheese, and 2 salted chocolate almonds. Not very high fat, but ketones were at a solid Small at bedtime. It ended up being a low-calorie day, for what that's worth.

We walked to dinner and back, making about 2 miles round trip or a bit over, I think. I didn't put it on the Nike+ running app to see, so I don't know for certain. Lee's having heel pain - spurs or plantar fasciitis - which alters his gait enough to make his hips hurt. He's planning not to walk tonight, but I still want to - if I go alone, I'll go for speed, I guess.

Long day ahead.

Monday, October 6, 2014

An Observation

Conventional wisdom (of some sort) says that one should aim to take 10,000 steps per day. I'm looking back over my FuelBand records, which cover the entire year, and I find that I have achieved this feat exactly 4 times. Each time, I've either had a day off with lots of tourism, or a 5 or 10K. 

I drive 2+ hours per day in order to get to work and back. I work a compressed schedule (no lunch), in order to have that hour at home. I walk before dinner as often as I can, and try to get walks in on weekends. And yet, with all that, I've managed only 4 days of 10,000 or more steps.

Effing insane.

Monday

I guess yesterday was a "treat" day. I ate breakfast, cashews, chocolate, ice cream, cheese, and soup. Oh, and a fortune cookie and half an eggroll. Fairly carby, although I didn't log it. 152.2 this morning, up from 151.4 all weekend. Not surprising. But I need to get my stuff together. Again.

I felt relatively nasty yesterday - tired and achy and just "off". I wouldn't have minded spending the day in bed, honestly. Probably a "paleo cold". Instead, we went to the mall and the movies in the morning, and I was finally able to rest in the afternoon. Ended up going for Chinese for dinner - a giant bowl of hot and sour soup, half an eggroll, some tea, and a fortune cookie.

Sleep was great until this weekend - no idea why it was so unproductive the last few nights, but it was. I was asleep, but it wasn't restful. And my back is all knotted up again.

We went and walked a corn maze on Saturday - fun, and the weather was perfect. I put my Nike+ running app on for part of it, just to see how much we wandered - it's an interesting picture, and I wish I'd done all of it. Less purposeful walking yesterday - just wandering the mall a bit.

I feel okay today - not great, but better than yesterday. The plan is to walk tonight, and the weather looks like it will cooperate.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Friday

Some of yesterday's increase came off - down to 151.8 this morning. I kept the eating down quite a bit - skipped breakfast because we weren't hungry, for starters. I wasn't as good in the evening; I won't say my stress is quite as high as it was last week, but it's not as low as it was on Sunday, either. Getting out for a walk has helped, but the evening snacking craving is back - what did it take, maybe 3 days? Not so great. I did keep it to cheese crisps and actual cheese - and it occurs to me that maybe avoiding the "Food Factory" show would help.

Yesterday's eating was 70% fat, 6% carbs, and 24% protein, which is lower in fat than I would have liked, but not bad overall. I'll work on the pattern a bit more today, see if I can get it up a bit. I got 2 walks - one during the day after a really annoyed reaction to an email, which entailed 3 trips around the building, and another before dinner. Ketones were at Trace-Small yesterday evening, and sleep was solid - fell asleep well before 10, woke once, and was out cold until after 4:30 am. The cooler temperatures are such a help.

I'm hoping to get a lot of outdoor time this weekend, whether doing yardwork or maybe hiking or at a corn maze, if they're available yet.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Thursday

It turns out it is possible to eat an entire day's nutrition at dinner. This would not be a problem if one had not eaten, say, breakfast and a few snacks, earlier in the day.

152.4 this morning. Probably a good thing it's not higher than that. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • minimal supplements (multi, magnesium, potassium, D3)
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • the insides of a chicken street taco
  • a skewer of skirt steak
  • about 2 glasses of Prosecco
  • wedge salad with bacon and tomatoes, blue cheese dressing (the wedge was the size of a full head of iceberg, and I didn't finish it)
  • prime rib with jus and horseradish
  • baked potato with butter, sour cream, chives, cheese, and bacon
  • creme brulee with raspberry sauce, strawberries, and whipped cream
Dinner started at the Prosecco. We rolled out of the restaurants feeling quite spherical, and I put it into my LoseIt app and found that it was 103 g carbs, 147.4 g fat, and 74 g protein all by itself. Oops.

We actually got a walk in yesterday, before dinner. Probably a good thing, considering.

Ketones at bedtime were Small (a bit surprising), and I slept like a very large, embedded rock. Didn't stir until around 5, I think. Apart from the calf cramps at about 9:30, when I was just drifting off.

Oh - and we fasted breakfast this morning. It seemed extraneous, somehow.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Wednesday

I did pretty well yesterday, eating, I mean. Had soup and salad at a work-paid team lunch, and had burgers and salad for dinner. So lots of veg - meat and leaves. After dinner, the stress eating got me 2 handfuls into a bag of tortilla chips - not so great. But I stopped after that, which is something - and the salt kept the evening calf fasciculation from waking me up overnight.

This morning, I do not know how much I weigh. Stepped on the scale 4 times and got 4 different numbers. 149.0 and 150.2 before the shower, 151.2 and 150.0 after. I averaged them and came up with 150.1, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

We got a walk in last night. Thank goodness; the news about Ebola was kind of my last straw for the day, and it popped up just at quitting time, so I needed to walk off some excess cortisol. Pity our dog's anti-cortisol meds have all sorts of warnings about hand-washing after touching them, or maybe I could keep things down a bit. The walk helped, a little. Not enough to let me be sleepy at bedtime, though - I had to resort to "Art Bell" - i.e., his former radio show streamed on my iPad - to get into the sleep zone. It worked, though - I was out by about 10:15, I'd bet. The guest was talking about frequencies and musical tones; that I don't know more about the topic is proof that I crashed quickly. So sleep was dodgy, but better than nothing.

Bedtime ketones at Trace again, probably thanks to the chips. 

Tonight we're dining out for our anniversary, but at a place that provides meaty food, so I should be able to keep things good. I'd like to see a more reliable downward trend tomorrow morning. My other challenge is getting through a work "team event" at a bar with finger food. For 3 hours. I actually skived off the company-wide one last month because I couldn't imagine wandering around the zoo looking for something I could eat that wasn't veg and dip. This could be more of the same.