Overworkedjanet

Hello, dear diary! It's 11 days since I last posted and so much has occurred. The man is repairing nicely. His back still bothers him, but why should he see a doctor? Just because he collapsed in the middle of the night and put his head (and shoulder) through the wall? Nah, he'll be fine. Except for painting, that wall is now completely repaired due to my construction skills. In the words of the emergency services people with the green colored vans, it's if 'It never happened".....  Before: After For self-punishment, I decided we can finish a small project of creating a soffit in this 1/2 bath to cover a vent. "Back in the day" this would have been done in two days, tops. It's going on 2 weeks. There are some things to be said for being 20 years older than the last time we tackled a project like this: No one is going to razz you for taking a rest break. It's even encouraged. Naps are ok, too. Work times starts about and hour before lunch, then the...

 Oh, dear, dear diary. It's been a few days since I posted my quest to improve. After my last post there was a flurry of activity in my area. One night my man collapsed in the powder room; got up too fast and went down when his BP bottomed out. He put his head and shoulder through the wall and banged various parts in the process. Long story short, he's fine and even went to the gym 2X this week. Learned he can't jump up from bed which is something I am guilty of as well. Old dogs, new tricks. Today we fairly completed the repair. I'll finish the fine details then paint. This drew the completion of another small project in the powder room and it will look newly enhanced. Busy! Everyone around us seems to have some cough or sneeze. Two of my grands have ear infections; odd because they are older. One of these viruses going around causes good clogging in Eustachian tubes, I guess. I feel healthy as a horse! I still mask in crowded places. The IF is going well, my food choi...

 Dear Diary, Here it is the end of week one and what do I have to show for it? A 3 pound loss which I'll consider a win. My acid reflux-related cough is mostly gone and I feel more comfortable when I go to bed! There is some wisdom in those senior 'early bird' ideas.  I have stuck to my eating window from 11 to 6ish and find it very doable. I have had some moments where I over-ate, they were emotion driven and its is something else I have to fix. I am finding better foods to fill those 'searching' moments and am content.  Measuring which keeps me in line; something I may never stop when I'm home. It helps me limit those 'just one more' thoughts that I have little control over. The scale is my brake. I have to start planning what I fresh food I want to eat for the week then scaling THAT back. My freezer has many single-serve containers of wonderful meals that I have saved. My refrigerator has too many foods that can't be frozen! I'm making it hard...

 My Dear Diary, I skipped a day. There will be more days skipped! Intermittent Fasting appears to be what I had been doing for a good portion of the past few years. The caveat is I figured I should eat all three meals and two snacks during that window!  😂 I've spent the better part of 7 years pushing a 3/2 diet for my insulin dependent man. Has he followed it? Nah! He eats much less in volume than I but his is more carb centric by his own choice; his doctor is aware. If I ate what he ate, I'd be just as fat.  Yesterday was an 'off' day. Pilates at a new day and time, some home technology issues that required my hands-on and delayed meals. Then a wake for the mother of DD2's BFF. I spent plenty of time with the lady from Girls Scouts through the kids leaving high school and then occasionally at the stores. It was more a reunion of a large group of parents and kids with lots of hugs all around. There was also more laughter in that room than I'd heard in a long ti...

 A bonus blog for all three of you who read me😂 Well, that explains it!  Today I discovered a new map:  https://us.mapometer.com/running  that gives me distance AND elevation AND gradient. Nice! And another nifty site  https://outdoorfamilyadv.com/why-you-should-understand-elevation-for-trails/  that very nicely explains trail walking difficulty in easy to understand language. I walk about 0.7 mi on the treadmill in 20 minutes at a 1% incline. That's just enough to warm up without getting my hamstrings all in knots. I hop off and continue my awesome floor exercises. My walk at home today was similar. 0.78 mi in 19 minutes. No TV to watch but plenty of sights including petting a new-to-me coon hound with a brindle coat.  What's the difference? A bit of elevation change, 26 feet to be exact. One segment of my walk, about 0.25 mi, is a 2% incline.  It doesn't seem like much but it doubles my exertion for a short amount of time and I'm sucking in air...

 Dear Diary, Day 3 is done. I'm still good on keeping my eating window small and not feeling deprived. I've dropped 4 pounds since Sunday morning. Don't get excited. I'm one of those people who can gain and loose several pounds in water in a day. I think this is my body telling me that I didn't need all that food on NYE and I'm getting back to a normalized weight. I should follow my own information and drink more water. After spouting out about hydration and aging, I researched my own sodium levels from a few years back until now. My electrolyte values are higher than in years past. I had passed it off as dehydration due to fasting before the blood tests but the culmination of values shows a trend I hadn't expected. I had only been paying attention to thyroid, lipids, and glucose levels! Just because a result is within normal limits doesn't mean there is no value to monitoring it. There's a weird fog out this morning and the temperature is predicted ...

 Dear Diary, 2 days in and already I'm getting the idea!  Now I will try to get my man to accommodate my evening meal time. He's on a different life schedule than I since he's got a host of medical issues. We'll work it out. A 16/8 schedule seems very doable for me on days when nothing is scheduled. I'm hoping I learn that I don't need as much food as I've been eating which will help me out on busy days when I have to 'grab n go' or am inclined to dine out. In other news, my snowman no longer lit and I didn't have the energy to troubleshoot his 500 lights. He went to the curb and shortly was rescued by someone who will enjoy him! The old strings of lights I used on my house hit the trash. The bulbs kept filling with water, freezing and popping off. Unsafe. That was an easy de-Christmasing! By the way, did you see the latest health article about hydration and aging? https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/health/hydration-disease-aging-death-risk-study-wel...

 Dear Diary, Day 1 was easy. Aside from my coffee, still with 2% milk, I broke my fast around 12 and shut food at 6:30. Unlike previous times I've attempted IF, I didn't try shoving all three daily meals into a small window. Who knew? LOL, probably a lot of people! It dawned on me, duh, that I should choose breakfast OR lunch food to break my fast. Once that was clear in my head the rest of the day went fine. I hit a few "I want" things I normally don't have and ate them anyway. I did not pick while preparing meals or open doors looking for something. I am tracking my food as I need the reinforcement of portion control; my eyes are always bigger then my stomach. Yesterday's total was well within the range I need, so job well done. Now for day 2.

 Dear Diary, Happy first day of 2023.  My resolution is to be a better eater. I already eat mostly whole, clean foods. I portion my meals although some portions are greater than others and I am learning to balance my plate.  When I weighed in yesterday morning, I documented a 2.3 pound weight gain from January 1, 2022. That didn't look so bad, then I calculated some numbers; 222 to 215 in March, yesterday I was 225. I lost 7 then gained 10. That's not good at all. I haven't been below 200 since 2003. I've contemplated intermittent fasting- IF- to add to my arsenal. My natural pattern is a 12/12; the kitchen opens around around 9 and closes between 7-8. On gym days I skip breakfast as I can't exercise on food. That gives me a doable 14/10. Today I read an article on IF the Mayo Clinic  Health System website then clicked on the bait to another and saw my eating doppelganger. For those of you interested  https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaki...