About those situps

They did something - I can feel it when I stretch, now.

Tuesday

I'm not entirely sure what's going on with me right now - yesterday I woke up with a backache that made me feel like my entire body was about to sneeze - a certain vibrating sensation that normally shows up in my sinuses but was all-pervasive.  I still feel hints of that this morning, but it has concentrated itself nearer the nose.  I don't feel sick, exactly, just a bit off.  I guess it's a Paleo cold.  I have Airborne; will probably have one sometime today.  Supposedly, they don't do anything, but they've headed off a real cold for me more times than I'd care to recall.

In addition, my stomach's been a little off over the past few days as well.  This whole thing may be somehow related to the weird chain of gained weight I was seeing over the weekend and late last week.  I was 147.0 this morning, so down a tiny bit from yesterday.  Here's the eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual (Monday) supplements
• hazel nuts - 2 handfuls
• a roasted chicken breast - no skin
• some salsa
• a large handful of cashews
• a tiny strawberry Haagen-Dasz (those little cups are oh-so-handy, and are frozen so solid that they take forever to eat.  The perfect cheat-y snack)

My sleep over the last few days has been rough.  I fall asleep easily enough, but I am not getting into the deep sleep - I dream myself into wakefulness several times over the night - generally not enough to need any effort to get back to sleep, but enough to know I'm awake.  Then, when I wake up in the morning, I don't feel at all rested.

It all could be stress, maybe.  I'm on the brink of a job change (decidedly for the better, but still...) and that might be bothering me at some subconscious level, although I don't feel consciously stressed.  It could be a lack of exercise - the whole go-to-the-gym thing hasn't really become a habit (okay, I went once last week and haven't been since).  Hard to say.

On the exercise front, I did do a bunch of sit-up-y things last night - crunches with one of those metal headrest jigs.  I did 50 regular crunches, 15 side crunches each side, and 25 lower ab exercises.  It hurt when I got up, so I think it might have done some good, but I don't feel any after-effects just now.

Vacation next week - starts Friday evening, actually.  New Orleans for Mardi Gras.  I will do my best to behave, but that town knows what to do with food.  That's one of the reasons I'd like to get some of these 6 pounds off before we go; it will be harder after.

Monday

Frustrating weekend - no other way to put it.  Last week, a 20-hour fast gained me 0.3 pounds; over the weekend, I ate fairly well (a few potato chips on Friday dinner being the only really bad thing I recall), and by yesterday morning, had gained a pound and a half.  Yesterday, I ate no better and no worse than Saturday, and this morning, I'm down nearly 2 pounds.  I do not get it.

Oh, well.  147.2 this morning and glad to be there, although I woke up aching head to toe for no particular reason.  Nothing like Advil for breakfast.  Here's yesterday's details:

• bacon (I didn't have it until nearly lunchtime, though)
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• bell pepper chunks (probably an entire pepper's worth - orange and yellow)
• dip made from sour cream and a spice blend
• cheese
• about 9 nasty rice/nut crackers (to finish the dip)
• salami
• chocolate cherries
• a TJ's dark chocolate bar (about 2" square, 1/8" thick)
• taco salad with grassfed beef

I think that was it. 

We did a movie Saturday night and I brought dried strawberries and coconut chips.  Crunchy and tasty, and about popcorn-sized, so they proved quite adequate.  I'm getting short on dried strawberries, though - going to have to get the dehydrator out and do some more, I think.  They probably won't be quite as good, being out of season and all, but they'll do.

Friday

Okay, what gives?  I fasted yesterday - ate nothing except tea with cream until 3:30 pm.  Roughly a 20-hour fast.  Broken with a meal at the kebab/gyro place near home, and basically no snacks all night.  The result?  147.7 - up a third of a pound from yesterday.  Just how much more does muscle weigh than fat, anyway?

Here's the details:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• two pieces of cheese
• house salad with a mildly sweet, mediterranean dressing
• gyro meat (probably 2/3 pound)
• strawberry/mango juice (my only significant carbs for the day)
• two chocolate almonds

That's IT.  I spent the evening pulling down old radio mp3 files and did not eat another bite until breakfast this morning.  You know, maybe Taubes is off a bit in his specifics, maybe insulin isn't the "MASTER HORMONE", but there is no way on earth that energy balance has jack to do with my weight.  Mysterious forces are at work here.

What the...?

This just showed up on my facebook page in an ad for overstock shoes.  I think they're missing the point somewhere.

Thursday

I was hungry all day yesterday.  No idea why, I just was.  I did end up eating hazel nuts midway through the day, but it wasn't boredom, I don't think.  Got home, had dinner, and I needed more.  It's weird when that happens, but I did the best I could to go with it and stay reasonably sane (but only reasonably, as you'll see).  And at the end of it all, 147.4 on the scale this morning - go figure.  Here's the breakdown:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• hazel nuts
• meatballs with commercial "vodka" pasta sauce and parmesan cheese
• salad with meat and cheese in it
• blue cheese dressing
• cheese
• cashews
• godiva pearls (only about 6 of them, I think)
• two chocolate cherries

I put the cashews in a small container with the chocolates, to keep the quantity from going mindlessly high, and it worked.  And after the cashews, I didn't feel quite so ravenous, so I was able to stop eating.

No exercise last night - I was tired and achy and felt vaguely like a cold or something was looming when I got home from work.  May have been hunger, I guess.  It seems to be gone this morning, I'm happy to say.

Wednesday

Still effing 148.1 this morning, and I'm irritated.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• Olive Garden salad with their dressing
• Olive garden mixed grill (steak, chicken, peppers, zucchini)
• about 2 pieces of fried potato
• one Ande's chocolate mint thing
• iced tea
• hot tea
• two chocolate cherries

I'm seeing some very light fasciculation in my calves, but no cramping, and I'm obviously not seeing weight loss just now.  Kinda annoying, and I really want to get away from this half of the 140's.

Most of the stiffness from the gym on Monday is gone, which is nice.  I'll probably do some situps and pushups tonight.

Oh, yeah

Duh.  I am tired, apparently.  Weight this morning was 148.1, which bothered me because I thought at the time that I'd only lost 0.1 pounds from yesterday, but a quick look below has reassured me that it was 1.1 pounds.  That's more like it.

Tuesday

As I posted last night, we made a second trip to the gym after dinner.  And I felt it much of last night; I could sleep for an hour or so, then the mild achiness (it hasn't reached the level of actual pain yet) would wake me enough to roll over, and the rolling over would be enough more painful to wake me up fully.  So I'm a bit tired this morning.

Finally achieved true low-carb eating again yesterday; it's been harder than usual to go the full monty for some reason.  Here's the breakdown:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual (Monday) supplements
• tea with cream
• a medium sized sugar-free Red Bull (the convenience store had no black caffeinated teabags, and I was on break from another bloody four-hour meeting)
• braised short ribs with tomato-wine sauce (the braising liquid)
• mashed cheesy cauliflower
• tea with cream

And that was it for the day.  I was able to ignore the pangs of boredom for once, and stayed away from the cheese, chocolate, and nuts.  I'm sure the hour or so of gym time also helped.

I'm going to try for a repeat, although the plan for dinner is meatballs, and I know they have potato starch in them, since I made them.

Exercise baselines

As a starting point, here are the baselines for the exercises I outlined last week:

Triceps: 10 reps @ 15 lbs
Biceps: 10 reps @ 30 lbs
Lat pull downs: 10 reps @ 50 lbs
Rows: 10 reps @ 35 lbs
Sit ups: 32
Leg press: 10 reps @ 70 lbs
Quad extensions: 10 reps @ 50 lbs
Pushups: 31 knee pushups
15-minute race walk: 14.5 laps (11.4=1 mile)
Abs machine: 30 reps @ 50 lbs

These were measured either 1/9/12 (sit ups and push ups) or 1/21/12 (everything else).

Monday

Weird weekend - I thought I ate well enough, but ended up with a net weight gain that is down from yesterday (phew!): 149.2 this morning, and I feel (and have felt, all weekend) bloated.  I was sitting around on Saturday feeling my stomach get larger, and I didn't like it one bit.  Not entirely sure what's going on.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements (now including dessicated liver)
• tea with cream
• cheese
• potato chips (1 vending sized bag) with onion dip)
• 3 fauxtmeal cookies
• steak
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• a glass of riesling

I think that was it, as far as I can recall; I was working very hard to avoid eating chocolate, and had tried to avoid eating between breakfast and dinner, but boredom won out, unfortunately.

We went to the gym on Saturday and I got all my baselines worked out - including the 15-minute fast racewalk.  I did 14.5 laps on a track where 11.4 laps is a mile, which isn't bad.  I'm feeling it a bit this morning - some stiffness in my shin muscles, and various arm bits, from the weights.  As much as possible, I aimed for muscle exhaustion, and achieved it in a couple of places.  We had thought to go back yesterday, but we were all a bit stiff, so I think the plan is to go tonight.

Dinner tonight will be braised short ribs; I did the prep work last night and threw everything into the crock pot this morning - it smelled pretty amazing.  Very low carb.  Between now and then, my intent is to eat nothing unless I find myself prostrated by hunger - and that seems a bit unlikely.

Friday

Weird day, yesterday.  I ended up having a bolus of sugar mid-day, mostly because it was there and I was tired.  My broken sleep was not as effective as continual sleep of the same length - the whole being awake in bed thing gets incredibly painful, and second sleep carries that pain with it and isn't as restful as the first half was, I think.  In any event, I survived the lengthy morning meeting and had 3 peppermint life-savers and a milk chocolate with toffee bits.  Consequently (from the bad night's sleep), I piled into bed at 8:50 last night, was probably asleep by 9:15, and knew absolutely nothing until Lee got up at 4:45 to go to the bathroom.  And my only coherent thought at that point was that I was pretty sure I hadn't moved all night - after which, I was out completely again until the alarm went off at 5:30.  So a very good night's sleep.

I'm at 148.3 this morning.  I think it's time to do some serious ketosis for a couple of weeks, get the weight back down to below the mid-140s where I prefer it.  With that in mind, since I wasn't particularly hungry this morning, I'm fasting.  Have been since about 7:30 last night, so we've just passed the 12 hour mark, and I'm shooting for about 20.  Doable, but probably easier to do if I move the clementine and the hazelnuts off my desk to somewhere I won't be seeing them.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• strawberries
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• peppermint life-savers
• milk chocolate with toffee and almonds
• hazel nuts
• hot and sour soup
• mongolian beef (no rice)
• hot tea
• fortune cookie
• cashews
• dark chocolate, including 4 cherries

I am adding something to the "usual supplements", starting this morning - dessicated liver.  The paleo experts tout organ meats as the source of super-nutrition, but I can't quite bring myself to eat them, so I found the liver in pill form, and will add 3 of those to my morning stuff.  Argentinian, pasture-fed beef is the source, so I should be getting the good stuff if there's good stuff to be had.  Fortunately, they don't taste too bad going down.

Thursday

This week has been a loss, basically.  The days are all running together, and the nights are, well, difficult.  At least, last night was.  Long ugly workday yesterday - sitting in uncomfortable chairs for 8 solid hours at a meeting I had no participatory role in, with lower back pains and cramps.  In a skirt and pantyhose that got progressively tighter as the day wore on.

They did get me a salad-with-meat for lunch.  I guess that's something.  Lunch also included a tub of pineapple, a clementine, and a cookie.  I ate the pineapple, and one of the "meeting candy" chocolates, in addition to the salad.  Here's the whole day:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• salad with ham, turkey, swiss
• balsamic vinaigrette (I think it had olive oil)
• pineapple chunks
• milk chocolate with almonds and toffee
• venison burger
• beef burger (Omaha steaks, and compared to grassfed or the venison, quite nasty tasting)
• swiss cheese
• a few homemade pickle chunks
• salad with dijon vinaigrette
• mustard and ketchup
• two fauxtmeal cookies
• two chocolate cherries
• a bag of potato chips (small one)
  
• a glass of red wine

I don't know the exact cause, but I passed out cold around 7:00 pm and slept solid until 1 am.  And then was uncomfortably awake until around 3:30.  With the alarm going off at 5:30, you can see that I did get my 8 hours of sleep, but I didn't enjoy them.

148.4 this morning.  Lots of reasons why in that list, and one on the calendar. 

And another 4 hours' worth of meeting this morning, starting in about 15 minutes.  SO not Paleo.

Wednesday

Not much to note for yesterday; I mean to do at least sit-ups tonight after work.  We had steak for dinner, so here's the breakdown:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese (I think it was 5 pieces)
• steak
• wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, crumbles, tomatoes and bacon bits
• iced tea
• miscellaneous dark chocolate (with almonds, cherries, plain)
• 3 fauxtmeal cookies
• walnuts

I'm at 147.4 this morning, essentially no change from yesterday.

Tuesday

Are we done with holidays for the month?  I believe so; next month has our trip to dear old New Orleans, and Presidents' Day.  Anyway, a not-too-bad weekend, I thought; lots of cooking.  I made bone broth (and it gelled and smells amazingly beefy), chile verde with pork, "oatmeal" raisin cookies.  Possibly some other stuff; I didn't spend much of Saturday sitting around.

So, 147.2 this morning, I believe.  After a day that included 3 cheese enchiladas, to boot - although, in their defense, that was my only organized meal all day.  Here's the rundown:

• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual (Monday) supplements
• cheese enchiladas smothered with green chile (probably flour in the latter)
• cheese
• salami
• about 3 of the cookies (almond flour, walnuts, raisins, maple syrup, butter, eggs)
• dried strawberries
• chocolate cherries

I think that was it.  We weren't hungry for dinner, so we just grabbed a quick graze - mine was cheese and salami. 

Elizabeth's sick at the moment - some sort of stomach thing.  We went to Cracker Barrel for Sunday dinner, and she gave me one of those looks and ordered chicken-fried steak and their hash brown casserole.  Her choice, and now that she's still sick two days later, I am tending to think it wasn't a wheat overdose, but yesterday, I did rather wonder.  Maybe, though, she'll associate such garbage with being sick for a while, and avoid it.

Friday

Over the past day or so, I ate something that did not agree with me.  Woke up with a bona-fide stomach ache at 3:00 am, for the start to a beautiful day.  I think it's sorted itself out now, and I am feeling better, but it was annoying.  148.5 this morning, so whatever was going on yesterday is backing off.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• tea with cream
• no supplements
• cheese
• salad with gyro meat and tzaziki sauce
• iced tea
• possibly a couple of Godiva pearls
• boiled shrimp
• salad with dijon vinaigrette
• almond shortbread cookies
• chocolate cherries
• walnuts
• strawberries
• strawberry ice cream

Wow, that's rather more than I'd thought, somehow, and certainly possible that it would produce a stomach ache.  We'll try to calm things down again this weekend, I guess, although I know we're headed out for Mexican for dinner (and I'm having pork fajitas, no tortillas, and green chile), so calming down won't start until tomorrow.

I have not done anything toward implementing my workout plan, but will try to do that this weekend as well.  I know I'm going for some sort of walk on Saturday, for sure.  And we'll see what happens after that.

Rambling thoughts about working out

So, obviously, I am not a boot camp camper (from the daily e-mails they send out, which I am still getting despite dropping out, "camper" is the term they've been using.  Ick.).  That said, my hour of torment on Monday did bring home to me that perhaps, the switch in our way of eating may not have made me stronger, no matter what I might have thought.  I'm cool with that, and, quite frankly, the shape I'm in strikes me as perfectly appropriate for a 50 year old woman.  I have pretty much full mobility, I can get up out of chairs without bracing myself on something (hands-free, except this week), I can carry multiple bags of groceries in one hand as necessary.

Things I'm a bit unsatisfied with?  I've been having some issues with shoulder pain lately - and because my occupation involves mostly sitting at a desk typing at a computer, I get a lot of knots in my delts and trapezius muscles, and my pecs are generally too short.  It would be nice to have a way to counteract those forces.  I would like to be somewhat stronger, and to have a slightly better body comp (never did get the skinfold test that the boot camp place promised; they did it on day 2, when I was negotiating rush-hour traffic across town, near as I can tell (not that I was still a "camper" at that point, anyway).  Whoops, got distracted there.  I don't think my body fat needs to be below 20% at this age, but I think I'd rather be in the 21-24% band, and as of the weekend, the tape measure had me at 26.7%. 

By way of having some sort of goal, Liz mentioned last night that she wants to do the Bolder Boulder again this coming May.  That sounds good to me, so I can use that as a training goal - and maybe (assuming I find my old bib - I wrote the time on it) I could set a goal to beat my old Peachtree time, which, I believe, was my fastest 10K.  I would do it in Vibrams, of course.

Back when I did the Peachtree, in '98 (oh, Lord - that makes me sound like some sort of old-timer!), my training plan was to walk lots and often, working up to the 6.2 miles.  Mostly because I hadn't attempted that distance before and had no idea if I could do it.  Well, that, and to try to leave my most annoying sister-in-law, with whom I did the race, in the dust - and I did not meet that goal, unfortunately.  She stuck to me like a limpet. 

Nowadays, I know I can walk 6.2 miles, probably at close to a 15-minute mile without much additional effort.  And I can and will certainly walk as part of the training; my racewalking form is probably sloppy at best and could be tuned up.  But I think I can work on the other items as well, and that improvements in those areas will probably help with a fast 10K.  I'd want to add some weights to the mix, but maybe not just working the cycle on the weight machines each time we hit the gym.

So, targets for the weight work:

• Shoulders - lat pulldowns, biceps and triceps, maybe some rowing
• Core - I'm actually thinking about doing the full-on situps that she had us test out on Monday - I did 32 of them, with weight on my ankles, meaning that hip flexors were almost certainly engaged, but I can still feel the effects in my abs three days later, and 32 was pushing the muscles to exhaustion.  Probably worth repeating, actually.  Also planks.
• Legs - squats, especially the knees-and-toes-pointing-out sort, so that inner thighs are engaged as well as hamstrings and quads.  Machines that are squat-y in nature (leg press and extensions, probably)
  
• Overall strength - the biceps and triceps weight work should help, but I think maybe I should continue to do pushups, even if they have to be knee pushups.

A plan would involve multiple trips to the gym per week, because I am still feeling the results of trying to do all that within a single hour on Monday.  Probably walk each visit, and then focus on upper/core and lower on alternating trips.  Maybe the walking approach would be to allot 15 minutes for walking, and work on increasing the distance I cover in that time.

This could work.  If I'm serious, I'll start logging my results.

Thursday (aka, Huh?)

I stepped on the scale this morning and it said I weigh 149.0 pounds.  Which doesn't make any sense to me.  I think I'm starting to shed some of the water associated with the insane workout from Monday - at least, I'm better able to move today - and I don't think I ate THAT badly yesterday, so what gives?  I'm sure it will sort itself out, eventually; in the meantime, I skipped breakfast today because of time constraints, and because I have lunch plans.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• hazel nuts
• Godiva chocolate pearls
• stuffed bell peppers (1-1/2, stuffed with grassfed beef, rice, tomatoes, cheddar cheese)
• two squares of dark chocolate
• cashews (I was looking for salt and crunch)
• the last Christmas chocolate, which had nuts of some sort in it

I'm pretty sure that was it.  The stuffing for the peppers was pretty salty, so maybe it's water, but my ankles and Achilles tendons are not at all swollen, and that's usually where I judge if I'm dealing with water weight.  And, despite muscle soreness throughout the body yesterday, I'm not buying the possibility of it all being muscle-weighs-more-than-fat.  Sorry.

No major worries, really; I imagine it will sort itself out.  I just need to find better alternatives for those "want salt and crunch" moments.

Wednesday

Nothing is working - the aftermath of that boot camp thing has left me near paralyzed, and very sore.  My thighs hurt - quads, adductors, and hamstrings - my core hurts pretty much from hipbone to ribcage all around, and above the ribcage on the interstitial muscles as well.  Ultimately, there is hardly a movement I can make that doesn't hurt, although typing isn't bugging me much.

147.4 this morning - I'm surprised it wasn't higher, because I feel very swollen.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs with ham and cheese
• bacon
• the usual supplements with extra fish oil
• advil
• tea with cream
• hazel nuts
• a few Godiva pearls
• Pizza tops - Lee and Elizabeth bought a pizza and I ate the layer above the crust, two pieces worth.
• Salad with dijon vinaigrette
• almond shortbread cookies
• chocolate almonds with sea salt
• cheese
• four chocolate cherries

The pizza tops weren't enough food - I was still hungry afterwards, and I don't know that anything else I was eating really helped.  However, I think the only thing that stopped me feeling hungry was falling asleep.  It did go away, eventually; at least, this morning, I knew nothing other than muscle pain. 

I really would love to know why the second day after exercise is so very much worse than the day after.  It didn't use to be that way.

Tuesday

Well, now we know about boot camp.  And what we know is that life is too short to spend another 8 hours doing that.  Yecch!  Apparently, real humans pay something like $250 for a six-week session of calisthenics done in a circle on a gym floor, carefully calibrated to provide a "cardio" workout.  Um, no, thanks.  Not for me.  Glad we got the thing at a discount, so I can feel free to tell the instructor that I won't be returning.  Which I did, this morning.

I walked out of the one-hour session feeling nauseated, so dinner was a bit abbreviated, although we did eat lunch.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese
• naked burger with swiss cheese and bacon
• cole slaw
• iced tea
• two almond shortbread cookies
• naked cuban sandwich (about half) - pork tenderloin, ham, swiss, pickles, mustard - if I hadn't been trying not to throw up, I think it would have been really tasty
• more tea with cream
• a handful of chocolate cherries, for the sugar

I'm at 147.2 this morning, which I think is water - hardly would be muscle growth that quickly.  I'm fairly sore this morning, and pain woke me up at 4:21 am, but not terribly stiff.  I credit being functional to my two-advil-and-two-fish-oil approach to muscle pain; it seems to work fairly well, all things considered.  I took another two fish oil this morning - and another two advil, come to think of it.  I'm trying to lean heavy on the omega-3 side of the PUFA equation today, to keep inflammation down as much as possible.

Of course, this leaves me with no structured fitness program, going forward, to help me meet my goal of minor body-comp adjustments and strength improvements.  But you know what?  I'm fairly sure I can use Mark Sisson's e-book of primal fitness stuff to achieve that, with a lot less annoyance.  I will say that she had my muscles at complete exhaustion a couple of times last night, so now I know what working to failure should feel like.  Was that worth $34?  Probably not, but it was worth something. 

Weights, walking interspersed with sprints, pushups, squats, and abs.  I might even do some planks occasionally.  But then I won't get up and do jumping jacks just to make sure I get my heart rate up.  Urghh.

Monday

Well-disciplined weekend.  Apparently, that's what I needed, because I think I'm down about 3 pounds this morning: 146.3.  We even managed a movie without popcorn on Saturday - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - I brought walnuts and dried strawberries and ate them instead.  That, after a "grilled" chicken caesar salad at Olive Garden - before "grilling" the chicken, the evil bastards had breaded it.  I ate it anyway, and paid a minor price yesterday, but it was very annoying.

Anyway, here's yesterday's eating:

• ham, cheese, and tomato omelet
• tea with cream
• a very few potatoes
• cheese
• almond shortbread cookies (about 5 throughout the day, I think)
• (two) chocolate cherries
• one square of dark chocolate
• pork tenderloin
• salad with dijon vinaigrette

I think that was it.  Slept wretchedly last night - fought most of the night with the cat (she prefers to sleep where I would put my feet if she weren't there) and the covers - for some reason they were both heavy and entangling last night, unlike other nights.  I'm tired and ache all over this morning; I wonder a bit if the omega-6s in the almonds might be causing issues.

One of my ears swelled up (inside) yesterday, leaving me mildly deafened and with a feeling like water in the ear.  I took a sudafed and a vitamin D, and had a cup of Airborne yesterday, just in case it was a cold starting.  Nothing seems worse this morning, so I may have headed it off - but nothing seems to have improved, either, and I'm sneezing a bit.  Bleah.  I have Airborne at work, and may slug down another one.

Boot camp starts tonight; the information we got indicates that we will be doing paperwork and having pushup, situp, and skin-fold body comp tests this evening.  I did a tape-measure body comp test on Saturday (still feeling rather puffy) and came up at 26.7% fat; it will be interesting to see what the calipers arrive at.

Friday

Frustrating week - I'm at 149.4 this morning, and I have been eating reasonably well.  But as I say that, my stomach is misbehaving a bit, and I still feel slightly malaise-a-licious.  At least I slept through the night last night - that has to help, although when the radio started playing this morning, I wasn't seeing it that way at all.

I think I'm still getting too much sugar at the moment.  There's a lot of chocolate hanging around in our house, so I am going to have to start ignoring its presence.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese
• Godiva pearls (maybe 10g carbs worth, at most)
• grilled sausages (summer-sausage type)
• brussels sprouts
• wine
• walnuts (eaten very mindlessly, I should add)
• chocolate blueberries
• two Christmas chocolates (filled things from a box that comes with the little brown paper cups in it)

I think that's it.  Again last night, I felt mild stirrings of fasciculation in my calves, but no cramps, and this morning, I feel swollen and achy all over, so something is not right.  Guess I'll try to figure it out and get it sorted this weekend.

Thursday

I think it is, anyway.  Slept badly last night - too much good news in the air, I hope - and didn't even wake up until well after 6 am.  I could have used more.  My left shoulder is achy and nasty, almost as if I'd had no massage on Monday, and I would very much like to go back to bed.  Not an option, though.

Ate somewhat better yesterday, and I'm at 148.3 this morning.  I also had the beginnings of ketosis-cramps in my calves overnight - nothing to get me out of bed, thank goodness, but enough to make me a bit cautious.  Contributed to the bad sleep, I think.  Here's the rundown on yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• cheese
• apple slices
• Godiva dark chocolate pearls
• peanuts
• grilled shrimp
• broccoli
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• iced tea
• possibly a small amount of rice pilaf
• more chocolate

Weird how the list for a good day is often longer than one for a bad day.  Maybe I need to add variety on days when I'm feeling snacky - go for apples or something rather than dipping into the cashews for the third time. 

The peanuts were from the machine; I got very hungry all at once right toward the end of the day, and thought I'd better grab something, since dinner was to be late last night.  They did the trick and I was fine the rest of the day.  We didn't have a lot of time at home last night, and I was occupied with various tasks, so I didn't get bored and start hitting bite-sized food - definitely an improvement.

Wednesday

Still battling mild general malaise and an urge to snack inappropriately, and still at 149.2.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• cheese
• burger patty composed of 2/3 grassfed beef and 1/3 ground pork
• cole slaw
• green beans
• dark chocolate (both Godiva pearls and a square of Hershey's special dark)
• cashews

Not enough to sustain that weight, and not enough carbs, I think, so it must be inflammation of some sort.  I took extra fish oil yesterday and again today, with the hope that it will do the trick.  I am less stiff and bruised-feeling than yesterday.

Not much more than that to say, really.  The post-dinner snacking is all boredom, which means I need to find something to do with my hands at night.  And I will; I think the whole family is having a post-holiday letdown right now and it's hard to get momentum behind much of anything.  Until Monday, anyway, when the boot camp thing begins.

Stuff I want to mention

I can't correlate this to anything in particular, but wanted to mention that I have had a very mild itchy stomach rash for the past few days - maybe as long as a week.  Also, starting on about Friday last week, my stomach has been a minor mess.  No hunger, constipation, mild indigestion, stuff of that sort.  (And then I step back and think to myself that in the "olden days" when I ate the SAD, that would have been normal).  I ate breakfast this morning, although I wasn't particularly hungry.  Still am not, at 12:30 pm.

That said, Lee was in the throes of a very nasty stomach thing last week - throwing up and related symptoms, and he hates throwing up worse than anything.  It may have been food poisoning, but whatever it was, I had no problems along those lines whatsoever.

Anyway, just putting this out there, for later analysis.

Tuesday

149.2.

Not a good weekend from an eating standpoint, I guess, and compounded by a massage yesterday that left me with actual bruises.  Felt remarkably nasty this morning at 4:30 when my inner alarm went off, and I'm still waiting for the Advil to kick in.

The massage was helpful in getting my shoulders released and providing more range of motion for my arms, at least.  Which is what I was aiming for, so I guess I can stand the bruised feeling for a while yet.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• tea with cream
• the usual Monday supplements
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• cheese
• walnuts
• dark chocolate
• steak
• baked potato with butter and sour cream
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• red wine (haute medoc - pretty darn nice stuff!)
• vanilla ice cream
• cashews (only a handful, though - they seem to have lost their addictive powers, I'm happy to say)

I think that was everything.  When we woke up yesterday, neither of us wanted breakfast, so we didn't eat until around 10:30 - after my massage was done.  Even then, I wasn't hungry, really, and probably should have just had a side of bacon or something.

Anyway, I hereby declare an end to sugar season; it's time to get back to eating normally.  And we are, most of the time.  And, to add to the fun, our boot camp thing starts Monday of next week, which should fix us up good.