Friday

Yesterday ended up being about a 16-hour fast followed by a 7-8 hour eating window.  Classic IF pattern, actually.  By bedtime, I had hit "medium" on the keto-stick, a first in a long time.  And, no surprise, at 4:00 am, I had to get up rather abruptly and stomp a cramp out of my left leg.  I'd rather wondered if the rebalancing done by Rolfing would have perhaps caused it to move to my right leg, but apparently not.  150.8 today.  Not a big loss, but, I suspect, a real one.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• butter pecans
• two stuffed peppers (peppers, ground grassfed beef, tomatoes, V8, cheese)
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup cashews

It ended up at 70% fat, 21% protein, 10% carbs, and just over 1500 calories.  Pretty similar to the rest of the week.  

I think today is my last fat fast day.  In general, it has worked pretty well, and I mean to avoid carbs fairly strenuously going forward, since I've regained a ketotic state, and want to stay there for a while.  I'm still feeling a bit low-carb flulike, which would indicate that, while I'm producing ketones, I may not be burning them very well, so I want to give that a couple of days to get caught up.

No breakfast today, due to apathy (the appetite suppressing effects have arrived, I'd say).  I have some fat-fast broccoli cheese soup with me to eat at some point today - made it last night and it's pretty good.  Dinner out, I'd guess, and shopping for Easter cooking, a lot of which will occur tomorrow.  My goal for the weekend is to weigh no more on Monday than I do now, so I will continue to eat pretty low-carb.

The weather is finally hinting that it might be Spring around here.  I hope so - I intend, even if I don't really want, to get out and walk. 

Addendum

It occurred to me over the course of the last 2 or so hours that my brain is just hammered this morning.  I'm lethargic and achy and feel rather nasty, overall.  I'm so icky-feeling that I'm having serious trouble focusing my eyes.  So I have a theory (caveat: I'm probably not thinking clearly either; following a train of thought is really tough this morning):

I needed (still do) to readjust my metabolism to ketones.  I'm producing them right now, but can't use them.  Somehow, over the past year or so of what I thought was low-carb eating, I've returned to a glucose metabolism.

I suppose I'll know within the next day or so if this is true, because my brain and body will resume working, but it would explain why I was so crazy hungry the first couple of days trying to fat-fast, even as I failed at it so thoroughly.

Huh.

Thursday

Did a lot of gazing at natural daylight yesterday, and did find that I slept pretty well.  In fact, I was getting sleepy just sitting in the living room, as it got dark outside.  I think that's a good thing.  Eating yesterday was, well, flawed (what, again?).  151.0 this morning, though, with what feels like still more water to lose.  For what it's worth, I did a keto-stick yesterday evening and came out pink, so am in Ketosis.  Here's yesterday:

• omelet with ham, cheese, tomatoes
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• bell pepper and sour cream dip
• 7 tortilla chips (I kept strict count)
• chile con queso dip (guessing about 1/3 cup)
• 3 Fuzzy's shredded beef taco innards (no shells)

I have looked at the Fuzzy's site, and trying to deconstruct the nutrition info in order to get at what I actually ate is just too damn hard. Suffice it to say that I kept the carbs pretty well down and did not hit the fat target again - and probably went well below the 90% fat target and above the 1000 calories.  Without dinner, I was at 65% fat, 22% protein, and 12% carbs.

I'm fasting today for convenience, and because I wasn't particularly hungry this morning.  Ketosis, I presume.  Now, whether it will help use up fat reserves I'd rather not have, in lieu of whichever sex hormones I am lacking at the moment, remains to be seen.  I hope so, though.

Wednesday

Well, huh.  151.4 this morning.  Any idea why?  No!  Water, I'm pretty sure, based on how badly my shoes fit today, and how much I ache head to toe.  There was a lot of salt in the dip.  Here's the list:

• 1 scrambled egg
• tea with cream
• 1/4 cup guacamole
• bell pepper
• a half cup of sour cream dip
• 1/4 cup butter roasted pecans
• pizza top from 4 slices 
• 3 pieces of cheese

That was it, but it was actually more food than Monday.  Sheesh!  The breakdown is like this:

• 1608 calories
• 142g fat (77%)
• 29g carbs (7%)
• 66g protein (16%)

So, improved ratios, but not the low calories.  I guess I should have skipped the cheese at the end; it would have pulled the calories below 1300 and the protein below 50 grams.  Still, I can't help thinking that I should be in ketosis now, and pretty strongly at that.  I can report improved sleep - if the cat had slept calmly instead of roaming the bed all bloody night, I'm not sure I would have awakened at all.  I don't know for sure that the sleep is due to ketone bodies; I've been trying hard to get maximum sun exposure on the drive in (a little cold and breezy to put the windows down, but I have no tinting and drove in yesterday without sunglasses), and that might also have something to do with it.

The plan today is to drink water more, maybe get outside mid-day (it's finally starting to warm up sort of), and keep at it.  If nothing else, I'm getting a very low carb diet just now.

Tuesday

I'm trying to do the fat fast thing.  After logging yesterday, I am not coming very close.  150.6 again today, so it could be worse, but here's the detail:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• two "servings" of butter roasted pecans (so far, so good)
• meatballs with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese (probably less good)
• and the big oops - a trial recipe of raspberry cobbler, to see if it would be okay for Easter dessert

A nice short list, certainly.  But it breaks down like this:

• 1500ish calories (again)
• 130g fat (70%)
• 51g carbs (12%)
• 71g protein (17%)

Which is a pretty well balanced low-carb diet, actually.  But not a fat fast.  Most of the protein (40g) came from the meatballs, no surprise there.  Most of the carbs (35g) came from dessert.  Again, no surprise.  Another trial today.  I have started the day with 1 scrambled egg and about 1/4 cup of guacamole, which turned out to be crazy delicious together, even though the egg started out warm and the guac was very cold.  With tea-with cream, I'm so far at 76% fat, 11% carbs, and 13% protein.  I have a bell pepper and sour-cream based dip with me for one "meal", and pecans for a third, and dinner tonight will be pizza top (pepperoni and cheese, basically).  So I'm hopeful that we will be closer today.

I think this analysis is helpful.  I don't want to go berserk like this all that often, but it helps guide me as I work toward more ketosis and that 10 pounds of weight loss.

Monday

On Friday, I read a review of the Fat Fast Cookbook on the Fat Head website, and because I was primed for it, bought it.  Great decision - and I'm now doing a several-day fat fast, armed with the butter roasted pecans from the cookbook.  I kept the weekend very low carb and/or fat-fast oriented, although I don't think I hit the parameters for a true fast yesterday, quite.  As a result, I'm back down to 150.6 this morning.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• 3 scrambled eggs
• 6 slices of bacon
• two sliced tomatoes
• 1/3 cup walnut pieces
• 2-3 butter roasted pecans
• hamburger patty with about 1/3 cup guacamole
• 3 hunks of swiss cheese

I think that was it.  As I thought, it didn't quite hit the fast category (1000 cal, 90+% fat); I was at 70% fat, 25% protein, 6% carbs, and over 1500 calories for the day.  Still, the pattern was right, and I got the carbs way down, which was good.

We skipped breakfast this morning; the dog was up at 2:30 am throwing up again.  I wish I knew what she was getting into, but something in the back yard has her addicted, and we can't find it.  Very annoying.  I'm going to eat several small quantities of the pecans - or macadamias that I already had at work - throughout the day, and see how that goes, then have a modest dinner, probably meatballs with spaghetti sauce or something like that.

Anyway, the cookbook has some very intriguing ideas for getting one into nutritional ketosis, and some tempting looking recipes - and I have to say that the pecans are beyond good (the butter browns during the roasting, which just adds to the deliciousness).  And now I'm hungry, so I'm going to go eat them.

Friday

Yesterday didn't quite go as planned - not as bad as I suppose it could have been, but not as planned.  And I'm still 153.2 this morning - some of which, based on my ankles, is water.  Based on how I've been eating, though, not all of it.  

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• dilly beans - around 20 of them, I'd guess
• macadamia nuts - I ended up eating all 14 that I brought with me
• a cup of beef bouillon
• chicken breast - probably about 6 oz
• three pieces of longhorn cheese
• 6 malted milk eggs - the last of them

That was it, although I had a cup of tea with cream at the end of the day as well as at the beginning.  73g fat, 71g protein, 46g carbs (58%, 25%, 16%).  Note that we are now officially finished with the malted milk eggs.  I should never have bought them.  Today we weren't hungry, so I've not had breakfast.  I have another bag of macadamias and a bag of strawberries with me - the latter because if I don't eat them, they'll spoil.  Dinner will be baked fish; it is Friday, after all.

I'm also working on sleep - tried to get some unfiltered sunlight yesterday morning, but there were clouds, so I got it on the drive home, sort of - until it went behind the clouds again.  This morning, I doubled up on my vitamin D, to see if that helps.  No sunlight today, either, except right at sunrise - it's supposed to snow starting some time today and all of tomorrow.  Blecch.  In any event, I stayed asleep until around 4 am, and woke only briefly then, so progress.

And, I had no hot flashes yesterday or last night, so I skipped the hot flash pills again this morning.  Hoping we're through with that bout and for a good long while.

Eating plan for late spring(ish) 2013

I want to give a good college try to getting rid of the roughly 10 pounds I've regained; it's not that I'm fat - most of my clothes still fit, as a matter of fact, but I need to stop the trend.

I think when I started this whole thing it was definitely aimed at low-carb and achieving Ketosis.  So it makes sense that I should stick with what works and go there again.  A few things I recall:

• I tried very hard to eliminate sugar.  Not always successful, but key.  That said, I did indulge in dark chocolate.
• I used Kurt Harris' 12 steps and got pretty far down them.
• I did more tea-with cream, I think.  Also butter on things like meat.
• Less stressful, I eliminated grains.
• I had things like turkey sausage in lieu of eggs at breakfast
• Possibly less bacon on "just me" days - actually in reviewing the 50-pound loss, I ate mostly turkey bacon.  weird.

After reading through the entire blog from Mayish through February, I would tend to say that I cooked at home a lot, worked pretty hard to avoid Mexican, and really shied away from true dessert foods a lot harder than I have of late.  It doesn't appear that I ate as high-fat as I thought I had, but was more careful to avoid carbs in general at restaurants and on travel, etc.  More IFing than I recalled, too.  And I was better at portion control on cheats, like the 1-a-day Christmas cookies.

So, going forward: 

• Stop with the sugar already - especially for the remainder of this and next week.
• Eat more at dinner and aim to be satisfied before calling dinner done.  Fewer and better snacks (e.g., olives, macadamias, veg-and-dip, etc)
• Keep the starchy carbs to maybe one or two days per week, max.
• One of those instances can be an apple, but not both; go for berries over other fruit again.
• Start picking up the free weights around the house and carefully begin with arm work.  Do NOT re-mess-up the shoulder.
• Find some way to work up into squats - maybe just lie on the floor and lift my feet up from a squatty position to start with.  Something.
• Cut out french fries and potato chips and home fries altogether for the immediate future.  Potato salad can be one of the starchy carbs.  Probably rice is the other - in stuffed peppers, for example.  But not a lot at any given time.
• Get back into true IFing.  Dinner to dinner, probably the best pattern for me.
• But eat the gram of salt - get back to having bouillon or something, either at work or at home.  See if I can keep the leg cramps at bay.
• Revisit some of the food I ate regularly back then - flank steak (haven't had one in a while), burgers with cheese and guac and bacon, frozen or sliced strawberries with cream on top, occasional cottage cheese, Lindt 85% dark chocolate (after Easter, anyway).
• Keep the walnuts and cashews portion-controlled - in a container.  And not every night.
• Eat the pickled things that are in the cupboard - the okra, my homemade pickles (fermented), olives, etc.  I just finished the dilly beans we bought at the Olive place in Phoenix, and wish I had more.
• Cheese in small portions - one piece at a time.

This seems doable - and I'm feeling some excitement about it.  Starting today, since I skipped breakfast and have had about 4 macadamias and the dilly beans to eat so far today.  Planning roast chicken and salad for dinner.  With sliced strawberries and cream for dessert.  And no snacks.

Thursday

So I think yesterday was the last day before a renewed pursuit of ketosis.  Interestingly enough, I had vestigial leg cramps yesterday, despite a diet absolutely larded with carbs.  Go figure.  153.2 today; not surprised.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• strawberries (about 1/2 pound)
• peanuts (a vending bag worth)
• cheese
• chips and salsa and guac
• a hamburger patty with chile con queso on it
• fries
• 8 malted milk eggs

I am not finished with the malted milk eggs, but I am going to try my damnedest to act as if.  We skipped breakfast this morning, because last night's dinner (at a Mexican place we probably won't revisit in a hurry) did not sit well with Lee.  I don't seem to have the same issues, but my stomach is happy not to be bothered with digestion so far.  I brought macadamia nuts (1 weighed serving) and dilly beans with me to work - the latter are pickled green beans.  I figured that starts me off with fat and veg for the day, as I intend to eat until this weight shifts a good 7-8 pounds.  My stated goal is to get solidly back into the mid-140s in a way that will cause me to stay there.  Modest and achievable, and a good excuse to drop some bad habits.  In the vein of yesterday's post, here's what yesterday's eating should have looked like:

• tea with cream (possibly more cream per cup)
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• the usual supplements
• macadamia nuts or olives or veg-and-dip of some sort
• cheese
• carne asada, fajitas without tortillas, or something of that sort - no chips or fries
• more fatty snax of some sort

Really, not a huge modification; I just need to get back in the mindset of "starchy and sweet carbs are not food".

I took the bold step of skipping the hot flash pill this morning.  I hope I'm right and the storm I went through 2 weeks ago was actually signalling the approaching end of another bout - it's worked that way in the past.  I'm less than keen to keep eating something that mocks estrogen, which these pills do.  I'm also thinking that the black cohosh was working and the storm was what it was preventing.  So I may go back to that if it turns out that this bout is not over yet.  Anyway, we shall see.  So far, so good today; I've actually been a bit cold since yesterday.

Plans for eating later today - I'm thinking a roast chicken and salad and more guacamole - either via purchasing pre-made in the pouch or by making it.  And I may ask the family if we can avoid Mexican restaurants for a few weeks - I think they'll be on board with it.

Wednesday

I got sleep last night, aided by the ever-helpful Advil PM.  Not the way I'd like to get sleep, but I'm not in a position to be picky.  As a result, I'm feeling kind of floppy this morning.  It will pass, I suppose.

152.2 this morning.  I didn't eat all that well last night, but a bit better than Monday.  I'm giving some serious thought to getting back into strong ketosis for a variety of reasons, but to do that, I need to have a plan for what I intend to eat.  And I don't yet.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• strawberries (a sandwich bag full - less than 1/2 pound)
• shrimp in garlic butter
• rice
• cheese
• macadamia nuts
• a couple of almond-flour crackers
• 8 malted milk eggs

That was it.  I'm thinking for true ketosis, I need to increase the fat and reduce the carbs to near zero.  To adjust yesterday toward that goal, I would have to:

• eliminate the fruit and rice and candy
• add fat - more macadamia nuts, olives, avocado, probably - or butter on meat
• fill in for bulk with non-starchy veg

So instead, it should look like

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• macadamia nuts or olives (and for what it's worth, I have another bag of strawberries with me today)
• shrimp in garlic butter
• green beans or spinach or a salad or asparagus or sauteed mushrooms
• cheese
• more macadamia nuts or olives 
• almond flour crackers

Maybe that's how I arrive at a plan - critique the previous day's eating and make it more ketosis-promoting here, and use that information to guide me going forward.  2 cups of whole strawberries, for the record, are 22 grams of carbs.

Tuesday

153.0 this morning.  Sleep mildly improved over yesterday, in that I was awake from about 2:30 to 3:30 or 4:00 only.  Big whoop.  I'm still tired.  And achy.  Inflammation?  I don't know.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• macadamia nuts throughout the day - about 3/8 of a cup of them
• salad with salami and feta, with a red-wine vinaigrette
• malted milk eggs - probably about 10 overall (damn them)
• the crumby end of a bag of corn tortilla chips
• more salami - 6-8 slices, I think
• cheese

I think that was it.  I was bingeing - no other word for it.  On a rampage to eat carbs after dinner.  Really not a good thing.  I hope it's not the effect of the hot-flash meds, because that seems like an awful choice - either I get a shot at sleeping the night through (no guarantees, obviously), or I can control myself around starchy food.

Shrimp with rice tonight for dinner.  And salad.  I will try to avoid the malted milk eggs.

I'm thinking I need to do the hard work to get back into serious ketosis - can't help thinking it would reduce the achiness and help me be more alert as well.

Monday

First, I declare that the hot-flash issue is under control.  I'm down to maybe 1-2 per day, quite mild, no sweating, just a vague feeling that I'm a bit overheated.  Big improvement.

However, my sleep is not all that it could be.  I'm fairly certain that this has more to do with gardening at the moment than with hormones; last night I woke up with aches and pains up and down my legs in very weird places.  I'm guessing that it's a combination of muscle teardown and growth from hauling bags of manure and weeding over the weekend, and the change in structure that the Rolfing brought.  If I ached in the old ways, I would recognize it and be able to sleep.  At least, that's my theory of the moment.  

So I'm working on about 4 hours of sleep, I think.  It took a while to get to sleep to start with, and I woke up at 2 am from a very odd and vivid dream that involved a 19th century figure standing in water on the brink of a big drop-off, taking a quick side-step to avoid being hit by a hatchet launched from the other side of whatever body of water it was, and drowning from the weight of his clothes in the water after he fell into the deeper bit.  No idea where that came from, but it brought me up pretty quickly.  To find that I ached from head to toe (literally the latter - the 2nd through 4th toes on my left foot just throbbed), and couldn't easily get comfortable enough to go back to sleep.  I do think I slept after that, but not thoroughly.  Oh, well.  Tonight is another night.

152.2 this morning.  Not terribly surprising; I didn't eat well last week or this weekend.  Here's what I recall of yesterday:

• bacon
• tea with cream
• maybe just the menopause supplement
• cheese
• almond crackers
• salami
• walnuts
• pot roast 
• oven roasted potatoes with Lipton soup on them
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• one or two malted milk eggs (the sugar fast is slowing down, I'd say)

I was also 152.2 yesterday morning, for what that's worth.  Planning on salad with meat in it for dinner, and I fasted breakfast, because I've eaten something that my gut flora doesn't much like and I thought I'd give it a day off.  Also to get 15 minutes more not-being-up this morning.  I have some macadamia nuts with me for snacks, if things get bad - they're nearly pure fat, so I'm hoping they'll be satiating.

Looking at things dispassionately, I'd say that I'm doing a lot of emotional/boredom eating right now.  If I can find a way out of that, I think I'll be able to shed a few pounds, but it's being difficult.  But I'll keep it in mind.

Friday

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that whatever is in the new menopause pills has an estrogen-like quality to it - because I'm surly as an infected toe this morning.  And I haven't been like that much through this, that I can recall.  It's not fun.

Slept adequately last night; not well, but adequately.  The stuff that is turning me into a troll does seem to be doing its primary job.  I'm very glad the weekend starts tonight.

Anyway, 152.6 this morning.  Another thing I hope has something to do with the pills.  But probably not; here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• small vending bag of peanuts
• a small handful of potato chips
• a pound of grassfed ground beef
• a large handful of cheese
• chips and salsa

That was it, but I went to bed with a stomach ache from overeating dinner, and I golluped dinner down like it was my first meal in several weeks.  So something odd is going on.

Thursday

Another decent night's sleep - not perfect, mind you; I woke at 3:00, but decent.  I'll take it.  That said, still tired.  I'm holding out hopes for a good weekend.  

Yesterday was weird.  I ate lunch, as threatened, managing to squeeze in the white-smoke part of the papal elections on the radio, conveniently enough.  Felt draggy when I got home, and on the way to dinner, had a golly-whomping migraine aura.  Took 3 advil and had dinner, and the aura had gone away, but before I went to bed, I had a mild headache - so getting decent sleep was a total bonus.  The whole thing, though, made me crazy-hungry at dinner.  I ploughed through chips and salsa and 3 cheese enchiladas, practically licking the plate.  Nothing after that, though.

151.2 today.  Not too surprised.  I think this stuff I'm taking for menopause may have some un-documented side effects that are vaguely PMS-like, judging by this past week.  Here's yesterday:

• fat-bomb smoothie
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• double quarter-pounder with cheese
• small fries
• chips and salsa
• 3 cheese/onion enchiladas with green chile

So, today, work permitting, my plan is to drive to a nearby local park that appears to have a trail through it, and go for a walk.  Get some fresh air and sunshine and a little light exercise.  I need to do something along those lines; while I'm still climbing stairs with just the slight hiatus yesterday morning, it doesn't seem to be doing anything for my strength at all.  And this isn't really for that, but just to clear my head and re-energize a bit for a long afternoon - and if it's not too far away, I plan to do it often over the spring-fall timeframe.

Wednesday

I slept last night - until 4:20 am.  And then put something soothing on my iPod and slept until 5:30.  So I'm a happier camper today.  Still tired - I have amassed a sleep debt over the past couple of months that is going to take some work to repay - but starting to feel like I have a shot at repayment.

150.2 this morning.  Could have - probably should have - been worse.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the limited usual supplements
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• cheese (brought some to work)
• M&Ms (yesterday was so sucky, I needed chocolate.  Lent has now resumed)
• pizza top (and one small bite of crust, to see if it tasted as good as it looked - and it didn't, really)
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• a bag of Lays
• more cheese

See what I mean?  That was a major carb-bender for me, really.  I don't think I'll be repeating it today, but I might have lunch of some sort.

I was so down yesterday that I gave brief consideration to abandoning a Primal/Paleo way of eating.  Brief.  And then I reminded myself that most of my aches and pains are gone and that I haven't been sick at all in nearly 3 years, and that, when I'm not battling menopausal insomnia, my energy levels and mood are much better than they used to be, and got over it.  Pizza crust is not worth trading all of that for.

I had my final session of Rolfing last night.  I didn't measure before - or take any pictures, which I regret - but if I had to guess, I'm 2-3 inches taller than I was when we started.  And overall, my body seems to be working better than it did - it's not fighting me when I want to move in a way I haven't done in a while.  My shoulder is still a little stiff, and I'm guessing that I probably have some inflamed tendons there - or damage that isn't just muscle/fascia issues.  What I think the Rolfing has done so far is set things up so that the remaining nastiness can heal properly.

My homework going forward is to sit on my sit-bones (note that I'm not, currently), and hold myself as if I have marionette strings coming from both my sternum and the top of my head (and keep the sternum one from hitting me in the face).  Which immediately shows me how non-ergonomic my current desk is - it's too low, and I can't get my monitors to the right height for me.  So I may have to do some jury-rigging to get improvements there.

It's supposed to get into the 60s today, and I'm thinking we should walk the dogs after dinner.  I think it's dried up enough - or will have.

Tuesday

Took an Adviil-PM last night, to ensure decent sleep - I may opt to do this every third night or so until things settle down.  It worked - although I woke at 4:30 (daylight saving time - in other words, 3:30 am last week's time) and could not get back to sleep.  I'm still really groggy.  That said, if I had hot flashes before 4:30 am last night, I do not remember them.  And that's a good thing.

150.4 this morning, for no apparent reason.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• limited regular supplements - I'm skipping the Copper, Iodine, and Zinc for a week, as I was getting a metallic taste in my mouth last week
• a bag (vending) of Nacho Cheese Doritos (does it help that I had to climb the stairs twice to get it?) (probably not)
• three peanuts
• salad with egg, cheese, blue cheese dressing
• 8 oz sirloin
• southern style green beans

That was it.  Truly, no good reason to have gained a pound from that.  Damn hormones.

I have to confess that I took the elevator this morning.  Commute took an hour and a half, on top of the grogginess, and it about killed me.  I think I could easily curl up under a desk and sleep the rest of the day today.  Blecch.

Monday

I think the new anti-hot-flash supplement is sorta-kinda working.  I get them still, but they're shorter and somewhat less intense, which means that sleep is less of an issue - and that's all good.  I got some sleep last night - not enough, and with dear old Daylight Saving Time hitting us, it ended all too soon.  But I feel much better than I did a week ago.  (emit stifled yawn here - oh, well!)

149.2 this morning - a bit surprising, since I spent about an hour last night eating cashews.  In my defense, I had no breakfast yesterday - some cheese throughout the day, and some carrots and ranch dip.  I'm looking for alternatives to the cashews and potato chips; the carrots and dip seem to work pretty well.  As near as I can recall, here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• menopause supplement only
• cheese
• carrots with ranch dip (sour cream and ranch mix herbs)
• pork roast
• southern style green beans (we have found a total winner of a recipe - made with a ham hock)
• cashews

Was that really it?  I think it was.  However, the quantities of cheese and cashews were not small.

On the exercise front, we're working off a snowstorm at the moment, so the start of dog-walking evenings is a bit delayed.  As soon as the streets are clear, though...

Friday

Better sleep last night - deep enough to dream.  I am very grateful.  And want more.  Eating has been bumpy this week, to say the least; the stress derived from being exhausted has not helped.  We are going to try walking more next week once daylight saving hits - I generally hate it because it makes us skew our sleep hours the wrong way, but I'm hoping to get something good out of it this year, and that makes me a bit more reconciled.

150.4 this morning; here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon (a lot, for what it's worth)
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• filet mignon with butter
• salad with ham, cranberries, walnuts, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette
• cashews - a lot, eaten mindlessly

That last item is where I went wrong.  I didn't need them, wasn't hungry, just wanted salt.  There are other ways to get it, and I need to remember that.

A fat-bomb smoothie for breakfast today, and we are going to a fish thing at church tonight, so fish for dinner.

Thursday, I hope

Oddly, this week isn't as long as last week, which is good, but it is long.  Another bad sleep night last night - I was awake for about 2 hours, I think, starting around 1 am.  The dog got sick at 4.  I don't think she's really sick, but she keeps eating trash, and has to upchuck it.  Not a good thing.

Anyway, I'm tired and achy.  All over.  I took turmeric and extra fish oil this morning to try to help with that, and have had Advil.  150.0 this morning.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• beef jerky
• bunless burger with cheddar, green chile, and guacamole
• french fries (bad me - and probably the source of the inflammation)
• a bag of Lays (you'd think one dose of potatoes would be enough)

I still can't tell if the new supplement is helping or not.  Overall, I would tend to say I'm not sweating as much - the bouts are less intense, I guess.  But I'm still getting monkey-hammered - 5 or more episodes per day, and similar numbers at night.  It's rough.

One thing I meant to mention that is hopeful.  I had been experiencing tinnitus in my right ear over the past month or so - or at least, it had become noticeable.  I did some reading, and it appeared that Zinc and B-vitamins could help with it, so I added both to my mornings - Zinc daily and B-complex on Mondays.  After about 2 weeks of this, the tinnitus has decreased in volume to the point where I can easily distract myself from it, and at 3 am, when I'm not able to sleep, not listening to a high-pitched whine is a decided improvement.  So a good thing overall - and it was probably indicating another area of missing nutrients.

The other good news is that, while I never meant to put stair-climbing on my list of things to add for Lent, so far, I've kept to my resolve to climb them instead of taking the elevator - even when I feel like limp dead lettuce, as I do this morning.  Not seeing benefits in weight loss, obviously, but some minor strength improvements.

Wednesday

The new stuff? Not much help so far.  Maybe a couple of days in, it will help, but it seems as if I have untreatable menopause.  Acupuncture did not work, nor did Chinese herbs.  Or black cohosh, and now this stuff - maybe.  I guess I'll keep with it for a while, give it a chance, but I'm losing faith here.

Needless to say, my sleep last night was utter crap.  Not as bad as Sunday night, but not good.  Add to that a shower drain backup this morning, and I'm feeling somewhat picked-on by life.

149.2 again today.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• fat-bomb smoothie
• the usual supplements
• a bag of beef jerky
• taco salad (ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, salsa)
• a bag of Lays
• an apple
• 3 pieces of cheese

So a short list, which generally is better for weight loss than a long one.  Had egg-and-bacon for breakfast today and will try not to eat until dinner.

Tuesday

Another week, a different menopause supplement.

I ran out of Black Cohosh some time last week, and it appears that maybe it had been helping after all, judging by Sunday night.  Anyway, I went back to the internet yesterday in search of something I'd seen advertised on the Hallmark Channel (I'm thinking the demographic there must be all menopausal women).  Found that it does exist, may be effective (this based on Amazon reviews), and is available at Walgreens, so I stopped on the way home for some - and then bought the Walgreens generic version.  Nothing says "safe and effective" better than the existence of a Walgreens generic version.  Took one on the way home.  Slept like a rock last night with a vague memory of being hot once between 9 and 4:30 am.  One more mild hit after that - but I was awake anyway, thanks to sick dogs - and one nasty one on the way to work.  I have taken a second dose this morning with breakfast, and will continue to watch.  But a promising start.

149.2 this morning, surprisingly.  Not that I mind.  Here's yesterday:

• Fat-bomb smoothie (coconut milk, protein powder, berries, vanilla)
• the usual supplements
• tea with cream
• a bag of beef jerky
• filet mignon with blue cheese and butter
• salad with ham and blue cheese dressing
• a bag of Lays
• a few cashews

I wasn't particularly hungry yesterday; don't know if it was due to the coconut milk or exhaustion or what.  I had another smoothie for breakfast today, for convenience, generally.  Taco salads tonight for dinner - that's the plan, anyway.

Oh, and I'm flashing again.  Dammit.

Monday

I. Am. In. Hell.

Went to bed tired last night.  This is important to understand.  And when I rolled over with the intention of going to sleep, I figured it would be only a few moments.  Yeah, not so much.  Flashed, again and again.  Nearly all night.  I think I slept some between 10:30-11ish and, say, 1 am.  But, with a few 5-15 minute exceptions, including one after 5 am, that was it.  And I'm doing it again, right now.

I had a fat-bomb smoothie for breakfast, and hope that the coconut oil/ketones will keep me functioning all day.  No clear idea what I ate yesterday, but I had the munchies again - I'm assuming that has something to do with hormones, as does my current wretched state.  And I have no idea what would help, anymore. Except maybe hormones - and I don't want to do that.  I'd rather just have those secretions dry up and stop completely, and get on with getting old, if that's what happens then.  I'm on my third year of this, on-and-off, anyway.  Blecch.

150.4 this morning and glad it wasn't worse.  We are going to eat salad-and-meat all week for dinner, in an attempt to start some momentum.  I need to get my game head on,  get serious about some weight loss, and start resisting temptations a bit.  Oddly enough, I haven't had any sugar yet this Lent - that one seems to be fully under control.  Although I did want some yesterday, part of the munchies, I guess.

Onward.  Don't care for the alternative, so that's all I can do.

Friday

Finally.  Well, sort of - I have a software event going on this evening for work that is very likely to last until midnight or beyond, so the work week won't truly end for a very long time.  And I am so bloody tired.  Sleep was utter shite last night again.  I'm so weary that I was vaguely weepy on the way to work, over not much of anything, just the futility of it all.  I don't get like this often, thank goodness, but when I do, it's not fun.  Needless to say, Lee didn't sleep either, so we're both useless just now.  Anyway.

150.6 this morning.  Shouldn't be surprised.  My fast (not) day yesterday ended up a bit weird:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• a V-8
• an unpeeled breakfast burrito (eggs, potatoes, bacon, cheese) with green chile (it was breakfast burrito day at work - go figure)
• cheese (ultimately, 6 pieces)
• olives
• bunless chipotle cheese steak
• cottage cheese
• a pickle spear
• a bag of Lays

That was it.  But more than I usually eat in one day, and somewhat unbalanced.  I need more salads, I think.  Might go out of the building at lunch in search of one - but just veggies and dressing, no meat, since it's Friday.  We did not eat breakfast this morning; I've had another V-8 with my vitamins, and have one at work I can tap if I get hungry before lunch.  Rough day ahead, I think.