Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Wednesday

Hmmm. 157.0 again today, and a gut full of, er, stuff. I think if it goes away (as I wish sincerely it would; it's a mite painful), the weight will go back down. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • a jar of dilly beans
  • 6 hunks of cheese of various sorts
  • 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • 3-4 other pieces of chocolate or candy (including walnut fudge)
  • a naked burger with cheese and guacamole
  • a cup of green chile with cheese on top
  • about 6 french fries
  • 1 tsp honey
It was a rather carby, snacky sort of day - still trying to get that under control, and not as successful as I thought I'd been the day before. I need to keep reminding myself that nasty french fries (these were limp and bland) are not worth eating. That if I don't want dried-up walnut fudge and I do want a chocolate, to ONLY have the chocolate. That would have reduced the carbs by about half all by itself. The dilly beans - which I'd made as an experiment when our pole beans went berserk - were really good. I think I'll plan to grow enough to do them again next year - only more of them.

Sleep last night was better in retrospect than it seemed it was going to be around midnight. I woke up, thinking I was in for another bout of insomnia, and laid there focusing on how sleepy I was, which put me right back to sleep. The next time I woke, it was 5:10. Done on honey and melatonin. I'll take it, even if it resulted in frustration dreams about trying to board a plane and being prevented by a number of different things. Second night in a row of frustration dreams, which is kind of interesting.

Plan for today is to keep the candy to 2 pieces total today. I have cheese with me for "lunch", and no idea what we'll have for dinner yet. No plans for the evening; we're pretty lame when it comes to dancing in the New Year (or whatever people do anymore). The 5K tomorrow is still in limbo - it includes timing tags that need to be turned in, which means I have to go over there anyway, even if we're not participating, so if it's sunny and above 10 degrees, I'll probably do the race. With socks in my Vibrams. 

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Tuesday

At the moment, I seem to have some control over things. 155.6 this morning - which could just be a setpoint defense reaction, but either way, a recovery from the excesses of last week.  Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • a bag of peanuts
  • 2 dark chocolates sweetened with maltitol
  • meat loaf
  • Southern-style green beans
  • 2 regular chocolates
  • somewhat less than 1 cup of cashews
And that was it. Better than it has been in a while for snacking; I seem to be better able to regulate my cravings at the moment. Not counting on that to continue, though. If I can get on top of things for a while, though, it might be easier to keep the next wave of cravings at bay longer. Maybe.

No exercise last night - it's too damn cold to go outside right now - and that includes walking to the car to drive to the gym. I got sleep - dream-riddled - but it was via Benadryl - my attempt to keep things from going sideways there by taking one periodically if I've had a couple of bad nights. It seems to be working so far.

Working from home today - the roads are rotten. I have a jar of dilly beans on the desk to nosh on as needed - hoping that they'll keep me out of weird carb binges. Though we did a bit of a purge over the weekend, so the weird carbs are not as available. A good thing.

Dinner out tonight - probably, anyway. We have to go pick up the shirts and numbers for the 5K on Thursday that we're almost certainly not doing (too cold), and will probably get something there.

Stress - meh. Somewhat better than before the holidays, but since I can't do what I want right now (hibernate), it'll probably never be zero.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Monday after Christmas

We survived, I think. Although survival included a medium movie popcorn, too many cookies, and too much chocolate, we survived it, and most of the chocolate has come to work, to be eaten by co-workers. I have had lots of salad over the past 2-3 days - dinner last night, lunch yesterday, possibly at least one other meal. Also soup. Probably the way to go for a while.

156.6 this morning - after a weekend where 157.8 was the theme. And, looking back, I see that I'm down from Wednesday a bit. 

No exercise to speak of this weekend - we have been slugs. But then, Lee threw his back out on Wednesday, slept through about half of Christmas, and is still coughing more than he'd like, so he's not really into much of anything vigorous. And I've been trying to make up for lost sleep, with not much success, I'm afraid. Seems like I get decent sleep about every third or fourth night - and sometimes, I have to force the issue with Benadryl. I will keep plugging, though. I continue to try to read on paper in the evenings, and have been taking honey before bed, with the resulting vivid - though, not so far memorable - dreams. I think that's indicative of more restorative sleep in one area (mental) at least.

Anyway, the stress of getting through Christmas is over, and there's nothing else upcoming that seems like a "power through it" event in the same way, so that should help things.

I seem to have got a low-grade sinus infection over the past week somehow. Seriously? I'm quite grateful that it isn't anything worse; I was a bit concerned that with the 4-day break and getting past Christmas, I'd come down with something awful - "vacation flu" or the like.

In theory, we are doing a 5K on Thursday to celebrate the New Year. In practicality, it's highly unlikely that Lee will be up for it at all, and my participation depends on the weather. I may have just bought a couple of $25 shirts, since we're due for below-zero highs tomorrow and will just be climbing out of that mess by Thursday.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Wednesday

156.8 this morning. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs with ham, cheese, and tomatoes
  • 3 pieces of Kerrygold Irish cheddar
  • a ziploc bag of strawberries
  • salad with turkey and blue cheese dressing
  • 4 rice flour cookies (with frosting)
  • the cookie dough for a fifth
  • about 10 mint M&Ms
That was it. We did a bit of grocery shopping last night, and I baked cookies, which kept me out of the sitting-and-snacking habit.

Sleep was pretty good last night - with aid of a Benadryl. I fell asleep soon after 9, and woke up just after 5, with nothing but dreamland in the middle. I figured I'd had plenty of sugar last night, so I didn't bother with the honey, and I know that I dreamed last night, but again, not about what. Which is fine - if I were able to remember, it would mean that I'd been pretty near awake. For what it's worth, I've been looking dragged out and baggy-eyed all last week and this, and I still do. I feel better this morning than I have in quite a while, though.

Short workday today, but a long day. Our intention is to go to Midnight Mass, and if it's anything like the last time, we'll get home after 2 am. I'm spending the evening cooking in preparation for a bang-up brunch tomorrow, which we will eat when we get up - maybe around 10. A family dinner tomorrow evening - at which I am providing antipasto - beyond that, we don't know what's being served. And once that's done, we will be getting rid of all the sugar around the house again and getting back to eating healthy. My New Year's resolution - which I mean to implement starting tomorrow - is to get more vegetables into our diet.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Tuesday

157.2 this morning. I knew the weekend would catch up with me eventually. Or yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • string cheese
  • strawberries
  • Five Guys bacon cheese burger
  • fries
  • 1 piece of candy box chocolate
  • 2-3 small handfuls of mint M&Ms
  • 1 tsp honey
Actually, that doesn't look all that bad - maybe the M&Ms were a bit over the top, and obviously the fries were a treat. I'm struggling with cravings at the moment - would probably break down completely if someone offered me a cookie - and mood swings, which makes a change from the usual insomnia and hot flashes. If I had to guess, I'd say Thursday is going to be rather rough for me. Forewarned, I can go in intending to make an effort, and not let my issues wreck the day for anyone else.

Sleep last night was okay - I woke at 1:40 and, while I didn't stay fully awake for hours, I slept fitfully until just before 5 when I woke up for good. I feel fairly well rested, though, so I won't complain. However, I think I'm going to take Benadryl tonight as a preventative, to keep from chaining multiple bad nights together. Maybe my plan will be to have one night per week of Benadryl sleep, just to try to keep more rested than not, since it seems like the tireder I am, the worse I sleep at night - not helpful, really.

I have more cheese and strawberries today, and will try to come up with something for dinner that doesn't involve leaving home to eat it, so as to avoid the fries. Here's hoping I'm successful.


Monday, December 22, 2014

Monday

156.0 this morning - surprisingly, down from Friday. Because I carbed out all weekend - rice, potato chips, gluten-free, but real pizza, candy.I didn't do anything all weekend, either - we were both more or less exhausted both days and spent most of the time on recliners in the living room, watching TV. Maybe that's what was needed. Or maybe, my body has a setpoint lower than 156.4 and is defending it.

I slept well all 3 nights. Took melatonin, magnesium, and honey before bed all 3. Tried to avoid electronics (bar the TV) in the hour before bed. The "honey" sleep is back - I feel like it's been more restorative, richer, than before, and I've definitely had dreams, but don't remember any of them, just that they occurred. That said, I'm still exhausted and feel pretty crappy for someone not actually sick. My left jaw aches, for some reason - I'm thinking it might be a low-grade ear infection, because I'm a little vertiginous this morning - not exactly dizzy, and not exactly not. Blecch. I am assuming that my entire immune system is engaged in repelling the flu virus that Lee's been liberally spreading around the house, and I know that can tire a body out. On top of the menopause-induced insomnia of the past few weeks and the fact that I'm kind of down emotionally right now, I think the explanation is pretty clear. So I'm looking forward to the time-off aspects of the upcoming holiday - at 2 pm on Wednesday, my work week is over.

I have string cheese and strawberries with me to eat today. Not sure what dinner tonight will be yet - I hope to come up with an idea soon. Something fairly healthy, though.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Friday

156.4 this morning. Got decent, albeit drugged, sleep last night, but, as usual, could use more. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • 3 pieces of cheese
  • a ziploc bag of strawberries
  • turkey
  • salad with balsamic vinaigrette and almonds
  • mixed vegetables with butter
  • ham with pineapple
  • a baked sweet potato
  • 3-4 chocolates
  • a tsp of honey
I'm back trying the honey at bedtime thing as an effort to improve sleep a bit - so even if it's short, maybe it's more restorative. Too early to tell if it helped or not from the last 2 nights - I'll give it next week to see if it helps on a longer-term basis.

I'm feeling a bit bloated this morning, so imagine my weight will go further down - but we will have to wait and see on that as well. Right now, given the issues I've been having the past few weeks, though, sleep is my top focus. Not sure yet, beyond honey, what I am going to do about it; something to think about with my slightly better brain today.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Thursday

157.0 this morning. Not particularly surprised. Mid-day yesterday, some work stuff hit my stress point, and I added a bag of M&Ms and a bag of Skittles to my diet. Went home and ate meatloaf and cauliflower and chocolate. So I didn't exactly hit that "healthy" target yesterday.

Last night was the second night of complete shit sleep. Same exact pattern - woke around 1 am, tossed and turned for about 2 hours, slept fitfully from 3-5:30ish. And this was on melatonin and honey at bedtime.

Suffice it to say that I have felt better in previous times. I'm operating now on tea and RedBull, and it's not helping much. No breakfast this morning because my stomach hurt - as it did for about half an hour during my midnight wakefulness. Probably reacting to the crap I ate yesterday.

When I was still sane yesterday, I bagged up some cheese and strawberries to bring with me today to help ward off the urge for M&Ms. And I got it here. I hope it helps. I have eaten one of the pieces of cheese I brought, since I was a bit hungry.

Supposedly this insomnia pattern I'm describing is textbook menopause. It has bad side-effects in that it messes with ghrelin and leptin levels, which can trigger weight gain. Somehow, I'm not terribly surprised to learn that. And, come to think of it, after eating actual lunch the other day, I spent the afternoon starving - growling stomach and all - and I have noticed that I want a lot of food at meals lately - dinner last night included probably 2/3 of a head of cauliflower with boursin and parmesan on it. Exactly what one would expect if leptin and ghrelin were out of whack.

I need, at some time when I have a functional brain (this could be a very vicious circle), to come up with a better plan for improving sleep that doesn't involve Benadryl on a regular basis. However, I think tonight's sleep will involve Benadryl - 2 of them, to make sure it takes. Because this shit is killing me.

Ham and something for dinner tonight - maybe baked sweet potatoes, if Lee feels well enough to go buy a couple. We're both a pathetic hot mess this week - I'm very glad we were able to get nearly all our Christmas shopping done.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Wednesday

I give up.

I have been trying to lose a few pounds for this entire year. When I began tracking my weight for the year, I weighed 154.2. After nearly 12 months of trying to lose weight, I weigh 156.6.

Whatever I'm doing right now, it is not working. And I am effing sick and tired of putting in all this effort, paying attention to my food intake, tracking details, checking ketosis, with no results. It's stressing me out, and that can only be adding to the list of things working against me.

So I'm done.

Starting today, I will no longer sweat the details of my fat vs. protein vs. carb percentages. I will no longer check my nightly ketone levels. I am finished putting my weight in a spreadsheet.

Way back, when I first started trying to eat better - nearly 5 years ago now - it was first and foremost, to improve my overall health. And it worked like a champ. It's still keeping me healthy, despite sleep issues, despite stress issues, despite menopause. And I'm not going to stop eating properly - and trying to improve some habits that have slipped. 

I probably won't stop weighing myself daily. But I'm not going to chart it.

I will go back to listing my eating here, instead of in a formal nutrition tracker. And all I will be looking for is that I ate healthy foods and avoided the junk.

And, I think, now that it's a week and a day before Christmas, I'm going to stop pressuring myself to avoid the candy. Especially since it's not working at all.

All that said, I have a stomach ache this morning and slept like a pile of crap last night, so I may not eat much at all today.

Yesterday, I ate:
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • a couple macadamia nuts
  • the insides of a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich
  • a 1-oz bag of "kettle" potato chips
  • a pickle spear
  • 4 chocolate covered raisins
  • chips and salsa
  • 3-stack cheese enchiladas with green chile
  • a dark chocolate Lindt truffle
  • a dark chocolate peanut butter cup

Today so far, I've had scrambled eggs and turkey sausage. No plans for lunch, and dinner will feature ground beef and cauliflower with cheese.

I may revisit things after the first of the year, but I'm fed up, frustrated, and discouraged right now, and I think it's time to get out of that box for a while.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Tuesday

155.2 again. Eating yesterday was light, I think - my log says very light, but I didn't add in a bunch of lightly glazed pecans or the praline or the 2 mint chocolates, so I suspect it was a bit high on the carbs. Very light Trace ketosis last night.

No exercise to speak of; I got home, went and got dinner, and took a bath, and that occupied all the time between work and bedtime. I was very cold in the evening - possibly the end of being "paleo sick" for the day - I'd felt a little off starting at 1:30 yesterday morning with a "hurts to breathe but not to swallow" sore throat and a few body aches, and I took aspirin a couple of times during the day to fend that all off. I feel fine now - the bath seemed to fix what ailed me - and I got a pretty good night's sleep last night - woke once at 2 am, looked at the time, and fell asleep almost instantly - and the next thing I knew, the alarm was going off. Not bad.

That's about it, really. Normal breakfast this morning, not much planned for the day (Lee's still very sick, so no gym trips this week, I'd bet). Hopefully a calm, quiet sort of day.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Monday

155.2 this morning. Carby day yesterday, and truly, also on Friday; Saturday wasn't too bad, I think. Lee was sick yesterday and I was tired, and I ended up eating candy and cashews last night - too much. We ran a lot of errands, and yesterday was devoted to decorating the house for Christmas, and I actually got a fair amount of walking around between hanging ornaments and getting things in a state last night that I would be able to do the animals this morning fairly quickly.

Sleep over the weekend (Friday and Saturday nights) was good. Sleep last night was buggered all to hell; I woke up around 1:30 am and was still up well after 3:30 am. Oddly enough, I'm reasonably alert this morning - and that's after thinking that I was coming down with Lee's illness (which sure looks like influenza) for much of the time I was awake. I feel okay now - not great, but okay. Not sick, in any event. Paleo seems to have strengthened my immune system a lot, and I'm grateful for that.

Stress - could be better. Sick husband on top of full time job and long commute means more to worry about plus more to do, since he can't do much of anything in his current state. I'm quite grateful that we're decorated, and down to 3-4 gift cards to acquire before declaring a Christmas shopping victory. And I'm only about 1 present behind on wrapping, although I haven't added bows or tags or anything yet. I also got all the cards addressed last night, and if need be, will get them into a mailbox tonight. So that's done. I guess, in a nutshell, stress could also be worse.

Very light Trace ketosis last night - kind of surprising. Back to my weekday routine today - light breakfast, boatload of macadamia nuts, dinner of some sort. Not the best I could do, but it's what can be accomplished right now.


Friday, December 12, 2014

Friday

I went to bed at 11:30 last night because of work. I spent much of yesterday knowing that the night would be unpleasantly late, and let that influence my mood, so I ate a lot of crap prior to the actual period of work. I'm not feeling tremendously great this morning, both because of the eating and the lack of sleep - I'm weak and achy and cranky and my stomach hurts. 155.2 this morning, so the week as a whole was a gradual weight reduction. It would have been faster, I think, if I could have resisted the garbage.

"Garbage" consisting of rice flour cookies, dark chocolate peanut butter cups, and cashews. And a couple of Zapps Voodoo potato chips. And some homemade eggnog, which didn't come out very tasty; I think I will toss the rest of it.

Today's theme is surviving to the end of it, so I can get some sleep. And probably not eating much until my stomach stops feeling nasty. And trying not to faceplant on my desk before about 3:30 this afternoon. Ow.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Thursday

155.6 this morning. Somewhat better. I'm starting to see my appetite go down a bit, which, to me, means that ketosis is taking hold. Small ketosis at bedtime last night, so that's 2 days in a row. Christmas lunch party at work today - Mexican food - so I don't know if I'll be able to sustain it a third day, but I'm going to try.

We got to the gym last night; Lee's feeling inspired just now, after his physical. Fine, I guess - I don't know that I really need to go to the gym that frequently, and right now, I'm limping a bit from overworking my right leg last night (hamstrings/glutes and my big toe), so I guess I'm glad that tonight is a deployment for me and a social thing for him so we will not be working out. Aggravating last night, though. I'd been walking for a while at a good clip, went to look at my Running app to see what the distance was, and found that I'd paused it early in the workout and never restarted it. So my "official" distance last night is just over half a mile. Bother.

Salad with smoked turkey for dinner, 2 more rice-flour cookies, and a chocolate mint after that - the snacking at night has calmed down a good bit so far, and I'm hoping it will continue that way. Reasonable sleep - I know I woke up briefly around midnight, and for good some time after 4, and that was it. Hot flashes continue off and on, and I continue to hate them. Stress, well, it is what it is. If we can get the tree up this weekend, and the presents we have around the house into a wrapped state, I think I'll be good.

Late night tonight, unfortunately. I do wish I could find an interesting job that didn't involve long commutes or late nights, but I'm starting to think that I'd jump for one out of 3, which I don't have right now. Not looking terribly likely, these days, so I'm settling for a steady adequate income.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Wednesday

156.4 this morning. In a reverse of how I lost all the weight in the first place, I can gain real weight (apparently) in leaps and bounds and it is snail's pace coming off. I didn't think the 157 was real. I still don't, honestly, but it isn't dropping off at all. I think I will try to increase fluids today (a benefit of Fridays for me is the never-ending teapot, which I don't have at work), and see if that helps.

Eating yesterday was okay - a little carbier than I would have liked at 51.2 g, but that's an improvement over recent days, and I think it will go lower in the future. Lee told the doc yesterday that he didn't want to go back on statins, based on my advice, but when I told him that inflammation was a more important predictor of cardiac issues, he wanted to know how to control that, and my answer was to stop the bread and breading that he still eats and to increase the fish, so if he is taking that seriously (he's asked for a CRP test; the results will be interesting), the temptation to eat such things should be removed. I wonder if I can get him to give up the potato chips because the oil is a PUFA with omega-6s? Not that I eat them that often, but it would be nice not to have them in the house at all.

Ketosis last night was back at Small, and my goal today is to continue that trend, which probably means I should think of something other than LC pizza (which is not as LC as I would like) for dinner. Meatza, maybe? We haven't done that in quite a while.

Sleep was adequate - woke up twice that I recall, based on my iPod settings (one WWII playlist, one OTR). I went right back to sleep, or nearly so, and dreamt fairly vividly, although I don't actually remember any details, just that there were dreams. I wonder if that's a side-effect of the rice flour or cornstarch in the cookies? I think, having been cooked and cooled, that they'd be resistant starch, which is supposed to kick off a lot of dreaming. However, at 10 g carbs (for now, I'm counting them) each, I think we've had our batch for the season and I will freeze the other half of the dough for some time later.

Stress, I think, is low-level, and mildly chronic. My temper is too ready to flare at not a lot of stimulus these days, and I think that's why. Still working on it. Not sure what I can do beyond avoiding bathing in the news (so to speak) and using music to soothe the commute.

I have put the whole intermittent fasting on hold for a while - I still want to return to it, but I think I need to get through whatever is going on with me hormonally first, so that a skipped meal doesn't send me plunging face-first into the chips or the like.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Tuesday

156.6, so some of it's coming back down. More to come, I hope, but a start, anyway.

Yesterday's eating was okay - I only logged part of it so far, but the parts I didn't log included a Cobb salad, a cup of green chile, and 2 rice-flour cookies, so I'm fairly sure it wasn't too high-carb. We also got to the gym and I walked 1.7 miles fairly briskly - more briskly than the 5K, for sure. And then went home and read on paper. That worked great to make me sleepy - I was ready to go to bed at 8:00 - but didn't work to keep me asleep once in bed. I got rest - possibly because I was asleep before 9 pm - but woke up at 10:50 (I think) and 3:20 and 4:49, the last time for good. I was able to get back to sleep fairly quickly, so I'm not super messed up this morning, but it sure would be nice to string oh, about 30 nights of full sleep together, just to see what it's like.

Stress is okay, I guess. I am starting to feel the pressure to get things wrapped and mailed, and hope to get that done, or mostly done, tonight. And we still have to decorate for Christmas at some point - hasn't happened yet, though.

Trace ketosis at bedtime last night. That's about it, really.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Monday

Yeah. So annoying. 157.0 this morning, after being about that all weekend.

Friday, I started on what appears to have been a minor carb binge, by eating tortilla chips out of the bag around lunchtime.  I don't recall what we had for dinner, but I don't think it was an improvement. Saturday, we had the race, I had an all-day headache, which I tried to get rid of by mainlining green chile on enchiladas and tortilla chips; dinner, if I remember correctly, was snacking, including cheese and cashews. Yesterday, I made cookies, and ate 3 of them and scraps sufficient to have been a fourth. Also potato chips.

Some of the weight is water - my fingers are swollen and we did do a 5K on Saturday so there's some residual stiffness and inflammation from that. Some of it is digestive. But what has me so bloody annoyed isn't so much the weight as these cravings and binges and what-not. Four years ago, this wasn't happening; I was able to control what I ate and was in ketosis and able to stay there. Right now, I have a lot less control (out of control would have been a lot more than 3 cookies, I guarantee!), and have been having a cycle of "bingeing" (for me) on carbs followed by a couple of days of low-carb flu when I try to get back on track. It's irritating, to say the least, and I'm not what you'd call functional in that mode.

After looking up my dizziness and finding that it's probably "just menopause", and figuring that my not-quite-migraine on Saturday was probably "just menopause", I'm guessing that the carb issue is "just menopause" too, but all the other "just menopause" stuff like insomnia, flashes, dizziness, and mood swings, makes it nearly impossible to get control over the eating part. Stress much? Um, yeah.

So not good. Guess all I can do is keep trying to get control, and trying not to let "out of control" go too far. And take some fish oil for the inflammation.

On the other hand, we finished the 5K at a sub 15:00 pace, which is pretty darn good considering I wasn't really pushing the pace and Lee's plantar fasciitis was bugging him. And I got 2 nights of decent sleep in a row the last 2 nights - much needed (highlighting that I need more still). I'm in the middle of a room-darkening project that I hope will help even more; it would be done, but yesterday all I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and rest - and I spent much of the day doing just that. (Apart from the cookie baking, anyway.)

Friday, December 5, 2014

Friday

Apparently, dizziness and/or lightheadedness are a part of menopause - I thought I'd read that somewhere, but when I had another bout last night while finishing with building the "electric fireplace" TV console thingie, I thought I'd double check. No wonder menopausal women have mood swings - it's just one damn thing after another. No sooner do I reconcile myself to hot flashes and nightmare sleeplessness than I find myself reeling around the living room or unable to walk from the car into a restaurant without looking like I should be going the other way (and into a taxi).

I took Benadryl last night to get some sleep. It worked - although it was remarkably ironic that I was the one who heard the dog wanting to go out in the middle of the night; Lee got up once I got her out the door. The nice thing about the Benadryl was that it allowed me to get back to sleep quickly and thoroughly, unlike the night before. But all in all, that's not the way to go through life, relying on chemical supplements to accomplish normal functions. Besides, I've read enough to know that it's sub-par sleep, and I want the full monty.

I have a few options, I guess. I can go back on melatonin supplements - preferably time-release ones. I can go back to reading paper after dinner to avoid the direct blue-light input from the iPad, thereby allowing melatonin to develop naturally. I can resume the honey. All of this, possibly, with the Benadryl as a fall-back once I've had a couple of bad nights in a row - to prevent having a third. I think the plan should be something like this:
  • Step 1 - read on paper at night
  • Step 2 (if step 1 is insufficient) - take 1 tsp honey as we're heading to bed
  • Step 3 (same caveat) - take time-release melatonin (probably stop the honey if it's not working)
  • Step 4 (same caveat) - add the honey back on top of the melatonin

155.6 this morning. I ate rather a lot of candy last night, on top of a lower-than-usual-fat day of eating, the candy as an effort to spike my blood sugar, in case the dizziness was somehow related to that (I think now that it was just effing change-o-life crap, so won't take that approach again). No ketosis at bedtime, unsurprisingly.

I am more rested today than I was yesterday, but not fully rested by any means. I am tired, if not sleepy, today. In fact, I will probably go directly to step 4 tonight, to do everything I can think of to promote sleep - real, restful, restorative sleep - tonight.

5K tomorrow morning, and a lot of Christmas preps for the weekend - trying to get the vast bulk of things done well in advance, so we can sit back and enjoy the season. Even if it spins.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Thursday

I am struggling mightily with the temptation to succumb to despair. Monday night I had crap sleep. Tuesday night I had crap sleep that was slightly less crappy than Monday. Last night was only barely within the definition of the word "sleep". I went to bed after 9:20, took a little while (not long, maybe 20 minutes) to fall asleep, and woke, bright-eyed, overheated and ready for a new day, at 12:12. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:30, I drifted off a little, then woke up about every half hour between then and the alarm going off at 5:30.

I don't know how long I can sustain this kind of thing. It's not like I can take a nap or anything; what I get out of this is real, nasty, sleep deprivation. With all its concomitant evils - stress hormones over growth hormones, the lack of energy creating hunger, and anything else that might come along that I can't think of just now. Not to mention that I'm commuting with RedBull on mornings like this - and I'm thinking that infusing that weird chemical cocktail can't be a good long-term strategy. Hence the struggles with despair.

I decided yesterday to reintroduce a bit of deliberate IF into my life, starting with between breakfast and dinner. I was successful; ate nothing from leaving home until getting to a restaurant - my first bite was steak, I think, and quite delicious. I then ate from then until about 9 pm, and have had nothing today but heavy cream in my tea. I'm aiming at getting to dinner today, and then I will go back to my normal eating patterns with one key exception - I am going to try very hard to stop snacking and instead eat in time boxes of 1 hour max, 2 or 3 meals per day. It seems that ad-lib eating results in obese mice, and time-restricted feeding, even with intervals where ad-lib eating is permitted (e.g., on weekends), results in lean and fit mice. I know I'm not a mouse, but that seems to be fairly compelling. Certainly worth a try, anyway. And if it provides any short-term results, I'll do an IF day say, every couple of weeks. I don't plan on going into the "no breakfast or lunch" pattern on a daily basis as I sort of did about 2 years ago.

Tomorrow should be interesting, being work from home day, where I have free access to snack foods. I will aim to eat "lunch" (in addition to breakfast) and see what transpires.

I haven't added dinner to yesterday in my log yet, so I don't know how it shook out, but I hit Small ketosis at bedtime and lost 0.2 pounds overnight - 154.6 again this morning.

I think I'll stop now, while I'm ahead of the typos - a lot of backspacing going on this morning.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Wednesday

Another day, another night of crap sleep. Interruptions last night involved a leg cramp, the dog, and at least one hot flash. Oh, and my sore left hip, which I finally managed to get attacked with the golf ball this morning, so I'm hoping those muscles will stop bugging me. Rough, though. I think I hit the bed before 8:30 last night. 154.8 this morning; 154.6 yesterday, which I forgot to mention. It looks as if I've resumed the weight pattern I had all summer, where the upper and lower limits of any given week would vary, hitting a high about Wednesday or Thursday and a low at one or the other ends of the week, but with both limits being slightly down from the previous week.

Eating was okay yesterday; we ate dinner at Country Buffet, which was fine in itself, but goofy when I tried to log the food in LoseIt - the restaurant is there, but the carb counts for everything are wildly wrong - as in, the carb count doesn't remotely reconcile with the calorie count for a given item. After using those items, I showed something like 750 grams of carbs. I picked substitutes - maybe accurate, maybe not, and my day went back to something approaching normal - 69.2% fat, 10.2% carbs (and under 50 grams), and 20.6% protein. Trace ketosis at bedtime, and a leg cramp. Haven't seen much of those in the past couple of months - good and bad.

Stress is okay; the holiday music on the commute is helping, I think. That, and trying to get the Christmas shopping done early; I want to have some time for a proper Advent, even if it isn't the whole 4 weeks.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Tuesday

I managed to eat a lot of food yesterday, despite having a salad for dinner. Lunch was kind of a giant bolus of fat and protein, and the salad at dinner was a chef's salad - with ham, chicken, and cheese on it. And then topped it off with 4 small pieces of candy, which drove the carbs over the 50 gram mark.

We did the gym before dinner, and I overdid it there - put my loud car music playlist on, which puts me at a 13-ish minute mile pace. Consequently, I was aching through the hip and thigh region after going to bed, and woke up at 1:15 to get aspirin. The dog woke up about an hour later, just as I'd fallen asleep and was dreaming, and Lee, not being a subtle individual, sat up abruptly and threw covers around, which woke me up. Probably subconsciously intentional - he doesn't much like suffering alone. And despite my best efforts at being smooth and quiet when I got up for the aspirin, it woke him up. He generally sleeps well, but wakes up at the drop of a hat. In a building a block away that has all the doors and windows shut.

I got back to sleep, but not well, I think - each waking took me at least a half-hour to get over. I don't know what that makes the total; what I do know is that I fell asleep on the couch last night around 8, and was in bed by 8:30, so that helps a little. Had a RedBull on the way to work - still waiting on the wings. I'm pretty groggy this morning.

We skipped breakfast, too - just to get a few more horizontal minutes on the clock. I had a piece of cheese and have others with me, so I won't starve today. No gym tonight; on the other hand, I don't really know what we will have to eat and we will probably go out shopping. I want to get the Christmas shopping done and checked off with just a few exceptions this week. I think that will aid with the stress levels, since it's pretty obvious that my sleep is not in a good place just now. Thinking seriously about blacking the room out further - curtains over the windows above our headboard to start with, and somehow making the window-seat curtains go to the tops of those windows as well.

Anndd, here comes a hot flash. Life can be annoying at times.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Monday

I think, overall, we had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I was able to putter a bit, we got some exercise - both the Turkey Trot and leaf cleanup - and I had fires in the fireplace 2 days and got a lot of reading in. 

Eating was, well, okay. Generally carbier than usual, because, pie. And I could have done better than enchiladas for dinner on Saturday. But, even with a bit of lingering water from post-walk inflammation (I think, anyway), I'm only at 154.2, which is definitely in the could-be-worse category.

I didn't track eating at all while I was off. I'll start back this morning. The plan is to do the gym tonight, and at least a couple more times this week, and we have the Colder Boulder on Saturday (just a 5K). I also signed us up for a 5K on New Year's Day.

Sleep has been iffy. I'm contemplating blacking the room out, based on Robb Wolf's advice in his book, but for me, I don't think light cues are the issue - it's all temperature. And unless someone has some magic to stop the nighttime hot flashes, I'm kinda screwed in that area.

Stress was obviously down for most of the weekend - Thursday, not so much, but I burned off a lot via exercise that morning. I'm continuing to make my commute into as relaxing a thing as I can right now, and can only hope that it helps.

Leftover turkey broccoli casserole for lunch - a crazy high-fat cream/cheese sauce on it, so I'm guessing it's similar to the soup in profile.