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I think maybe I wanted a dash in my username rather than an underscore. Looks more right that way, but Dreamwidth wouldn't let me sign up with the dashed version after deleting the underscore version.
So I'm doing kind of a bodybuilding thing, not anything like a pro bodybuilder, just trying to lose fat so that my muscular development will be more visible.
I'm on a diet that's relatively high-protein for me, and I'd like to go even higher. I've found that a high-protein, moderate fiber diet is very filling, so it's easy to undereat a bit. I don't want to undereat a lot because I don't want to suffer and because I might lose muscle if I lose weight too quickly.
I recently started re-taking a prescription sleep medication called hydroxyzine. I hate taking meds, but my sleep had worsened a lot (I was getting only 5 or 6 hours max most of the time), and that made me desperate. Besides the ~12 hours of grogginess and fatigue, which I was expecting (same thing happened last time I took this crap), I've also been having suicidal thoughts on the hydroxyzine, even on a tiny dose (I've been cutting pieces off the 25 mg pills). I also wake up with dry mouth every morning.
So last night was my last time on that garbage. I can't take it anymore, I had more energy when I didn't sleep at all, and it's not even allowing me to go to bed when I want to. I've been trying for MONTHS to shift my bedtime to something earlier in the evening. It never works, and for my trouble I always end up not sleeping at all. Something about going to bed when my body doesn't want me to go to bed worsens my insomnia. So for months I've been forced to go to bed at 2 AM at the earliest.
Now things are worse. Now I can't really sleep if I go to bed before 2:45 AM. Since the sleep med didn't help me with this, I'm going to try something else, something I read about while researching insomnia: chronotherapy.
I've known about chronotherapy for a while, but it seems kinda depressing and a pain in the ass to execute, so I decided not to try it at the time. It's for people who are sleeping undesirable hours. Apparently, it's difficult or impossible for us to shift our bedtimes to earlier hours, so the therapy consists of shifting the bedtime later and later over the course of days, weeks, whatever, until the desired hour is reached.
I want to go to bed at around 10 or 11 pm, midnight at the absolute latest. So I guess I'm going to try shifting my bedtime an hour later each day. The amount of shift and the period of shifting is individualized probably, so I'm just hoping that I'll be able to shift that much that quickly. I've read descriptions of shifting the bedtime three hours ahead at a time (I doubt that would work for me) and shifting once every few days to allow the sleeper to acclimate.
I want to get this over with as quickly as possible because I'm very much not looking forward to the point at which I'm going to bed at any hour from 9 AM until about 9 PM. Something about using daylight hours for sleep and being asleep while the rest of the world is awake depresses me. But it seems that it's either this or a 3 AM bedtime for the foreseeable future.
Today was grocery day. I usually have something outside of my regular diet on grocery day, and today ended up being the same even though I didn't want it to be. I'm satisfied, not hungry on my non-diet diet, didn't want to spend food stamps on stuff that's outside of my meal plan, but today I suddenly wanted a wrap (a protein source and veggies, spices, and sometimes condiments in some type of flexible bread product).
So I got a wrap and the fixings and had a high-protein dinner:
1 La Tortilla Factory Protein wrap 12g, 120 cal
3 slices Tomato something flavor Field Roast 15 g, 120 cal
2 oz. store brand jalapeño kettle chips 2g, 300 cal
like a bowl full of sammich veggies, maybe 2g? ?
1 chocolate brownie Clif Energy bar 10g, 250 cal
Kind of a big meal for someone who is trying to lose fat, but I got a fair bit of cardio today, I had only about 645 calories today before this meal, and I'm so stuffed that I'll probably undereat tomorrow and later this evening. I could have done without that Clif Bar, truthfully, but I needed the taste of chocolate in my mouth after my main meal.
New thing in my diet: Yerba Maté. Because the hydroxyzine has been giving me so much trouble with grogginess, I've been searching for another source of energy. Coffee is ok, but it makes me feel weird and jittery. My Internet research shows that this yerba mate delivers caffeine without the jitteriness. I had a couple bottles of the stuff before I took the plunge and bought a whole bag of tea. What I had didn't give me a ton of energy, so maybe I'll brew my yerba maté rather strong. I still have instant coffee, so that's my backup if this doesn't work.
Yerba Maté is expensive. Maybe I won't really need it at all now that I' won't be taking hydroxyzine anymore.
So I'm doing kind of a bodybuilding thing, not anything like a pro bodybuilder, just trying to lose fat so that my muscular development will be more visible.
I'm on a diet that's relatively high-protein for me, and I'd like to go even higher. I've found that a high-protein, moderate fiber diet is very filling, so it's easy to undereat a bit. I don't want to undereat a lot because I don't want to suffer and because I might lose muscle if I lose weight too quickly.
I recently started re-taking a prescription sleep medication called hydroxyzine. I hate taking meds, but my sleep had worsened a lot (I was getting only 5 or 6 hours max most of the time), and that made me desperate. Besides the ~12 hours of grogginess and fatigue, which I was expecting (same thing happened last time I took this crap), I've also been having suicidal thoughts on the hydroxyzine, even on a tiny dose (I've been cutting pieces off the 25 mg pills). I also wake up with dry mouth every morning.
So last night was my last time on that garbage. I can't take it anymore, I had more energy when I didn't sleep at all, and it's not even allowing me to go to bed when I want to. I've been trying for MONTHS to shift my bedtime to something earlier in the evening. It never works, and for my trouble I always end up not sleeping at all. Something about going to bed when my body doesn't want me to go to bed worsens my insomnia. So for months I've been forced to go to bed at 2 AM at the earliest.
Now things are worse. Now I can't really sleep if I go to bed before 2:45 AM. Since the sleep med didn't help me with this, I'm going to try something else, something I read about while researching insomnia: chronotherapy.
I've known about chronotherapy for a while, but it seems kinda depressing and a pain in the ass to execute, so I decided not to try it at the time. It's for people who are sleeping undesirable hours. Apparently, it's difficult or impossible for us to shift our bedtimes to earlier hours, so the therapy consists of shifting the bedtime later and later over the course of days, weeks, whatever, until the desired hour is reached.
I want to go to bed at around 10 or 11 pm, midnight at the absolute latest. So I guess I'm going to try shifting my bedtime an hour later each day. The amount of shift and the period of shifting is individualized probably, so I'm just hoping that I'll be able to shift that much that quickly. I've read descriptions of shifting the bedtime three hours ahead at a time (I doubt that would work for me) and shifting once every few days to allow the sleeper to acclimate.
I want to get this over with as quickly as possible because I'm very much not looking forward to the point at which I'm going to bed at any hour from 9 AM until about 9 PM. Something about using daylight hours for sleep and being asleep while the rest of the world is awake depresses me. But it seems that it's either this or a 3 AM bedtime for the foreseeable future.
Today was grocery day. I usually have something outside of my regular diet on grocery day, and today ended up being the same even though I didn't want it to be. I'm satisfied, not hungry on my non-diet diet, didn't want to spend food stamps on stuff that's outside of my meal plan, but today I suddenly wanted a wrap (a protein source and veggies, spices, and sometimes condiments in some type of flexible bread product).
So I got a wrap and the fixings and had a high-protein dinner:
1 La Tortilla Factory Protein wrap 12g, 120 cal
3 slices Tomato something flavor Field Roast 15 g, 120 cal
2 oz. store brand jalapeño kettle chips 2g, 300 cal
like a bowl full of sammich veggies, maybe 2g? ?
1 chocolate brownie Clif Energy bar 10g, 250 cal
Kind of a big meal for someone who is trying to lose fat, but I got a fair bit of cardio today, I had only about 645 calories today before this meal, and I'm so stuffed that I'll probably undereat tomorrow and later this evening. I could have done without that Clif Bar, truthfully, but I needed the taste of chocolate in my mouth after my main meal.
New thing in my diet: Yerba Maté. Because the hydroxyzine has been giving me so much trouble with grogginess, I've been searching for another source of energy. Coffee is ok, but it makes me feel weird and jittery. My Internet research shows that this yerba mate delivers caffeine without the jitteriness. I had a couple bottles of the stuff before I took the plunge and bought a whole bag of tea. What I had didn't give me a ton of energy, so maybe I'll brew my yerba maté rather strong. I still have instant coffee, so that's my backup if this doesn't work.
Yerba Maté is expensive. Maybe I won't really need it at all now that I' won't be taking hydroxyzine anymore.
