I finally got a bit of half-decent sleep last night. It seems the answer is simple… sleep like crap for a week and then finally go to bed early from sheer exhaustion.
Category: Sleep
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Day 1176
Yesterday was another emotional rollercoaster. I loved teaching in person, but I am still in all kinds of agony about other things that I do not care to go into. It has been over a week since I got the news, and I am still reeling from it. Despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour last night (I finished teaching, as usual, around 10:15pm, and my lights were off by 11:00pm) I did not fall asleep until nearly 2:00am. For the second night in a row my sleep score was 65. I really have to get that sorted if I am going to be of any use to myself or to anyone.
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Day 1175
I did not do well yesterday. Travel days are always difficult for me. I will do better today. It is still ridiculously cold out (-5°, with winds it feels like -8°) so I did not have a cigar last night. It is unlikely that I will have one today because I do have to teach this evening.
My sleep was not great… I woke up a few times trying to figure out where I was. It was weird because I have spent more nights than I can count in hotels. I did get seven hours of sleep… it just was not restorative (according to my fitness watch).
I am going downstairs to get a cup of coffee because while there is a Keurig in the room there is no milk. I will then make my way over to my client site where, for the first time in four years, I will teach in front of a live audience. Yay!
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Day 1173
My sleep was worse last night than I can remember it being. I finally fell asleep around 12:45am, and my eyes popped open at 3:05am. Thankfully I was able to have a nap in the morning… albeit a short one. Add to that, I was unable to move my bowels, and my weight loss streak came to an ignominious end.
I am still exhausted beyond belief. Hopefully I can take another nap before my class this evening.
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Day 1172
Over a two-week period, I gained ten pounds. I have now lost that weight again, but I have a very long way to go. After four straight days of weight loss, this morning I was expecting to see a bad number on the bathroom scale; instead, my streak extended to five days. It was a relief indeed, but I hope that I can keep it up.
I did not sleep well again last night. Friday night I slept marvelously, and my sleep score was 89. Last night my sleep was quite fitful, and my score was down to 65. How lovely would it be to have a long streak of great sleep? I am not holding my breath. Hopefully when I am able to start exercising again, I will be able to see some improvement.
It was nice to sit with my lodge brother last night for dinner and a cigar. He is a mental health care advocate, and he knows a lot of what I am going through. While he cannot actively help me, at least he can listen. I know that he cares. He told me last night that I am not alone. If I were always among friends then it might feel that way, but as I lie in bed at night, awake, with only my wonderful doggie to keep me company, it is hard to remember that there is anyone in the world who really cares.
Nobody knows what the future will bring, but I am hoping that things will be better. It is hard to see it from where I am… but I must hope.
With Passover starting a week from today, and with the first Passover Seder next Saturday, I am tempted to make a pot of chicken soup with matzah balls for the week. I will decide shortly, but the idea of not having chicken soup with matzah balls during Passover is completely anathema to me. Even last year, when I was helping Leslie with an untenable situation that had us staying in a hotel for safety concerns, I found some to keep things normal. This year… well, I might drive into Hamilton to see if there is a Jewish deli that sells it and if not? Yes, I will make a pot. I suppose that will be one of my tasks for the day. Tracking down soup for Pesach. While it is not terribly fattening, it is very salty, so I will be retaining water for a few days.
Also in advance of the holiday I am having my cleaning lady come in tomorrow to clean the place up. I do a decent job of keeping it neat, but I am woefully inadequate with certain aspects that she just does better. It will be nice to have a clean house for the holiday… even though from Tuesday through Saturday I will be away.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1169
I am back on track with my partial program, and am while I am seeing results, two days is not enough to see anything really. I need to go for a few weeks to make it real.
There is an old saying that if you do not like the weather in Canada… wait a minute. Yesterday the temperatures were hovering around 0°, with the wind chill making it feel like -5°. It snowed and when I looked out around 5:30pm there was probably 3″ of accumulation – not unheard of, but certainly not common for this part of the country on the second day of April. This morning when I took Her Floofness out there was only a hint of snow left, with temperatures hovering around 14°. It is rainy and windy (the wind chill right now has it feeling like 5°) but the actual high temperature is expecting to hit 17°by noon. The wind is not forecast to abate until the evening. Welcome to springtime in Canada.
Since Princess Sophie did not feel like walking much in the rain, I am thinking about taking her out at lunch. I will, of course, also take her out before I head to Grimsby this evening… but we will see. I might have to answer a bunch of emails at lunch so that might not be feasible.
I did something today that I have not done in decades: I popped the top button on my shirt from sneezing. It was not because my neck is bigger today than it was the last time I wore the shirt (it is not), but rather because I knew that I had secured it improperly… probably too high on my neck; it felt tight, and I was about to adjust the collar when AHCHOO!!!! pop goes the button. I decided to wear the shirt anyways – my tie was already tied, and I was running late because I slept through my alarm. Looking at myself in the mirror I still look dapper, so I will let it go. With that said, this shirt will go into a pile to go to the tailor.
Speaking of sleeping in… I must have needed it, because I do not even remember my alarm going off this morning. While it is set for 5:45am, I rolled out of bed around 7am to the slight panic of ‘Crap, I’m late!’ I knew that I was not really late… especially since breakfast is no longer a sit-down meal, but a blended meal-replacement shake. I was still sitting at my computer at 8:05am with my shake and coffee. Had Princess Sophie wanted to go for her full walk that would have extended to 8:30am, which would have still had me logged in for my class thirty minutes early. No problem. My sleep score was 80 for the second night in a row. Owing to some difficult news I received on Tuesday, my sleep the previous night did not feel very good, but I guess the biometric measurements don’t lie. Last night felt better than the previous night, but that could be because I worked the 14-hour day, and was truly exhausted by the end of it.
My class this week is going very well. I am really engaging with the students, and I feel that they are really enjoying it. What a relief after the class I delivered last week… I felt like a fish out of water and just could not get my footing. It is a relief to be back on terra firma. Next week I am teaching Wednesday through Friday, and I have to travel for it. It will be my first work-related hotel stay in over four years and I am traveling to… Toronto. Yes, Toronto is so big and the commute would be so long that they are putting me up in a hotel for three nights. Without traffic it would be an hour-long drive. In rush-hour that could easily be 2.5 hours each way, which would be fine for Thursday (when I am free in the evening), but Wednesday evening I have to teach and that would not work. I was not going to argue when they suggested I get a hotel.
Okay, I guess I should get into the headspace for my class. Showtime is in ten minutes. Have a great day folks!
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Day 1159
It is today.
Despite two large pours of whisky last night I was not able to sleep. I might have closed my eyes for two hours despite being in bed at 9:30pm. It will be an interesting day indeed. I only hope that I can keep my eyes open and alert through my interview.
I did not make any good choices yesterday. I suppose it is excusable and understandable, but that does not make me feel any better about it.
It is now 5:40am and I am already parked and waiting for the breakfast restaurant around the corner from my appointment to open. I have to wait another 20 minutes for them to let me in, but at least I can sit in the lobby of the hotel in which the restaurant is located. It is currently a balmy -5 degrees Celsius so the comfortable and warm couch is better than standing outside.
In the next few hours I will know… or at least I will know more than I do now. The anxiety is killing me.
The newly crowned prime minister of Canada called an election yesterday which means that the next six weeks will see the mud slinging between the parties. I am relieved that the election system in Canada is much more condensed than the American election cycle that never really stops; I only hope that we can be more respectful of those we disagree with than our American neighbours.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1157
Yesterday was a very hard day, if only because I had to work a fourteen-hour day on about three hours of sleep. I am glad I got through it, and while I did not immediately drop off to sleep after class (I always need time to decompress), I was in bed within fifteen minutes of turning off my computer. My fitness watch registered seven hours and forty-seven minutes of sleep with an incredible sleep score of 92. Whew!
Princess Sophie went to the neighbour’s yesterday evening, so my morning routine was thrown off this morning. I am not sure when the last time I was this disorganized in the morning! No matter, in a little while I will get into the car and begin the drive to Montreal. I might stop along the way to see a friend along the way, but that is to be decided later. I have a new audio book on how nation-state actors have used malware to wreak havoc, and how it might lead to the destruction of our civilization as we know it. For many this would sound like dystopian fiction, but in my field it is a cross between a bit of light ‘reading’ and research.
I did not lose weight this morning, but I stayed pretty much where I was yesterday. The combination of having needed another plate of pasta yesterday to make it through my evening class (and the fact that my attempts at moving my bowels this morning were fruitless) makes the status quo a bit of a victory. Now I just hope that I can make it through the trip without losing too much ground, and that I can return home on Tuesday to resume the program Wednesday morning.
My stress and anxiety levels are again through the roof. My appointments on Monday will determine my future and there are too many factors that are outside of my control for me to be calm and relaxed about it. I have packed sufficient cigars for the next few days… and a bottle of whisky in case I need it.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1156
With another two-pound drop in my weight this morning, the first week of my ‘No Groceries’ plan has me down a little over seven pounds in eight days. I know I could have done better in several ways, but I am not going to gripe about that. On my last day before I leave for Montreal I just need to stay the course, and then hopefully not do too badly over the four-day trip. In preparation for the trip I have purchased and downloaded a new audio book, and will be listening happily to the story of zero-day malware for the duration of the drive to and from the city of my birth. While for many people this would sound like torture, I assure you that it is right up my alley.
My sleep this week has not been great, but last night it was abysmal. I tossed and I turned and I just could not fall asleep. When I got up to pee around 5am I pushed my wake-up alarm by forty-five minutes, knowing that I had probably only fallen asleep two hours earlier. I am not sure if the sleep score of 31 that my fitness watch recorded was the worst night sleep I’ve had since I started tracking it, but it would have to be close. If I am going to get through today without falling asleep on camera it will be only with large doses of caffeine, which of course will in turn affect my sleep tonight. It may be the last day of the week, but before we celebrate the weekend, I have fourteen hours of teaching to do. I’ll make it… but I likely will not enjoy it.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1152
Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.
I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.
I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!
I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.
I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.
So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.
Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!
