Back in Onederland

The last weeks had some serious upheavals in our household. DH had to stay in hospital for several days after a bad health scare, and one of the things they found out was that he has high blood pressure. Not something unusual in a male over fifty, but it had gone unnoticed for quite a while because he steadfastly refused to go for a checkup. He´s on medication now, and of course, we needed to take a good hard look at the way we are eating. 

That, in turn, means no more chocolate feasts for him, we have switched to nonalcoholic beer only, the salt shaker has been put away, and I have, for two weeks now, done my best to switch our diet around to what is recommended for fighting high BP. I have also downloaded a book on the DASH diet on my kindle, hoping for more information on the dietary requirements in a person with hypertonia. 

While I, myself, tend more towards having hypotonia, i.e. too-low BP, I have gone along with DH´s new diet out of solidarity. I did not actually look to lose weight that way, but the results are pretty impressive. Down nine pounds in two weeks, from the highest point reached regaining. Which means 199 pounds. 

Back in onederland, as they say. DH, too, has been losing steadily.Now he wasn´t as overweight as me to start with, but his after-hours glass of beer and the sweets he used to binge on after dinner had made for quite a bit of a paunch over time, which is the worst place to carry one´s fat. 

As it is, the way we both eat now seems to be quite conducive to weight loss. And solidarity makes for quite a bit of motivation when it comes to not bringing certain things into the house in the first place. The salty crackers and nuts I had become all too fond of are absolutely off-limits for DH, so I don´t buy them any more. The same thing goes for the sweets and chocolate stuff he used to think he couldn´t do without. 

I´ll see how this all pans out over the long haul. Right now, we´re both motivated and ready, and the results are quite convincing. 

Next minigoal: get below 90 kilograms (198 pounds)- I can put the ten-kilo weight down a notch on my scales then. 

Finally. And hopefully for the last time.

Julia

Same old same old

Those 95 kilograms, thankfully, were a one-day mirage that disappeared the next day. But the irregularities in my monthly cycle are continuing- right now it´s a biweekly cycle actually, and every time I retain several pounds´ worth of water before it starts. 

What I am doing is journal my intake religiously. Mathematically, I eat about 1500 to 1600 calories a day. I also walk, on an ordinary workday, about 8000 to 9000 steps. From what my fitbit and myfitnesspal calculations tell me, I ought to be steadily losing. What with PMSing twice a month, I unfortunately cannot confirm that, really, as the average of my weigh-ins still tethers around those pesky 93 kilos, give or take a few grams. But, at least, there is a slightly downwards trend when I look just at the days in between. 

Work-wise, the last weeks were some serious shit. All kinds of Very Urgent and very difficult stuff, which means that my regular stuff has once more fallen by the roadside, necessitating a cleanup over the weekend.

Then again, I am not about to drive myself crazy over that. Nobody but myself is expecting me to be able to work in two places at once, and even I should not. 

Perfectionism is, in that kind of situation, the biggest trap I could fall into. So I shouldn´t. 

Keep calm and carry on. Anything else would be crazy. 

And hope that this is just the usual pre-holiday-season tidal wave of files coming in.

Julia