Monday, July 14, 2008

Week Ten: Blessed, Blessed Sleeeeeeeeep

It was as if my visa to Sleepland had been revoked a little over a week ago. I just couldn't sneak beyond an alertness that would have much better served me during the day. Finally, around 3 a.m., exhaustion won; even though I slept past 10 a.m., I sleepwalked through the day and fell into an easy doze while reading. There is a vicious circle to this. When caught by sleep during the day, sleep eludes me at night. On the first of these slumberous days, I was able to ignore that insidious voice which seduces me into taking the first innocent step that leads to me partying with the binge monkey. By the second day, I'd lost the will to fight it. The days that followed were a continuation of this old pattern. Sleep eludes me and the binge monkey finds me. At one point before this happened, the reading on the morning scale was 186.5 lbs. Today it was 189.5 lbs. I was relieved that it wasn't more. I didn't fall asleep until around 2:30 a.m. last night and got up at around 9:30 a.m. today. This could have easily been a replay of the previous days, but I was able to reverse direction. I got on the elliptical in the late afternoon after first giving myself permission to go at a slower pace than usual. After the first ten minutes or so, I was back to my usual speed. I kept having to ease up when my heart rate reached 141 bpm because my machine will end the program if I maintain a heart rate of 143 bmp for more than 20 seconds or so.

I didn't go to my WW meeting last Thursday. I suspect that I'll show up with a higher weight at this week's meeting than the one two weeks ago. I'm back on track and plan to go to sleep right after I publish this. I hope the gates will open for me.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good sleep and a suitable sleeping pattern are essential for weight loss. Well at least with me. I hope you find your rythm again soon! And well done for exercising after a few days of messed up sleep! Admirable.

Lorraine said...

I think stressing about sleep is what causes problems. I have weird sleeping patterns like you do...the biggest problem, of course, is when you lose weight, you have more energy, technically you can't fall asleep and then you wake up full of energy but hey it's 1 o'clock in the am...Anyway, I was with ww for awhile, on-line anyway and I did lose weight, but the stress of keeping an organized, disciplined routine killed me...I can't do it. So I've smartened up and diet at my own speed...losing slowly but hey, you gotta to live your life, right? Hang in there!

ArleneWKW said...

I'm glad to see you on my blog again Daniele. Getting back to exercising is soooo much harder than continuing with sticking to it.

Hi Lorraine and thanks for stopping by. It's interesting how some people do better without and "organized, disciplined routine" and others, like me, do best with the structure. It's good when we find what works.

laughingwolf said...

my doctor, a gp, lost 102 pounds and sez he's not looked this good since he was a teen... mostly from diet and walking 25 km/week

i need to lose 40 to get me to a comfy weight again... walking, then need to bike and skip rope... also watch what i eat, since i tend to foodicate when stressed

Moby Dick said...

Try an NA or OA or AA meeting. Going to a meeting every day has a lot more power than something that is only once per week.