Day Ninety

We don't know why, but my husband's phone alarm went off at six a.m. today.  Well, I know why--because it was time for me to go to the gym.  I really should have.  But my body was saying no way.  I lay down again, and I didn't think I slept, because I was frequently aware of lying there, but when I did get up a few minutes later, it was seven-twenty, so I probably did doze off here and there.

It was too late, really, to go to the gym by then.  I mean, I could have rushed and done some, but it was pool day and I didn't.  I thought about climbing stairs, or dancing, but the truth was that I needed to take care of my daughter's fish, and I was behind on the blog, and I was very into some true crime podcasts I have been listening to for like a week.  Yesterday, I had listened to a very interesting and disheartening one, and I had gotten curious and looked for an update and found that the crime had actually been solved since that episode aired, so I was busy looking up information and, yes, this has been cutting into my sleep and my sanity.

So, here I am, ten days from the end of this, and I am not as far along as I want to be, and I have actually MISSED two workouts this week.  So, I am finding myself in a really dumb place, and I am not happy about it.

My children are in Disneyland this week, I learned, although they denied it upfront and I cannot imagine why my ex would try to keep that from me--I'm happy for them.  We haven't been able to go for sixteen years, so these kids were either one year old or not even on this earth then, and I am truly happy that some of the fortune I gave their father recently is being spent on the kids.  

Mark has worked some and been home some since the kids left.  We have spent time together, and I have had lonely nights.  He has been either interested enough in the podcasts to listen with me, or polite.  It's hard to tell.  But, yes, time has been wasted as I have passed lonely hours this week.  

I always think I am going to do nothing but clean my house and work out when my children are gone for long stretches, but the truth is that I am stressed and need, in some ways, to just get through the time.

So.  I decided this morning to make a really big push through the last days and make as big an impact on my weight as possible.  This always seems much more doable as I am getting ready for work in the morning than it does when I am sitting, starving and bored, at my desk later, or being tempted by some delicious high-caloric food.

I packed the last of the casserole for my lunch, and brought my eggs and a peach.  When I entered work, I could see that yet another coworker's cubicle was decorated with happy birthday stuff, and I feared I would have to avoid yet another cake, but the birthday girl was actually not in the office today, and that will be a story for tomorrow.

Today was actually stranger and worse than that.

About an hour after I had arrived, I heard my name being said sharply, like it wasn't the first time.  I looked up, and four of my coworkers were standing in the aisle behind me, and one of them was crying.  They told me that our former coworker--the one with recurring cancer--had passed away last night.  We didn't know any other details.  I actually anticipated it would be about now, but, of course, it still made me sad.  That final shoe-drop is never fun.

I couldn't eat yet, as I am doing that intermittent fasting.  Which reminds me!  This morning as I was at my computer, my husband brought me a slice of peach he had dried and asked me to tell him how it tasted.  I put it in my mouth, but remembered I cannot eat in the morning, so I gave my opinion on taste and dryness but took it right back out.  Then, when I was making my eggs, I threw a slice of Swiss cheese onto them--sometimes I like that, and when I was dishing them up to take to work with me, there was a nice glob left on the spatula.  I went to eat it, and my thought processes were literally like, "No!  You can't eat that!  But it's not sugar.  No!  It's just cheese.  No!  It's morning."  It's like, my psyche is so conflicted, it cannot figure out sometimes whether I can eat or not.  

I gotta tell you, this intermittent fasting is probably harder than not eating sugar.  My habit, for years, has been to eat breakfast either as I am getting ready for work or as soon as I get to work.  And then I never really fully stop eating until I've had my bedtime cocoa.  (Yes, that explains a lot.)  Not eating during my first two or three hours of work is tough.  I am fighting urges to eat, it seems, several times a minute, sometimes, and counting down the minutes until eleven or twelve, or whatever will be sixteen hours.  I am not at my best.  Today, my computer was so slow coming up, and my brain is like, "Grab some nuts to munch on while you wait," like, a dozen times.  It's rough.

So, I still had quite a bit of time left to fast after finding out about my friend.  I made sure some other people knew, and I had a couple of clients to meet with, but I didn't feel like fasting anymore.  I wanted sustenance and comfort.

That cookie in my drawer--it's a soft, spongy type vanilla cookie, and it probably has all of fifty calories, so, no big deal, right?  But it's a COOKIE, and cookies have sugar, so it's no.  I picked it up today and felt it.  It's getting hard.  Like, in eleven or twelve more days, or whenever I could actually eat it, it's not going to be as nice as it was when I got it.  I even chatted online with my best friend about that cookie today.  It almost met its maker.  I don't know if I've ever been closer to blowing it.  My mind knows rationally that it, by itself, wouldn't make me gain weight or anything.  It would be a blip.  But, honestly, I do not want to have to tell you guys that ON DAY NINETY, I had some sugar.  I mean, how lame is that?

So I waited out my time until eleven.  I kept drinking water.  I did the things at work I had to do, and when eleven o'clock came, I ate my eggs.  I didn't even warm them up today, and, with Swiss cheese on them, I'm sure they would have been better warm.  I did warm up my casserole, and I savored that.  There wasn't a huge serving left, but it was enough.

But I started feeling really funny.  Even after eating and drinking plenty, i felt sort of sick and dizzy--faint.  I was okay in my chair, but when I would get up to go to the printer or something, I would feel weird.  After a while, I started feeling weird in my chair, too.  My best friend and I had talked about how she felt no motivation to work after hearing about our coworker's death, and I sensed that the way I felt was connected to that, but that didn't make any sense to me.  I'm sad.  I liked and admired and will miss her.  We were work friends.  I feel bad for her short life, and I feel bad for her kids, but we weren't so close that I should be feeling this in my body.

Then it hit me.  This death IS close, closer than I think.  This same thing happened to my sister.  She got breast cancer (at about my age--ouch!), had treatment, went into remission, and then it came back in her bones and there was nothing they could do.  She died nine-and-a-half years ago.  And her incidence of breast cancer elevates my risk of it.  I knew something I had forgotten to think about, and my body knew it before I did.

So, I continue this health thing.  I'm getting good nutrition, sleep, exercise, et cetera, as best I can.  I try to limit my stress, illness, injury, and lower my blood pressure.  I have my checkups and pray and hope for the best, but I need to get this weight off and be healthier, so I have to continue to do this. 

It's not just vanity.  It's health.