Seasonal Depression

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So, it's winter here in Virginia. It's been winter for a while now, I know. But somehow I can usually get through the holidays alright. January and February always hit me the hardest as far as Seasonal Affective Depression. It was much worse when we were still living in Rochester, NY. But this year I feel like my SAD has come back pretty strongly. Here's some of my symptoms:

Insomnia, and/or trouble waking up in the morning. Luckily I manage to make it to work, albeit later than usual, but on the weekends I've been finding myself sleeping in past noon which, OK, I did a lot as a teenager and really, still do even when I'm not depressed. But it's HOW I'm sleeping in. Happy Jac sleeps in because "ooh, its so cozy and I'm having a great dream and isn't it lovely to lounge in bed" SAD Jac sleeps in because "Urg, I have no energy, no reason to get up, I don't care about all the things I have to do".

Drinking. I'm not a huge drinker usually. But this past weekend I drank far too much. Normally I have one or two drinks because I enjoy them... a really nice glass of wine or a tasty cocktail. But Friday I was a mess. I was so determined to put on my happy face and have fun with my friends, that I drank a lot because I struggled to feel anything. I haven't had anything to drink since Friday night... except a sip of some of Joe's wine at dinner on Saturday... because I recognize the potential issues here. Plus, alcohol is a depressant and I'm not dumb enough to give a depressed girl MORE depressants. I spent the entire weekend recovering - and not just the typical hangover recovery. My mood is still not recovered.

I'm hungry all the time. I'm an emotional eater. When I'm more emotional, I shovel food into my face like I'm going to starve. I don't enjoy it, I have no concept of being "full", and I'll eat everything in sight. Last week was worse for this, but I've been following this "diet" from a magazine - it's a two week plan - and I made Joe and Bill go grocery shopping with me and I've committed to sticking to it, especially since we spent a lot of money on food.

I don't give a shit about things or enjoy things. I was nominated for "Outstanding Costume Design in a Musical" for our local theater community honors group. I think I did a good job acting with the appropriate amount of excitement to appease everyone around me, but to be honest... my level of excitement was very low. I don't FEEL excited. I also don't feel like I necessarily deserve the nomination. And that's not me being modest. I'm not a poster child for modesty over here. I just... don't care. I'm currently working on a show that opens in a few weeks. I've barely made progress on it and I'm struggling to "get it together". I just started a new position at work, with a big, high visibility project and I'm coming in to work late and leaving early and procrastinating. I started doing the TEAM Fitness thing at the start of January... I've missed at least one session a week since. I didn't go Monday or today this week, nor did I go in to make up for lost time. The apartment is a mess, laundry isn't done, and you know, whatever.

I make it sound terrible. But I've had major depression before in my life and this is not it. I had a nice dinner with friends on Saturday and we laughed so much we were in tears. I'm able to get out of bed and function, where as when I was majorly depressed, those things wouldn't happen. I can still interact with people though my introversion is more pronounced. I'm not crying for no reason like I did when I was depressed.

Because it's not a major depression, going to my doctor and getting meds doesn't really make sense. I've been on anti-depressants before, and they work, but I feel like this is pretty mild in comparison, so what I really need is to see a counselor. I'm in contact with one and hopefully I'll be able to get in to see her in the next week or so. I made an appointment with my psychiatrist because I'm almost out of my ADHD meds. I'm feeling better today than I did even a few days ago, which may have to do with the fact that I'm doing something about it.

The biggest thing that I SHOULD be doing is going to bed early and waking up at the same time every morning. Why a smart chick like me can't get a handle on a sleep schedule... it's frustrating. That would probably help me the most. I definitely rely on Joe too much, or let him enable me. He's a night owl like me, so when he's up until 12:30, I'm up also. He sleeps until 8:30am... I like to snuggle. He doesn't necessarily need to change his schedule... I do. This has always been a huge problem and we need to find a way to remedy it.

Thinking about getting a light box.

Chocolate Milk heals my soul

We've started buying whole chocolate milk from Whole Foods. It's pretty much amazing. I can only drink a half glass at a time because it is so rich but first thing in the morning after an intense workout like today's... man is it good.

I missed the Monday morning TEAM class - i had some issues sleeping and this time chose the extra couple hours of sleep. To make up for it, I went to the gym after work and when I walked in, my trainer was right there. She said "I missed you this morning!!" and then told me I could hop into the 7pm class with a different trainer. I had about 20 minutes before the start of class so I just hung out on the treadmill for a while. Monday was a weight circuit class and this other trainer was a bit harder than Rachel. He was nice, but I don't think I'll be switching classes. Good to know I have an option if I miss the 6am class, also good to know that as "punishment", his class is harder.

I made it in this morning even though we got some snow. Part of the reason I made it was because I could hear Rachel's voice saying that she missed me. Part of it was because today was our first real cardio day and I wanted to make sure I did it with my regular trainer. Plus, we met with the nutritionist, Kara, this morning who gave us a very brief overview and a book to log our meals and workouts.

The cardio was intervals based on Heart Rate zones. We first did an RPE test which determined that my Anaerobic Threshold is 170. For me right now, that's a little faster than a jogging pace and I can barely keep it up for 2 minutes. It was a hard workout but I made it through and took some extra time to stretch afterwards.

Last week Rachel did some measurements and she gave me my results today. My body fat percentage is 28%, and my sit-and-reach flexibility test was 9 inches. According to the body fat wikipedia page, I fall into the "average" category (between 25-31%). According to the BMI that the nutritionist gave me (26.97) I'm considered overweight, which I knew already.

I was exhausted afterwords. I'm still pretty tired 3 hours later. The insomnia is going away I think - I slept pretty well last night though I'm still struggling to get to bed on time. Keeping the cats out of the bedroom seemed to help. I did stop at Starbucks on my way in this morning for a latte and a "protein plate" which is an egg, some fruit, a little cheese, and this yummy muesli bread with honey peanut butter.

Now, I don't have to think about working out until Friday morning!

Week 1 struggles

Yesterday I was sore. Not the sorest I've ever been after working out but I needed to use my hands to assist my legs if I wanted to cross them, and squatting to get into the car or sit on the loo was challenging. Gotta love lunges and bosu squats!

Monday and Tuesday nights it was really hard for me to sleep. First, I got to bed later than I should. To wake up at 5:30am and get 8 hours of sleep, that means going to bed at 9:30 which, sorry folks, isn't going to happen. I'm aiming to be in bed by 11:00 which is early for me. Sunday night, before my first class, I got to bed by 11, Joe came in and snuggled for 20 minutes and I passed out. Monday night I got distracted with cleaning and chatting online so I crawled into bed around 1am. Last night, I didn't get home until 11:45 so again, 1:00 was about the time I actually got into bed. That basically means if I fell asleep right away, I'd be getting 4.5 hours of sleep. Tuesday I woke up around 7:30, but it had taken me a long time to fall and stay asleep. I remember looking at the clock around 4am. My cats missed me when I was on vacation and decided they wanted to snuggle all night. Joe has been taking some medicine to help him with his insomnia which knocks him completely out so he is basically a pile of snoring dead weight. It is very frustrating which only makes falling asleep that much harder. Part of the problem was someone turned our heat up and didn't turn it back down before bed.

I woke up this morning after maybe 3 hours of sleep, and only 4ish hours the night before, for day 2 of TEAM Fitness. Today was day 1 of tests. She weight me (188.8 - I discovered that the scale at home is about 5lbs lower than it should be), did the body fat caliper things, a sit-and-reach for flexibility and then we had to go on the treadmill for 30 minutes to get the best distance we could. I managed 2.13 miles.

I feel pretty tired at work, and i have a lot to do tonight. But, I plan on kicking everyone out at 10 so I can try and get some sleep!

T.E.A.M. Fitness

So, this morning I attended the first TEAM Fitness class at my gym. It's basically small group personal training, three previously I wasn't even waking up until 8:00. Mornings are dark, and cold. It was 27 degrees outside when I walked to my car this morning. Eeesh!


It ends up costing about $166/month (in addition to our regular gym membership) but costs much less than working out with a trainer one-on-one. Plus there is the added camaraderie. In my class this morning there was one other girl my age, all the rest were older people. The trainer is really nice though. Today we did circuit weight training. Wednesday is apparently cardio plus some testing. Not sure yet what Friday is, but I do get the impression that if I want to see results I'm going to need to add in my own cardio a couple days a week. Perhaps on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and then I can become a real morning person.

I feel really good so far today. Since I was so early, I stopped at Whole Foods on my way in to work to pick up some breakfast (they have take-out stuff so I had scrambled eggs with veggies, and roasted potatoes with more veggies) and I stocked up on lunch for the week - pita, hummus, salad, fruit... so I should be getting back on track with the nutrition side of things.

Now, it's just a matter of getting caught up at work. I took my Adderal already. Normally I'd wait until 10:30ish but with starting my new job soon I really want to get used to being "on" all day.