Hello! Two months since I last posted. Not surprisingly I've been very inconsistent with diet and exercise. The only thing I did stick with was pilates/yoga with my sister, and literally it's because of my sister. Accountability partners are really good, I just wish I had something better for my diet and running. Anyone else notice that when people stop posting, it's usually because they've usually stopped trying? I vowed I wouldn't do that, and yet I did.
This post might be all over the place, so I apologize.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 😉
Maybe I'll do a recap of my holidays later, but it's doubtful. I also typically do a recap of my year, which I started in the middle of December, but didn't finish. I do like having that recap because it shows what I've done, or in the case of 2023, what I didn't do. But tonight I have a few other things on my mind I want to talk about.
I am going through menopause, maybe perimenopause, I don't know if there's a difference in how your body is, but I have many, many symptoms of the dreaded menopause, and have had for a few years. It started with night sweats 3 or 4 years ago, but this last year it's gotten a lot worse.
- I've lost hair
- my sex drive has gone way down
- even during sex, it's pretty dry down there,
- I've gained weight with no change to my diet
- insomnia (although that has been off and on for most of my life, but much worse lately)
- I haven't had my period in forever
- very irritable
- fatigue, but unable to go to sleep
- dry skin
- lack of motivation.
I have wondered most of 2023 why I'm just not motivated. Why can't I just go for a run? Why is it so hard for me to follow through with anything? Running is my thing. I am a runner. But am I because I don't run? I just don't want to do anything. I don't want to eat well, I don't want to exercise. I just want to stay in bed all the time. It has bothered me, but not enough to actually do something.
I went to Hawaii in July and August and I hated how I felt there. I felt fat and ugly and just gross. I didn't even want to run and that trail is my #1 top running location. I love that trail. Did I go for a run? Yes, just once though. I came home and had a little motivation to lose weight, but it didn't last. I have continued to feel fat and useless and have continued to gain weight.
I am a big supplement fan. I take quite a few (my sister calls me Grandma Curl - mom's mom - because she was well known for her mass amounts of supplements). Anyway, I started taking collagen, krill oil, a liver support pill, calcium, tumeric, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, glucosamine chondroitin, magnesium, and a multivitamin. There are a couple supplements I've found that combines some of these, like Provitalize, and I also take Nutrafol, which is supposed to help with hair loss.
So what does this have to do with menopause? Well, a few of these (collagen, magnesium, provitalize, and nutrafol) are supposed to be good for menopausal symptoms.
This last fall I was googling something about menopause and saw that Red Clover is a supplement that is well-known in traditional medicine for it's benefits, especially for menopause (it can also help to lower high blood pressure, and cholesterol). But one of the things I saw was that it's good for motivation (of course, I can't find that article now, but I saw it, I know I did), so I started taking it.
I noticed a difference at 2 weeks. So much so that I shared it with my sisters (2 older and one 3 yrs younger than me). It's been a gradual increase in my motivation, but I can definitely feel it. No, this is not a commercial, it's just something I've been thinking about. It feels good to want to go for a run again. It's nice to feel like I can take control of my eating and drinking.
And this is where I go to a different topic, but I'll try to bring it back around to this🠉.
When my Dad died, my sisters and I decided to go to Disneyland with some of his money. We were going to set some aside in the estate account for us to go and had decided to go Spring Break of 2024. New Year's Eve weekend we did our family Christmas celebration and we started to talk about going to Disneyland. One of my sisters decided she wouldn't go to Disneyland (she didn't say why, but I believe it's a political reason 🙄) so we were brainstorming other places to go. Someone mentioned another cruise, and then my sister Nancy suggested a cruise to Mexico. In looking for a cruise, we discovered that cruises are sold out for the first week of April (our spring break), so we were looking at other dates. We found a 4 day cruise in August to Catalina and Ensenada, so we decided to try to go on that. My immediate family is going to go to Disneyland right after because my kids have been excited about it, and Asher will be almost 5, which will be a great age for him.
Anyway, in thinking about going on a cruise to Mexico in August, I realized I'm going to feel awful, again, in a tropical area in my bathing suit again like I did last August in Hawaii. So what does that mean? I need to be motivated and focused to lose some weight. It means cracking down on exercising, eating well, and not drinking so much wine.
We came home from our family Christmas on the 1st and all the way home I was pep talking myself into what I needed to do. On these trips we also have a lot of junk food. My Mom used to make a chex mix she called Scrabble, and it's high in sodium, plus cheesecake I make, cookies, and just general Christmas junk food. So driving home, I'm thinking, "I need to know what I weigh. I need to weigh myself tomorrow. Yes, it will likely be higher than it would have been without this trip, but I need to just do it." So Tuesday morning I got up and weighed myself for the first time in several months, only to discover I was just 2 lbs lower than I was at my starting weight in 2012. In 2012 I was 177, on the 2nd I was 175.
How frustrating. It took me 3 years to lose it before and I was younger. Now I'm asking my menopausal, old body, to lose 25 lbs in 8 months. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm certainly going to try. Doing the math, I have to lose 3 lbs a month. That's 0.75 lbs a week. When you break it down like that, it sounds doable. A couple things I didn't do well, and why it took so long last time, and why I don't do well now at all, is that I always give myself a weekend pass. I can eat and drink whatever on the weekend, and that usually starts on Friday evening. That has to end.
I ate very well this last weekend, but I did eat a little more, and drank more, which caused a weekend gain of 1lb, which is better than past weekend gains, but still not great. (Past weekend gains had me gaining everything I had lost through the work week, so I was essentially starting each week at the same number.) Friday morning I weighed 172.6, this morning I weighed 174. Honestly, that's still a full pound in less than a week, and I "only" need to lose 0.75 in a week, but if I let that mentality in, I will not succeed. And I need to succeed.
So motivation, it's a big factor. I have to stay focused, and determined. This red clover definitely helps. I've also been running a little more. Although, I also get frustrated because I used to be "half-marathon ready" at all times, and now I'm barely "5k ready" and if I did race a 5k, it would likely be my slowest pace ever. I just have to get over looking backwards at where I was, and look forward knowing I can get there again.
I do not want to feel the way I did last summer. I want to feel more like I did in 2015.
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