Week of August 11th:
- Running in the rain is awesome.
- Running 4 times in a week is also awesome.
- I am lucky to have such wonderful friends such as Melinda, and even luckier that she had dinner and drinks with me and let me talk about myself almost the whole time and didn't judge me.
- Harvesting fresh fruit (picking blueberries from my dad's blueberry bush) is satisfying and fulfilling in a way that nothing else is. I hope to plan a veggie garden and perhaps my own blueberry bush next year so that I can experience this amazing feeling on a more regular basis. (As Fleet Foxes sings, "If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm raw.")
The last couple days have been pretty weird. Again. We had some people over for a last-minute cookout Saturday night and I went for a run beforehand. The run felt good and the weather was gorgeous. The food turned out well at the cookout and everyone seemed to have a good time. I felt a little detached from the whole thing, but wasn't totally miserable. I drank probably two more beers than was necessary, but was by no means drunk -- and I also smoked a few cigarettes. Huge mistake. My husband even told me, "You're gonna regret that in the morning." I sure as hell did. Ugh. I've been "slipping" on that a little too often lately. Once a month is once too often. I need to recommit to myself, get back to making it a "non-negotiable" for myself.
Sunday I slept about 14 hours. Not all at once, but between overnight and naps throughout the day, about 14 hours. And I was still tired enough to go to bed for the night at 11:30. Monday morning I felt as if I couldn't have easily slept another 2 hours, even after 8 hours in bed. That's definitely the depression. My energy level should not be so low with the regular exercise I've been getting and decent sleep schedule I've been on. I got out and ran a few errands, but almost burst into tears in Target for no reason. The same thing happened to me today during a meeting at work. It's weird, it's like I would love to cry. To cry real hard for a real long time. It would feel so amazing, but I can't. I get a little misty, but then it just kind of glosses over and I go back to feeling numb/bored. Tonight that shifted to anger for a little while; frustration over the house being messy and a bunch of dirty dishes being left in the sink. I felt better after working out.
Oh, yeah, so working out. I decided to do some strength training tonight for the first time in... um... a really long time. At least 6 weeks. It's been months (and months) since I've done any heavy lifting. I'm back at square-one, folks. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm back at bodyweight and my 8lbs dumbbells for everything. I've put together a basic circuit training routine and hope to be able to stick with that 3 times a week on top of my running. I'm not going to try to overload myself, but I could probably benefit from some yoga in my life, too. I'm going to try to motivate for some Sun Salutations in the morning, just 15 minutes or so. The stretch will do me good after all the leg work tonight. I can already feel my quads and hamstrings yelling at me, and this was just BODY WEIGHT!! I'm trying really hard not to get down on myself over this. I've been struggling with a lot emotionally and it's okay that I let some things go for a little while. It's also okay that it may take some time and patience to work back up to where I was a year ago. It's good that I'm even trying to get my lady muscles back.
I'm struggling quite a bit with going back to eating a deficit. I did all right for a couple weeks when my appetite was real low, but I think the increase in activity has boosted my appetite and I'm find it hard to not eat at maintenance every day. Now, it could be with the increase in activity what used to be "maintenance" isn't anymore, but I'm also not trying to fool myself. It's one thing to have a 3,000 calorie day a few times a month, it's another to have it be twice a week. Part of me feels like if I'm hungry, I should eat - but another part of me wonders if that's just my body trying to stay at its current set point. A set point at which I no longer wish to be. I'm really not stressing too much over it at this moment and more trying to be positive about being able to keep motivated to exercise near-daily. Overall, the exercise consistency is more important right now for my mental health. Once that is under better control, I can focus on giving up the Oreos.
Now to switch gears pretty quickly: after some thought and discussion, I'm going to let my therapist know next week that I may need to start seeing someone else. He's a nice dude, but I don't think he's providing me with the cognitive behavior-type therapy that I was really benefitting from with my last therapist. Maybe we can work it out and he can adjust the way he's been working with me or hopefully he can refer me to someone who can provide me with the tools I need. I've also scheduled an appointment next month with my doc to not only to get my blood work rerun to check my triglyceride levels, but also to discuss possibly going on an antidepressant for a little while. I'm really worried about how much worse things could get for me once winter starts to set in. Winter is hard enough on me when I'm in a "normal" emotional place, I can't even imagine the level I could hit this year without some kind of intervention; whether that's increasing the frequency of visits with my therapist or medication, something will have to give there.
I will say I feel a bit better having made the appointment with my regular doc, and making the mental decision to talk with my feelings doctor. There's a little less weight hanging over my head. I'm also glad I made myself get the strength workout in tonight. As I said already, I hope I can keep the motivation to keep up with that and the running.
