NOT Choosing to be Awake

It's 2:20 in the morning and I'm writing a blog post.  I've struggled with staying asleep (and occasionally with falling asleep, sometimes in the same night!) for several years now.  At first it was just a couple of weeks in the summer but for the last couple of years it's been a problem from spring through fall.  I'm not one of the fabled short-sleepers who can get by on 4 to 6 hours per night.  I need 7 to 8+ hours per night in order to feel rested.  So I go around in a sleep-deprived state for more than half the year now.  This is particularly unsafe, especially since I drive to work every day.  Also, I really hate feeling like this.  I feel slow and groggy and like I just can't get my gears unstuck.

I read a study (can't remember where) that short-term sleep-deprivation didn't affect performance on projects that required intense concentration, but it seriously and negatively affected projects that required limited concentration.  You know, like driving or writing an email, which I do daily.  But I wonder if they had volunteers who were sleep-deprived over longer periods if they would have seen even the projects that required intense concentration suffer.    Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my errors to myself.

I've read several books over the years and I've picked up lots of tricks to go back to sleep.  I keep relaxing Celtic piano music and nature sounds with embedded delta waves on my phone.  I also have both the white noise and lightning bug apps on my phone.  So I have lots of listening choices to help me to drift off.  I've found that stretching my legs sometimes helps.  Sometimes getting up and sitting on the couch for a few minutes until I get cold helps.  Sometimes doing deep breathing and relaxation exercises helps.  And then sometimes (like tonight) none of this helps and I give up and read for awhile.

Two years ago I reached a point where I decided to try sleep medication.  It worked pretty well for me and I didn't have any of the interesting side effects that I've read about like sleep-eating or sleep-adventuring.  But it made it harder for me to fall asleep without it; and I just really HATE to take unnecessary medicine.  I'm pretty hard-pressed to take pain-killers unless I've had a headache for a long time and/or sleep won't cure it.  So while that worked out alright for me, it's not something that I'd like to do again.  Plus the other thing that can be hard is that most of the time I'm so tired when I go to bed that I fall asleep just fine.  Then after about 2 hours I wake up and can't get back to sleep.  In that case it's too late to take sleep medicine, so the only effective method is to take it preemptively before I even know if I need it, which is definitely not how I want to use medication.

So for the time being I'm just going through my litany of tricks and hoping that something will eventually help me to fall back asleep.  We'll see as the summer wears on if I still feel the same way.  Usually late in the summer I reach a point where I'm so tired all the time that I feel just about ready to give up.  If I reach that point again we'll see if I'm still so opposed to the medication.  Well, I've sat up for nearly 45 minutes now, I'm going to try and go back to sleep.  Wish me luck!  Although actually, never mind, I hope that you're asleep and can't wish me luck if you're reading this in any American time-zone!

Weekly Chart #6/15

I've reached my weight goal!  This chart is a posting of the beginning of my maintenance phase.

I knew that it would be hard to stop losing weight once I got started.  It's very tempting to see just how far I could go because it feels so good to have control over this.  But I've decided to stop now.  My waist is still larger than I originally had planned on, but I'm now wearing a size 6, so I think I'm OK with this size; I had been pushing the limits of my size 10 clothes back in December.

My waist-to-hip ratio is still higher than I would have hoped, but I keep losing inches off of both so I can't seem to change the ratio.  However, I think I'll ask my doctor to do a blood draw and look at all of my numbers at my next appointment.  If they're good, then I'm not going to worry about this ratio any longer.

So now I'm on to maintenance.  Here's what that means:

• I'm going to give myself an additional 50 calories per day a week at a time, until I reach my maintenance calories of about 1550 per day.  That way I can make sure that I don't start putting the weight back on.
• I'm going to continue to exercise.  I'll do strength training 3 times per week and at least 30 minutes of cardio 6 times per week.
• I'll continue to weigh in every morning so that if I start to move back up I can immediately address it by going to 1200 calories per day until it's back in line.

I originally started this for several reasons.  I'm happy to report that I'm healthier, stronger, and have more energy.  I feel more desirable for my husband, even if he always found me desirable, now I'm more secure.  I finally went shopping the other day (which I don't like to do) since my pants wouldn't stay up any longer, and I was able to see cute clothes and they looked cute on me.  This is a major accomplishment that I feel very proud of.  Of course it didn't magically transform the rest of my life, but it did transform my view of myself and what I can do.

Weekly Chart #5 (or #13)

I'm posting my fifth weekly chart, even though this is week number thirteen of tracking.  That means I haven't posted my chart every Sunday more often than I have.  Oh well, we all know what that infamous road is paved with, I guess I'm just contributing my paving stones!  Anyhow, here's my current chart:

I'm 6/10ths of a pound away from my weight goal today.  So that's super exciting.  The one area that I still really need to focus on is my waist size.  I think that perhaps my original goal of 26.5 inches may be a bit of a stretch.  But I still think I'd like to get my waist down to about 28 inches.  So that will be my next big focus once I'm on the maintenance phase of the weight.

My trick to keeping the weight off is going to be weighing myself every day.  That way if I over-indulge one day, I can nip it in the bud and get back on track the next day.  Maintenance won't be as exciting as losing weight has been; but I'll enjoy feeling better all the time!

Almost at the Ultimate Goal

This morning when I stood on the scale it read 126.0.  I'm super excited that I've been able to stick with this and make some real progress.  I just need to lose 1 more pound to hit my goal of 125.  I know that originally I stated my goal was between 125 and 128, but I thought it best to hit the bottom of that goal prior to moving to the maintenance phase.

I still have work to do to get into even better shape, but I've come so far and I look so different than I did 3 months ago.  I like what I see when I look in the mirror.  I don't see perfection yet (heck, I probably never will); but I do see progress and improvement that makes me feel good about myself.

It's been amazing what taking control of this one aspect of my life has done for me.  My work situation is thoroughly insane these days, but I haven't totally gone off the deep end because I had control of this part of my life and have been seeing positive results every day.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to post a chart that will show a weight of 125 pounds!

I've Discovered a Healthier Version of Me

I'm going to try really hard to find the time to post my "weekly" chart this Sunday.  I'm still making good progress, although things have of course started to slow down and get harder.  At first the weight was coming off so fast, practically every morning the scale would have good news.  Now it's remaining stagnant for a longer period of time.  But it is still trending in the right direction.

The really amazing thing is how much my mind-set and my health have changed.  When I first started counting my calories using myfitnesspal I was mortified that I could only have 1200 calories.  I started exercising a lot more just to be able to eat enough.  Now my body has reset and 1200 calories is more than enough most days.  In fact to keep the weight loss going I've pretty much quit using my exercise as a way to get more calories and I've been sticking with just 1200 food calories per day.

But that doesn't mean I've quit exercising.  I'm doing just as much if not more than I was when I needed the added calories.  I really enjoy feeling stronger, and it's amazing the mood improvements I get when I exercise.  It's just a habit now.  Even during my busiest days I always find time for exercise.  Like a day recently when I was traveling for work and wasn't going to have any time for a workout and so I chose not to take the train at the airport and instead walked to my concourse.  It was only 20 minutes, but I found time even that day for something.

One of the tricks that I've been using that's really helping is to play music.  It makes me happy and it makes me want to move.  I finish up my workout with a smile on my face and in a better mood.  Gretchen Rubin recently blogged about how exercise contributes to happiness at The Happiness Project.  BTW:  This is a great blog to read if you're working on choosing happiness in your life.

On another note; I'm going to try to get some rest now.  It is almost 2 AM and I have to get up for the day in less than 3 hours. I did manage to get about 2 hours of sleep tonight before I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.  Work stress.  I've frequently had problems sleeping but over the years have developed so many tricks to help me get back to sleep that I've been doing much better.  But I have a huge deadline looming at work tomorrow and haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on it because of too many competing priorities.  Does anyone have a job any longer that doesn't expect the work of two people?  I just wish I got the salaries for all of the jobs that I'm doing!  Anyway, off to bed to try to get some sleep.  Lack of sleep definitely doesn't help with health goals!

Choosing to Share

Every winter we spend a weekend in the mountains with my parents and brother and his family.  It's a tradition that we all really look forward to.  We always go snowshoeing while we're there and it's nice after an intense workout like that to go back to the cozy cabin and have a hot lunch.  Over the years I've gotten some amazing pictures of the area that I thought I'd share with my readers.  Please enjoy!

Weekly Chart #4

I've been really bad about posting lately.  Life has gotten thoroughly insane recently.  My daughter fell and sprained her ankle so we've had to add numerous doctor and physical therapy appointments into our already packed schedule.  We went through another massive round of layoffs at work.  I'm still employed after 11 years, but it's really hard to see so many people lose their livelihood.  It also of course adds to my workload.  I'm starting to feel like the ground after heavy rains when it becomes supersaturated and the excess water can't soak in any longer.  There's a song by a band named Enchant called Juggling Knives.    There's a line in the song that keeps recurring to me right now:  "And now the choice is juggling nine or dropping ten."  So we'll see what happens next!

However, the good news in all of this is that counting my calories really is working.  I've had some weeks recently where I haven't made much progress with the weight loss, but I haven't regained either.  So right now I'm considering that to be a win since the stress has been so high.  I'm also back into exercising full-swing now after having to cut back when I got strep throat.  So even though many things in my life feel out-of-control currently; I still feel in control of my health.  Which was the true goal all along.

Here's the current chart:

I've graphed my weight loss in Excel and added a trend line.  If I keep up at my current pace I should reach my goal weight sometime in early April.  Although I've given myself until June so I won't stress out if it takes a bit longer.  I must admit to being pretty excited about being able to purchase some new spring and summer clothes.  I hope that I'll have solved my problem of seeing something that looks cute on the model but hideous on me!

I'll try to be better about posting at least weekly again!