Right, I’ve said I’m “restarting” or “resuming” (or whatever re-something) several times over the last several weeks or months. In the last two weeks since I said that, two major things happened. First, another major thing happened with work that I had to handle and lost time. Second, my bf suddenly got some debilitating headaches, and when I finally got him to the urgent care center, we found out his blood pressure was extremely high. Not emergency room high, but a “WTF is going on?! We need to figure this out” kind of high.
One thing we’ve done is to try to minimize his stress. That means if I’m not working, I’m trying to do stuff for him around the house. I’ve always done the cooking, but now I’m been focusing on further reducing the sodium in my dishes. Though for the first few days, his headaches were paired with nausea so I was making him a lot of bread and rice and soup. Perhaps obviously, I didn’t want to make two different meals, so my own diet was quite simplified for several days.
He’s doing better, and after a visit to his PCP, we’re still not sure what’s going on, but we’re taking blood pressure readings daily and watching salt intake. Coincidentally, the last two weeks have been nearly all-time record lows on my own sodium intake, being <100% of my goal for the last two weeks straight.
Another thing that has come up in the last two weeks – though it really shouldn’t’ve affected my fitness journey – is that I got a new computer. Some of the work I do is very computationally-intensive. Not supercomputer level, but I have a few computers at home that’re constantly running code. I was finding that the main computer I use for normal computer stuff was running my code slower than it should’ve simply because I was using it for things like email, web browsing, minor other work things, etc. So, I got a new Mac Mini. And, it arrived about 10 days ago. Setting up a new computer, for me, is extremely time-consuming. I have a large document that I keep of settings, preferences, what to install in what order and what preferences to set for each application, etc. I also took this as an opportunity to finally try to reconcile and merge and weed out about 15 years of emails, since my email folders were totaling nearly 100 GB, which is kinda stupid (do I really need to have 15 years of daily email offers from NewEgg?). I’m still at the very early stages of that – which also required restoring some stuff from years-old backups that I somehow lost – but that’s also quite time-consuming. And, figuring out the few things that aren’t working, and trying to figure out whether that’s due to the new operating system or new Apple silicon is time-consuming.
So, where am I now on my “fitness journey?”
Food: This has been among my best of my four primary goals, for the last few weeks/months. So, as noted earlier, I am doing better about not snacking and not counting (as in, if I snack, I count it), but there’s still stuff like last week I made a baguette and had a few slices and didn’t count it. I think that can be interpreted to mean that I’ve gotten “close” to my goals for food over the last few weeks, and as noted above, sodium in particular has been down (i.e., I’m not doing a salt lick and then not counting it). I’ve also done quite well sticking to my macro goals, which right now are roughly 30/33/37 fat/carbs/protein.
Sleep: Continuing what’s been relatively “good,” I’ve been doing fairly well on sleep, only taking an occasional nap, and almost always getting at least 8 hours of sleep per night.
Exercise: Right … as I noted about two posts ago, it’s very, very hard to get back into a habit that you don’t really want to do. I have no desire to exercise, but of course after I do it, I’m glad I did. That’s a problem. So, until I can really force myself to get back to it, it’s going to be very hard to get back to it. Last time, it took about 3–4 weeks before it became a habit and I felt bad not doing it.
Measurements: I unfortunately need to admit that my weight and bodyfat are up. Let’s be blunt that I am still down more than 15 lbs since April, which is nothing to sneeze at. My bodyfat is down since April. But both have been trickling up over the last few months as the sedentary life of a researcher has set back in. It is certainly demoralizing, but it is 100% expected. I need to suck it up, get over it, and get back to things.
My Fitness Blog 