I think I was unable to find any fucks to give once The Holidays hit.
Category Archives: health & fitness
A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals
Vicious Circle
I’ve been feeling kind of meh for the past few weeks. I haven’t had a proper workout since before Thanksgiving — some I skipped because I had other obligations, some I skipped because I was tired and I used that as an excuse (can’t have me lifting with bad form and hurting myself), and some I just didn’t feel like doing. (So much for that Discipline Over Motivation thing.)
Whether as a result of not working out or just correlated with it, I’ve also been extra stupid tired lately. Tired and hungry is a Very Bad Combination for me in the evenings, because my lizard brain goes foraging for food and doesn’t quit. Then I also stay up later when I get stupid tired, just because I don’t think to check the clock and get my ass upstairs at a reasonable hour. Then, because I’m overtired and I ate so late in the evening, I have trouble getting to sleep. Once I do get to sleep, I have trouble getting up (I’ve overslept my alarm every single day this week).
I’ve also been rocking crazy vivid dreams that don’t feel particularly restful, like last night’s dream about me being incarcerated and slated for execution because of a traffic violation, and my dream-world attorney was dead and his son had started a restaurant instead of continuing the practice, so I had no representation. Especially being an atheist, the You’re Gonna Die Soon dreams are extra super unrestful.
I’ve been dealing with early morning headaches and general fatigue all week, and today my eyes are visibly puffy. I’ve gained a few pounds over the past several weeks. I feel nasty, both physically and mentally.
I’ve just been in a fuck-all mood lately, too. I’m tired and I don’t give a shit. I try not to let it affect my interactions with others; unfortunately, that extra social effort during the day means I sometimes snap at my son in the evenings when I’m extra tired. Which makes me feel like an ass.
It’s dark and cold and I’m tired and irritable. I don’t want to be active; I’d rather park myself in front of the TV and eat lots of carbohydrates.
Which is exactly what I don’t need.
It doesn’t help that it’s the Christmas Season, which means I’m supposed to be cheery and generous and OMG It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year — and I only got one one batch of chocolate chip cookies baked and in the deep freeze before my brain was like NOPE. FUCK IT.
I have a long weekend coming up (I had to use my last two Personal Days before they expired), so hopefully that will recharge me and help me get back on track. I’ll spend some time sleeping in (“No waking Mommy up before 8:00”) and baking cookies with my son and enjoying my husband’s company for Date Night and getting my hairs did on Monday morning.
I know I need to rein in my evening eating. I need to get back to being active at least three days a week (preferably daily). I also need more sleep than the average bear — nine hours a night is just right for me, and the seven I’ve been getting just ain’t cutting it.
As with so many other aspects of my life, I know what to do. I just need to do it.
I wonder if I should bring this up to my CNP at my next visit. I wonder if being meh for a few-week stretch every few months constitutes clinical depression that requires medical attention. I don’t know. For me, this is normal. When I neglect myself, it shows. When I feed and exercise myself properly, I’m fine.
It’s just a matter of a.) identifying what tips the dominoes and b.) determining what it takes to stop the cascade and right things again.
Six Months Post-Braces
A few weeks back, I had my six-month check-up with my orthodontist.
Since my debonding in May, I’d been instructed to wear my clear retainers day and night, only removing them to eat and to brush my teeth. I did that most of the time, but there were days when I’d forget to put my retainers back in after my morning coffee, or after lunch, or after dinner.
This must not have had much of an effect, despite the fact that I can tell when I put my retainers back in which teeth still want to migrate out of position. Doc told me that my retainers still appear to be fitting just fine — although he never had me take them off to check alignment without the retainers — and told me that I can start wearing them at night only. He also said, though, that if they feel tight when I take them out in the morning, I should consider wearing them during the day for a while longer. (Which they do sometimes, and sometimes I do wear them during the day still.)
All told, that six-month retainer check took maybe ten minutes tops, including time spent in the waiting room.
I’m scheduled for another visit around the one year mark, next May, at which point I suspect I’ll only need to come back if there’s a problem.
Are my teeth perfect now? No. My gums have receded over the years so that I have “black triangles” — gaps between my teeth at the gumline — that will only ever be corrected by either gum surgery or bonding. A couple of my teeth even have exposed roots at the gumline, and that’s gotten more pronounced since my braces came off.
I’m no longer embarrassed of my smile, though, and my teeth are easier to clean, and my gums are much healthier.
It was all worth it.
November Backslide
I do NOT deal well with stress. I am a stress-eater.
Usually my stress-eating manifests after a particularly contentious bedtime with my five-year-old. I set myself a new goal to avoid eating after 7pm, rather than 8pm, since I had a tendency of rapid-fire binge-eating if Connor’s bedtime didn’t go well, in order to get my emotional eating done before my 8pm food cutoff.
My job, thankfully, is not generally a stressor for me. One fateful day, though, a co-worker came to my desk right before lunch and engaged me in a work-related debate in which he started with false assumptions. It lasted entirely too long, it stressed me out, multiple co-workers attempted to come to my rescue, and at the end of it, I ate my lunch from home plus a serving of lasagna from the cafe downstairs. Plus a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup I brought in from Connor’s Halloween stash.
(I had planned to go on a camera walk over my lunch break that day, but after that, I really wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I just got outside and walked to a local coffee shop in the 71°F weather. In November. In Ohio. And then I impulse-bought an eclair along with my skinny latte.)
Twitter Update: November 15, 2016 at 09:45AM
Who knew I’d be thankful for my floppy boobs come #mammogram time? That really wasn’t as uncomfortable as I was expecting. #TMI