Day 14 - having a pity party :(

[ExAstrisScientia]

Hi everyone.  I feel the need to vent, because I am majorly struggling at what is almost my halfway point.  Pour yourself some coffee with coconut milk, because this is going to be a little long!

 

I started off my Whole 30 extremely sick - on my day 1, I woke up with a raging sinus infection which then became a full blown upper respiratory infection after a couple of days.  I'm talking fever, debilitating body aches, stuck on the couch, throbbing headache, the works.  Day 1 had a template breakfast, and then I lived on bone broth and kombucha and water for the remainder of that day.  The following day I was able to start eating mostly normally again.  I never ate anything non-compliant, but my appetite was still decreased so I just ate what I could at regular meal-time intervals.  It took me almost a week to get over that sickness but my appetite was back by day 3 so the food aspect was fine from that point onward.

 

As I recovered from my sickness I resumed my marathon training (my race is in October, so I'm toward the beginning of training).  Now, I knew going into this that my performance would probably take a hit between the Whole 30 and recovering from the illness, it sure as heck did.  That's okay with me, mostly.  It still hurts my ego to be running consistently slower than I had before, and struggling all the while, but I've been telling myself it will get better.  It will get better, right?

 

My sleep was actually pretty fantastic as the days went on, and my clothes were starting to fit well again (I indulged over July 4th weekend, on vacation, and came home feeling like utter crap).  My runs were still less than stellar, but I was feeling optimistic about the process, and the progress I was making.  My moods have also evened out a lot more (I struggle with some pretty terrible depression that worsens in cycles).

 

But!

 

The past few days have been a major struggle, both physically and emotionally.  The past three nights I have slept really poorly... it takes me forever to fall asleep and then I toss and turn all night.  I have no idea why this is happening, because I haven't changed any of my habits or routines, and I'm a stickler about my sleep hygiene - I go to bed at the same time every night (between 9 and 9:30), I wake up at the same time every morning (5am).  I have a cup of herbal tea before bed, I take magnesium, I turn off all screens at least 30 minutes before bed.  

 

I've also been struggling for a couple of days with eating enough at meal times and then feeling overly full afterward, not to mention the timing of the meals as a result of my workouts/runs.

 

Because of all that, I'm sitting here second guessing myself and wondering why I'm doing this.  Why am I working so hard to "fix" myself, when I already had pretty good habits prior to Whole 30 and even that wasn't good enough.  I have a husband and two kids who are not Whole 30, and I still find myself having to prepare non-compliant foods and healthy treats on a regular basis.  We don't keep much in the way of "junk" in the house but I am still surrounded by paleo treats and snack foods, dried fruits and nuts, and freaking potato chips (thanks, hubby).  Ice cream in the freezer.  Chocolate bars in the freezer (and no, I won't throw them out, there are quite a few of them in there!)  I can deal with it just fine most of the time, but lately I've been so frustrated to the point of anger that I "can't" have those things while "everyone else can".  Even if the food weren't staring me in the face, just the concept of being limited is frustrating to me when I'm already down on myself.

 

I just want my good sleep back (seriously, WHY is it so bad now?), I want the tiger blood, I want to feel good.  I know I'm only halfway, but arrgh.  It's so awful to start to see progress and then feel like I've taken two steps backward (or, you know, shoved down the flight of stairs).

 

Woe is me, and all that.

 

Thanks for listening.

[Karen_Suep]

Are you stressed about anything? The nights I have major sleep issues usually are a result of stress or an overactive brain. I've found that writing down how I'm feeling (my husband hates writing so he types it in a hidden folder on his computer) and what I'm thinking helps immensely. One time I was overwhelmed by what I needed to do for my husband's birthday so I wrote a list of things to buy and when I needed to have stuff done. After that, sleep came easily. Sometimes I just have to doodle or color to relax. Hopefully you'll get rest soon!

[ExAstrisScientia]

Ha, I'm perpetually stressed these days - low level, background stress that spikes periodically.  One year ago I grudgingly moved across the country and am still having a lot of trouble "accepting" my new digs.  I did not want to leave my previous home and I went through an abysmal period of intense depression (I'm already prone to it to begin with) as I tried to cope.  I am pretty unhappy with our temporary living situation, feeling like I don't have a proper home of my own.  My partner travels for work and has an irregular schedule (airline pilot), and I have two particularly intense children, one of whom is high functioning autistic and hitting puberty.  I have no family remotely nearby to help, and only a few acquaintances, so I am largely on my own to deal with it all, and I'm also juggling the marathon training while my kids are home for the summer (which means a lot of annoying schedule workarounds and dragging them along with me).

 

But those things have been present for a while, and they are not new stresses, so I don't know that they are the reason behind the acute sleep issues.

 

I do journal sometimes, and I have been doing yoga in the mornings, reading in dim light before bed, trying to do what I can.  Beyond that I am kind of at a loss!