PMS...

In August I stopped taking the pill. Not because I want to fall pregnant, but because I felt that I needed to give my body a break and eliminate things that may be having a negative effect on my body. I now have my third period since then, and I am suffering badly from PMS. Much worse than I ever have been before!
It starts with a really fatigued feeling the week or so before my period (have had this for years), and then as the period starts I have been getting bad headaches, feeling very down and unable to cope with things that normally would not be a big deal, irritable and angry, etc, etc. It is so bad that I am thinking stopping taking the pill was a really really bad idea.

Tonight I have been reading a bit about what might help with PMS, and I am going to try out some of the suggestions I have found (information from Better Health Channel and eHealthMD):
- taking calcium and magnesium. It has been found that calcium can reduce PMS symptoms by almost half.
- evening primrose oil is something I used to take but have not been taking for a while - I will start taking that again too. It is supposed to help reduce breast tenderness and bloating. Although these symptoms are annoying and uncomfortable, these are not the things that are getting to me - the completely wiped out feeling as well as feeling so down is what I really hope to find some relief from.
- I may also try St John's Wort. This herb is supposed to help improve mood and our ability to deal with stress, but can also interact with some medications - one of which is the pill - it has been shown to reduce the effect of the pill (sorry, haven't got the reference, this is something I read a long time ago).
- exercise is listed as something that can help, so I will make a point to exercise for 30 minutes a day when I have my period (hopefully more than just those days!)

I am hoping these things will work. I feel terrible and am not nice to be around when these symptoms are here. And it is also causing me more stress because I am not getting anything done!

Being told what to do?

My breakfast this morning was muesli, yoghurt, blueberries and a few walnuts. Yum!!

I just read something profound (for me) in a post called (translated from Norwegian) "Experts who say: You Must!" in a Norwegian blog called "Big man going down". This blog is written by a man who has lost an extraordinary amount of weight.

Roughly translated it says that it is better that a doctor says "if you stay the same weight you will likely die before you are 50" rather than saying "you need to loose weight". The first option is leaving me to make my own conclusions and choose if I want to make a change or not - so it is much more self motivating. The second option is just telling me something I have to do - which straight away will (for me - I don't like being told what to do) bring to the front all the reasons why I can't right now/it is too hard/etc etc, and make me detest it all....

Making my own conclusion and deciding what to do means I have to take ownership of the decision - which means I am much more likely to follow through with it.
I do need to loose weight. I am in the danger zone for developing diabetes type 2, and apparently my back will be better if I loose weight. Often I find it all so overwhelming, but after reading Nevyn's comment on my last post "Sabotage" I decided last night I would make one goal for today - to go for my little walk in the morning. And I did!

Sabotage

Why do I do this to myself? I had a terrible night last night, where I was up around 6 times. Not much sleep was had at all, and that has totally wiped me out today. The whole day has been wasted. I didn't go for a walk. I ate a LOT of chocolate. I have had no fruit and no vegetables. Why do I do this?

Good and Bad

The bad: I have not been going to bed at a proper time, and my fruit eating has been nearly non-existing this week. I have also let my bedroom get messy again :-(
The good: For more than two weeks now I have gone for a walk in the morning every day except 2 mornings (this morning, and Sunday when I slept in and it was too hot by the time I was up). I am very happy that I have kept up going for these little walks. This morning I was running late, and I felt that I shouldn't be any later in to work so dropped the walk. I need to learn that this is NOT a good thing to do. No one would have missed me at work, and as it was I ended up working back until 7 anyway. I really need to get it into my head that I have to prioritise my health and let other things give. By the time I got home it would have been nice to go for a walk, but during the day I started getting very bad ovulation pains - every step I walk hurts! So I am going to have a bath soon and have an early night instead.

Done

I have got my list done - but I was procrastinating a lot with the 10 minute tidy. Pretty silly really... more than half of the time was spent folding and putting away clothes that were in a washing basket, but I also got time to sort through a couple of things. It might take a long time, but if I keep this up I will eventually get through everything :-)

• eat two pieces of fruit as snacks - done (an apple and a mango which should have been left to ripen a bit longer.... my mouth is feeling tingly from it.
• go for a short walk as soon as I get home - done
• spend 10 minutes tidying/sorting in my bedroom - finally done :-)
• do 10 minutes of yoga streches - done * 2

I like seing my list all done :-)
even if it is only a very short list...

I recently checked out Blog This. They had a Dream Home challenge that I really wanted to do - but this last week has just been too crazy... even though the challenge is finished over at Blog This, I would like to do a post about this, as this is something I have thought a bit about in my 'quest' to find me. A little while ago, I had absolutely no idea what my dream home would be. I did not know what I liked, how I would like to live or where. I just knew it wasn't how I was (and am) living. There are still a lot of question marks, but I have gradually started to learn about what I like. But - this is a post for another day!

Just a very quick post to keep myself accountable. I had a long day, and after I got back I had no energy to get anything done. But, in the end I dragged myself up and tidied the bedroom for 10 minutes, and then I did 10 minutes of exercises for my back and some stretching. If I hadn't posted last night that I would do some tidying, I would not have got any of it done.
For tomorrow I am going back to my goals of last week (leaving out the bedtime one, as the weekends tend to be a bit all over the place - and tonight it is already 11.30pm):

• eat two pieces of fruit as snacks
• go for a short walk as soon as I get home
• spend 10 minutes tidying/sorting in my bedroom
• do 10 minutes of yoga streches

As I need to pick up boychild 2 from school tomorrow I will be home at a reasonable time - and I am looking forward to that!

Blogging?

What happened to my blogging?? I think work ate my blogging time and blogging energy. I was going so good last week - right up until Friday when I was at work until after 10pm. Over the weekend I was burying myself in a book - I was escaping from the thought of a meeting I was having at work on Monday - a meeting I was not looking forward to. Then on Monday I had meetings in two different locations to where my office is, so I spent quite a bit of time in the car - and I did not get home from work until 9.30.
Tuesday was a really hot day here - and although I was home around 5pm, I was feeling totally wiped out from the heat. My aircon has died, and boy did I feel that yesterday!
Today has been another day of working at a different location to my office, and with the hour long drive back I was not back in my office until after 4.30pm. Because I had a lot to catch up on, it was 8.45 by the time I was driving home.
Tomorrow I have to go in to the city for the day, so I will probably feel pretty wiped out by the time I get back on the train.
So far this week I have not done any of the things on my list - no walks, no yoga, no tidying up/sorting out my bedroom. The last two days I have managed to get my fruit and some salad into me (a very good one yesterday which included tuna and mixed beans) - so I am happy about that.
This week was supposed to be a very quiet week - but somehow I have ended up with a really busy week instead.
I need to get back to posting my little list, cause it works!!
Because I know tomorrow is going to be hectic, I will have only one thing on my list:

• 10 minutes tidying/sorting in my bedroom (stuff is starting to take over my little yoga patch again!)

So that's it - no matter how tired I am, I should be able to get this one little thing done!
Now I need to get to sleep - early morning tomorrow, I have to get to the trainstation by 8am - I will only be leaving from home a short time earlier than usual, but I need to be more organised in the morning - I often eat my oat porridge breakfast at work, can't do that tomorrow!
That's it for me - Good night :-)