Fitness Fellowship 2022: Week 6 Check-in
Feb. 12th, 2022 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sylvanwitchHow's it going, friends? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
I've been feeling very meh this week. I think it's the season and the general state of things. Whatever the case, I hope next week is a better one for me, and I hope that this week hasn't been a struggle for you.
As usual, please do share how you're doing, fitness-wise and/or otherwise. We're here to listen, commiserate, and share.
Weight: Up this week. I gained a LOT from last week's splurge meal (which turned into a two-day splurge event because of leftovers), and I was slow to lose all of it. I mean, I'm down almost 3 pounds from my heaviest weight earlier in the week, but I'm still up from last week's official weigh-in. *sighs* I'm trying to remind myself that weight isn't the only metric nor even a valid one in some cases, but my brain came online in the eighties where diet/weight is concerned, and a part of me is still wired to think in numbers on the scale.
Exercise: This has been steady and productive, as always, including a long walk outdoors when we had a brief break in the cold weather, and I was able to get home from work before the sun went down. Otherwise, I've been using the elliptical and/or getting steps in at work.
Eating plan: I'll confess: Besides the splurge weekend, I've been having nighttime cravings, usually satisfied with popcorn but sometimes also including sweets. I'd likely have lost more this past week if I'd just skipped those extra snacks. I'm weak-willed where nighttime snacks are concerned, but also, I don't have enough in the pantry to make interesting, healthy, whole foods meals, which means I feel disappointed by what I've eaten for dinner and tend to want to "make up" for that by snacking, which is NOT healthy. I can resolve the pantry issue this weekend. More variety of good choices should help me stop the backsliding where snacking is concerned.
Of course, some of this snacking is emotional eating. February is historically difficult for me (I have a touch of SAD lingering from my youth, when it was much, much worse), and lately I've been feeling restless, at loose ends, and dissatisfied with life. That's a formula for food disaster. I have a break coming up starting the 19th and am hopeful that the weather will cooperate to let me get outside more frequently and for longer periods. I always feel more stable emotionally when I can spend some time in nature. Until then, I just have to try to make better choices and keep exercising.
Sleep: I've been getting to sleep on time but the quality of sleep has been poor. I've had night sweats a LOT lately (hot flashes during the day, as well), and when I get deep enough to dream, the dreams are of the frustrating sort that worry at the edges of the things that in my waking world cause dissatisfaction. More often than not, when the alarm goes off I feel more tired than when I went to bed, and that makes for a rough start of the day, creating a feedback loop of crankiness and general winter malaise that is just...UGH.
Meditation: Ha. Right, yeah. This would help. For sure. Which is probably why I'm not doing it? But seriously, maybe I need to get it together.
I'm wishing you whatever it is you need most for the week ahead, friends. Remember, you're not alone.
I've been feeling very meh this week. I think it's the season and the general state of things. Whatever the case, I hope next week is a better one for me, and I hope that this week hasn't been a struggle for you.
As usual, please do share how you're doing, fitness-wise and/or otherwise. We're here to listen, commiserate, and share.
Weight: Up this week. I gained a LOT from last week's splurge meal (which turned into a two-day splurge event because of leftovers), and I was slow to lose all of it. I mean, I'm down almost 3 pounds from my heaviest weight earlier in the week, but I'm still up from last week's official weigh-in. *sighs* I'm trying to remind myself that weight isn't the only metric nor even a valid one in some cases, but my brain came online in the eighties where diet/weight is concerned, and a part of me is still wired to think in numbers on the scale.
Exercise: This has been steady and productive, as always, including a long walk outdoors when we had a brief break in the cold weather, and I was able to get home from work before the sun went down. Otherwise, I've been using the elliptical and/or getting steps in at work.
Eating plan: I'll confess: Besides the splurge weekend, I've been having nighttime cravings, usually satisfied with popcorn but sometimes also including sweets. I'd likely have lost more this past week if I'd just skipped those extra snacks. I'm weak-willed where nighttime snacks are concerned, but also, I don't have enough in the pantry to make interesting, healthy, whole foods meals, which means I feel disappointed by what I've eaten for dinner and tend to want to "make up" for that by snacking, which is NOT healthy. I can resolve the pantry issue this weekend. More variety of good choices should help me stop the backsliding where snacking is concerned.
Of course, some of this snacking is emotional eating. February is historically difficult for me (I have a touch of SAD lingering from my youth, when it was much, much worse), and lately I've been feeling restless, at loose ends, and dissatisfied with life. That's a formula for food disaster. I have a break coming up starting the 19th and am hopeful that the weather will cooperate to let me get outside more frequently and for longer periods. I always feel more stable emotionally when I can spend some time in nature. Until then, I just have to try to make better choices and keep exercising.
Sleep: I've been getting to sleep on time but the quality of sleep has been poor. I've had night sweats a LOT lately (hot flashes during the day, as well), and when I get deep enough to dream, the dreams are of the frustrating sort that worry at the edges of the things that in my waking world cause dissatisfaction. More often than not, when the alarm goes off I feel more tired than when I went to bed, and that makes for a rough start of the day, creating a feedback loop of crankiness and general winter malaise that is just...UGH.
Meditation: Ha. Right, yeah. This would help. For sure. Which is probably why I'm not doing it? But seriously, maybe I need to get it together.
I'm wishing you whatever it is you need most for the week ahead, friends. Remember, you're not alone.
(no subject)
Date: Sunday, 13 February 2022 04:33 pm (UTC)I've had a crazy couple of weeks - a lot of deadlines and after-school commitments - which is why I didn't check in last week. Half of our department is self-isolating with covid and that's made things really tough. I did manage two decent 30 minute walks this week (which wasn't easy to fit in but totally necessary) and I just did an hour long walk with S. It's misty and windy and mizzling - which I rather like. Like you, I find nature a real balm. I've done very little work this weekend and I went to the theatre yesterday for the first time in forever. I haven't seen live drama since before the pandemic began. I'm feeling really good as a result. It's so necessary to feed the soul to counteract work-related stress.
Hope you have a better week *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, 15 February 2022 01:17 pm (UTC)I will try the meditation thing before bed. Drugs (even totally innocuous ones) have weird effects on me, so I'm super cautious about taking anything I haven't tried before. I haven't been having trouble falling asleep lately but staying asleep; between night sweats and bad dreams, my sleep is fractured. Maybe pre-sleep meditation will help calm those dreams. I don't suppose there's anything I can do about the night sweats. *sighs*
walks in late with a coffee
Date: Thursday, 17 February 2022 05:27 pm (UTC)I had a huge binge weekend starting on my weigh-in day last week. The worst part is that it wasn't even satisfying. I ordered the cheapest pizza delivery I could find... and learned there's a reason it's so cheap. (It's the kind of cheap pizza you get for a kid's birthday party because kids will eat anything. My roommate said it tasted like "cafeteria pizza" and I agree with that assessment. And yet I still ate it all, two pizzas minus the two slices my roommate tried, because... can't let the mediocre pizza go to waste.)
I've got last weekend's weight back off, but since I had vowed to track averages, I'm in this weird spot where going into my next official weight-in my Saturday weight could be down but my recorded average will still be up. I am hoping that this habit of tracking averages will teach me to not do these weekend binges as often, since I can't claim "it doesn't count" since the numbers are still reflected at the end of the week.
Word. February is the worst. I'm so tired and weary. It's not so much the "sad" flavor of depression as the "numb" flavor of depression, with random spikes of panic (usually around 1AM).
And I know it it is mostly just February and that things will be better when I can get outside. But... spring always seems so far away.
Ha! Yes! That explains so many of my issues. So many.
Re: walks in late with a coffee
Date: Thursday, 17 February 2022 07:16 pm (UTC)And SO MUCH YES, re: "numb" vs. "sad." I call it the winter blahs and imagine that if it had a sound it would be that single sustained note that used to play when TV stations went off for the night and just showed the three broad bars of color.
*high fives the fellow eighties-inspired dieter*
Re: walks in late with a coffee
Date: Thursday, 17 February 2022 07:40 pm (UTC)I have this deeply rooted hang-up with wasting food so I can't throw it out if it's not bad. But... I'm also not good at saving food for later either.
I like to stock up for winter but it has to be the non-tempting food that I don't care about. So I have a lot of dried soup mixes and ramen noodles and canned beans, etc. If I try to stock up on things that are too easy, I'll just eat it all in a few days. And it doesn't even have to be super good food to tempt me, it just needs to be easy like ... canned raviolis or frozen dinners. Anything that I can just pop in the microwave and have a meal with no more than one dish to wash, I'll just start eating on auto-pilot.
Hunger has never really been my issue with dieting. My struggle is with boredom and stress.