2020-02-19 Back to Basics with an Unexpected Twist

Dear Diary… How I have missed you so! It’s been several moons since we had any quality time together and I’m starting to feel anxious and nervous about our relationship. My biggest fear is that in my absence, you have started reading other people. Please say it isn’t so!.. /gasp /swoon

But seriously, since I started this blog 3 years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever been as absent from posting as I have been these past few weeks. It isn’t that I haven’t had a lot to write about. In fact, it is the exact opposite. So much so, that when I do put fingers to keyboard, I don’t even know where to begin. Kinda like right now.

First of all, my right ovary feels like it’s gonna burst at its seams. If ovaries had seams that is. In the wide world of everything SugarCookie, that is not where I expected my mind to be, but, alas, there it is. I’ve had many, many years to get to know my body well and don’t need an app to tell me I’m ovulating (though the Fitbit app does that now!). It’s true.

Last night I was so uncomfortable, I could not wait to change out of street clothes and into my pajamas. For a hot minute I thought I might be on the verge of some flair-up of my PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). Little cysts that form on the edges of the ovaries caused by hormonal issues. It’s a condition that I’ve lived with my entire adult life, starting with a fun little trip to the ER when I was about 18 when one of the cysts became so enlarged that it did burst. As far as I can remember anyway.

It could be I was just a wuss and couldn’t deal with the pain. I dunno, it was a long time ago. All I know is they prescribe birth control pills to squash the problem, which doesn’t really fix anything, it only masks whatever is causing the hormone imbalance by introducing more hormones at different times in the monthly cycle.

I don’t learn this until like 8 or 9 years later after I’ve been pumping estrogen and progesterone into my body for too long. This is one of the things that bothers me about medical treatment in the United States. The default is to prescribe a pill without really getting to the heart of whatever is the matter.

As an IT person who worked at a hospital for a long time, I’ve seen the registration and scheduling systems showing all those 5 / 10 minute time slots where the pcp is supposed to sweep into the room, learn what they need to learn, and provide answers and a solution. And people are generally conditioned to be ok with that. They just want to get that script and get on with their day.

Can’t sleep? We’ll give you ambien or Xanax.

Have aches and pains? Here’s a Muscle relaxer or prescription pain killer (though they are getting better about this one),

Have a hormonal imbalance? Here’s a birth control pill.

If I wasn’t just a kid and knew enough to do my own research I would certainly have refused that garbage. To be fair, at that time google had not been invented yet and it might even be that what I would learn years later was still in medical speculation and not widely accepted. It does take 20+ years for new information and treatments to filter down to standard practice.

The answer, for me, was working to take steps to rebalance my hormones. Believe it or not, it starts with eating healthy and getting more exercise. Everything is connected, you know and learning that part of my problem stemmed from my family history of diabetes was eye opening. It was through testing for fertility issues that certain facts were brought to light.

Once I had a diagnosis all I had to do was dive into research on that. I became obsessed with scrolling through chat boards and blog posts and medical articles. I found other people who were trying things and being offered alternative solutions with positive results.

One of the doctors I went to was an IVF specialist and that was the norm. I’m the one who suggested trying Metformin (glucophage) first. It’s a medication they give to diabetics. My dad takes it. He actually laughed when I told him I was taking it for infertility. He asked if he was at risk for getting pregnant. Ha!

Laugh all you want, but it worked. Of course I also started watching what I ate too. My diet had been crap up to that point and getting the fat and sugar and fast food in check, I am sure was also key. Between the Met and diet changes, my hormones started behaving properly again and I began ovulating again. Within about 6 months, I became pregnant. And I would never take birth control again!

As for this current discomfort, it’s probably just my bodies way of getting my attention, reminding me to get back on track with diet and exercise. I’ve recently been distracted with other priorities and strayed quite a ways away from my normal routine. That’s a good case for getting back on the daily treadmill/blog sessions. It’s a win-win-win.

Wow. That’s a huge tangent from where I thought this would go today. I guess that’s just where my mind wanted to go. 🤷‍♀️

Lots going on today. I’ve got my first official sesh with my MFA mentor this semester and I’m expecting a serious conversation that’s not very positive. I just have a lot of revision work to do and need to focus on details that I’ve been glossing over for too long.

In a way, this attention to detail and tightening my poems is exactly what I need (plus probably a kick in the butt to actually do the work), but it’s tough not to have high expectations for encouragement and support. Especially after my experience last semester which was so positive and productive and left me feeling fantastic about the direction of my writing.

I wonder how anyone can deliver a tough message and at the same time keep it from being discouraging. We’ll see.

Well, my friends, my hour here is more than over and I feel so much better than when I started. Like I said, it’s a win-win-win.

Cheers to Happy Hormones and Taking Control of your Health!

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-10-18 Friday One-Track-Mind, the Coffee Edition ☕️

I’m like inches from caving on the whole abstaining from caffeine thing. I’m sure I’m wasting so much mental energy trying to resist excuses my body keeps throwing at me why I should cave in. It’s pulling ALL kinds of reasons why

.. it’s a silly experiment, not helping my sleep situation, not harmful for me, not a big deal, needed for a quick boost to get something done, needed to aid digestion…. you name it and I’ve thought of it.

I really won’t be able to tell if it helps my sleep/exhaustion situation unless I really stick to it for multiple weeks AND have no other variables in the mix messing with my stats. Quite honestly, that’s probably impossible. Take last night for example.

I stayed up later than I should because it’s the only time I was going to get quality time with Jim. Then I was up at 4 am taking care of my daughter who got sick in the middle of the night. This resulted in a 5 hour sleep. No bueno!

Now it’s about 8:30am and I’m super tired. It won’t matter if I have caffeine or not if I can’t somehow fix the behavior patterns. To be fair, the 4am wake-up is rare now that my kids are older, but if it’s not the kids, it’s the cats or my bladder or my brain.

I can say that quitting drinking anything after 7pm has made a positive impact on my situation and so has kicking the cats out of the bedroom. Those changes are easy and also easy to keep doing. I even had a few nights when my Fitbit gave my sleep a “good” score.

The Fitbit app used to just report the length you were asleep and in different sleep stages. Now they have this algorithm that spits out a score. I have consistently fallen into the “fair” category, with a “good” score (anything above 80 I think) being quite elusive.

I haven’t had an 80+ night since I stopped the caffeine and my brain is even using THAT against me. It’s saying “see, it’s not helping”. And “caffeine in the morning won’t hurt your sleep at night”. And “you had a rough night and it would be a nice warm treat to help wake you up”.

Man, I could really go for a coffee right now. Ugh!!

My plan this morning is to try and distract myself with activities until it gets to lunchtime which is when the craving starts to go away.

Really… this caffeine thing is small potato’s. I mean, life is good. But the sleep and exhaustion are real problems I need to figure out. I feel like I’m living with a chronic problem that I’m going to have for the rest of my life. Then I think that it’s probably just my age. And then I think that fucking sucks. AND THEN I THINK (wait for it)….

Just have a coffee and you’ll feel better. 😂

There you have it folks. My Friday one-track-mind brain dump. Good grief!

Time to Jam.

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-10-08 Tennis Anyone? 🎾

I’ve got a list of health related updates that I’m wrinkling my nose at. Why the wrinkle?.. it just seems so snore, you know. But I used to do this weekly status check thing and I feel like there’s value in it. For one, it forces me to think about it and if I’m thinking, then I can’t avoid obvious problems. For two, if I’ve written about it I have that history to look back on. If I ever question what was going on 3 months ago, 6 months ago, a year.. I could read back and find out.

The weekly status thing fell off about 4 or 5 months ago and at that time I professed I was switching to monthly updates. I don’t think that’s happened though. All this to say.. stuff has been piling up and I’m feeling the need to spend a wee bit of time doing some written accounting.

The biggest update and the one that makes me so so happy is that my tennis elbow, that tendon I injured about a year ago is finally on the mend. It came on slowly last year as fall switched to winter and was so painful and affecting every activity, including sleep. By January I went to an orthopedic doctor and had a shot. That took away the pain for a nice long stretch. A couple of months actually.

It was a miracle that the pain was just completely gone and I had high hopes at that time my problem was solved. By March though, the pain started to return. I tried to hold out as long as I could and was so down and discouraged to have to go back to the doc. When you have an injury that takes a long time to heal, it feels like it’s just never going to get better.

This particular injury is funky. It’s the tendons around the elbow that are frazzled (like a frayed rope is how the doc explained it to me), yet the problems manifest from activities in the hand and wrist. It’s all connected. Bending and flexing the wrist would cause sparks of shooting pain in my arm and elbow. Even just at rest, my arm would throb. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and immediately be reminded that my arm hurt. Ugh!!

I begrudgingly had another shot in late June (I think). Funny now I can’t remember exactly unless I go back and read about it. See what I mean about writing things down! Anyway.. I of course had relief again. Again it felt like a miracle but this time it came with a skepticism that the pain would return again. That it was just a band-aid and I was convinced that I was in that 5-10 percent minority that would eventually have to have surgery to resolve.

Sure enough, around August the pain started to return again. My heart just sank. I steeled my resolve to once again go as long as I could without getting another shot. Around the first of September I made another appointment but the doc could not get me in for like 3 weeks. I was already at the tipping point and was immediately dreading those 3 weeks.

In those 3 weeks, though, something started to change. I felt there were little micro improvements in the pain. I was mentally noticing it less. There was a glimmer of hope. By the time the week of my appointment arrived, Jim and I discussed just cancelling and waiting to see what happens. That’s what I did.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been in that holding pattern. There’s still pain, but is definitely better and not worse. I no longer wake up at night and think about it. And when I do notice it.. it’s more minor than before. If I straighten my arm completely or hold something heavy or try to bend the elbow too much, the pain is there, but it’s not bothering me with regard to daily activities. I’m thinking it’s just such a slow recovery that it will keep getting better until it’s completely healed. Yay!!

Jim thinks the free weights I’ve been doing aa a part of Jazzercise consistently since about August has been the factor that is helping. It’s just enough weight for strength but not so much to do more harm than good. I’m not sure if that’s it or if the injury has just run its course. They say it typically takes 6 to 18 months to heal naturally.

My hope now is that it will be all better by the cold winter and the holidays. That it will not follow me to Thanksgiving and Christmas and if there is a little lingering that it’s for sure all through by February 2nd, when I’m marrying my man. Yeah, that’s still happening too.

I miss tennis a little but can live without it if it means I can avoid this injury again. Tennis was always a thing with Josh and I anyway and I barely speak to him anymore. Funny the way it is. Life.

Well – I have other updates but I’ve gone on too long already with just this one.

Perhaps this whole week should be dedicated to health and wellness. I know I sure could use a reset where a lot of things are concerned.

One, Two, Cha-cha-cha,

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-07-18 MFA Res Day 4 (And 5 And 6)- Going Beyond the Pale…

And trying to get back.

I’ve pushed past cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and have moved into territory that is a little unfamiliar. Is this what this is supposed to be like? This has happened a little in the past two residencies but not like this one. I’m in such a strange headspace, bodyspace, universe space I’m not sure what to make of it.

Yeah, I’m out my body and out of my mind and trying to figure out if I’m ever going to be the same. Think, if you’d like, that I’m being overly dramatic, but I’m not. I’m being nauseously, wrecklessly serious. I’ve lost 5 or 6 pounds in the last 5 days (verified this morning). Every time I eat, I feel sick to my stomach. I’ll stop short of going into the other sketch physical details, just know, it’s not pretty.

The problem manifests with physical symptoms, but it 90% mental, I am certain. I’m trying to maintain some sliver of routine, but it’s damn near impossible and my brain fixates on an idea and I can’t shake it and it throws me off whatever well-intended course I have.

My morning rituals, for example. This morning is the first morning I’ve really been able to find my way to the treadmill. When you don’t start like you normally start the day, it’s already off the rails. Then it goes into the weeds and grass on a paved path which turns into dirt trails leading into the woods. The packed brown earth beneath the feet begins to narrow and the canopy becomes more dense and you can’t stop and before you wake from the rythem of the daydream of your silent footsteps, you are lost, and when you turn and peer back and squint you can see the pale behind you.

Yesterday I was still in that place and so punch-drunk with the euphoria of the freedom that comes from being in an unfamiliar space. It’s exciting and you know you should leave, call for help, retrace your steps, ask for a map (you are not alone), or just slow down. But you don’t want to.

The instinct of logic has left your side and your left-brain, being absent, leaves your right brain scurrying around wild-eyed and manic. It just wants to know how far this path that is not a path goes.

***

I’m back on the treadmill now and need to get my act together because I have a lot of important business to take care of today. Fighting through the constant distraction of seemingly brilliant beginnings of thought is probably going to pose the greatest challenge. Every shiny object popping up right in front of me will be tough to resist. I need to try and stay on task.

As if on queue it happened just now. I started thinking about a person I got to know a little better yesterday who introduced me to some new music and I spent at least 74 seconds on that thread of thought. I just can’t do that and I have to resist the impulse that that is EXACTLY what I should be doing. Following those thoughts off Into the woods. “Isn’t that why we are here!”, my right brain insists.

When I got to the workout room this morning Bob was on the treadmill already. There is only one. I was here on the start of the first full day which feels like about 25 days ago now, and he asked me how long I would be. I had just started and selfishly replied “about 50 more minutes.” He left.

The second encounter was the following day when he sat behind me in lecture and asked me, as I was scanning the room before the start of it, “What time are you going to walk tomorrow?”.

I still felt guilty for presumably bursting his bubble previously and looked at the schedule and said “I’m not going tomorrow because the nature walk is that day and I don’t need to.” I shied away from explaining that I can’t predict what might happen over 12 hours in the future here. I can neither predict or commit to anything as concrete as a time of day. I just can’t. Ask me what I’m doing for the next 4 hours, sure, but tomorrow? Forget it.

I could tell a lot about Bob by the simple detail that he never formally introduced himself to me in those two encounters (I didn’t either). I thought about it after the fact so this morning I made a point to do it before he left the room. So that’s Bob.

He left less than 5 minutes after I arrived. He said I had good timing and I smiled and replied that that was the first time anyone had ever said that to me. I withheld a wink.

That’s it for now. As I said I need to focus and stay on task today. Get back to crossing necessary things of the mental list I’ve composed for the next 4 hours. After that. All bets are off.

Wandering Back,

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-07-16 MFA Res Day 3 – The Floodgates are Open

Yes, the floodgates are open now and it’s serious. They mean serious business. I’m seriously serious and afraid for my safety and sanity. I’m not being overly dramatic, I’m being… serious.

Typically I would try to provide a brief synopsis of thought and feeling about the prior day, wrapping It with some overarching theme and providing some highlights that seemed especially vivid and moving for me personally, but I can’t do that this time because there is much to much and frankly, I’m dealing with the situation where it feels like day 3 has not actually ended yet.

The lack of sleep is STARTING to get to me. It’s got me. Now, just the facts ma’am, please. Ive been here five nights and in chronological order here are the stats…

Friday – 5 hours and 4 minutes

Saturday – 6 hours and 1 minute

Sunday – 4 hours and 46 minutes

Monday – 4 hours and 54 minutes

Tuesday (today) – 3 hours and 20 minutes.

It’s a problem I am not sure how to solve it. I’m self medicating but it’s not helping. A bit of foreshadowing here, I’m planning to drive home tonight and sleep in my own bed and before that (as of this moment), praying for rain so our morning outdoor group activity today will be cancelled. I need a break and I suspect I am not the only one. I need to take care of myself, and be selfish, and I suspect I am not the only one.

On the opposite side of that coin is the wealth of ideas and musings that I have been able to capture thus far. Yesterday was the best day for that yet, generatively speaking. I came into residency somewhat terrified of my 3rd term craft paper and now, I’m genuinely excited about it and enthusiastic to get that party going. I have tons of thoughts and they just keep coming. A very real flood of words. The waters are rising as I type this.

Yesterday our mentor preference forms were due and the outcome of the pairings was revealed before the evening faculty readings. I had to try very hard to not flaunt my enthusiasm about the result. I’m living that charmed life right now and the universe is giving me exactly what I want and need at the same time. I’m very much looking forward to see how this story unfolds and, in a way, all of that was akin to storm clouds brewing preparing to provide the downpour that is now occurring.

(Both literally and figuratively now. My foreshadowing of actual rain has already begin and I can hear the beating of tiny drums on the roof above me. I’m on the 4th and top floor of the lodge).

After the “big reveal” last night, we went right into the reading, which was a line up of four incredibly talented faculty members. These readings are always one of my favorite parts. You get to sit and listen to brilliance and let go of any self-expectations and responsibilities. We had a play-write, a poet, a short story guru (who read poetry), and a visiting faculty member who I had not met until workshop today and didn’t actually get to listen to because of the 3rd reader.

His subject matter and content hit me so hard, I wept openly during the reading and had to leave the room directly after to try and compose myself for the thing I had going on after the readings (volunteering to help in the bookstore). It came over me like a freight train and I didn’t try to stop it. I felt gross with all the stuff pouring out of my nose and eyes and managed as well as I could without a tissue. I can’t elaborate on the subject matter of the reading. Not right now anyway.

After that I got my act together and did the bookstore thing. That was followed by a walk to the basketball court with an enthusiastic group of folks hungry for a game. For me, this meant standing around talking with some other folks and cheering when someone made a basket or jeering some foul play. There was an issue with the lights and the game was much abbreviated.

Back at the lodge, a round of drinks and waters was secured and we gathered around the lobby area for conversation. Also great. I returned to my room close to 11:30 pm completely exhausted thinking I was going to fall into a deep sleep. I was wrong. I had taken a Tylenol for a slight headache earlier and seriously thought I had taken the wrong thing or something else because I had this giddy, medicine-head thing going on. I wondered enough about it that I googled it and as it turns out, it was just Tylenol and nothing else. That’s just how tired I was/am.

I could not fall asleep. I took a half a Xanax at 12:30. I woke up at 3:30M and thought and wrote and tossed and turned and through and wrote some more. I took another half and still did not sleep. It had zero affect. In short, I’m fucked up for doing anything today. That is why I am praying that this rain continues long enough our morning excursion is cancelled. Please, please, please. That’s selfish. I hope it stops raining and I muster the guts to just bow out even though I’m supposed to one of the carpool drivers.

I need to eat breakfast soon. I skipped dinner last night, trying to get some rest and avoiding the dining room experience (ordering from the menu takes an eternity to play out). I may be full of words and inspiration but the physical me is empty now. That requires a solution before anything else.

When it Rains.. it Sometimes Pours,

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-05-29 The Ultimate Human Condition

Today is the last day of school for my kids and so it’s likely to be the last day for me to spend QT with my most beloved elliptical machine (at my gym across the street from the school). I’ll likely spend the summer getting to know the equipment in the exercise room in my basement better or, better yet, start those Jazzercise classes I’ve been wanting for months now. I’ll also be working out in the garden flexing my digging and watering and weed-pulling muscles.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the steroid shot in my arm will not last as long as the first one. That gave me relief from the annoying aches and pains in my arm for about 2 months. Of course my hope going in (the first time) was that I would have the shot and my tendons would recover in the span of time the med was working. That was in January and by about the end of March it started creeping back. I held out to mid May before going back for seconds.

Funny thing about tendonitis at the elbow… they don’t have a good way to fix it and also not a lot of proven methods of physical therapy that help. I asked this specific question at my appointment “what should I do while I have the relief from the steroids, exercise to strengthen or complete rest? What will help it get better faster?”. The answer..

“We don’t know”. Really? There are no studies or experience with cases that have led to the answer. Some people respond to total rest and some to therapy. Some get one shot and the pain never comes back and some have to come back every 3 months. Eventually, in 95% of cases, the pain just goes away. The tendons, he explained, are more “frayed” than Inflamed. They eventually just recover from the trauma that caused the issue. Ok.

The first go-round I limited my arm activity to just daily living tasks. No lifting weights or Jazzercise arm routines Or tennis. That being said, there’s still a fair amount of heavy lifting in my day to day life. Plus it’s not even the “lifting” things that’s taxing. It’s actually any strain on the wrist or pressure exerted in the hand and fingers. I was trying to hold off getting a second shot. I was holding onto hope it would just start getting better one day. That I would wake up and it would slowly feel better than the day before. It didn’t.

I have an iPhone SE, which is equivalent to the iPhone 6, and that version still has the “power/sleep” button on the top. The day I was holding my phone and noticed that there was pain in my arm as I moved my finger up to push the button and turn the display off was the same day I called to make a second ortho appointment. The fact that such a simple action could spark the pain was just disheartening.

I wanted to write the day I had my appointment but didn’t have time. I just was on the verge of tears all morning. I was just so sad about the pain coming back or perhaps the fact that it’s inevitable that my aging body will fail me. It’s just the start of things to come. I exercise and take care of myself and eventually things will deteriorate anyway. It’s part of the human condition. The aging physical body is just that.. always aging.

What’s next? Eyesight, hearing, cognitive function? Ok, that’s overly dramatic but there may a physical element to my lack of focus and tiredness in the evenings. It may be less to do with not getting enough good sleep and more to do with having 45 year old parts. I don’t know but it definitely weighs on my mind.

Around November last year I developed an involuntary twitch in my eyelid. It would start mid-morning and last almost all day, off and on. It was Mildly annoying and fairly easy to ignore save for the fact that I had creeping thoughts in my brain about this being the newest age-induced problem. For real I thought “oh hell… is this another thing I’m going to have for the rest of my life?” (like the late night leg twitch when I’m sleepy and that started when I was about 38). Good grief!!

The last few months the worry grew and the eyelid twitching more bothersome to the point where I googled it. The articles I read said it was caused by 1. Too much caffeine or 2. Lack of sleep or 3. Too much stress. Old, worn out eyelids were not among the causes. Good. I tried reducing caffeine (fairly successfully) and have managed to bump my sleep by 15 minutes a night on average. I also quit the most stressful part of my life (the dreaded work project).

All that has improved the situation tremendously. I noted in the last week or so that those twitchy episodes have been greatly reduced. So that’s a “tic” in the win column. I’ll take it.

Right now I have very little pain in my right arm. It’s about 2.5 weeks post injection and if I’m going to try and do something different with this go-round, the time is now. I have written orders for PT if I want to use them. I can’t just do the same thing as before and expect a different result. I’m no longer hoprleful that it will just get better, magically. I’m actually thinking it will not get better unless I rest it completely (which is terribly impossible) or jump on the PT wagon. What to do, what to do?

That’s enough rambling on about the Tennis Elbow and the reality of the ultimate human condition today. I’ve got 1.5 hours before the kids are done and it’s not worth driving home just to drive back again so I’ll be hanging out at the gym. I may try reading on the treadmill. I can write blog posts on the elliptical machine so one would think reading would be a snap. 😉

Cheers,

~Miss SugarCookie

2019-01-14 What Maintenance Mode Looks Like

A few days ago I wrapped up 2018 with a nice little post about my year. It was a great story… good characters, plot, and a nice amount of reflective detail to carry me into the next chapter of my life. It is not new information that writing is essential in my life. I write to process things I am experiencing. I write when things are rotten and it helps me through. I write to record and analyze my state of being. I write for enjoyment. My life is better on many levels because of it. That, of course, is not going to change. Just because things are good now, doesn’t mean the story is over. Nope.

What it does mean is that I can focus less on deep analysis into issues related to being a broken human being. Instead, I can focus more on living with intent and having a constant goal of maintaining a life that’s enriched by positive experiences. It’s continuing doing all the things I’ve already determined work for me while also exploring new avenues. It’s “Maintenance Mode” with a healthy dose of trying new things.

Like everything, I’m still thinking about exactly what that looks like and what I can do to set some goals and measure my progress along the way. In the last few years, the focus has been on my health and in a way, the “physical” aspects of this are fairly easy to quantify. As I slip into Maintenance Mode, that holds true.

For that reason, I’m going to start with the physical, measurable things. Sleep, BMI, Strength, and Heart Health. Notice I don’t say exercise. Exercise is an activity and though I can measure my steps each day, that’s just one factor of a larger picture. I can easily say my goal for 2019 is to average 12K steps a day, but just doing that doesn’t help define the objective. The objective now is maintaining a healthy BMI and both diet and exercise play into that.

Right now my BMI according to the calculator at livestrong.com is 20.94 which is well within the “normal” range. As long as I’m somewhere in that range (18.5 – 24.99), then things are good. I can set a goal for myself to get closer to 20 because I’d feel better being at the low end of normal and farther away from the cusp of the top of that range, and the main factor that plays into that is diet. I say this mostly because I’m already spending about as much time as I can per day on “exercise” and historically, my eating habits have had a greater impact on weight gain and loss than exercise.

If 20 even is the goal, then getting there means losing about 5 pounds. But in reality, I’m calling Maintenance Mode for a reason. If I lose that weight, then hooray, but if I don’t, that’s OK too. It’s just a measurement and objective to keep an eye on so that things don’t start going in the wrong direction.

Sleep is another easy one, which I have already come to a conclusion on. Though the amount of sleep necessary for body and mind recovery over the course of a day/night for an adult is about 7-9 hours, I always feel better when I am on the upper range of that scale. My average last year was 7 hours even and like BMI, I am OK with that too, but would like to see a slight improvement, say 7 hours and 15 or 30 minutes. The challenge here is time, and balancing sleep against a busy schedule. I have to be up by 7 (soon to be 6:15-6:30) so that means trying to get to be even earlier. I also struggle with being tired during the day and so that’s maybe an indicator that I need to get even more sleep. So while the conclusion and measuring this one is easy, follow through is not.

Of course sleep quality matters too and now that I have a FitBit that records my heart rate, I have statistics for the amount of deep, light, and REM sleep I am getting each night. It might be good to look beyond number of hours and start tracking deep sleep. Perhaps my goal should have more to do with the number of minutes in deep sleep. Actually, the stat in the app for one night is minutes, but the aggregate over time is an average. I’m currently at a 30 day average of 15% which is within the “benchmark” of 12-18%. Perhaps the goal is to get slightly higher than 15%? Worth considering.

Strength and endurance are heart health in general are also sort of all wrapped up together. I’ve done a little research in the last couple of days into what my FitBit records and calculates and they actually have a measurement called “Cardio Fitness” which is supposed to be akin to the VO2max, but not totally legit because to get a true VO2max you have to be on cardio eq with a breathing tube and push yourself to the point of exhaustion. I did that test in the athletic department on the UNO campus about a year and a half ago.

I have that paperwork somewhere, and it would be good to see how the FitBit calculation compares to that. In short though, FitBit is telling me my score is 42-46 which is “Excellent for women my age” (it says so right in the app). I guess since that is the case, I’ll just keep doing what I am doing, but would like to increase my free weights to 8lbs (where I left off last year when I quit Jazzercise). Like the other two categories, as long as I am doing about the same, I am doing pretty great.

I guess that is the point though right. I mean none of this is rocket science and it is exactly what I say it is. As I said in the beginning of this post, I sometimes just need to write it out so that there is more definition to it, so that it is solidified in my brain, and so there is some accountability for whatever it is – because it is written in a public forum which I can go back and reference. So that’s the physical side of the equation and I have started to think about the other factors, mental health and life satisfaction and enrichment but have not nailed down any concrete objectives yet. It’s certainly all connected though and a healthy body is essential for a healthy mind. More to come on that, I am sure.

For now I am out of time and need to get to work.
Ciao for now,
~Miss SugarCookie