Monday

Weekend was good and bad, I think. Got to the gym on Sunday but not Saturday; we were busy and productive. And the sun was out. Big improvement, that.

159.4 this morning; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• omelet - 3 eggs, ham, cheese, tomatoes
• string cheese
• 2 pure sugar easter basket egg candies
• bean salad (kidney beans, mayo-based dressing)
• cottage cheese
• 4 corn fritters
• turkey breast
• mashed potatoes
• gravy
• cornbread dressing
• cranberry sauce
• a glass of white wine
• cheddar cheese

We went to White Fence Farm for dinner. Hence the "fixings". I only eat them there, and I do try to keep the intake fairly modest.

Set some more speed records at the gym yesterday - did my second mile at 11:01. Not bad. Resting on Saturday was a good choice, as it turned out.

Sleep has been okay. I've returned to melatonin at bedtime, and it seems to be helping enough. I'm dreaming a lot, waking slightly during the night, and able to get back to sleep. Which should be great, but it's the first week of Daylight Saving Time, which is always just awful. I'm really groggy this morning.

Gym tonight again, and salad for dinner. And back to sleep, I hope.

Labs

I meant to mention earlier this week that I got all my lab results back from the doctor. Perfectly normal, across the board, they say. I haven't asked to have them faxed to me to look for myself, just in case, but I'm not truly surprised - it was a just-in-case visit.

Friday

The end of a long week. The sun is out, the snow is melting, the weekend is supposed to be more of the same. Thank goodness. 

I'm doing more research on the topic of early waking insomnia; made another try at the deep sleep setting on the brainwave app, this time with slightly more comfortable earphones, and letting it go for 30 minutes at a stretch. It puts me to sleep quite effectively. But when it stops, even gently, I wake back up. Or I did last night.  Here's what I recall:

• 8:15, went to bed to read. Put the headphones in and started the app. Fell asleep before it ended
• 8:45, woke up, restarted it and fell back asleep. At some point woke enough to take the earphones out, but went back to sleep.
• 11:51, woke up, restarted it, turned off the waves noise that has been running with it, and put iHeart Radio on for an hour on the sleep timer. Fell asleep eventually, but woke up at some point after 12:21 and before 12:51. Took the earphones out and swapped to the pillow speaker and restarted the radio (I think). This may have occurred a couple of times before I fell asleep for good.
• 5:16, woke up after dreaming a lot. Left leg's IT band is painful.

So, about 3 hours sleep, an hour or so of thrashing, and then another 4-5ish hours. I guess that works out to 8. The new "more comfortable" earphones are a bit more comfortable, but are really loud. I think I can say confidently that the radio layered over the sleep tones works, but is too loud to do at all often - I would worry about losing my hearing. All that said, I am reasonably alert this morning - far better than yesterday.

159.6 this morning. Some of it was water, but some of it still is - my ankles were a mess last night. I guess all I can do is try hard to stay clean and avoid sugar. Ironic, because here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• a few macadamia nuts
• broccoli cheese soup
• strawberries
• a piece of cheese
• Naked QDoba burrito with shredded beef, salsa, sour cream, guac, and cheese
• 1 giant jelly-bean egg (1"x2" pastel Easter candy egg with white stuff in the middle - no idea what the real name is)
• single-serving Haagen-Dasz strawberry ice cream

I didn't have honey at bedtime - and I didn't need it.  And I asked Lee to hide the bag of the eggs so I don't get any more until Easter itself. They're a particular addiction of mine - most folks find them disgusting and they're hard to find, so I jumped on them yesterday.

Did a slower 2-mile walk yesterday, working on racewalk technique. I think that's what tweaked my IT band; I realized that my left leg was not straight on landing and was working to get it to be straight. I thought it was tight hamstrings at the time - and I suppose it could be. Anyway, I can't recall if I woke any earlier than 5:16 this morning because of the pain, but I may have, a bit. 

Another weekend. Maybe one with nicer weather. I would like that.

Thursday

What. The. Hell?

First, here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• one portion of berry crumble from a Primal Blueprint recipe - berries, nuts, butter, vanilla, spices
• 2 pieces of cheese
• bacon
• fat-fast broccoli soup
• cashews
• 4 pieces low-carb crust pepperoni pizza
• 2 dark chocolates
• 1 tsp honey

So. Very unsweet fruit, veggies (broccoli and mushrooms and bell peppers), nuts, bacon, pepperoni, cheese, and a bit of chocolate. The end result? 160.4 this morning. And, for what it was worth, no ketosis last night - none. I'm not doing something right, but I don't know what. So annoying.

Benadryl last night, so I slept deeply. I could use some more. I guess I should reserve it for Friday and Saturday nights, so I could have the option of sleeping in the next morning.

Walked another 2.something miles at the gym last night at an 11:something pace on average. I've been getting slower each trip this week, though. Not quite sure why; that doesn't seem to be the way it's supposed to work.

For the record, I've pretty much abandoned my challenge. Just not working right now.

At least the sun is out today, and no snow in the forecast for the next 10. About damn time.

Wednesday

159.4 this morning, and no appreciable sleep last night. It's cold and snowy. Hell sucks.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• scrambled eggs
• turkey sausage
• macadamia nuts
• naked double cheese burger with bacon, tomato, and pickles
• fries (sigh)
• cashews
• 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
• 1 tsp honey

Working from home today, so I will have to watch the snacking, I guess. Maybe olives. I will have my fat-fast broccoli soup for lunch. Obviously we still haven't had the LC pizza - that's planned for tonight, after going to the gym. Which I have to do, because it's the only thing I feel like I can maybe control.

Tuesday

I took Benadryl last night. And did the "deep sleep" track on the brainwave app. And woke - albeit briefly - before midnight. Persistent, isn't it? Anyway, I am a bit groggy this morning - medicine head - but feel more rested than I have in a while, so that's good.

158.0 again this morning; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• 2 Primal Palate egg custards with bacon and mushrooms and cheese in
• Fat Fast broccoli cheese soup
• macadamia nuts
• about 10 strawberries
• chips and salsa and guac
• 3-stack flat cheese enchiladas (i.e., 3 tortillas)
• 1 tsp honey

Short list, great start, poor dinner choices. After a workout, for what that's worth; I hope some of the carbs made it into muscles looking to top off their glycogen.

Instead of lowish-carb pizza for dinner, I convinced Lee to go to REI so I could try on some other models of Vibrams before buying them online (he was looking for sandals, so it wasn't all about me), and we ate out. I could have said no to Mexican, but I didn't.

This was all after the gym; I did another 2-mile walk in an average under 12:00/mile, so that's a good thing. In the wrong shoes, though - the seam (I think) is rubbing the bottom of my heel and I nearly got a blister. I'd already made up my mind to get the new shoes in time to get them comfy for the Bolder Boulder, but that cemented the deal - the newer of my current Vibrams are great to schlepp around in, but not at all good for racing.

Monday

Day 2 of my own personal challenge - currently, the structure for it is in place for a week-long thing, but if I manage 1 week, I'll go for 2. I guess it's going okay. We got to the gym all weekend, which is a very good thing. Shoot, I managed a sub-11:00 mile yesterday; best time since I started logging walks on the Nike Running app.

158.0 this morning; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• bacon-cheese omelet with pork green chile on it, and sour cream
• a very few chunks of potato
• 2 pieces of cheddar
• broccoli cheese soup (the Fat Fast recipe)
• walnuts
• 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups
• pot roast
• potatoes and carrots
• a single-serve cup of Strawberry Haagen Dasz
• 1 tsp honey

If I had to do it over again, I'd have punted on the potatoes, maybe, and I would have been stronger about the chocolate. Otherwise, a pretty good eating day.

Sleep? um, yeah. I'm trying. I'm mostly failing again. No good night all weekend - figures, now that I'm done with the doctor's appointment. Last night, I did the "deep sleep" track on the brainwave app twice, then listened to a historical one-hour playlist, at the end of which I think I did drift off. Woke up some time later and put on iHeartRadio for a one-hour snooze, drifted back off (quickly enough that I can't tell you either what time it was or what was on). Woke up some time later and finding it was off, turned it on again and drifted in and out from then until 5:18, when I woke up for good. Bad about the night: that I kept waking up. Hot flashes this time, I believe. Good: that I generally fell back asleep quickly. And pretty deeply - at least once, I woke up and found one of my hands asleep, which means I was stuck in one position for fairly long. No dreams - not even the recollection that I was dreaming. That's not good. Anyway, I guess if you add it all up, I probably got just barely over 7 hours. Ugh. I'm not too bad this morning, so it was at least somewhat effective. But I think a Benadryl night is in my near future.

I had an invitation to do the Peachtree again this summer. I'm seriously considering it. But it would be for fun only; I'll do the Bolder Boulder for time. Speaking of which, I plan to get into the gym again tonight, even if I have to go alone. I think we're doing cheese-egg crust pizza for dinner tonight. And I have more broccoli soup for lunch. And strawberries.