Mixed energy and tidying

I've been on a cleaning and rampaging streak at work - cleaning up my stuff, purging material, sorting what I have. Getting ready for next fall, basically, to start with all the clutter and mess dealt with so it's easy to find what I need. I know once we get going, that will be it. I won't have time to do it again until next summer. Now, I have the time. It also helps me plan for next year as I sit here with clear space, so it's easier to have a clear mind. I feel energized. I feel ready.

Then, there is home. I think I am so completely overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the work I have to do at home. I simply could not force myself to deal with any of it over this long weekend. Now, it's true, I needed down time and "kid" time, but man, I really need a "purge and organize" time at home!

I don't know if my desire to purge now came from reading this book 2 weeks ago, or if I read this book because I was ready to purge. Probably the latter. I am just ready.

Despite what this book said about not going room by room, (probably mostly works for Japanese homes and small apartments or condos, not for big, American homes) that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go room by room by room. Stuff that doesn't belong in that room I will take out, but one room at a time I'm going to toss, toss, toss. (Which really means, donate, donate, donate.) A few things I might try to sell, but a ton of stuff I have been holding on to sell for 5 years, I haven't sold, so donate it is! I hope I can get my husband on board with that too!

I also will use the time my mother in law is gone on a trip for two months. For stuff I need to sell or donate or even pitch, I will put it in my mother in law's part of the house until I can hire someone to haul it out. I might do a yard sale, but only maybe. I'm not holding onto this stuff any longer. It needs to go!!!

Then, once I have gone through room by room and put all the misplaced stuff  away, then I will see if there are things we need to replace for appropriate "storage" or furniture. We have made do with so many things and I'm done with that too. It either completely works for our area, or we get rid of it. This is our forever home. I don't want to put up with stuff that only sort of works!

I guess that is the one thing I got from this book and perhaps the one thing that is relevant and useful. Only keep the stuff that brings you joy. The clutter is definitely not bringing me joy and it's bringing me lots of work.

It's funny then, that this same author says not to buy special organizing things, just to use shoe boxes and the like for storing, but that would bring me no joy. A row of beautiful, boxes that fit the space, would give me joy. Seeing cardboard boxes would make me feel like a student again (as that's what I used as a college student). And it could never use the space as efficiently. For her, she is a super, super minimalist, as what gives her joy, is minimal stuff period. She keeps all her books on the top shelf of her closet. She unpacks her purse completely every day (even if she will reuse it next day). Living like that brings her joy and it always has. That would not bring me joy.

I guess that is where I get a little bugged by the book and philosophy of her tidying up. It has the right idea of only keeping things that bring you joy. Organize things like with like. Fold and store things that can stay nice and neat, but... her idea that most people only need a few things or only a few things brings them joy is too simplistic. Or, it's too short sighted. I share a home with 4 other people. I can't tell my husband or 18 year old son to purge if they don't want to purge. I can't say, "let's get rid of 90% of these books because they don't give me joy." When 80% of the books bring my husband joy. Because there are many of us, we will have more stuff.  Marie Kondo is young, unmarried (I think) and has no children. How will she adapt when she has to share her space?

Anyway...I'm in a purge mood. So watch out!

And, as it's a nice round number today, I'll put in a weight loss update.

Weight loss reboot 5/18/15
Weight lost since then: 27 pounds

How hunger differs from day to day

I just came off of two days I really wasn't very hungry. At the end of the day when I tallied my caloric intake, both days were around 800-900.  Now, I didn't set out to eat that little. I just wasn't hungry. If anything, I felt super full (and even worried that maybe I was getting sick!) as how could I feel satiated with so few calories?

Well, today, I feel ravenous! I'm still doing my fasting for the most part during the day (half and half in the coffee and a protein bar until dinner time), but today, the first time this ENTIRE 7 weeks since being back on the program, I'm hungry. I'm more than hungry. I'm ravenous!

And I would eat a snack, but we are having flank steak for dinner. And broccoli from the farmer's market. I might even eat a small potato. Potatoes, for whatever reason, don't affect my blood sugar levels - unlike most people. While I do not have sugar issues, I also don't want to spike my insulin because that will just make me feel hungrier! Dinner is looking to be about  900 calories and will be super filling. I want to be able to eat that meal and not have to say, "no" to more of any of it. No snack will taste as good as that meal! (I love grilled flank steak!)

I'm just glad I don't usually feel hungry! If I still feel hungry after dinner, I'll eat a snack.

25 pounds down, a gazillion to go!!!

But, it s a really, really good start and it's still easy.

This long weekend I decided that I needed to get a walking desk at work. Any movement I can throw in there WHILE working, the better. Reality is (for me), I work in a beautiful area, but I would never take a walk during work if it meant I needed to stay at work even longer.

I love my job. I really love my job, but I also love being home with my family and staying at work longer means I get less time with my family.

So, that will be my birthday/Christmas present to myself for a LONG time to come as it's pricey, but it's worth it.

I did several mock ups of my office and I could make it fit in any number of ways. I also realized that if I absolutely HATE IT, I can return it, or better yet, sell it to someone who wants to use it. If I buy high quality stuff, it will hold most of its value.  I think the arrangement I like best for the office is this one:

Furniture are right size, but not right colors/shapes. Like, the app I'm using doesn't have a treadmill, but has an exercise bike, so I scaled that to size.  I think I would keep my current desk for now. It is for certain that I need a place to sit as well as stand/walk... I just don't know if I want to invest in something that can sit and stand NOW. Or go with something just for standing. AND if I like it for sitting and standing, I can always put a chair on the treadmill (yes, you can do that, just has to be a type of chair that won't hurt the treadmill. People do it all the time.

I don't know... big desk? Small desk? If I do a big desk (big enough for sitting and standing), then the only floor layout that works well is this one. (Or flipping it so that the desk is at the door, but that would mean removing a wall shelf... something I could do in the future. This way though, I can look out the window which helps my spirit!) 

Insane idea for working in an office just 3 days a week? One day is at home, another day I'm  running around the entire time I'm here, so not sitting!

Good thing I don't rely on the rhythm method...

...for birth control! No wonder so many babies were 'oops' babies to moms in their 40s. I have absolutely NO SIGNS of ovulation any more, except.... for the slight weight gain before ovulation and then a couple days after it, a steady fall for at least 10 days.

I used to have all kinds of signals for my fertile period of the month. My cervical fluid changed. My libido jumped up, my temperature spiked. (OK, maybe my temp still spikes, but I don't take temps any more now that I'm not trying to have a baby. We use safe forms of birth control!) Now? NADA!!! Except for noticing when I'm dieting that my weight starts to fall off.

I'm .2 pounds away from 25 pounds and I sure hope tomorrow will be the magic day!

I even stayed within caloric range on the 4th of July when we went to a party. I skipped my dinky lunch for the day, had my my burger with tons of veggies, and then had a spoonful of my favorite dessert in the whole, wide world (if you're reading Mary Ellen - yes, YOUR dessert is my FAVORITE). It's a strawberry cheesecake trifle (and for 4th of July, Mary Ellen adds blueberries, so it's even red, white and blue). I think I could, quite literally, eat the whole thing by myself. It is that gooooood. I got the recipe many years ago and have never made it, but SOMEDAY I will... YUM!

Anyway, see? You can still eat the things you enjoy and not go overboard! I felt like I got exactly what I wanted to eat at the party and no regrets about it later! YUM!!! (Can I say yum again? :-)  )

So, things are moving downward FINALLY. Yay!!!!

The scale is going down, but what?

Maybe I didn't do as well at the conference as I thought I did?  Seriously?  The scale jumped up two pounds and is now slowly working its way down.  I'm still not down to where I was during the trip.  I'm beginning to be rather perplexed!

I'm looking over my caloric intake for the past two weeks. It's well below my BMR.  It was for the trip too.  There is absolutely no reason I can see for the climb up or the slow climb down.  I have no idea where I am in my cycle.  I could be having an anovulatory cycle, but I simply don't understand being mostly still for 2 weeks.... Or better put, slowly falling, a quick rise and slowly falling again.

I'm not discouraged, but I'm not happy.  Even if I weighed in weekly, the previous two weeks are basically carbon copies of each other. Argh!

I'm not giving in, but frustration has set in. Blah! I expected my losses to slow down, but not erase!!!

Where is the read out from our brain that lets us know, "you are holding water today."  Or, "you ingested this many calories and your breakdown of carbs, protein, fats were as follows, so you should see a .2 drop on the scale today." " Sorry, for no loss on the scale today, we are holding water because of too much salt in the diet", etc.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Kind of like the computer in the Willly Wonka movie! I could deal with these unexplained things if they weren't unexplained!

Oh well... Trodding onward hopefully more downward soon!

Trying to figure out how to sit less

Since I had my shoulder injury 4 years ago, I've also developed some neck and back issues, probably stemming from compensating for the shoulder injury in the right arm. It is aggravated by sitting so much, so I need to figure out how to sit less.

I've thought about a treadmill desk.  I've thought about a standing desk. I try to get up and move in the office every hour, but reality is, I sit an awful lot.  Much more than I did as a stay at home mom where I was always fiddling with something or doing something.

I am adding in daily walks and will soon add in step aerobics, but that still doesn't eliminate the hours and hours of sitting I do each day,

Cost is a big thing. In this case, getting healthy is expensive!  I have a teeny tiny office. I'm not complaining as I am so happy to have my office - big window and all overlooking some beautiful homes on the middle street of DC.  I just have to be super mindful of what I put in the office.

I can get used, a whole new office suite (my office needs a major overhaul with furniture) and a new ergonomic chair  for about $1200 including delivery from what I see in ads. I could keep the desk I have and pick up a new chair and credenza for about $800 (ergonomic chairs are expensive!) (These are just sort of mock-ups of how the room might look/function with each option).

Another option is to get a sit and stand desk and ergonomic chair and credenza (making it possible to someday get a treadmill too) for about $2000.

Or, I can get a sit/stand desk with treadmill and a credenza for storage and an ergonomic chair for about $3000 with delivery included.

See my dilemma?  In all cases it would be out of pocket.  I work for a nonprofit and don't expect anyone to pay for my furnishings for an upgrade.  I need a credenza (getting rid of two very old and beat up, yet functional bookcases cubbies) as my office has no horizontal space and I need that space for storage and work space.  The credenza could probably get covered, but nothing more.

But, would I use it?  I am getting continual neck and back strain from sitting so much.  Perhaps just getting the more ergonomic chair would help.

Wish I could get a prescription saying I need such a thing for my health and then it would be partly covered by insurance.  And so, I am going to take more ibuprofen, for the 8th day in a row for my neck strain headache.

And on other updates... 13th day in a row that my weight is staying mostly steady.  THAT is getting old too!

Mind games

When I started to lose weight 4 years ago, I quickly learned my body's weight loss patterns. I might not have liked them, but I understood them. They were the same as they were with my other major weight loss a decade before. I just noticed the trend more precisely as I weighed daily versus weekly.

With weekly weight losses, I noticed two weeks of no loss, two weeks of big losses. It was so very, very consistent and matched my ovulation/menstruation cycle. The two weeks building towards ovulation - no weight loss. The two weeks following ovulation - big weight loss. Of course, I was "losing" the entire time, but was holding onto water weight until after ovulation passed.

Four years ago I learned through daily weigh ins that yes indeed this is my pattern. I got it down to a science. I would stay the same or gain a wee bit during menstruation, lose a wee bit for a couple days following that and then nothing... I would just hold steady no matter what I did. Then, a day or two before ovulation and holding on for 3-4 days, I would have a spike up in weight as my body ovulated and, I guess, waited to see if a pregnancy had resulted because of ovulation, and when it hadn't, it released all the water weight steadily until a day or two before my period. The cycle would repeat over and over again. My weight loss chart looked somewhat like a set of stairs going down. If I didn't have other little fluctuations because of eating out, or a holiday or vacation, it would have 100% looked like stair steps.

Then, however, the pattern stopped/changed. My menstrual cycle started to differ. Some months I had anovulatory cycles. I would get a period, but no ovulation, which means, no predictable pattern. And as I venture towards menopause, the other signals of fertility slowly disappeared. Basically, now, I have no idea and can only make predictions and assumptions and it messes with the head a bit.

I have been staring at an uptick on the scale for the last several days. It just sits there. What does it mean? Am I counting calories wrong? Is it pre-ovulation still? I dont' seem to have other signs of impending ovulation. Has ovulation passed and I should see a bit whoosh tomorrow?

I'm not upset. I know I'm doing it all fine, but it does mess a bit with the head to be doing things right and to see the scale go up two pounds and stay up two pounds for no reason. Or, at least, for no reason I can see or think of.

So... I just have to wait it out and see what happens!