Thursday, April 30, 2015

Thursday

I had hoped I was kidding yesterday. I wasn't. 159.4 this morning. Back up, just not quite as high. And I'm sloshing around with water - woke up way early (3:30 for reals) with aches and pains all over, and aspirin did not help much. I also had a leg cramp. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon (3 pieces this time, not 2)
  • 10 almonds
  • salad with smoked turkey and blue cheese dressing
  • an after-dinner mint
  • more tea with cream
We had realtors over to give us an idea about how much fun selling the house is likely to be. They don't think we'll get as much money as we had hoped. Rather a bummer, but the house is somewhat unique, so it's a little hard to predict and we might be on the receiving end of a bidding war, which would be nice, if it were to happen. Nonetheless, we have to make the call to let the process start first, and that's waiting on the middle of next month, roughly. No stress there, or anything.

Medium ketones last night, indubitably. Haven't seen that in a while. And the leg cramp - associated? Maybe. It wasn't much of one, but it was the spur to get up and find aspirin at 3:30 am. I'm a little tired today, but had a RedBull (so not Paleo), and am functional.

Starting to see some web posts on the importance of having enough protein, especially when eating fewer than 3 meals. I checked Tuesday's eating and it came in around 85 grams, which is probably a bit low. Yesterday wouldn't have been any better, I suspect. Not sure what I should do about it, but I think I'll wait out the week and see where I stand, weight-wise, and adjust accordingly.

4-day weekend with Elizabeth tomorrow - not sure what that means as regards nutrition. I'll just do my best, I guess.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Wednesday

It's a see-saw. Whee! Down Monday, Up Tuesday, Down Wednesday. 159.0 again this morning. However, the adherence to the new commitment to the old way of eating (too complex? maybe) is going pretty well. As of 2:30 yesterday, I hadn't been hungry since breakfast. Had a brief wish to eat something junky, but it subsided so quickly that I wasn't able to recall what it was I wanted. However, shortly after 3, I was hit with a nasty craving - for white bread yeast dough dinner rolls, with butter. The kind that show up on store shelves for brown and serve purposes around Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't eat those. And I survived the craving. Now, if I could just remember, at a Mexican restaurant, that I don't eat chips...

For what it's worth, the dinner rolls thing died out almost as soon as I noticed it, and I made it home without a stop at the bread store anywhere. And we stayed so busy last night, painting the living room, that I had no time to think of snacking, much less execute on it.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • 10 almonds
  • a burger patty - probably 1/2 pound
  • salad with lettuce, tomatoes, blue cheese dressing
  • 1 square of maltitol-sweetened chocolate
  • tea with cream

If I had to guess, I'd say my sleep improvements of late had more to do with a menopausal phase shift or something than anything I did, but I'm quite grateful for them, whatever the source. Last night, we were in bed before 9, both tired and achy, having been painting for several hours, followed by furniture replacement (new carpet in the living room, tra-la!). Lights-out around 9:15, out cold by 9:30, approximately. One semi-awakening at some point - I turned sound on again for another hour and passed back out - and the next thing I knew my dream had broken the surface of sleep and it was 5:20 am. THAT'S what I call a good night's sleep. I sure hope I can keep it up for a while - I wake up rested but wanting more. I'd like to move toward waking up rested and wanting to get going.

Interestingly, given a day where the only carbs I see are vegetables or nuts, I was only Trace ketones last night. Was I using the ones I generated, instead of excreting them? Maybe.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Tuesday

I noticed, just after completing yesterday's entry, that I've started having "keto-breath" - or the taste in my mouth that always seemed to signal it to me, in any event. No leg cramps yet, but very faint hints of fasciculation occasionally. I really do hope that the extended focus will help me this time. And I'm really trying to stay focused again.

Some highlights of my fast day yesterday:
  • I wasn't hungry when I woke up at all, or for several hours after. I had the usual tea with cream and gelatin, which may have served as a sort of "meal" first thing.
  • I did have 11 almonds after I got to work.
  • mild hunger at 11 am - went away
  • less-mild hunger between 1-2 pm, seeming to be a bit persistent
  • Pretty hungry by dinner time, though
159.6 again this morning though, and I know why. Chips and salsa. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • 11 almonds
  • chips and salsa and guac
  • chicken fajitas (very salty), no tortillas, with pico and some sour cream and guac
  • 1 Dove dark chocolate heart
  • tea with cream again
That was it. Lee wanted Mexican and I did try - the fajitas were not my first choice (enchiladas every time). Anyway, apart from that, it was a pretty good fast, since we only had cheese for dinner Sunday night, so the cheese and almonds were my only solid food in something over 24 hours. I think there will be some good out of that. Autophagy if nothing else.
 
Ketones remain at Small each night, and I've so far seemed to shed my cravings for snacking or sweets. And I slept pretty well again last night - only waking for real around 5 when my left hip started hurting (2 days in a car were not kind to my IT bands, I think). I thought at first I was due for leg cramps, but they didn't materialize. I've moved my potassium and magnesium supplements to bedtime, so maybe they're helping.
 
I'm using an elemental silver nasal spray to try to knock out the sinus infection I've had for quite a while now. It seems to help reduce the overall volume, but hasn't completely killed it off yet. Another day or so before I move to something else.k

Monday, April 27, 2015

Monday

Let's see.

Friday, I was successful in my eating plan. Breakfast, a piece of cheese, dinner, bed. Dinner was a little over the top, because it was Lee's birthday, so we had Prosecco and split a creme brulee. 

Saturday morning, 159.6. Not unexpected. And I didn't sleep well - also not unexpected, after the alcohol (which nearly knocked me on my butt based on a single glass).

Over the weekend, we drove somewhere between 1600 and 1800 miles to Davenport IA and back. Towing a trailer on the way out, none on the way back. Quite the little adventure. Saturday, had breakfast, and variations on meat and cheese - and a small quantity of salted roasted almonds. Wrapped up in Davenport with a chicken Caesar salad, no croutons. Also had part of a Hershey's bar with almonds and some potato chips.

Sunday, similar. Breakfast (omelet with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and a little butter), lunch (McDonald's bunless - ended up with 3 patties of beef and cheese owing to an order error), potato chips, and M&Ms this time, with cheese later on. No dinner - we weren't hungry.

159.0 this morning, so I'd say we did okay. And solidly Small ketones last night.

Fasting breakfast this morning because we were out of eggs, but I had my lemon-gelatin water and am eating my small handful of almonds. Turns out there are 10-11 almonds in a small handful. Hoping to make it to dinner time on that alone; we shall see.

Slept like a pile of rocks last night - one brief waking, checked the time, passed back out and woke at 5:27 am. More, please! The night before was okay but fueled by Advil PM for all of us, since we all knew we had a long day ahead. 

Short work week ahead - I'm flying to the east coast to visit the kid in situ, as they say. Short week next week, too - I'm using Friday and Monday to do the actual flying, and have Saturday and Sunday completely with her. I think we're going to do history tourism - Gettysburg, for sure, anyway. Should be fun!

Friday, April 24, 2015

Friday

I will not go out on a limb and say that the change in eating habits affected my weight. Not after 1 day, sorry. But I was at 159.4 this morning, so at a minimum, I lost some water. About damn time. 

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements (switching, though to take Potassium and Magnesium at night to help fall asleep)
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • small handful of almonds
  • boeuf bourgignon (meat and sauce only)
  • green beans
  • 1 Dove dark chocolate heart
  • 1 slice of swiss cheese (less than 1 ounce)
  • tea with cream
My goal yesterday was to revert to a Breakfast-Dinner pattern, skipping lunch entirely. I wasn't sure, going in, that I was keto-adapted enough to fast without discomfort, and certainly, my habit was to eat during the workday. Some observations:
  • I felt mild hunger pangs occasionally at weird times during the day - like 10:30 am. I haven't been hungry at 10:30 in years, and I don't think I really was then, either. Some sort of mental thing going on.
  • As in the past, the hunger pangs subsided if I did nothing about them for about 10 minutes.
  • Overall, I felt pretty strong-willed about not eating. Whether or not that will last is another question entirely.
  • It was not a busy day; I had 3 meetings, and lots of spare time. That will always be a challenge.
  • Semi-starving by dinner, and still hungry afterward. But I limited the snacking as planned - 1 piece of cheese only, just enough to get me to bedtime.
Sleep - adequate, I guess. I dreamt that I was sleeping on a couch, for some reason - too short for me and uncomfortable. And that wasn't restful, but I didn't have a long period of wakefulness, and that was a good thing. Last night, it seemed like it took a long time to get to sleep, but I don't think it really did.

Ketones were up to Small last night as well. So that's good. Same plan for today, but with more bacon at breakfast and a seafood dinner out - and I'm working from home, so food availability - and temptation - is greater.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Thursday

I ended my day yesterday with the re-reading of this blog that I mentioned in the previous post. And thought about it, on and off, all evening and this morning on my commute - might as well use that hour productively. And I'm recommitting to the original principles. I think it will look something like this:
  • breakfast - eggs and bacon or sausage, in reasonable quantities. Two pieces, not six. A cup of tea with cream. A small handful of almonds (right now, getting those once I get to work - but as a morning thing, not a lunch substitute.
  • lunch - probably skipped. And no snacking to fill in the fact that I didn't have it
  • dinner - meat and green veg - cooked or raw. One piece of chocolate after.
  • bedtime - something high fat. Probably a half-cup of tea with cream.
  • If I'm hungry - and ONLY then - a single piece of cheese. Not three. Or a few olives - but not an entire ramekin of them.
I basically started this last night at dinner. You'll be able to see the shift, I think. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • a small handful of almonds
  • strawberries
  • salami
  • more sauerkraut
  • macadamia nuts
  • a half-pound burger patty with a pat of butter on it
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • 1 piece of sugar-free (maltitol) chocolate
  • tea with cream
No snacks after dinner. It helped that we went out on errands, I think, and didn't just sit around watching TV or reading. I have nothing with me for lunch today, although I have almonds and macadamias at the office, so if I get to starving, I have an option. I will try not to use it, though.

The almonds are a bit new. Something I read. Eating them in the morning, when the sunlight is bright, is supposed to help with circadian rhythms. Don't know if it is helping or not - and I have been doing it all week (forgot to put the entry in for Monday's or Tuesday's eating). I'm probably eating 5-6 of them, is all.

Sleep continues to be good - it's almost been long enough for me to declare that fat at bedtime, or gelatin in the morning, or both, is what I've been needing. If so, hooray.

I really hope I can persist in returning to eating properly - I saw so many entries about being fidgety energetic and things of that sort, and I want that stuff back, too.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Review of First Principles

I spent some time today re-reading this blog from the beginning. I really wanted to see if I could nail what's so different now from 5 years ago, that's putting me more into a weight-gain mode than a weight-loss mode. As in, maybe it isn't just stress and menopause; maybe I've changed some key bits of how I eat since then.

Bingo. Some observations:
  • Nearly the entire year of weight-loss was done on turkey bacon, not bacon bacon. Really.
  • I ate breakfast and dinner, but nothing between, when things were going well.
  • Much less cheese - at least to start with.
  • I didn't introduce heavy cream into the mix until about 4 months after starting.
  • If I wanted something sweet, I had ONE dark chocolate almond, not 4 or 5.
  • In general, it seems really to have been meat-and-leaves. A lot.
  • The High-Fat thing didn't show up until late in the game in general. I'm guessing I was low-fat, low-carb, sort of - and was definitely in calorie deficit for much of the time - the times I checked, I was consuming less than 1000 calories.
These days, I've been snacking a lot more. I don't eat "lunch" every day, but I have been eating "cheese" or "nuts". So I need to get that to dwindle a good bit. In the past week or so, I have reduced evening snacking, and will hope to keep that up. And the "much less cheese" thing will contribute to my reduction (to elimination) of dairy.

I know I can eat like that. I already have. It's just a return to the proper - cleaner - pattern. We need to clean out the freezer, anyway, so starting to return to meat-and-leaves at dinner should be a no-brainer. And I will reduce the level of blue cheese dressing I consume - once this batch is gone, I'll make a vinaigrette - probably balsamic - and just use blue cheese crumbles on the salad (or the meat). I don't know if I'll return to turkey bacon, though. But I might. Maybe.

Some other things I need to do - affirmative statements:
  • I do NOT eat sugar, flour, or processed carbs/starch
  • I do NOT eat junk food
  • I do NOT eat a lot of cheese
  • I do NOT snack
Probably need to have those tattooed on the back of my right hand or something.

Because what I've been seeing is different from that initial year. A lot of snacking, vice eating meals. Mindless food intake. Cheese on top of cheese on top of cheese - I didn't use to have those blocks of Cheddar that I cut up; that's been an introduction since that first year.

Okay. Going to let this stew a bit. I think it's time to revert for a while, with the intention that better eating will improve my stress reactions anyway.

Wednesday

Sleep was much better last night - fell asleep close to 9:30, woke once to check the time, at 3:19, and didn't twitch again until 5:22. That's quality sleep. 

A much less stressful day yesterday - our dog is not terminal and does not appear to be suffering from any new chronic conditions. He's probably over-medicated for his Cushing's disease, so we've stopped his pill for a couple of days and will resume at half the dose. He's eating again, and now that we've belled him and sprinkled him with oil of peppermint, the fights between the dogs seem to have dwindled - none last night at all. So that's good. And we found out that our carpet pad in the living room was impermeable on top, so that we won't have to do excessive stuff to get rid of the cat pee smell on the floor before installing new carpet. We also got the sofa taken apart - it's 2 pieces of a sectional, and neither of us was quite certain about how it was attached when we put it together a while back. And found that the two of us can move each of the pieces by itself - the whole sofa is very heavy and I was a bit worried about getting it moved for carpet replacement, not to mention for moving.

160.4 again this morning, not entirely sure why, but I'll blame the sauerkraut salt (why not?). Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • string cheese
  • strawberries (about 1/2 pound)
  • hot dogs (3) with mustard
  • sauerkraut - rather a lot, because I underestimated the amount in the original container and, well, it's a long story
  • a few potato chips
  • a Haagen-Dasz single-serve strawberry ice cream
The ice cream was my fat-before-bedtime, since we're low on heavy cream. Obviously, it isn't reducing my dairy intake - and I'm still thinking about ways and means for that. Trace ketones at bedtime.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

I wonder...

I would say that, over the past year or two, I really haven't had a lot of control over my weight. It's been going up. Slowly, for which I am grateful, but inexorably - or so it seems. I can get a temporary drop, but it doesn't seem to stick around for more than maybe a week. Last summer, I tracked my weight extensively and tried hard to eat in the same way that helped me lose 50 pounds, only to watch it vary narrowly around maybe a 4-5 pound range, and then inch upward every time I ate at a restaurant (as an example; this didn't always happen).

This trend tracks pretty closely with my current job and its attendant annoyances (the commute, the fact that it only stops boring me to death when it becomes seriously irritating), which started a bit over 3 years ago. So I know I'm dealing with higher stress hormones than I had while losing the weight, for example. Add in significant menopause, and the disrupted sleep and inability to trust that I'll adapt to changing temperatures, and I'm kind of a hot mess (pun not intended, but appreciated).

But something else keeps poking at me, something I haven't really wanted to deal with, that might be worth investigating.

Dairy.

People do have problems eating it. I don't think as many problems as with gluten and related proteins, but the issue exists. I've always sort of figured I can handle it - and I should say that I haven't had milk to drink in probably 5 years. I confine myself to cheese, sour cream, butter, and heavy cream, all of which are supposed to be lower in lactose than milk itself, at least. 

Thing is, if you really look at what I've been eating over the past years, you'd see a LOT of cheese, sour cream, butter, and heavy cream. Daily - one or all of them. Cheese, in particular, has been a go-to LCHF snack for me. 

Anyway, while I think I'm still generally healthy, and I haven't been "sick" in quite a long while, I'm dealing with a handful of things that are making me question if just maybe, I should cut out (or way back on) the dairy. Do an elimination period. The things are: 1) body aches and lack of energy, 2) sinus congestion (possibly low-grade infection) that has been around for the past 2 months and will NOT go away, and 3) the weight gain. Maybe all of them are stress-originated, but maybe cutting out dairy will be enlightening.

I'm going to give it some thought, since for me, that would be a fairly huge change - and on top of other stress, maybe would just make things worse. But I think I'll mull it over for a while, see if I can come up with a plan to do it, try it for 3 weeks, which I think would be long enough. I'd need to come up with fat substitutes for the heavy cream - especially since fat may be a good thing for my sleep - and other snacks to swap for the cheese (that aren't nuts). This isn't something to launch into blindly, unless I want to fail.

Mulling...

Tuesday

Some days are a red-letter day. Today is a Red-Bull day. Oddly enough, I "slept" straight through once I got to sleep until 5 am, but it was so shallow that I could tell - at the time - exactly how lightly I was asleep. But I wasn't awake.

Stress. No other word for it. We are dealing with a newly blind dog and a second dog that doesn't get that the first one is blind. He's been fighting with her, because she can't see him and walks into or onto him. He also isn't eating. I'm hoping his issue is just needing to learn to deal with her, but I worry that it's something sinister, like a form of Springer rage (epilepsy) or a brain tumor or something - or something chronic and horribly expensive. That's on top of us trying to get the house ready to sell and getting rid of enough stuff to move, and trying to decide whether, if Lee doesn't get the job in one new location, we just take a gamble, sell the house anyway, and move to a different, cheaper, location, on the proceeds and his retirement money and hope for the best. I went to bed around 9 and about 15 minutes later realized that I needed to get up and read for a while - went back to bed around 11:30 and was able to get to sleep fairly quickly at that point - although, as I said, not very deeply.

We need to find a way to deal with it - certainly the dog situation isn't going away any time soon unless it's something acute and terminal (which I doubt). And we're probably in a sort of limbo regarding the move until June some time - at least, that's what Lee found out from the guy trying to hire him. The dog issue, though, could screw with more immediate plans, since I have to stay home with them this weekend if my parents can't cope with eye drops. And I've had to stay home during the 2-week peregrination and the trip to Boise last week, and I'm tired of having to stay home every time, dammit.

160.2 this morning. Ate chips and guac last night, but otherwise nothing carby. Negative ketones, though. Here's the day:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • string cheese (low-fat, my bad - 5 sticks)
  • a few macadamias
  • chips and guac
  • pork fajitas with sour cream, cheese, salsa, and more guac
  • tea with cream again
So, did the evening fat help last night? I don't know. I guess the not waking up at 2 am thing hints at yes, but seriously, I'm not sure anyone would have slept well with all the flying monkeys in our house just now.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Monday

I think I maybe just need to stop exercising.

Did a "5K" on Saturday - heaven knows it felt like a full 3.1 miles to me, but my GPS-fed Nike Running app said it was 2.84 miles. If it was 3.1 miles, my 40:37 was a 13:10 pace. At 2.84 miles, it was a 14:17 pace. Either way, pretty fast for a 5K these days, so I won't complain. And it came with the requisite stiffness and aches afterward.

What I will complain about is that before the race, I weighed 158.2. Sunday morning, 160.4. And again this morning. I mean, really? More than 2 pounds? That won't go away in a day? I bet I carry it all effing week.

It didn't help matters much yesterday that we had a family birthday dinner at which I ate nasty stuff. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon gelatin water stuff
  • omelet with ham, cheese, and tomatoes
  • some hash browns (I asked for them not to be there, and got them anyway. And ate some)
  • walnuts
  • a string cheese
  • 3 potato chips
  • smoked turkey
  • baked beans
  • cole slaw
  • more potato chips
  • a few peanuts
  • wine (very sweet wine, at that)
  • veggies and dip
  • and then the capper - Oreo Blizzard ice cream cake with cookie-fudge something or other in the middle
  • more tea with cream
I will say now that the ice cream cake made my stomach unhappy almost immediately. It's still a little nasty. It wasn't one of those "what was I thinking?" moments - I was thinking I was at a family dinner and would just be polite (especially after getting a bit over-emphatic in quelling a political discussion I didn't want to have happen, which strikes me this morning as having been pretty rude, since it wasn't our house). 

Sleep last night - and all weekend except Saturday night (which was probably pain-related) - was good. I've continued to have a small infusion of fat just before bedtime, and so far, it seems a lot more effective than honey for me. Maybe that will change, but I fell asleep quickly, without noise needed, and woke up for the first time at 5:19.  I still don't feel very rested, but I'm putting that down to being in a big pile of sleep debt right now; I'm hoping as it gets worked off, I'll start feeling better in the mornings. And even Saturday night was less bad than usual. I woke up at 2:00 on the dot from a bad dream, spent about 20 minutes deciding to get up and find the aspirin, and was back asleep pretty quickly after 3:00. Sleep after that was fitful, but still not an "awake night" like I'd been having.

So. The week coming up will be a lot more cleaning and packing and getting rid of things, I think. Lee's home, and we are planning to head East Saturday morning to meet Biz half way with a trailer of her stuff and the guinea pigs, whom I will miss a lot. Still no word on whether we're actually moving, but if we don't move right away, we will have made our house a lot freer of clutter, and I think that in itself will have been worth the effort. Probably will also get some good maintenance done and will have freshened up the paint where needed. And then I'll still be stuck with my crap job and horrid commute - getting free from those is the thing that's motivating me to hope that the move goes through.

Finally, I think I've found something that is actually helping my right shoulder, which I messed up at Mardi Gras over 3 years ago and which has been somewhat helped by MAT, massage, and Rolfing, but never quite fixed. Resistance bands to free and stretch the subscap seem to have been helpful after the first shot of them - last night. I will be doing them nightly for the next few weeks, to see if the help is real. I sure hope so. I have to think that rolling onto that shoulder at night has been contributing to me sleeping lighter than optimal, if not waking me up outright.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Friday

Stresswise, this was a total clusterf*ck of a week. Lee traveling, funky weather, Lee driving in the funky weather and nearly getting stranded on I-80 overnight in windy freezing temps with no warm clothes (it's Spring, after all - bad planning on our part there). Multiple annoying moments at work, topped up by a deployment last night and what looks to be an emergency fix stirring this morning. Or two.

And I got 3 straight nights' of pretty damn good sleep, with just melatonin. I'm still feeling kind of tired, but - and this is new - almost as if I could achieve a nap. Something I haven't been able to do for quite a few years, even when I needed one, which has only been recently. I'm not willing to credit the increased fat consumption in the evening for the sleep yet, but I will keep doing it until it stops working. Last night was some heavy cream in tea and some walnuts and some Frollick's cheese thingies.

158.6 this morning. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • hot lemon water with gelatin
  • string cheese (low-fat, so 6 of them)
  • macadamia nuts
  • cheese (2 pieces of cheddar)
  • ground beef patty with mushroom gravy (probably flour-based roux)
  • wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, tomatoes, bacon
  • walnuts
  • tea with cream
  • Frollick's
No added sugar, unless some was hidden in the gravy or salad dressing or bacon. At this moment, I'm feeling pretty good about not having or giving in to cravings. That said, it's Friday and I'm working from home, just feet from a pantry with food in it, not all of it composed of pure fat. Ketones hit "Small" last night, which is a good thing.

Still no exercise - I'm thinking at the moment that my best bet is to keep working on the sleep and on getting my diet improved. I managed the gelatin this morning again, and am hoping it will help with the aches and pains. And I finally managed to get a massage set up - for tonight - and will make bloody sure that the therapist works my left IT band until it cries Uncle. I am scheduled to walk a 5K tomorrow, and if it's not raining I will go do it. Less certain about doing it if it is raining.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Thursday

So, let's see. Lee was stranded overnight in Wyoming by snow. It's snowing here, which, although leaving the roads only dampish, managed to turn the morning commute into a parking lot. It won't stop until tomorrow, supposedly. The dogs slept on the bed last night, which meant there was no room for my feet. I have an interview this morning to help hire a project manager. I had a cranky day yesterday and nobody to vent it out to, because (as happens too often for coincidence), Lee's day was worse - after all, he was driving down I-80 which was, from all reports, closed at the time. And not one but two voicemails this morning when I got in. I cannot deal with this. Oh, and the dog ate my string cheese out of my briefbag this morning - including at least 1 wrapper, from the scattered plastic on the rug. I got more, but now I'm wondering if we'll have to pay to have her stomach pumped or surgeried. That's how things are going right now.

159.2 this morning; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • possibly some supplements (anti-inflammatories and D3 and minerals, I think)
  • string cheese
  • a Jimmy John's unwich with turkey and bacon
  • macadamia nuts
  • pork rinds and dip (sour cream and spices)
  • cheese
  • more tea with cream
  • possibly chocolate almonds, but I don't think so
Sleep was good again last night, despite the cramped conditions. Instead of the butter, I had a dinner and evening composed almost entirely of fat, and if that's what's doing it, it did it again. 

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Wednesday

I got more and better sleep last night, but it left me sleepy this morning. I hate when that happens. I'm soloing with the pets again; Lee's on the road. Anneke wanted out at 4:39 am, which pretty much made that the start of my day. Nonetheless, there were no 3-hour stretches of being awake in the wee hours, and that's a big improvement.

159.8 this morning; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • 3 string cheese sticks
  • about 10 macadamia nuts
  • meatballs with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese
  • about 5 salted chocolate almonds
  • a dark chocolate (Dove heart)
  • a few cashews (cleaned out nearly empty jar)
  • 2 Tbsp butter
I know - wait, what? That's not honey. I'm trying another thing. I was reading Dave Asprey's tips for better sleep yesterday, and he suggested fat with dinner or in the evening as something that might help. I forgot to have it at dinner time, so I had it at bedtime. Finished my melatonin and ate butter, plain. And got sleepy within 10-20 minutes and crashed. There's a possibility that the dog went outside twice overnight. I know I let her out before I fell asleep, but I sort of think I might have done it once afterwards, before 4:39. But I was enough asleep that I don't know for sure. That's probably a good thing.

It took several days, but I managed to get gelatin this morning. The weekend's complete chaos carried over into the week and I just could not get organized to have lemon juice and cold water fixed at night to have in the morning - but I managed it last night. Probably too early to tell, but my joint aches and stiffness were worse over the weekend and late last week, so maybe it was helping.

Did I mention yesterday that we've added 2 different sets of eye drops and another pill to the dog medication routine? And the eye drops have to be separated by 10 minutes, so one before eating and one after. I have friends that are on this degree of medication (perhaps not the infinite variety of delivery methods). Maybe I'm gaining a bit of weight with menopause, and maybe that makes me a little unhappy, but I'm not on ANY meds (bar vitamins) and don't foresee the need for them. So there will be no quitting and going back to eating "normally" because eating this way isn't working for weight right now. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Tuesday

Better yesterday, but not much better. More stress - paid out a tidy $1200 to various veterinarians, and got two copies of a bill from the IRS that they sent out (according to the date) next Monday, assuming that we wouldn't get the money back to them until it was late, so it included penalties and interest. It's in the mail this morning, along with a letter explaining that, as we had in fact paid it prior to April 15th, we would like the penalties and interest returned to us. See if they do it - it'll require them to put a first-class stamp on a check for 13 cents. But fair's fair.

160.2 again this morning. I really need to get a grip. I know working for the state was boring and annoying, but it didn't leave me stressed out and needing to snack to the point of gaining weight. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • possibly supplements
  • 3 string cheese sticks
  • macadamias
  • about 3 peanuts
  • caesar salad
  • a steak
  • 3 chocolate almonds
  • a dark chocolate
  • cashews
  • 1 tsp honey
If I'd stopped with the almonds, it would have been a very good day. But I didn't. Trace ketones at bedtime, though.

Sleep was utter shite. Woke at midnight, got back to sleep, woke again at 2. Got back to sleep just after 5. Woke again at 5:30 and got up. Lee left today for Idaho with a load of stuff - for our daughter; we're not moving there. He'll be back Thursday unless the snow turns out to be a lot (nobody's sure yet). Then, a week from this weekend, he and I are driving east to meet Elizabeth in Iowa somewhere to give her a load of stuff and her guinea pigs, sleeping, eating breakfast, and driving back. The weekend after that, I'm flying out to visit her in Scranton. Bolder Boulder on Memorial Day weekend. And then in June we have the cruise that nobody particularly wants to go on. (I know, first-world problem there). Somewhere in that packed schedule, there's a good chance I'll wave Lee off to the east coast with a load of stuff that really is us moving, and have to sell the house and get it packed up.

Gah. No wonder I don't sleep well.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Monday

The end of last week was, well, meh. I ate well enough on Wednesday, but Thursday was a crap-fest, topped off with hard cider and flour and potatoes (Shepherd's pie at a restaurant). Friday was wrapped up at White Fence Farm (for me, that means kidney bean salad, corn fritters, potatoes, stuffing and gravy).  Yesterday and Saturday were a lot of work - we emptied both attics and went through most of the stuff, sent 3 carloads to Goodwill, and ate only okay. Potato chips both days, ice cream last night.

160.2 this morning, down from Saturday and up from yesterday. Not good. My blue wool pants are getting snug across the butt. This isn't muscle.

Fasting so far today - it may or may not last until lunchtime. Solely because the dogs couldn't eat until after I left for work, taking one of them to drop at the vet (he was the one who couldn't eat this morning).

Meatballs and spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight. We are starting to focus on eating the frozen stuff in the garage freezer - to get it emptied out before the more-than-likely move. 

I think that stress is ebbing - I'm getting more reconciled to the move, and we are knocking off a lot of the work now so there will be less to do when it's just me. Isn't doing much for the 2-hour round trip daily commute or the fact that I'm in a job that's a bad fit. Interestingly enough, last week's meeting reinforced that for me and gave me concrete evidence of it in ways I hadn't thought about before. That might reduce stress itself, actually, because I have facts to deal with and can work with facts.

In any event, I slept like a log last night on aspirin, honey, and melatonin. Not so great the night before - woke up at midnight and was awake 3 hours before I decided to get the aspirin. Some days I'm a dumbass.

I've been supremely achy and stiff in my joints lately. Assuming menopause, but I don't know, truly. I mean to get back to the lemon water with gelatin each morning, since it's supposed to help with that - meant to this morning, but the day got away from me.

Next few months should be interesting. 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Wednesday

Last entry for this week. I'm at a meeting for work in a downtown hotel for most of the next 3 days. 159.4 this morning, after Mexican food last night. And a lot of stress, so minimal sleep. No exercise either. I will do what I can to eat reasonably for the next few days - no drinking (learned my lesson there 2 years ago), and I have the Benadryl with me for sleep. I hope it works.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Tuesday

159.0 this morning. No surprise there. 

I had no plans for dinner. All I knew last night is that, a) I didn't want to cook it, and b) I wanted it quickly. Mc Donald's Drive-Thru. Double Quarter Pounder with cheese, no bun. Fries. Salt cravings - and this time, they were perfect for that. Oh well.

Here's all of yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon water with gelatin
  • string cheese (3)
  • macadamia nuts (probably 2 servings worth)
  • the aforementioned Quarter Pounder and Fries
  • 2-3 almond flour shortbread cookies
  • a Dove dark chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
The honey wasn't as helpful last night - I still had a lot of vivid but unmemorable dreams, but they woke me at 3:15 for good. And I know I wasn't asleep until after 9:30. No exercise last night, lots of aches and pains this morning. Instead of a foam roller, I use a golf ball - and spent the time between 3:15 and getting up at 6 rolling my IT bands and my sub-scap muscles, and anything connecting to either elbow. Did it help? Maybe. It's hard to say, really.

Cheese and lemon water and tea this morning; strawberries and string cheese with me. Sounds like we're having salad for dinner - but at least it's "we". It's been a LONG 2 weeks.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Monday

Very quiet weekend. Very. I didn't garden, I didn't walk, I did a little bit of shopping, but that was pretty much it. Watched movies a bit, read, cleaned carpets. Ate - some. Apparently well. 158.2 this morning, with a steady trend downward all weekend. Nice change.

Here's yesterday as best I recall it:
  • tea with cream
  • lemon-water with gelatin
  • cheese
  • 4 dark-chocolate caramels with sea salt (it WAS Easter, the second biggest candy-eating holiday)
  • 2 (I think) almond-flour shortbread cookies
  • veg and dip
  • 2 glasses of wine
  • ham
  • asparagus
  • ambrosia salad (fruit, marshmallows, whipped cream)
  • boiled new potatoes with butter
  • ice-cream and rice krispies dessert with peanuts and chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
I think that was it. Cheese, chocolate, 2 cookies, and dinner. Not tremendously hungry, either - but low-side Trace ketones at bedtime, so not eating all that high-fat.

I've restarted honey at bedtime, after watching a podcast about sleep that brought it up again. 1 tsp honey and a melatonin, and 2 nights' sleep - so far. It could just be cyclical, since this has been pretty darn cyclical - but I'm certainly willing for it to be real. I was super sleepy last night, around 7:30 - don't know if it was getting sunset light as I drove home from dinner or the wine or what. Went to bed around 8 and was probably asleep before 9. Woke up for the first time for real at 5. That's 8 hours! Lots of vivid dreams that I don't remember anything about other than that they occurred. And I have a recollection of being alert enough to think that I was having a headache - which I did have, once I woke up. Still, 8 hours of actual sleep is huge for me.

No idea what today brings. I'm keeping up with the gelatin in hopes that it helps with bodyaches - I'm not exercising enough to be achy from that, but I'm really sore around the joints all over. Another lovely symptom brought to you by Menopause (tm). I'm not surprised that once women break through all of the fun associated with this crap that they "are" old - it wears on you. Anyway, I have string cheese with me, have had gelatin this morning with my lemon water (seems like the easiest way to have it), and have no plans whatsoever for dinner. Maybe another stroll to Chipotle and back. And a stop to buy more lemons.

Lee should be home some time tomorrow. Thank heavens. Except we turn around immediately and have to go downtown to my stupid leadership "meeting" for work - a meeting which includes mandatory "fun" activities. And about the time that is over, we may be finding out if we're moving or not. The gelatin is also supposed to be helpful for stress. I certainly hope so.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Friday

Proof today, I think, that it takes a while for weight loss or gains to appear after you've eaten. 159.8 this morning, and damn glad not to see the "6" in that mix anymore - but not holding my breath that it will stay away for long. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • hot water with lemon juice and gelatin (to hell with French when I don't feel like figuring out how to do an acute accented 'e')
  • mag citrate, fish oil, turmeric, and vitamin D
  • 3 string cheese sticks
  • macadamia nuts
  • an entire gluten-free Domino's pizza (10") with extra cheese and double pepperoni
  • 1 almond-flour shortbread cookie
  • a vending bag of M&Ms
Bad day. I did have to have the cat put down, so that was what I was doing between work and dinner. After that, I wanted comfort food, which explains the pizza and the M&Ms. Spent the evening watching Pride and Prejudice (the most recent movie version) on my iPad. Did not work out. Benadryl for sleep last night, and it just barely worked. The dog wanted out at 2:20 am, and while I think I got back to sleep, it wasn't very restful sleep, and I gave up for good around 4:20. Oh, and it snowed last night. Life pretty much sucks right now.

Before I forget, I've been fighting an attack of sinusitis for about 3 weeks now. So far, salt-water rinses, salt-water-and-baby-shampoo rinses, eucalyptus-infused vaseline in the nose, and additional D haven't done much - although the quantity of bright red blood has dwindled to nearly nothing, so maybe it's getting better. I'm sneezing a lot right now - don't know what that's about, either. Just another brick in the wall-o-fun these days, I guess.

So far today, I've had more string cheese and shortbread along with the lemon-water-gelatin thing and tea with cream. I would like to say that it will be a good eating day - and it still could - but history is against me here. It's cold and snowy out at the moment, but is supposed to get warmer and the sky is blue, so I expect it will melt. If so, probably another weekend of yard work, though I need to get stuff for and make a salad for Easter dinner - and go to my parents' house for it.

FWIW, I was at Small on the keto-stix last night. Assuming I was peeing them away because with that influx of carbs (pizza crust, candy), I didn't need them. But I don't know.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Thursday

I'm a little short of speech today. We are probably putting our cat down tonight, and that is taking up any spare brain cells just now. I slept well-ish last night but only because of Benadryl, taken after 10 pm when I realized that I wasn't going to sleep at all otherwise. No workout last night - I'd planned on some sort of a walk, but realized soon after getting home that I needed to give her lap time instead. Such is life.

160.2 this morning. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • fish oil, mag citrate, turmeric, vitamin D (x3 to see if I can kick my sinus thing)
  • citron presse chaud with an envelope of Knox gelatin in
  • 3 string cheese sticks
  • pork rinds with sour cream dip
  • 3 more string cheese sticks
  • two burger patties
  • a bunch of green olives
  • 2 almond flour shortbread cookies
  • peppermint tea with gelatin
I expected that to put me in pretty decent ketosis, but only saw Trace. It may be that I'm not very well adapted, or that I ran on ketones all day and didn't have much to give up in the end.

I don't know how today will end up going - probably fairly stress-centric if I have to guess. The weather is not great, so walking outdoors is unlikely, and I have no idea what I'll eat for dinner. Maybe not much. I have string cheese with me today for when I get hungry, and have just had lemon juice water with gelatin this morning (and tea with cream, of course) so far. Depending on how things go, I may resort to Benadryl tonight as well.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Wednesday

Oh, right. All this weight's an April Fool's joke, or something.

I wish. 161.0 this morning; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • fish oil, turmeric, mag citrate, and vitamin D
  • a piece of cheddar cheese
  • 3 string cheese
  • about 1/2 pound of strawberries
  • juice of half a lemon (citron presse chaud)
  • about 10 macadamia nuts
  • Chipotle barbacoa bowl, no rice/beans, with salsa, cheese, sour cream, and guac
  • 2 almond flour shortbread cookies
  • Peppermint tea with gelatin
Better than Tuesday, for sure. And I guess a pound down is an improvement. I was surfing to see if Dana Carpender's Fat Fast instructions were online or only in her book (I have it on Kindle, but my phone screen is a bit small for extensive reading), and stumbled on something interesting in her blog - about the gelatin. Apparently taking it at bedtime helps her to sleep, and she is insomniac much worse (from her description) than I've been experiencing. It also sounded like it might be useful as a diuretic and weight-loss promoter. So I tried it last night - made a cup of peppermint tea and dissolved an envelope of Knox in it. Drank it down. I also took a melatonin, and the two together made me sleepy enough to fall asleep quickly, but I had a bad night overall. Probably a side-effect of it having been 80 degrees yesterday and our not having powered up the swamp cooler yet, but I spent the entire night adjusting the covers - it was bad. Got up at 12:50 to pee and had to go again at 5:00, which probably accounts for the pound lost. I don't feel too awful this morning, and I took another envelope of Knox in an early morning citron presse. It has no taste, but it does have an odor - mild, but a bit off-putting. Not so much that I won't repeat it daily for a while, see what it might offer. Supposedly it's great for skin and nails and joint aches - and I'm in favor of those things, even if it's no help with the sleep.

Got another walk in last night, by virtue of walking to Chipotle for dinner and back. I'll do something similar tonight - maybe I'll have a salad at Panera - or something, since that doesn't sound all that appealing. At least the option's available.

In the same discussion with the gelatin, I learned that pork rinds are full of it (probably as collagen), so on the way back from dinner, I bought a bag, and brought them to work with some sour cream dip I made up. Also some string cheese. Am I on the way back to zero carb? I honestly don't know. I'd love to get back into that groove, if I can achieve some weight loss thereby. Just don't know if my body will allow anything to work just now.