Tag Archives: health

Operation Sleep Update

Today was a gorgeous day!  I decided to go for a short 6.5 mile ride before breakfast this morning.  I don’t fuel up prior to a ride this short (30 minutes) and find no difference whether I do or not.

I had a good night’s sleep last night.  Most long-time readers know that I have sleep issues.    I suffer from night sweats, easy waking, and sometimes restless legs.

There are a few things that I *know* disrupt my sleep.  One is what I eat.  If I eat a lot of indulgent foods, I sleep poorly because I always  get hot and sweaty on those nights.  I don’t know if it is my body working overtime on that food or what, but that can sometimes keep me from overdoing it.  That was a weird realization.

Stress also keeps me up, which I am sure a lot of people can relate to.  It can be good or bad stress.

Here are some things I have tried and how they have worked.

Tylenol PM – Yep, this works.  However, it makes me uber groggy in the morning and for a good portion of the early part of the day.  And that is at half a dose!  For some reason, I am very afraid to take a full dose (like I will sleep forever), which then makes the medicine not work because it gives me anxiety.  What a mess that is!  I really don’t like to take a sleep aid like this, but I will if I have aches and pains when going to bed.

5HTP – This is an amino acid that is a natural precursor to tryptophan (the turkey sedative 😀  ).  It is also supposed to help with restless legs.  Now, I don’t always get RLS.  I can go a month without it happening, but then it will happen for a few days in a row.  I honestly did not find much benefit with 5HTP for either insomnia or RLS.

Sleep mask:  This one I am still waffling on.  It does block most of the light, which actually is very helpful. However, it does not block all of the light, which filters in underneath my eyes around my nose.  I also have some problems with it staying on all night.  There have been occasions where I wake up and it is around my neck.  I doubt my thyroid really needs the darkening effect of the mask…  I tried adjusting the strap tighter, but then it smooshes my eyes, which is not comfortable.  I will keep with this for a while, though, because I am seeing some benefit.

Magnesium:

In doing a lot of reading, I came across information that magnesium can help with both RLS and insomnia.  And that most Americans do not get enough magnesium on a daily basis. I finally got around to ordering that by the end of June.  I also made sure to get magnesium citrate, which is a more easily assimilated form of magnesium.  I started taking 200 mg at bedtime.  Interestingly enough, this seems to really help me sleep well!  I was very surprised.  I took it for 3 days and slept well.  I forgot it the other night and woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Took the next night and slept all the way through.  I am giving this an initial – yes!  I obviously need a longer period of time to rule out coincidence, but I think between the sleep mask and the magnesium I am doing much better.  I get my magnesium (and most of my supplements) from Puritan’s Pride.  Lots of good specials there, and you all know I love a bargain!

So, there is an update on Operation Sleep!  I seem to do best at 7 hours a night, and that is my goal.  I want 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Question:  How well do you sleep?

Becoming an Outdoors Woman Part 1

Part 1 of 3 so you don’t have to spend 3 hours reading my post! I had a great weekend becoming an outdoors woman!  A nice 3 day weekend, too 😀

There are different BOW programs in other states and Canada, most sponsored by the DEC.  Classes range from archery, shotgun, kayaking/canoeing, campfire cooking, map & compass, hiking,  biking, fishing, and lots more! I would highly recommend trying a weekend!

There were women of all shapes and sizes – and ages!  The oldest woman there was 90 years old, and there was an 83 woman who did the air rifle class (who was affectionately called ‘grandma’).  She rocked! There were approximate 118 women at this workshop.

We stayed at Silver Bay way up north on Lake George – a YMCA facility.  It was beautiful!  This was the inn, which I was not staying in.

Front porch of the Inn:

What a nice way to destress and unwind:

This was my building:

Accommodations much better than my last outdoor adventure!  I was totally expecting to be roughing it.

It pretty much rained all morning, but it really did not rain much in the afternoon, which was lucky!  We had a nice lunch. It was buffet style with salads, soups, and sandwich fixin’s.  I decided on egg salad, a salad-salad and some baked potato soup.  Tres delicious.  Oh, and a pear in the background.

Then it was time for my first class.

We spent time learning about how to prepare for a hike, what to bring and the types of equipment available for various hikes.  Then we did a short hike on one of the trails.  My class had about a dozen women in it.

It was very well marked.  There were white diamonds on the trees to mark this specific trail, plus a really nice branch pathway, which you can see at our feet.

Poison ivy anyone?

Even on well used trails, you have to be really careful.

We ended up near the lake and saw the kayak class:

I want to do that one next time!

Even though we are close to July, it is still really, really green around here.  All the soaking rains recently helped with that.

We did around a 2 mile hike.  It was nice.  Very easy terrain.

Then it was dinner time!

And dessert:

They fed us well this weekend.

And I went out for more pictures of the grounds:

The ubiquitous Adirondack chair!

I had to use the zoom lens – this kitty wanted no part of me :mrgreen:

Ladies Mantle:

You all expected flower pictures, right? 😉

Allium with some asian lilies in front.

Then I listened to a talk on invasive plant and animal species.  That was really interesting, and I should mention more about it some time and how we can all help prevent the spread.  I found out I have one in my garden!  The burning bush – oh no!

Then my sister got there!

44 and 43, respectively.  LOL!  I think I am the bigger goober.  We had a least 5 times where people asked us if we were sisters.  I was saying to Colleen that almost never happened before I lost all my weight. Now it happens all the time.

Next post tomorrow will be Wild Infusions and helping my sister set up her deer hunting class (she taught).

Lifting and lower carb day fun.

Hooray for Friday! Today is a lower carb experiment day. I am shooting for 100 grams of carbs. I went off to the gym for my dose of iron 😀

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff-legged deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower Body
Seated Lat Row 1 set of 12 at 40#

1 set of 10 at 55#

1 set of 8 at 70#

1 set of 5 at 85# (couldn’t squeak out 6!)

 Back
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 140# Calves
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 8 at 55# Chest
Pliet Squat 3 sets of 10 with 40# DB Lower Body
Prone Cuban Snatch 3 sets of 8 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 at 55# Low back and hammies

It was very quiet at the gym today. Not sure if the cold is keeping people away or the January resolutions are petering out?

I pulled out an oldie, but goodie – the prone Cuban snatch from New Rules of Lifting!  Since we all just love to laugh at the name and I have a lot of new readers, here is the video for that again.  (Please turn your sound down) It’s a good move.  Basically you start with a row and then raise your hands so they are parallel with the floor.

Start with smaller weights on these.  The row part will feel super easy, but the raise will get you.

On to breakfast!  I planned out my day in advance last night on livestrong.com.  I put in the things that I wanted to have in there for carbs, which were 2 cups of milk and a pear, then worked backwards to fill in the meals.  I made a 1-minute pumpkin muffin, but left out the sugar.  I topped that with a full serving of the peanut flour mixed with cinnamon and a tiny bit of salt.

I made the muffin, then split it and skillet toasted it.  John said it looked like a cupcake, which it does. 😀

The taste was quite good, actually.  Many people would likely add splenda or stevia to this, but I just don’t go for the sweeteners (even stevia tastes a little funny to me).

This had staying power.  Let me tell you! I was full up until lunch.  I was amazed at the staying power of this.  When you reduce carbs, you have to replace them with something.  I already eat a lot of protein, so I replaced with fat.  Fat is filling.  It’s a little scary, but I am up for going out of my comfort zone on that.

Speaking of lunch –

I had a cheese omelet cooked in some butter.  I laid off the hot sauce a little bit to taste the cheese more. It was delicious.

And this cucumber was really sweet.  Every once in a while they are that way, wonder why?

Latte time!

Nutmeg sprinkled on top.

We make the lattes with whey protein isolate when we amp up the protein (we don’t always do this, but a lot of days).  This is really the only kind of protein that will readily dissolve and be almost undetectable.  BTW – whey isolate is what Starbucks uses when you ask them for a shot of protein in a latte, so you can try it sometime!

I popped some chicken breasts in the oven for dinner.  Emeril came to visit!

Gah’lic anyone? Dinner is served with sauteed brussel sprouts and a pear.  Yay – fruit!

So, the day has been interesting.  We shall see how I feel tomorrow.  This is as low as I want to go with carbs.  Personally, I believe the body needs carbs.  Yes, I know the body can make carbs via ketosis, but why make the body work harder when a system is already in place for it (not to mention the bad breath).  Note that this is not true paleo or primal with the dairy, although some primal people do eat dairy (thinking Mark Sisson people).  So maybe this experiment will be Lori-eo eating. :mrgreen:

Tonight will be fun.  As part of operation ‘do more things’ this month, we are going to a concert down at Skidmore.  On the program?

Janacek- Mládí
David Bruce – Steampunk
Beethoven – Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20.

Evening snack is 1/2 ounce of toasted pecans.  I also budgeted in coffee with cream for the post concert out, bringing my grand carb total today to 83.  It wasn’t so bad!

Strength training tips part deux

Welcome to Friday! Regarding the Wordless Wednesday post from, errr,  Thursday…. Ever have those days where you think it is a day that it actually is not? Raising hand here. I had that all yesterday. Hence the post. At least I now know it is Friday, though! Yay!

I headed out for my lifting session today. I am totally ditching any isolation arm exercises except for shoulder now because they just don’t need the extra work.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Squat 1 set of 10 at 55#

2 sets of 10 at 65#

 Lower Body
Dumbbell Pull Over 3 sets of 8 with 30# DB Back
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 10 at 55# Chest
Decline Situps 3 sets of 10 Core
Alternating Reverse Lunge 3 sets of 10 each leg with 25# plate Lower Body
YTWL 3 sets of 4 each letter with 8# DBs (16# total) Shoulders
Low Back extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low back

New furnace at the gym now, so it was warmer today. I hopped on the treadmill for a little walking. I decided to have a lighter workout today. Maybe because it is Friday?

I was so  ready for brekkie. I soaked some steel cut oats last night so I could make pumpkin custard oats today!

I love those bowls where I am literally saying “yum, yum” as I eat them.  I love food.

Continuing the discussion from last week on lifting and talking a little more about designing a strength workout.  Let’s talk upper body from my unprofessional viewpoint.  Remember that you can choose how you want to do your strength training.  Either full body, or split training.  When doing split training, you will concentrate on one section of your body for that day.  So taking the upper body, you will work the triceps, biceps, shoulders, back and core (abs).  For general conditioning, you basically want to hit each group once during your workout.  Once you have a good solid chunk of time (6 months or so) on conditioning, then you can move to more specific body tweaking if that is the direction you want to go.

I like to start with the big muscle groups first, so I would do chest and back first.  There are so many different exercises to choose from, but the most important thing always is form.  If you cannot get a trainer to help you, do your research. Do a lot of reading and check out online videos like at exrx.net or trainwithmeonline.com.  Also – do all movements without any weight at all to make sure you have the form right.  There is no hurry to add weights, ever.  Attention – do not be afraid to get off the machines and step to the free weights!  Trust me.  I might talk about that at a later date, but I am sure most of you know by now that I am mostly off of all machines.  Not that they don’t have their use, but there is a huge difference between doing a chest press on a machine and with free weights.  But start there if you feel more comfortable.  I’d rather see you on a machine than not lifting at all.

So for me, this is an upper body workout that I have done in the past.

Incline chest fly: Chest
Assisted Dips: Full upper body
Lat pulldown: Back
Reverse crunches: Core
Biceps curls:  Biceps
Triceps kickback: Biceps
Front raise: Shoulders

Question – how many reps and how much weight?  As far as reps go, for good general conditioning you should be doing 8-12 reps with 3 sets, resting 1 minute between each set.  Again, that is just a good average.  As far as the weight goes – it really depends on you.  Do not be afraid to lift heavier.  Your body will tell you what is too much.  With that said, don’t pick up a 40# dumbbell for biceps curls right off the bat. Pick up a weight and do your set of 10.  If you can do that easily, try a little bit heavier weight on the next set.  If on the 3rd set you are easily completing your 10 reps, move heavier.  You want the last set to be really hard to finish, but not complete failure.  I never advise going to failure, especially if you are working by yourself.  Safety first!

Phew – now it’s time for lunch!  I made an omelet and added in some cooked (I just typed cookie) lentils and a laughing cow wedge .   This was actually quite good!

You know, I really don’t like beans that much, but I do love lentils.  I don’t know why I just don’t eat those more instead of worrying about getting in beans.  My mind is just so silly sometimes.

Work was slow in the midday, so I futtered around while waiting for it to be latte time!  I had a mint cup to kick things off:

Then the good stuff.

Again, my appetite is not ravenous.  This is really, really weird.  I think it must have to do with my decreased exercise finally catching up with me.  Normally on a rest day I am very hungry, but with lowered exercise in general, maybe my body finally is caught up?  (Lowered exercise because I am trying to lose some weight, btw).

I was up for the easy dinner tonight.  Cooked up some clams, sauteed brussel sprouts and ready to go!

I had one of those pescetarian days without even planning it.  I have to work tonight, hoping I can get a full day in to end the week off on a good note.  Hope you all have a more exciting night planned than I do!

Question:  Do like lentils or beans (or both?)