Tag: headache

When You’re Just Not Feeling It

I’m not feeling it today. I woke up with a headache this morning that didn’t go away till the afternoon. Then starting about four, I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. But I had to, because this night is my husband’s shop night and so I was on my own to get kids to bed. I fell asleep in the two year old’s bed, because he wouldn’t go to sleep and I finally gave up and just laid down on his bed and went to sleep myself. It must have worked because I eventually woke up and he was asleep next to me. I dragged myself downstairs, remembering that I hadn’t finished my blog for the next day. I started one this afternoon. All about perfectionism. And I just reread it and I feel like I’m preaching. And I just don’t feel like preaching today.

I want to write down funny stories about what my kids have done, but my sense of humour has been a bit strained lately. I would like to be poetic or lyrical. Nope. That’s not happening either. Today is just one of those days where you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving.

There were a couple sweet notes in the day. Eating lunch on the deck with my two little boys and my husband who came home from work. Giving my six youngest children the job of moving our humongous trampoline from one corner of the yard to the opposite corner, a journey that was long, and involved getting around a lot of obstacles. Not only did they rise to the challenge, but they managed to work together cheerfully and with lots of enthusiasm. So, now you know, teamwork building project: have your children move a really big trampoline. That cheerfulness even lasted all the way to bedtime, major bonus.

Let’s see. Other good things that happened today…I got to help my eight year old daughter practice a couple songs on the piano and started teaching her a cute little song to sing for our musical evening that’s coming up soon. I got to sit out in the sunshine and fresh air while I watched my little boys playing in the yard. I exercised today, despite my headache.

I thought about some good things. Pondered perfectionism. Questioned the meaning of life. Daydreamed about what my children would be like when they were all grown up. Enjoyed reading a book by Linda Nichols, “In Search of Eden”. I recommend that book and any of her other books. She’s a really good storyteller that mixes gritty, harsh reality with amazing grace.

I will conclude with one little snippet about perfectionism. I am a closet perfectionist. I feel like a good day only happens when my house is spotless; I’m full of energy; my children are all perfectly-behaved, content, and well-adjusted. Today wasn’t really any of those things (aside from the success of children moving a trampoline). But, looking back, I have to say. It was a good day. Full of flaws: headaches and messy houses included, but it’s ok. The day doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. What makes the day good is me being able to stop and notice the goodness tucked away here and there. It’s a good day when I take the time to be thankful for the small things.

I guess it was a pretty good day after all. And the best thing, I can now go to bed. 🙂

 

Fat Fridays: Week 9 Diary of a Sugar Detox

Last week I wrote that I was going to fast sugar for a week. But not until I had finished eating my Valentine’s chocolate. Well, Sunday night I had one more chocolate left. I toyed around with the idea of hanging on to that last chocolate for an indefinite amount of time so I wouldn’t have to start my fast, but finally decided to stop dragging my feet. Besides, I had developed a tooth ache and sugar wasn’t sounding very good anyway. I gave my last chocolate to my husband and decided to start Monday morning. My end goal is to break the sugar addiction so that sugar becomes an occasional treat instead of a daily necessity. I ended up keeping an informal diary…

Day 1: First day without sugar. I don’t think this is going to be a problem. My teeth are hurting so badly that I don’t want to eat anything except lukewarm soup. Maybe some soft bread. I reached for a grape in the fridge and then thought about biting into the cold fruit and how my teeth wouldn’t like that and I immediately returned the grape to the fridge.

Day 2: I’m proud of my breakfast. A bowl of chicken vegetable soup, some toast and an orange. Breakfast is always the hardest time of day for me to avoid sugar. How do I live without cereal, or oatmeal with brown sugar, or pastries, or sweetened yogurts, or muffins? I’m starting to feel a headache coming on which always happens to me when I cut sugar out of my diet. I’m going to exercise and drink tea and lots of water and hope it doesn’t get too bad. I keep finding myself thinking, maybe I’ll have a granola bar..wait no sugar.. Maybe I’ll make some caramel popcorn for the kids…wait no sugar…Maybe I’ll put some strawberry jam on my toast..wait no sugar.. I think it’s going to get harder before it gets easier.

Day 3: Today has been my grumpy day. I woke up with a mild headache and felt a bit queasy. Either I was coming down with something or my body was struggling to adjust to the lack of sugar in my system. All day I gravitated towards sugary food only to have to remind myself, NO SUGAR! This evening I had to go to Walmart. It was 9:30 at night and I was tired. I pulled into the parking lot and I thought, hmm, I should get a nice donut. Wait. No sugar. Then I wondered why I wanted a donut..and that would be because I’m tired. I needed a boost to get me through this last push of grocery shopping and getting home and putting groceries away before I could finally collapse into bed. I’ve never been big on caffeine, but instead I think I use sugar to give me that jolt of energy I need. I tried to think of what I could buy that would do the same thing, but didn’t have sugar. I saw a bag of fresh, crisp, green grapes and that looked good so I put them in the cart. Then I was walking past the cookie aisle and I saw the sugar-free cookie section. Yes! Cookies! Without sugar! Perfect! Of course, I had an inner voice lecturing me about chemicals and additives and fake stuff that wasn’t going to be any better for my body, but who cares, cookies sounded good. I finally got out to the car, put the groceries in the back of the van and pulled out both the sugar-free cookies and the grapes and brought them to the front of the van with me. I decided to experiment. I ate a grape, savored it for a minute. Then I pulled out a cookie, tried to savor it. It was a bit gross. Just a bit. It was definitely sweet, but did not deliver that oomph that real sugar does. It was actually pretty unexciting. I put the cookies away and continued to munch on the grapes. Maybe this counts as a small victory.

Day 4: For some reason, this has been the hardest day so far. Isn’t this supposed to be getting easier? I woke up with a headache (about the only time I get headaches is when I make major changes to my diet). I’ve felt tired and listless and just want to stay in bed. I’m feeling disappointed because it seems like I should be getting more energy. I’ve been exercising from 30 minutes to an hour every day for several weeks now and I still feel sore and achy at night. I was hoping that getting off sugar would give me more energy, but apparently I’m not at that stage yet. Right now my body seems to be in shock and can barely drag through the day. Three nights in a row now I have laid in bed exhausted and wide awake, my dear friend Insomnia paying a visit. It kind of makes you pause and think, what on earth have I been doing to myself? What is this drug that I’ve been drowning myself in? And yes, you might think, well maybe this has nothing to do with sugar, maybe you’re just fighting a virus. I might be tempted to think that, except that this has happened every single time I have taken sugar out of my diet ( I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done that, and yet I still always go back to eating sugar). I’m thinking I’m going to have to extend this fast for another week just so I can get it fully out of my system and start reaping some of the benefits.

 

Well, three more days to go before I’m officially done with the fast. It’s funny, I always flippantly think, Oh, I’ll just stop eating sugar, or white bread, or junk food. I forget how hard it is to change your course, your path, the normal way you do things. I’m glad I’m doing this whole healthy thing slowly. I don’t think I can handle more than one change at a time. Hopefully by next week I’ll be sugar free and boasting about how much energy I have. We’ll see. See y’all next week.