Losing a part of me

I was disappointed this morning to see that I not only gained weight again but gained a substantial amount of it. I did not eat badly yesterday, and I jogged nearly thirty minutes. The things I can point to from yesterday that were not on my program were a roll for breakfast, an apple in the evening, a dark chocolate wafer that my master (Taekwondo before you ask) brought and insisted I try, and the eggrolls that I had with my dinner. I am going to cut the eggrolls down today and skip the apple and chocolate. I already ate my roll with breakfast.

I am counting down the days until I get onto the airplane. If there are no delays, then I will be landing in Havana in three days and twenty-two hours. I do not want to think about what issues I might have but I am hoping for clear sailing from beginning to end. Here’s hoping!

My sleep score last night was an amazing 85. According to my fitness watch I slept 7h 25m, and got plenty of deep sleep. I suspect that something was a little off on that, as I woke up around 7:30am, and I thought I was in bed much earlier than midnight. Oh well… even if I did go to sleep that late, I am not used to getting that much good sleep. It was the third night in a week in which my score was above 80, and with the exception of Friday night (which was a terrible night, although I cannot remember why) it has been 77 or higher every night. I am glad to be sleeping better… now if I can just stop eating and gaining weight!

I have no plans to overeat today… although I suppose I seldom do. My goal is to stick to my program and drop a couple of these pesky pounds before I get onto the airplane. I could hardly believe when I saw the numbers on the bathroom scale this morning… I weigh nearly 270 lbs. again! I have to get off this rollercoaster and start dropping some of that. I do not want to do anything too extreme, but I also do not want my weight to creep above that terrible mark again.

I ran less than I had planned to yesterday, but at a slightly faster pace. When I first started the treadmill – within the first fifteen seconds – I realized there was a sharp pain in my ankle. It was not an injury, but if I pushed myself, it could easily become one. I stopped the treadmill, spent a few minutes stretching it, and then started up again. I have been setting the pace to 4 mph (at a 3% incline). Within the first minute of my run, I pushed that up to 4.2 mph. I pulled up at 2 miles (I have been doing 3 miles) because I was worried about my ankle. I re-calibrated my fitness watch (which was nowhere near accurate) and called it a day. I will try to get a couple of miles in again today but will now be paying attention to both my knees and my ankle. Sigh. Getting old is not fun, but as my parents used to say… it beats the alternative.

I am slowly trying to get back to my happy self, but that is going to take some time. I have a new normal to get used to which is harder than I thought… and I never thought I would be here. I am seeing my doctor this afternoon, and I am going to ask about increasing my dosage of the antidepressants (which she said was likely going to happen after a month or so, which is about right on track). I hate being chemically dependent… but that is not the worst of my life right now, so I will live with it.

I’ll see you tomorrow.