Up and down

Oh boy, haven’t posted in months, whoops.

Cough study was a bust, pretty frustrated with that for numerous reasons, more on that another time.

10k was also a bust, I decided again running because it was cold and rainy, but apparently it was terribly mismanaged again so I’m glad I didn’t waste my time. No washrooms, no traffic control, no water, no medals. Just shockingly bad.

A tooth that was supposed to be a root canal split in half, so I needed a bridge, and last year’s bridge broke, which is not supposed to happen. 

But in good news, I played tennis last week for the first time in forever, and have doubled my average summer mileage this month so far. The weather is gorgeous and it’s lovely to be outside. My garden is mostly planted (just need to sow some lettuce and other greens).

My ferritin is good (did I blog about that yet?), my blood pressure is low, my weeks-long period finally ended, and I’m sleeping better. 

Overall, pretty good! I have to remind myself of that sometimes...

Three more weeks

Till my initial appointment! Wow this trial process is long.

In other news, they have asked me to keep taking the PPI for now. Meanwhile I only today made the connection that my crazy ravenous appetite seems to have begun when I started taking the PPI. Maybe will stop taking it now, whether they like it or not. Having bad heartburn again today.

Or maybe it was PMS... spotting today, which would be 26 days since the last one, which is pretty normal I guess. 

OH MY GOD I was thinking it seemed like a lot less than 26 days since the last one... I was counting from 3 February to 29 February, forgetting the period that started 10 days ago...

Forgive the histrionic formatting but if ever there was a reason to be histrionic this is it

Monday check-in

It’s a holiday Monday, and I’m grateful that I got to sleep in today after a weekend of hiking, archery, attempting a high ropes course, and sleeping on a camp mattress that was profoundly uncomfortable. Very grateful to remember I had some Aleve in the cupboard. And that I pre-booked a visit to my physiotherapist.

Also, I had spotting yesterday, and seem to have my period today, 17 days from the last one (16 if you count yesterday as the beginning). Previous was 84 days. Just a slight fluctuation. Sigh.

This has also come with an upset stomach. Or maybe that’s from all the processed food I ate over the weekend. Either way, I’m still taking the PPI, and it still doesn’t seem to be helping my cough or my digestion (TMI processed food gives me terrible gas... I wonder if it’s related to my sensitivity to propylene glycol, an ingredient found in everything from shampoo to salad dressing).

Period

Today. Twelve weeks exactly from the start of the last one. Pretty light. 

An epiphany?

Posted this elsewhere but those I’d park it here for future reference.

My shoulder has been a mess. Two visits to physio so far and another this Friday… normally it should have gotten better after the first go, but nope.

Anyway a friend of mine was dealing with shoulder issues last year which she initially thought was a rotator cuff injury, but turned out to be “frozen shoulder” related to perimenopause. I wondered if my current shoulder issue is perimenopause-related as well, and that’s why it’s not improving.

And then it occurred to me… what if it was perimenopause the first time and people just didn’t know about the connection yet?

I’ve also been getting wicked headaches, another symptom I experienced before going on BCP.

Maybe later I will dig through my old posts  and see if there are any correlations between me going on BCP/HRT and the shoulder getting better. I do not like this, whatever the cause. 

Ch-ch-changes

It’s been almost a year since the death of Fitday, which means almost a year of Cronometer. Not that I’m terribly consistent with tracking (especially when I don’t like the numbers) but it’s a fair idea:

My weight over 2023 

Steady, then a jump up, then steady, then a jump down, then steady, then a jump up... then I stopped tracking for a bit and now we’re back to the jump down. 

Time for some reflection. 

The spring jump up: usual seasonal anxiety due to various anniversaries etc.

The June jump down: gastritis. 

The July jump up: stopping HRT.

The current jump down: not sure? I had a sort of non-period late September, then nothing till a couple of weeks ago (the ramp up to which was all pimples and binge eating), then a normal-person period, then my appetite disappeared and weight dropped off effortlessly. So I am assuming hormones. 

Question is, now that I’m here, now that I have some awareness of how I got here, can I stay here? Can I be mindful of hormonal swings and find other ways to manage them? Because really a 10% up/down swing in weight has to be a pretty significant strain on the system. 

Trying again

Well I haven’t been tracking or doing any (intentional) exercise lately. But I have been keeping busy. 

Now that I’m all-natural with the hormones and just experiencing perimenopause as it happens, I find my appetite and metabolism fluctuate like crazy. Just uncontrollable hunger at times, and my weight climbed to a number where I didn't want to weigh myself (hence the no tracking). Then I had a very light period and my appetite vanished and I could honestly feel my body burning through reserves. Just snapped back to the goal weight I achieved in the spring. Hormones, man. It’s wild. 

Anyway, I need to start tracking again, and find better ways to manage the swings than eating a ton of raw cookie dough. 

And I haven’t done “progress pics” in a year and a half! Here’s the last one for comparison. I don’t see a difference? No idea what I weighed then either, since the demise of Fitday…

(Tried to recreate the pose as exactly as possible)

An exercise in will power

I have eaten a lot for the last while—blaming hormones etc.—and Wednesday is always a big eating day, because usually there’s also more exercise since I’m in the office (so the day is bookended by bike rides), and it is also nachos day. Here’s a typical day:

Screenshot cuts off some of the actual food but the totals are there

More calories than technically needed, and half of them from dinner. Not only that, but typically I’m ravenous by dinner time Wednesday, so I consume those nachos in under 4 minutes. And then my tummy hurts.

Today, working from home, I made a concerted effort to not just eat all day, and to eat my nachos and a normal pace instead of wolfing them like a starving castaway. 

And I did it! Honestly I think it’s more the fluctuating hormones than any great moral victory on my part. But I’ll take it!

It is happening.

Well we’re on, looks like. 

Spotting Sunday, nothing Monday, definitely a period starting last night (while I was out, natch—so glad I had supplies buried deep in my bag).

Doesn’t seem heinous though. No waterfall or severe cramping. I shouldn’t say that; I’ll jinx myself. 

Hmmm

Spotting today. Fresh looking. Just making a note of it here because I need to keep track somewhere. 

Is it happening?

So years ago, I went to my doctor with an array of symptoms—headaches, bad acne, night sweats, general misery—you can guess what that was about. They put me on low-dose birth control, as a sort of “HRT-lite” for perimenopause symptoms. 

And it was great! I got my period maybe twice a year, felt fine, symptoms went away, I was my old self again.

Well, the last time I tried to get my prescription renewed, they said I was too old and it was no longer safe.

I can’t remember if I posted about the last time I stopped taking BCP.

It was December 2021. I had just gotten my prescription, but got covid before I could fill it, and I was in isolation for two weeks. As soon as that was up, I picked up my pills, and waited for my period to start taking them (way back when I started, that was the instruction: start the pack on the Sunday after your period starts).

So I waited and waited. Months go by. I thought maybe I was free. But then in April, it comes, and it’s a doozy. “The Waterfall” is what we call it. Utterly brutal and I had no supplies. I spent a week clutching a hot water bottle to my belly, never straying more than a few metres from my bathroom, just in case.

A doctor friend told me, “Sometimes there’s one last big one and then you’re done.” So I didn’t start the pill right away, in hopes (again!) that I might be free. 

Nope.

After Waterfall #2, I got back on the pill and have been on it ever since. Until now.

And I’ve started having symptoms. Food cravings, pimples, some I won’t go into here, but what’s really getting to me are the headaches. Excruciating headaches. I was flabbergasted for a couple of days until I remembered, oh yeah, this was one of my symptoms at the start of this whole process.

Trying to remember if I had headaches back in spring of 2022, but I probably would have assumed it was covid-related back then anyway.

I am just really, really hoping there is no repeat of The Waterfall.

Skin in the game

I guess  it’s inevitable with age but my skin is starting to creep me out. Or crepe me out, as the case may be. 

Specifically, it’s my belly that's bugging me. 

I look fine standing up, but if I bend over…

It’s not fat; I have a small waist and typically carry my extra weight on my thighs. Especially after my bout with gastritis, I’m as thin as I need to be and there’s no extra fat around the middle. Just extra skin. I didn’t lose a lot of weight either—nothing dramatic enough that I expected this.

It’s been looming for a while. I had thought “if I lose those last 5 lbs, it will go away.” Nope. I may not have a 6-pack but my abs are not bad. I started working on my core more at the behest of my physio, and if anything it’s made me more self-conscious—this morning, doing a plank, I got a glimpse of my droopy skin and it just looks ugly. 

On top of everything else, I am now so old that I can’t get my birth control renewed—a low-dose pill I was prescribed to manage perimenopause symptoms. Did I post about the horrors of the waterfall period last time I stopped taking the pill? Dreading that happening again. And having these other more visible reminders of the change pop up is making me anxious. 

Is this when I start taking collagen? Or some other supplement? Or do I try (and fail) at body positivity again?

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.

A little progress report

Just checking in with myself as I am feeling blah, but there is progress, even if it’s not much! 

Weight tracking for the month of September

I seem to have gotten my period again, which is annoying to say the least, although at least it’s not horrifying like it was last spring. It’s just very random—one week into a new month of pills—which is disconcerting. But if nothing else it explains why I was feeling tired/constipate/blah last week. And now that it’s happening, my progress is on a downward slope again, which is nice.

More generally, I’ve been mostly meeting my goals—situps every morning, outside for at least a mile or two every day, stretching before bed and turning off the wifi, remembering my vitamins—so if there’s lack of progress, I know it’s not because of something I failed to do. Just the randomness of hormones. Need to remind myself of that—change what I can, accept what I can’t, and know the difference!

On aging

Yesterday I was at a multi-generational event for the first time in a long time, with people I had not seen in a long time. I was struck by how the older members of the congregation who were struggling the most with mobility had so little muscle, regardless of how much body fat they carried. I know people sometimes talk about carrying extra weight being a protection against the wasting that happens with age and illness, but seeing such a variety of people and bodies really drove home that it’s not just extra weight that helps, it’s extra muscle. If I’m going to eventually lose muscle mass for one reason or another, I want to make sure I have a lot of it to start with! 

So I guess that means more protein, more exercise. Especially core strength. My legs are already pretty muscular, but I could use more strength through my back, abs, and arms. Seeing the effects on posture of using a walker, and just the general struggles to push oneself up out of a chair, or pull oneself along a railing, arm strength is definitely not something to neglect!

Setbacks and recovery

Finally feeling back to normal again! As I get older, all the setbacks hit me harder, and it’s harder to bounce back. So—post-head injury, back on BCP, dare I say I am feeling like myself again?

Anyway, I thought I’d try getting back to intermittent fasting again, 2-5 style. Previously doing Mondays and Thursdays at max 600 calories was quite doable, so that’s the plan—although as soon as I came to that decision, I realized that I’m kind of screwed this week, as I am actually going to the office on Thursday instead of working from home, and there’s a catered lunch involved. So, this week will be Monday and Wednesday, which is kind of a drag because Wednesday is my kid-free morning and I like to have a fancy breakfast. But no excuses! I can forego one croissant for the greater good. 

Yuck!

Wow have I felt terrible the last few days! Starting to feel a bit more normal today, although still crampy.

I feel like my experiment in 16:8 will be kind of inconclusive—I had thought it was the cause of my constipation, but maybe that was due to PMS? Resolved without any switching up of diet, at any rate. 

Exercise-wise, I am trying to keep on keeping on, doing arm work with dumb bells and that sort of thing, and basically leaving my core out of it this week. Very difficult to feel motivated to do anything. Managed a walk yesterday, will try that again today. My schedule has me going for a run tomorrow morning, but not sure I’ll feel up to it. Don't want to be anywhere but home. 

Which reminds me I’m supposed to be volunteering tomorrow night… ugh, at least it is basically standing around followed by sitting around. Hoping things have settled by then.

The TMI Post

Well, it's been a week of 16:8 intermittent fasting, and the only effect I have really noticed is that I am constipated. Yesterday, for my first meal of the day at noon, I opted for a favourite that can usually be relied upon for the hoped-for result—oatmeal porridge with dried apricots, sunflower seeds, and molasses. And a pot of strong black coffee.

No luck.

Thinking I might go back to the 2:5 version as that has worked for me in the past, with no ill effects.

In other TMI news, I seem to have gotten my period, which is very unlike me. I had a bit of spotting a couple of weeks ago—now it occurs to me, timing-wise, could that have been ovulation spotting? Ugh I have no need to ovulate. Whatever.

Anyway today I am crampy and bloated and uncomfortable. Went for a run; didn't even make 4k because aside from feeling blecch, one of the seams on my tights started rubbing me the wrong way and it was just all around unpleasant. Ugh.

At least I have been keeping up with my mini workouts four times a week. 

I was hoping to go for a bike ride this afternoon, but we'll see what my belly has to say about that I guess. I have been gearing up for biking season (literally) with new shorts, new horn, new gloves, a tune-up and new chain, and a new cup holder (a birthday present from my wonderful son)! New shoes have been ordered, and I'm working on a pattern for a cycling dress with all of the features of a cycling jersey - rear pockets, technical fabrics—but cute instead of ugly (kind of like the shoes - although not “officially” a flat cycling shoe, they have the features of one—room for toes, grippy soles, snug secure fit with some support). I'm going to order some fabric called “chitosante” which is made using a fibre from crab shells, and is supposed to have great properties for wicking as well as being odour-resistant. I hope it lives up to its advertising!