Friday, February 27, 2015

Friday

So, I'm headed to the doc this afternoon, to discuss my extended symptoms of menopause, and make sure they're not something else. And, of course, over the week leading from making the appointment to now, my sleep has slowly gotten less awful, the lingering cold (temperature, that is) seems to be gone, and I'm not as draggy as I have been for so long. Go figure.

Nonetheless, I'm going in with my list, because sure as shooting, it will all come back. And I want someone else's eye over all of it, to make sure I'm not overlooking something I should be paying attention to.

158.2 this morning - guess that's down a bit from yesterday, but I feel bulgy just now. I spent some time yesterday putting some structure in place to run my own challenge - using Evernote instead of Vimify. Basically the same as the PB challenge - eating, sleeping, sun, movement being the key elements - in a hope to get out from under a nasty sugar addiction that I seem to have brought back from New Orleans. Not that all this working from home helps much - the proximity to food is very unhelpful. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • string cheese (3)
  • 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • cashews
  • green chile with cheese
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • strawberry ice cream (Haagen-Dasz single serving cup)
  • 1 tsp honey
Definitely an improvement from earlier this week, but not where I want to be. And I did a keto-stick last night - negative.

So, sleep. Second day in a row where I used the progesterone cream after dinner. Just that and the honey - and a couple of aspirin at bedtime. I did the brainwave app, spent a few moments in thought, and was out cold for about 1-1/2 hours. Woke just before 11 in a pool of sweat - apparently slept through one or two hot flashes without so much as twitching. Put the pillow speaker on for an hour, and was back out cold before I could even pay attention to the sound. Next woke up at 3:30 needing to go to the bathroom - and if that hadn't been the case, I think I might not have awakened. Dealt with that, put the radio on again, and the next thing I knew, it was about 5:25. The waking definitely disrupts sleep cycles, meaning that I'm having to start the process of getting to sleep 3 times in one night, not once, but I'm not laying around, stewing about being awake, for hours on end, and I'm starting to feel more rested. I will be asking the doc about bio-identical progesterone in other forms, and whether she thinks I'd be better off with trans-dermal or pills, but for now, this combination seems to be working for me - and seriously, getting away from the melatonin supplements, as well as the Benadryl, feels very like a victory. I sure hope it continues to work.

Finally, got to the gym again last night. 2 miles, a little slower average pace, because I used my other racewalk playlist and it appears to be slower. I feel pretty good this morning. And (another win) interested in getting out to the gym again tonight, as well.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Thursday

Snowed in again; we didn't make it to the gym last night. We did make it to a Chinese restaurant.

Sleep wasn't great. I tried something new last night. Having read on a website that progesterone helps with menopause insomnia, I went back to some "natural" progesterone cream I'd tried a while back, put some on after dinner, and had honey and the brainwave app. My ears are getting really tired of the earphones, and once the 10 minutes of "deep sleep" was done, I ended up listening to the radio on the pillow speaker. I don't know how long - I started it after 9:30 and fell asleep before 10. So at that end of things, the brainwave app is still working.  At some point during the night, I think around 2:30, I woke up with my left hip really hurting. I'm not sure why - maybe I'd not moved all night and it was pulling on something. Anyway, I checked the time, and I cannot recall if I put the radio back on then, or an hour later. In any event, I slept reasonably well from then until around 5. So not great, but not all that bad - and without the bodyaches, I might have slept the night through. Still the unattainable dream - no pun intended. And I did dream last night - and recall some of it. So I think I'll repeat the combination of progesterone cream, honey, and the app tonight, with less uncomfortable earphones.

158.8 this morning. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • string cheese (6 pieces, in 2 bouts of 3)
  • macadamia nuts
  • cashews
  • 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • a large bowl (vat) of hot and sour soup
  • 4 skewers of teriyaki beef
  • a fortune cookie
  • 1 tsp honey
I'm not happy with the weight trend at all. I'm struggling hard to stay away from sweets right now, which is annoying after the success I was having doing the Primal Blueprint Challenge before New Orleans. And I know that I'm fighting with stress - even with the help I think the app is providing. Maybe I need another challenge - maybe I can create my own. I'll have to give that some thought.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Wednesday

Sleep wasn't so great last night. The brainwave app got me to sleep quite quickly (after it finished, I took the headphones off and knew no more), but I was awake again (in the "hello morning" sense) at 10:55. I didn't want to put the headphones back in - they're not terribly comfortable - so I used the sleep timer on iHeartRadio and listened to the radio for an hour using the pillow speaker - but fell asleep pretty quickly, since I don't remember any of it. Apparently the dogs were fussy around midnight, and Lee got up and let them out. I remember him getting up, but hadn't heard the dogs. He also says that I was talking - to someone named "Ralph" - in my sleep at one point. I remember waking again at 2:21, and put the radio on again, thinking it was on the sleep timer, but was enough awake after 3:21 to know that it hadn't been. Woke for good around 5:20. It was hot, and I was doing a lot of covers-adjustment; I think the night sweats are on the uptick again, unfortunately. The lesson from tonight was, I think, to suck it up and use the headphones and the app if I wake during the night. Again, I recall dreaming during the night, but not any of the subjects.

I've been using the "stress reduction" program on the brainwave app at work the past 2 days. It seems to put me on an even keel for the day, which is quite nice.

157.6 this morning; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements (added Turmeric)
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • macadamia nuts
  • 2 squares of "turndown" chocolates - found them in my purse on the way home
  • salad with meat and cheese, and blue cheese dressing
  • 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
  • 1/2 cup cashews
  • 1 tsp honey
We managed the gym last night. I got in 1.65 miles of walking using my pace progression playlist, with an average speed of 12:25 min/mile. Not bad. I signed up for the Bolder Boulder over the weekend, to get the earlybird pricing, and since I'll be doing it alone this year (sad face), I'm going to do it for a PR (happy face). I'd very much like to be under 15:00/mile for the whole thing, and ecstatic to be around 13:00. My current PR for a 10K is from 2002 at a 14:53/mile pace, so it would be way fun to beat that - I was 40 at the time. I've requested to go to the gym again tonight, but there's snow threatening, and if my commute home is horrible, I may (wrongly) beg off.

Sleep may have been affected by the walking - I did tweak my right piriformis - at least, it stiffened up a good bit over the course of the evening. Not a huge distraction, though, but I thought I'd throw it in there.

For what it's worth, I am not particularly happy about my weight right now. Pants are verging on not fitting. I think I can get this back under control relatively easily, but am starting to think that managing stress will be key. 

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Tuesday

I am all bloated. I don't think I ate all that badly yesterday, but it didn't improve the all-bloatedness thing. 158.2 this morning, and I feel all of it. My pants do not fit. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon (I think)
  • string cheese (3 pieces)
  • 3 dark chocolate peanut butter cups ("given up for lent" is not working)
  • 2 packages of Frollicks cheese crisps
  • a slice of coconut flour pumpkin bread
  • a few (maybe 6) potato chips
  • steak with blue cheese crumbles
  • Southern-style green beans with bacon
I think that's it, but I could be wrong. I worked at home yesterday, due to the snow, and it seems like I hit the fridge or cupboard more often than that. By and large, though, it's pretty good food - the chocolate and potato chips were the only truly bad things. None of those today, I can say with reasonable confidence.

Sleep last night was not as good as over the weekend, but by no means bad. I dreamed - one particularly vivid dream that I recalled clearly at 4:15 but don't remember at all now - woke then and maybe only then, and didn't really fall back asleep before the alarm. Still, that's pretty good. I feel rested and tired all at the same time. The latter may be body aches, which are still plaguing me. I'd say cutting out the chocolate and potato chips would help reduce those. Doing that and maybe going for a spa treatment this weekend - I have a gift certificate for something lengthy.

My drive in was aggravating this morning; I think I will have to try the de-stress brainwave session today. Maybe that will get my shoulders relaxed; they're part of the achiness.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Monday

A bunch of interesting things from over the weekend. And maybe (!) some help for my sleep.

First, to the sleep. On Friday, Kevin Cann posted an article to Robb Wolf's site, discussing brainwave entrainment and an app that might help with it. For four bucks, I figured it was worth a try, spent the money and downloaded it, and tried it every night since then. It has a 10-minute program that is called "deep sleep", and that's what I've been using. Results so far:
  • Friday (granted, I took a Benadryl) - slept solidly from about 11 pm until about 5 am, with one brief interruption for a leg cramp
  • Saturday - slept from about 9 pm until 2:41, ran it again and fell back to sleep until 5:30. This was with magnesium, honey, and melatonin
  • Sunday - slept from about 9 pm until 11:14 when the dogs needed to go out, ran it again, and slept until 4:30, but went right back to sleep then until the alarm went off at 5:30. This was with honey and melatonin.
I have also tried the "espresso shot" program on waking, to try to get alert a bit quicker. I think it's helping, but it's hard to tell. I used that, and some of the concentration and focus ones, to wake up for driving after work on Friday, and I certainly wasn't sleepy.
So far, so good. Maybe placebo effect, maybe it's really doing something. I'm not dreaming, that I can tell, and I'm not moving much - both Friday and Saturday night, what woke me up had to do with limbs falling asleep or in pain from being stuck too long in a single position (and having leg cramps in the same leg as a foot that's fallen asleep is somewhat amusing, since you can't tell whether or not you're stomping on it - and I was hard asleep when it happened, so it was even more difficult for me to keep from scattering my possessions off the bedside table I was wildly grabbing while trying not to fall).
Definitely worth the four bucks.

The second useful thing that cropped up over the weekend, I can't quite recall the source, but this seems to be the same info. Depression might be a symptom of a disease of some sort, or an allergy. Maybe that wouldn't be a lightbulb-lighting "aha" moment for others, but it was for me. And it's saying that I feel sluggish and what-not these days because I feel ill. True, that. I've taken a lot more pain-relief stuff in the past month or so than I have in years - I ache all over, all of the time. Which means I'm inflamed for some reason, and that has led me to not want to do much of anything. Duh.

So, this morning, I'm at 157.0, which I don't like much. Didn't eat that bad over the weekend, but not that great, either. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • no supplements (I should probably make magnesium and fish-oil a no-skip option, but took nothing yesterday)
  • string cheese
  • ham and cheese slices
  • walnuts
  • coconut flour pumpkin bread with walnuts and craisins (total of 2 1" slices)
  • butter
  • hamburger stew/soup - ground beef, tomatoes, mixed veg from a can (carrots, beans, peas, potatoes, celery), chicken stock
  • dried strawberries
I think that was it. I'm feeling some side-effects from the fiber in that bread, although after putting it into LoseIt, seems that I only had 4 g of fiber in the 2 slices. And lots of carbs - 40 g total in the 2 slices. Bother.

So, moving forward - probably will avoid inflammatory foods as much as possible, and I think when we get the new bottle of cucurmin, we'll both be taking it. See if that helps with my aches and pains - and my general disinclination to do much of anything right now. And I will probably be trying out the stress-relief sessions on my brainwave entrainment app as well, to see if I can mitigate any bodily side-effects of stress.

I still have a doctor's appointment on Friday to rule out any non-menopause causes of feeling mildly crappy, but if this new information and these new tools continue to be useful, things are looking up a bit. Yeah!

Friday, February 20, 2015

Friday

Turning the thermostat down on the mattress pad may have helped, but a lot of other things intervened and sleep last night (sans Benadryl) was not great. We had dogs and cats on the bed, Lee's got foot issues that are causing him pain, and I spent about an hour, early on, trying to deal with really horrible leg cramps.

Which totally don't make sense right now. I'm eating rather broadly - more carby since we got back from vacation than I think I should - and taking both multi-vitamins and specific magnesium and potassium supplements. I should be in decent electrolyte balance, but apparently, I'm not. The cramps last night were definitely mineral balance cramps - sharp, abrupt, and accompanied by giant fasciculation, more than I can ever recall having before. After the first batch, I put magnesium oil on both legs, but that didn't stop things; I think I finally had to get up and walk around the house to work them out. Not unlike the night at the movies. 

Now once they died down, I got to sleep, but I know I tossed and turned a lot, and still found myself hitting the "preheat" button on the mattress pad several times, as well as knocking the temperature setting down to its lowest level. I woke enough to look at the clock at 2:47 and 3:47, and gave up for good at 4:47 (one-hour playlists between each time-check). 

That said, I feel quite a bit better than yesterday - the fog has lifted, and the other weird symptoms are pretty much gone.

Crap eating yesterday, and 158.0 this morning. I really need to get under control again. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • 2 grilled shrimp
  • a naked hamburger with lettuce and tomato
  • chips and salsa
  • stacked cheese enchiladas (3 tortillas) with green chile
  • 1 chocolate peanut butter cup
  • walnuts
  • 1 tsp honey
We went to bed last night before 8, and I was asleep shortly after 8, I believe (and back awake around 9:30 with the leg cramps). So maybe waking at 4 or 5 isn't so bad, and maybe I'm feeling relatively alert because I actually got enough sleep. Maybe.

In any event, sleep, such as it was last night, was on melatonin and magnesium and honey. If we could have a less-eventful night, those 3 and the lower mattress temp might be enough. Tonight, though, is at a hotel, and I have a Benadryl with me, and will be taking it. Because I get to drive home tomorrow in snow, and need my faculties.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Thursday

(as an aside, this week is moving remarkably fast; I really thought today was Wednesday.)

I performed an interesting experiment yesterday, and am glad of the results, although I'm not enjoying them much.

I ate 3 pieces of King Cake. About the equivalent of the bread to make a sandwich, I'd say. I won't be doing that again - and any thoughts I'd had that 'bread isn't so bad' or that I might try eating it occasionally, have been effectively quashed. 

It didn't make me sick yesterday, although it prompted a bout of indigestion that proved hard to ignore or eradicate. And I sort of slept last night (more on that later) - much better than the night before, at least. But I'm sitting here this morning with "medicine head", exhausted, aching from head to toe, slightly dizzy and/or faint, unable to focus brain or eyes, and with nasty stomach symptoms. I have taken no medicine in the past 24 hours apart from vitamins and a time-release melatonin at bedtime last night. So I have to put the blame on the wheat.

I won't be having bread - or thoughts of having bread - any time in the foreseeable future, and if the urge comes upon me again, I think how I feel right now is intense enough to spawn a memory that will be available then. Yecch.

As for last night's sleep, it was better than the night before. I had a lot of temperature fluctuations, and had to keep adjusting the heat or lack of heat on the mattress pad, but I didn't explicitly wake up. And I feel stupid for not trying this earlier, but I've had the mattress pad set at "4" on a 1-10 scale; I'm thinking I should try it on "2" tonight to see if I can leave it on all night. Tonight can be a Benadryl night again, too, so at least I'll get some sleep. But if the lower temp on the mattress pad works, maybe the melatonin, magnesium, honey combo can be made to work more reliably for actual rest. Oh, and I had a leaping-out-of-bed leg cramp last night, and even got back to sleep after that fun.

I also stopped with the iPad around 7 last night - watched TV, with my table lamp off to dim the room. I think it helped, and I'm thinking I might get a sleep mask as a first attempt toward complete darkness for sleeping - before trying to monkey with the curtains some more, since that affects Lee as well.

156.8 this morning; I've been eating a lot this week for some reason, and a lot of sugar early, at least. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • 3 pieces of King Cake
  • macadamia nuts
  • salad with meat, cheese, blue cheese dressing
  • a handful of cashews
  • a bunch of dried strawberries
  • 1 tsp honey
We also made it to the gym yesterday - I got a mile in at about 13:40, but found it very tiring, probably since we haven't been in a while. I really do want to get a good pace going for the Bolder Boulder this year, and want to train to that end, so we need to just suck it up and get to the gym - and I need to sign up for the race, already, too.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Wednesday

I went to bed between 7 and 8 last night - didn't go to sleep until after 9, but I felt crappy enough to just want to go lay down after we got home from dinner. I slept from 9 to 11:51 pm, and then tossed and turned, with occasional sleep events, until the alarm went off this morning. This is a hell of a way to live.

I have officially given up chocolate for Lent, which starts today, so yesterday, I pigged out. Seven dark chocolate peanut butter cups, after going to bed. Beyond that, here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • macadamia nuts
  • 2 pieces of cheddar cheese
  • caesar salad, no croutons
  • 2 orders of Red Lobster scampi
  • green beans
  • (and the peanut butter cups)
I guess, in context, 7 peanut butter cups probably didn't do a lot of damage. And I won't be having any more for 40 days or so, unless I decide to take "Lent vacations" on Sundays, as the Church allows. Probably won't.

I have made an appointment to see the doc. Now I need to make a list of what I'm running into and what I'm interested in confirming one way or another, and what I want to do about it depending on what we determine or confirm. And what I don't want to do.

Struggling through the day today, I think. Ugh.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Tuesday

Forget yesterday. It was a chocolate fest. And by the way, I know what I'm giving up for Lent this year - and it should be hard. Sheesh! M&Ms (the remains from the movie), and peanut butter cups - 8 if I counted correctly. 

156.6 this morning - could be worse, should be better. 

No exercise yesterday; all I managed was an epsom salts bath. Slept with 2 Benadryl, and didn't want to wake up with the alarm, which I guess is a good thing. I think I looked at my watch once, after 4 am; otherwise, I knew nothing all night. I need the sleep, but this is not the way to get it. And I'm still tired today, and achy. 

I think I'm doing something wrong. The energy I used to have is just gone. Even in New Orleans, I had a really tough time getting "up" for activities I love, and I'm sad to say I was looking forward to it being over, and happy to be driving home. That's just not right. 

It may be menopause, but I'm starting to think maybe it's time to go ask a doc to make sure. Except I just don't know what they can do. Unless I'm actually sick (and an illness that causes exhaustion as it's only symptom would be either auto-immune or cancerous, I think), I'll have to fend off drugs to treat symptoms that might make me sicker in some other, more sinister way, and I don't want that. So if I go that way, I think I need to go in with a plan: discuss what I'm struggling with (insomnia/hot flashes theoretically from menopause, exhaustion, achiness), and ask to ensure there's nothing nastier going on than that and some stress from my stupid career choices - a few tests to rule out other causes - and if that comes back clear, I don't want anything to alleviate the symptoms except maybe that Brisdelle stuff.

The other possibility is the good old black dog, exacerbated by SAD from this winter. Certainly depression causes body aches and exhaustion, and general disinterest in activities that should be fun in normal years. And I'm feeling quite incapable right now, and that's probably another pointer there. 

Thing is, it could all be down to sleep debt.

Okay, so here are the things I'm struggling with
  • brain fog - memory issues, language skills (I'm losing words), disorganization
  • insomnia - early waking and inability to go back to sleep (I've done a few things to help this, maybe not enough)
  • occasional hot flashes, accompanied by a strong sense of weakness (the latter is new)
  • aches and pains all over
  • muscle cramps particularly in my calves and feet
  • lack of interest in much of anything although I'm okay if someone pushes me out the door
Well, hell. Except for the physical symptoms (aches, pains, cramps), that's classic menopause crap. And they may be as well. I don't know. (brain fog)

Monday, February 16, 2015

Monday

Another day working from home - it's snowing, and the state seems to have forgotten how to maintain roads in winter, judging by the radio traffic reports. I hope to do something of an exercise nature today, but if it doesn't stop snowing, the gym may not be accessible. I want to do something to get my FuelPoints above goal for the third day in a row - I would like to do a long streak for a change. Not sure what's prompting this urge, but it seems healthy and I'd like to encourage it.

That said, I slept poorly last night and feel like crap this morning. Guess we're looking at a Benadryl night. Hope it works this time.

I said Friday I was at 154.6. That was a typo - it was 156.4, as it is again this morning. The weekend included a 5K (16:35/mile on average), and not-so-great eating. We went to the movies last night and I ate 2/3 of a movie-sized bag of M&Ms. Also had a bout of leg cramps, both calves and both shins, in the middle of the movie, trapped in the middle of the back row, in one of the theatres with recliners, making an escape impossible. Nasty. I had to stand up in front of my seat (a good thing about being in the back row), back to the screen, and try to stretch the calf muscles out. I'm sure it was a bit distracting for the folks next to us, but hopefully not much.

Yesterday's eating included a breakfast of eggs and bacon, cheese, cashews, a naked burger and fries, and the M&Ms. Like I said, not great. We have chicken "tortilla" soup planned for dinner - chicken, tomatoes, and peppers in homemade chicken stock. Probably that and, well, not salad, because we are out of lettuce. Maybe just a lot of that.

My stomach has been a bit off this weekend as well. Maybe just a reaction to vacation or something. I think it's telling me to get back on the straight and narrow, which I mean to do - Lee needs to as well, to help with inflammation in his feet (he has arthritis and a hyper-extended achilles tendon or something, and will be doing physical therapy for it). Looking back, I've been feeling less than wonderful for a while, and while some of it is menopause-related, I'm sure, some of it is probably slippage from an optimal diet. No worries; I'm certainly not interested in junk food (apart from fries and chocolate, apparently) right now.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Friday

I did manage to remember it was Thursday all day yesterday, so I am working from home today. Got some sleep last night, as well - still not a perfect night's sleep, but restorative. I'll take it.

154.6 this morning; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements, extra potassium
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • 2 cheddar cheese sticks
  • macadamia nuts
  • 2 1" square Snickers bars (found in a stocking in my cube - and they were delicious)
  • naked burger with chopped green chiles and cheese, sliced tomatoes
  • 2 pieces of Cheddar cheese
  • about 1/3 cup walnuts
  • 1 tsp honey
I was hungry at bedtime again. Don't know about my state of ketosis last night, though. I did really well last week, not being terribly hungry or wanting to snack, so I think I was in ketosis then (also, I had zero capacity for alcohol, which seems to be a side-effect for me).

My only issue today is that, while I did sleep, I was still really stiff and achy this morning. Not pleasant at all. 

Long day today - got work tonight that could run very late (including getting up tomorrow to repeat the process). If it doesn't run too long tomorrow, I'm doing a 5K. Crossing my fingers that I can, since the weather is supposed to be nice.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Thursday

I am so freaking tired, it's not remotely funny. I took a Benadryl last night, to try to get some sleep. I don't know if it was that, or the fact that I'd hit Moderate on the keto-stick last night, or what, but I slept until 2:45 and my legs started cramping up. Not like the ones I'd had a few years back, though. Not as sharp, and not as easily stopped. If I pointed my toe or bent my leg just wrong, the top of my calf muscle would sort of roll itself into a ball, somewhat slowly and not terribly painfully but in a very distracting way. Eventually, I got up and sprayed magnesium "oil" on my calves and things settled down a bit, at which point I realized that my piriformis muscle was really irritated, and my left IT band was tight enough to use as a guitar string. Tossed and turned with that fun for a while and finally got up to take aspirin, and once it kicked in, I got back to sleep. I think that was after 4 some time. All this time, we were battling the cat, who is very glad we've returned from vacation to the point that she wanted to sleep on my feet all night. I would move, and so would she, and then my calf would cramp a bit so I'd move again, and she'd relocate. Really bad night. I wish she'd go away.

156.4 this morning; my feet were still swollen last night, so I imagine it's water, at least in part. We had Chinese food for dinner, which is also probably part of it. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • macadamia nuts
  • hot and sour soup
  • cashew chicken (with celery and water chestnuts in sauce, no rice)
  • a fortune cookie
  • 1 tsp honey
  • a small quantity of cashews
That was it. The cashews at the end were because I was effing starving at bedtime.

We are eating downtown tonight. I'd rather not, really, but Lee has a meeting down there and seemed to want us to. I guess things will quiet down once Biz goes back to Pennsylvania, which is sort of good and bad, since it's nice having her around again. But at the moment, after 2 weeks of crazy, I'd really like some routine.

Anyway, I hope it's a fairly quiet day. I took some extra potassium at breakfast today, to see if that would sort out my cramping, since last week I managed magnesium supplements pretty regularly (no pun intended), but not potassium, so I might just be out of balance. Maybe I'll get a sugar-free Gatorade on the way home tonight, flush my system with the electrolytes and see if that helps.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Wednesday

This week is getting away from me. In a way, that's good; the weekend arrives sooner after all. However, I keep thinking it's yesterday, and that could mean that I forget to take my laptop home tomorrow and can't work from home on Friday.

Pretty tired this morning. Sleep last night was broken a lot, starting at 11 something, and utterly demolished around 4 am. I need to buy an actual pocket radio; I was going to listen to streaming AM radio on my iPad at 4 only to find our cable (which governs our phones and internet) was out. I know this because I got up and jiggered the cable modem and WAP around trying to get connected to something. I would have been better off reading.

156.0 this morning, with a lot of yesterday's water gone. Apparently I ate quite well last week (!!!). Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • macadamia nuts
  • roast chicken
  • salad with a Greek-style vinaigrette
  • 2 squares of Lindt 85%
  • 1 tsp honey
A pretty short list. I was a little hungry at bedtime, but not enough to do anything about, and quite hungry at 4 am. Of course, at breakfast, I wasn't hungry at all. I've been reading a lot about circadian rhythm entrainment on Calories Proper, and it sounds to me like I need to be waking naturally (not likely this time of year), getting bright sunlight as soon after that as possible (maybe a light box in the shower?), eating my main meal at breakfast, and getting a pretty long fast between dinner and breakfast.  The light and natural waking are supposed to be the biggies, but the food timing should help. So I'm trying to avoid snacking at night, and hoping that my honey won't blow it all out of the water. These days, sleep is my big concern. Sleep and lengthening my hip flexors to allow me to stand more comfortably. I did some foam rolling on my psoas and iliacus muscles last night - tricky to do, and mildly painful - maybe not as much as I would have expected. I will keep it up - and I will be using my standing desk as much as I can manage while at work.

I think we're going to the gym tonight - if Lee's feet permit. He was having a lot of foot pain while we were in New Orleans, which isn't a great thing in a place where we walk a lot. Doctor yesterday, and they think it's arthritis, but he also had x-rays to confirm, so they may tell a different story. We can do some useful stuff for arthritis with diet - I added Turmeric to his morning vitamins today - but if he has a broken bone somewhere, he won't be going to the gym - at least, not to walk. They were suggesting swimming and/or biking as alternates, so maybe he does that and I walk.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tuesday

Got back yesterday afternoon and have been running ever since, at least, sort of. It seems that way. 157.4 this morning, with swollen feet. I thought I ate pretty well, and that seems to confirm it. 

Mind you, in New Orleans, "pretty well" includes roux in gumbo, a bite of King Cake, occasional bits of bread, alcohol, cookies, and stuff like that. What I did this trip was to make sure that a bite was a true bite, the alcohol was intermittent and light, and that I stayed as clean as possible between times. Seems to have worked.

One thing I learned on this trip. I kept getting to the hotel at the end of a busy day just screamingly exhausted - or so I thought. After doing this multiple nights in a row, with reasonably decent sleep (our room was close enough to overlooking Bourbon Street to get most of the racket, so it was "best effort"), I realized that what I was reading as being tired was my back aching. Sleeping on a double bed didn't help, but I think the root cause was/is short hip flexors. We did a LOT of standing, and my lower back and butt muscles (and maybe the fronts of my legs around the knee as well) were working overtime to compensate for the fact that I've been sitting without a lot of activity for a lot of years.

So, back to the standing desk. Probably to some psoas stretches and foam rolling of IT bands and stuff of that sort. In hopes that it will stretch out a bit and make it possible that I might want to do something other than collapse after 3 hours of throwing beads at people from a standing posture. Crossing my fingers that a) that will work, and b) I'll keep on it.

I think that's it. As always, we had a fabulous time, despite the aches and pains and general chaos.