Noticing things

The good thing about tracking—the very point of tracking—is noticing what makes a difference. Seeing patterns, and ideally making changes.

This past week was not great. It was a struggle to get up, a struggle to do self-care, a struggle to eat right, and there were a couple of midnight snack attacks.

Looking back, there were two obvious contributing factors:

1. Getting my period
2. Too much Zoom

Neither of these are good for my mood or overall health.

Aside from cramps, hormones, and being anxious about accidents, my period usually comes with intestinal upsets which make me less likely to eat right or exercise. Not good.

On top of that, this week I had not one but two lunchtime Zooms—lunch normally being a chance to get outside for a walk, a boon to both mental and physical health—and a three-hour Zoom training on the weekend (which ran long). I feel so depleted after a Zoom. I need to look away, move, cram food in my face, or have a nap as soon as I’m done. Especially long ones. The 90-minute lunch-ruiners were bad enough, but 3 hours on Saturday was just brutal. Also meant I missed out on some fun once-a-year type things I had been looking forward to. Blarg.

If nothing else, it’s a great reminder that as soon as this year is done, I need to get back to the job search, and find a position where I can go to work instead of being stuck at home all the time.

In other news, I just started heme iron supplements. Kind of annoyed that I didn’t read the label more carefully—they only have 11g of elemental iron, and you’re supposed to take 3 a day! I thought I bought a 2-month supply, but instead it’s only about 3 weeks. Well it’s an experiment anyway; we’ll see if it makes a difference.