Good Day!

Tuesday was a pretty good day. I had to run home at lunch and let the Harley transport guy in to pick up Ray’s bike so I brought Gracie back to work with me.  Turns out she’s the perfect work dog, just hangs out on her bed and naps and chews her bones.

 

SO wish that she could be a permanent fixture around here but the boss is weird about dogs.  But…since he’s not here this week, she came to work again today!

Laid out and snoring within 5 minutes of arriving at the office.

 

After Gracie and I got home from work I fed her and then went directly down to the gym.  Had an awesome workout, reminiscent of the “old days” when I used to go to early morning gym.  My arms were spaghetti and my legs were rubbery.  I used to drink protein powder after weights workouts but now that I am All Whole Food All The Time, I subbed in a “real food” supplement.

Whole30 recommends protein and fat PRE workout and carbs and lean protein POST workout.

My post workout was a bit of sweet potato and half a can of tuna with a bit of salt, lime juice and Frank’s Red Hot.  It was…….meh.  I realized that I used to really like chugging 16oz of sweetened chocolate or banana flavoured liquid after my workout.  This real food approach is…..utilitarian.  Food as fuel.

Dinner was much better about 45 minutes later and consisted of a curry cauli rice (I’m trying to be less of a lazy ass and rice the cauli on the weekends because I just really love cauli rice and all the variations!), leftover pork burger chunked up and topped with a crispy bottomed, drippy egg.  Delicious and completely Whole30 approved.

 

FOOD (Tuesday, March 18)
M1: omelette w/ cabbage slaw that was too salty to eat
M2: pork burger and a half w/ potato wedges & coleslaw
M3: as above, cauli rice w/ pork burger & egg

EXERCISE (Tuesday, March 18)
Row 4,080 meters, 20 minutes (204m/min)
Lunges: 3 x 10 each leg, body weight
Bench: 3 x 8, 50#
Running step ups: 3:15
Stretching: 5 minutes

So there’s that.  There’s also this.  I am super frustrated with and for my hubby.  He was a shift worker for almost 40 years and he struggles with sleep.  He has sleeping pills that he takes every night (not habit forming) but he’s struggling big time with getting enough sleep every night.  He goes to bed at or around 10pm and is awake 4 hours later and can’t get back to sleep until about 10 minutes before his alarm goes off.  So this morning he was extra grumpy about it and I said, “Is it perhaps time to start revising your bedtime routine to try and help your sleep quality?”. I did not exactly get a favourable response because he said “I’ve tried all the things you say and it didn’t help.”.

Well….yes, I suppose you have tried every single thing I’ve said.  For one night.  And it didn’t work, so forget it.  Gah!  There are a few things that he could change/do over the course of a few weeks and I don’t know if I should keep pushing it or just let it go until he’s ready.

Some of the easiest things he could change to improve his sleep quality:

• complete blackout & quiet of room (cover alarm clocks, close door)
  • he won’t do this which is why I sleep with a sleep-mask & ear plugs
• reduce/eliminate bluelight exposure 2 hours before bed
  • I know he won’t do this full out but I wish he would consider wearing orange glasses to block the bluelight
• eliminate alcohol and sugar (rye & coke, anyone?) after dinner
  • I think I could get him to agree to go back to weekends only…which would be an improvement and something he used to do consistently.  His argument is that he didn’t have alcohol or coke last night and he still slept like crap…….but it’s not a one day fix!!  😦
• eat a small couple bites of starchy veggie just before bed to counter the “dawn phenomenon”
  • his dad and his grampa were hypoglycemic so it stands to reason he is experiencing a liver dump at around 2am which is waking his body up.  If he would eat a small starchy veggie snack before bed he could potentially eliminate or delay this.

Anyway…………I need to get him to commit to trying a few of these for at least 30 days to see if he can change his sleep pattern.  Sleep is so, SO important and having disrupted sleep consistently is taking its toll on him.  The trouble is that by the time it’s a few hours before bedtime he’s forgotten how shitty he felt in the morning and so these changes seem less important.  Thoughts?

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