Wrapping Up the Weekend

The sleep lecture guy said that a good cure for insomnia is to relax and count your breaths from 1 to 10, then repeat until you bore yourself to sleep.  OK, no, he didn't say "bore," but I think the point was made.  (See.  I was right.  You don't have to do "alternate nostril breathing."  Any old calming breathing will do.)

He also discussed the causes of insomnia, including "environmental causes."  He listed those as things like an uncomfortable climate or the snoring of your partner.  Oddly enough, he omitted "eight-and-a-half pounds of cat that's happy to have you home," which is what awakened me several times last night.  I slept through it at first -- I was dreaming about something and that dream involved someone giving me a cat.  And I was petting the cat and thinking about how cute the cat was and then I realized, "that cat looks just like Jasmine."  And then I thought, "Hey!  That cat IS Jasmine!  And she's on my bed!"  I got back to sleep, but Jasmine was very active last night.  I think it was around 3:00 when she had a bout of what I call "Kittinsanity" -- which is when a cat goes nuts and tears around the house for no reason whatsoever.  She ran straight across me, down the hall, into the living room, and (from the sound of it) right up the cat tree -- then right back down, down the hall, and back across the bed. 

The good thing about Kittinsanity is that the cat winds down pretty quick, and she gave up and caught some sleep.

Until 4:00, when she decided to get my attention yet again.

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I refuse to turn this journal into a Weight Loss Journal (although, I seem to recall, a couple years ago, AOLJournals had filed it away as one).  I will report, however, that I lost a pound or two when I was away.  (My scale isn't any more accurate than that.)  And I was a good little girl and stopped off at the store on the way to work today, acquiring: yogurt (for breakfast); apples (for morning snack); baby carrots (for afternoon snack); and a little single-cup sized tupperware container (for parsing out pretzel portions).  AND I kept my water bottle on my desk and drank tons of water.  I didn't quite do everything as directed (for one, I didn't have any protein with my afternoon snack), but, so far, I'm sort of going with the plan.

The biggest thing I'm doing with the plan ... actually, BEYOND the plan ... is I'm trying to quit my Coke habit.  (-a-cola, not the other coke.)  The nutritionist told me to start switching to Diet Coke by drinking half Coke and half Diet.  But, over the weekend at the spa, I didn't have ANY soda at all, so I started having caffeine withdrawal symptoms (wicked headaches).  I dealt with this by having some caffeinated tea -- first two cups; then down to one.  Yesterday, I didn't have any tea at all and (shock) there was no headache.  It's too early to say I've beaten this particular beast (there could definitely be another caffeine-deprived headache in my immediate future), but I'm in no hurry to pick up a Coke again.  I'm just fine drinking water -- it can be just as refreshing, and as long as I'm getting enough sleep (a BIG challenge, but it's something I need to do), I won't need the Coke.  The way my nutritionist put it is that there's no sense in "drinking your calories" -- and I think I average about 200 calories of Coke each day.

So, yeah -- seven hours of sleep each night and no Coke.  That alone should drop a pound every few weeks.  Let's see how long I can keep it up. 

(No wagering.)