Friday, May 20, 2011

Still struggling with the mood/sleep, but I will conquer! Also, making breakfast a bit different than my usual (with pics). Sore quads from sprint bursts. Really? Two days after still? Nice. And the Push-Ups Proposition!!!!

Tanita-san was mean: 198.6
Wednesday was 198.0

I think the sleep disturbances and the higher salt yesterday are messing me up. I have found in the past--through blogging and weighing and analyzing--that when my sleep goes into the dumps I stall or gain, and when my sleep messes up, I crave salt. I have no idea why there is this connection. Maybe one of y'all out there know. But when I sleep poorly, I gravitate towards the salty.

I slept semi-crappy, and have only had two good sleep days this week--and yes, the turmoil in my mood and stress in my brain is contributing to this, but I also need to get me a new, more coddling mattress. I feel like someone stuffed a bunch of cotton into my cerebrum. Like I'm stupid. My husband has had to repeat stuff to me. I watch a program on tv and have to ask my husband what just happened cause I zone out.

Sleep is important!

I found a book I promised to review (and then lost in my clutter), and it's about MASTERING YOUR SLEEP, so it's time for me to sit, read, and see what I can apply. I am doing too well and a too happy with my current physical changes to have crap sleep and mood and stress sabotage me. Ain't gonna happen. I am putting on my warrior garb and fighting this until I'm sawing away in dreamland with sweet rest.

I worked on mood a bit yesterday, reading encouraging stuff, praying, and FORCING cheerfulness. If you suffer from depressive issues, you know that the last thing you want to do is...be active or be cheery. But since the brain is a mysterious thing and, whether properly shown in studies or not, facial expression CAN have a reaction to mood, I decided to smile up a storm, force laughter, watch comedy and otherwise fight the hell out of the lil blue aura around my head. I  am not WORSE for it, so I will continue to experiment with that. A cheerful face until it revives my normally cheerful heart. A positive thought plan until my optimism and positivity are unforced and natural.

May sound nuts, but if it works, don't care. :D

BREAKFAST:

I have become a creature of diet habit when it comes to breakfast. For me, eggs, veggies, fruit and coffee seem to be what works best for me to control hunger for hours and hours and to make me feel like I had stuff that was emotionally, visually, and mouth-satisfying. I like the colors, the textures, the flavors. So, for me, it's almost a given I'll make a veggie omelette (with cheese usually, and usually egg-white, though occasionally I'll use a whole egg), make fresh gourmet coffee (black and sweetened), drink lots of water, and have (optional, but usual) some fresh fruit. My fruit choice is usually papaya with lime squirted on it. My allergies like its decongestant properties and my tummy likes the enzymes. (I used to suffer from GERD. Not so much now.)

Today, I wanted to do something different with my egg/veggie things, so instead of an egg-white omelette , I took two boiled eggs and 1 additional boiled egg white, made an egg salad out of it with dijon mustard, lite mayo, chopped celery, chopped carrot, chopped scallions, and paprika. I spooned it into little endive leaves  Had to chop off a lot of the endive as it was, sadly, not in the most beautiful shape at the bottom. Tops were fine and crunchy. I made a mini salad of the leftover little endive center bits and cucumber, added a small bit of homemade dijon vinaigrette (EVOO, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, pepper, stirred up).  It was fun. :) I still perfer omelettes, but this was a nice change and looked PRETTY on the plate! I served some papaya with lime on the side (see pic). I also took a fiber supplement with Chromium and my multivitamin.  Total calories: 369 per Sparkpeople tracker. (27 carbs, effective carbs 16g after subtracting fiber, and 19g protein).

That may be too many carbs for the low-carbers out there, so if you want to try it, of course, just leave out the papaya or have 1/2 cup instead. Or just some blackberries. :) I love enjoying the blackberries this month. So nummy!

Here are pics of a couple of typical breakfasts from this month, as well as today's.
Broccoli slaw and onion omelette with side of garlic mushrooms and blackberries

Greek Omelette (feta, peppers, tomato, onion, fresh oregano leaves) with spinach and mushrooms saute (EVOO) and papaya

Egg Veggie Salad, Cucumber salad, papaya


I ended up not working out at all yesterday. Dang. I felt like such a sluggard. Today, I am gonna use a Pilates DVD (since I missed it yesterday) and do my walk (if the weather permits). I think rest days are great, but two in a row is me risking going back to old, lazy ass ways. Can't let it happen. My quads are still quite sore. I find that even when all we do is a couple spurts of "All out, run for your life" half to a block long sprints (I wouldn't risk much more due to crappy knees), because I really GO GO GO for it, my quads will be sore the next day. I also did a few push-ups Wednesday (I still can't do them PROPERLY, which makes me nuts), so my shoulders/arms feel it a bit,  too. Can any of you ladies to 5 or 10 all out proper push-ups? I know some do (Dr. Fatty does oodles in TKD). But even when I was a skinny kid, I had no fricken pull-up or push-up ability. I could do all sorts of stuff the was lower body with ease, but chin-ups were beyond me, even as a normal weight teen.

One of my goals is to make it to 10 real push-ups by my birthday next year. Is that realistic? Dunno...but it's a goal! No modifications. REAL push-ups.  The Princess' Push-Up Proposition.

Have you set a fitness goal for your next birthday? What? Tell me!

Happy Friday!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's another book on sleep you might be interested in, if you haven't already read it: http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Sleep-Sugar-Survival/dp/0671038680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305930115&sr=8-1

Have you tried extra 5HTP for sleep? I haven't, but I've heard that it may work for some folks. (I use melatonin for sleep issues.) If you use mineral-rich salt (like quality good sea salt) you may be craving a mineral rather than the sodium.

Princess Dieter aka Mir said...

Thanks, Suz. I'm gonna go look at that. I know the Primal folks say to do the BLACK OUT system, and I nevver did cause most of my life (ie, pre-menopause), I used to sleep like a total log for hours and hours and could sleep anywhere, lights on or off). I will try the Melatonin again, too. I didn't notice much help with it last time, but who knows. I have never tried 5HTP. Another thing to research.

Julie said...

I have problems sleeping a few times a year and it goes on for a few weeks before I just collaspe from lack of sleep. I am going to talk to my doctor next week during my physical and see what he thinks. I am not a medince person so maybe something else. I'll share if I learn anything.
I like your push up idea. I can do 5 the normal way but the last one is a terrible push.
For the Slimmer this Summer challenge I've got to come up with a few good challenges. I think this would be a great one to add.
Take care and have a blessed weekend.

Bluezy said...

That food porn from Debbie's must of got you like it did me. I decided that day to take a pic of what I cooked. Today, too.

Your dishes look so lovely. Are you practicing for that million dollar diet and health restaurant with hottie trainers?

The meals are picture perfect and I imagine delicious. When I get over some future hump, I want to incorporate fruit into my regime. They look so yummy. When I lived as a child in Brazil for a spell, our yard had a papaya tree. And Banana and a giant avacodo tree. As a child I was always climbing fruit trees. One time as we raided a fruit tree, this boy looks at my arm in horror and sees a colorful spider(this was in Brazil)OMG I flung that beastie off!

Kara said...

My goal is to be the weight it says on my driver's license by my birthday. I've got until November to lose 50 pounds! Don't know how realistic that is but I'm going to give it a try!

Debbi Does Dinner Healthy said...

I GET the whole forced cheerfulness. It's the last thing you want to do but it's the only way for me to get through the day. Laughing really does help. It's just hard to be grumpy when you're laughing. Although, it's hard to find something to laugh at when you're depressed. Vicious circle but glad you're working on it.

Love the breakfast ideas! I love broccoli slaw in wraps but I've never done it in an omelet. I'm a creature of habit with breakfast too. Not usually much variety but we'll work on that.

Unknown said...

I have to force patience. Sometimes, for no reason I get so short and cranky with my poor wife. Sometimes I have to say out loud, why am I choosing to be cranky? And I have to push myself to be calm and patient.

You are doing great. Hope you find the needed rest you are looking for.

Floriana said...

I've heard times and times again that good sleep is essential for weight loss and health in general. Lack of sleep probably increases stress and I just recently read that salty foods are similar to sugary ones in the sense that they hit the reward points in the brain and lower stress in a way. That would explain the cravings for salty stuff. Sore muscles could also be the result of the lack of sleep. It's when we sleep that muscles get repaired and so with all the torn fibers your muscles just didn't get enough time to heal.

All the breakfasts look very esthetically appealing and I am sure they are tasty, too. My breakfasts are very boring, just eggs - always whole - with some ghee, butter or coconut oil plus vegetables. I can't be bothered to take out the nice plates or make a pretty looking arrangement. I am not a foodie, but that's OK. At least the monotony helps lower the reward of the meal and I hear that's a really good thing.

Tom Gellak said...

First of all, I really like your breakfasts especially the Greek-themed one, since I have "some" Greek in me :)

As for my birthday, I just had them three weeks ago so I have a lot of time to plan something. Maybe I will drop below 250 pounds by then, I don't know!

Anne H said...

I have a hard time sleeping sometimes....
And now, no drinking to help me sleep!
I do take GABA, and it does help...
About the push-ups .... in the Army,
we had to do like 15 of them for our test.
We always did more.
Now - not so much!

Gordon said...

Ya gerd can be rough. My suggestion is you relax when you eat. Breathe and enjoy your food.