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.

The Shoulder

Tuesday I arrived at Pilates class (which I've been doing once or twice a week for a few months now). My right shoulder was feeling tense, seemingly from sitting at my computer all day. So I gave them a stretch and a rub and went along my class. It was sore but not unbearable... until after class. I got into my car and I couldn't turn my head, and it hurt all the way down my arm, up my neck, and across my chest. Not sure exactly which move made it that bad, but I was thinking about going to the ER. However, since it wasn't anything life threatening, there was no bleeding, and the pain was only about a 7 on a 1-10 scale... I just took some Aleve, put the heating pad on it, and tried to take it easy.

After not sleeping, I called out of work around 5am. Did manage to get a little nap in. Called an orthopaedic doctor, luckily they had a cancellation and so I headed over at 3. I was thinking it was probably a pinched nerve but since the pain was coming from under my shoulder blade (as opposed to the top of my shoulder/neck where i usually feel it) I decided it warranted going to the doctor.

So, I met with Dr. Lonnie Davis at the Center for Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine. I liked him. He did a lot of "raise your arm this way, turn this way, push, pull" type of things and thinks it is just a strain or possibly a pinched nerve, exacerbated by the fact that my neck and shoulders are very tense. He gave me some Prednisone for the pain/inflammation, a muscle relaxant, and I need to do 6 physical therapy sessions to learn to stretch and strengthen my upper body to avoid this kind of injury from happening again.

This means, though, no pilates for the next two weeks. And I had to cancel the deep tissue and hot stone massage I had scheduled for Friday. Bummer. I'm glad I went to the doctors though, and that it's not a worse diagnosis!

Final Countdown

So, I just got notification that my 10 year high school reunion will be held on Nov. 20th. So, just under two months away.

I weighed myself this morning: 177.5. Not bad considering the last few weeks I haven't done much of anything, except being sad (for good reasons) and getting a terrible cold which had me out for about a week) But now I have a clear deadline, which is always helpful for me. I would be pretty happy if I could get back down to 170 by the reunion. So I signed up for pilates again, once a week for now, and I bought a Groupon for Jazzercise a while ago that is unlimited for two months, so that works out well. If I can go twice a week, plus keep up my walks at lunch, plus pilates and watching what I eat, 170 shouldn't be too hard of a goal to reach (it's about 1 lb a week.)

Bill, my roommate, has a new girlfriend, Lil, thanks to an introduction from yours truly. She's super awesome and wants us to help keep each other motivated and, in her words "bitch at each other when we slack off". Yay workout buddy, even if we work out separately and then just talk about it later.

GeekMoot and ChicMoot lessons

So, a couple weekends Joe's college buddy, Thad, and his S.O., Josh, were visiting from the beautiful (so I've heard) state of Colorado to the beautiful state of Maine, so we, along with Dave, went back up to Joe's parents camp to spend the weekend. We were just up there for GeekMoot for a week in July - which is a yearly vacation we take with Joe's geeky friends to play board games like Arkham Horror... really geeky, involved games, most of which are too complicated for me. We dubbed last weekend "Chic Moot" in response.

A little about the camp: Joe's parents built this beautiful home on Toddy Pond, not too far from Bangor, ME. They live there part time now, and it is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever spent my time. It's all rustic inside, log cabin-esq. There is a hot tub on the deck, and the camp is offset from the lake and relatively private. They have a really nice dock out on the lake attached to the shore, and another floating one a short swim away. Every time I am at camp (during the summer at least) I see loons. Loons happen to be my favorite animal!

During Geek Moot, I made sure to get the guys down to the water at least once a day. A few of us went hiking once, and we went on a nature cruise. But for the most part we sat around, ate, drank, and sat around some more. I actually spent a lot of time alone, just sitting at the dock or otherwise doing my own thing while the guys played games. I went into town a few times. I took a glorious long nap on the hammock. I went to bed at a reasonable time most nights, around midnight, and woke up around 9. After the weekend I felt rejuvenated and relaxed, which lasted a long time after I returned home.

Chic Moot: we spent a good portion of the day on the water. I showed off my canoeing skills with Joe and Dave. Thad and Josh coached me through kayaking... I almost lost my glasses falling into the water during my first canoe-to-kayak transition, but was impressed with being able to get back into the canoe from the water. We went swimming with my nephew. That night, we sat in the hot tub and went out to star gaze. It was only the weekend - flew to Boston on Friday, got to Maine at 4:30am Saturday, up at 9am, bed at 11, woke up at 6 to go on a whale watch, then drove back to Boston and almost missed our flight... but got home around 11.

Here is what I've learned from these two trips.

1. Sleep is important. This seems so simple but I really struggle with getting enough. I should be waking up in the morning around 6:30-7:30, depending on if I need to go running or not so I really should be going to bed between 10:30-11:30.

2. Eat less. Again, a no-brainer but in watching the guys eat during geek-moot vs. the guys during chic-moot... the food awareness in the second group was very different. Observing Dave was particularly interesting. He seems very aware of how much food he needs to eat, when he's had enough, etc. He turns down dessert. He is not an emotional eater. Dave manages to stay trim but doesn't really work out. If I could somehow emulate this (and add working out) it would make my losing weight a lot easier. I've been trying to be more aware of how hungry I actually am, and stopping when I'm almost full, even if the food is incredible, and even if there is a lot left.

3. It is important to balance out activity with "doing nothing". Geek Moot was a good indicator that I need more reflective quiet time than I give myself. Considering how wonderful I felt even after I returned home, this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I do tend to be on the go all the time but I want to work towards simplifying my life so I can be calmer as a norm and not just on vacation. I need to make time to breathe.

4. I shouldn't be afraid to try new sport-type things. Kayaking was so much fun, and I'd been hesitant to try it. Having Thad and Josh talk me through it was good for my confidence. Once I got in the boat and got going - the independent feeling was wonderful. I am excited to try doing a ropes course, learning how to surf, working on golfing... Our hike was really nice during Geek Moot, and I should do more of that, also.

5. I need to work out. Holy moly! Joe's mum took a picture of me in the canoe and I know I shouldn't dwell, but all I can see is my flabby stomach. I try and tell myself "OK, so you have a flabby stomach. You also have mad canoe skillz that everyone was impressed with!" but it's hard to do. The plus side is it was kind of a catalyst and I've started running again.