Saturday, July 3, 2010

Saturday Check-In

Welcome to a soon-to-be-recurring feature of Swellegant, my weekly check-in regarding my mental health, my fitness activities, and my weight. This will be of little interest to anyone other than myself and my doctors, but I need somewhere to keep track of these things. But so it's not too boring for you, I'll end with the usual pretty picture...your visit won't be a total loss.

Mental Health:

I am currently taking 300mg of Lithium and 25mg of Seroquel at night; earlier in the week, I was doing 600mg of Lithium and 12mg of Seroquel; tonight and for the following four nights, it will be 37mg Seroquel and no Lithium at all; then I'm to add another half-pill of Seroquel every four days until I'm up to three pills (75mg). I am also taking 300mg of Wellbutrin every morning, which will not change.

With a couple of notable exceptions (see blog post below), my mood has been quite good. I am feeling mellow but not stupid, I am sleeping well, and I feel interested in things (particularly this here blog, on which I have tweaked away many hours this week). Aside from the snarkiness and oddly short temper, I did experience a rather unpleasant mood crash on Friday afternoon: I was actually running a bit manic all morning, feeling very energetic and a little anxious, getting quite a bit done though not anything I had intended to do; but then at about 1, shortly after I ate some turkey in fact, I completely crashed...I felt blank, and sad, and cloudy-brained, and unbelievably tired. I skipped the gym and went straight home, lay down for a couple of hours with my eyes closed but not sleeping, and felt better afterward. Today I woke up after ten hours of sleep and felt great.

Fitness

I went to the gym four days this week, Monday through Thursday; I had intended, of course, to do all five days, but it was not to be. Each day, I did twenty minutes on an elliptical machine at resistance level 4. I was starting to get a little sore on Wednesday, but Thursday I got through the twenty minutes quite comfortably, I was actually surprised when my time was up.

Next week I plan to do fifteen minutes on the elliptical and fifteen minutes on either the treadmill or the exercycle, I'm going to try one and then the other and see how I feel. The following week I'll do twenty and twenty to make a forty-minute cardio workout (the recommended time). Then I'll start adding in some weight stuff to tone myself, especially the pecs and glutes (aren't I cute, spouting fitness jargon?) but I have to do some research on how to do those things, how the machines work best, so I don't hurt myself or (more importantly) feel like an ass in front of all the serious workers-out.

Diet and Weight

I weighed 225 this morning in the bathroom; on Monday I was 228, so I lost three pounds this week. Most of this is due to the cardio work, I haven't really been all that conscientious about my eating, though I have been more conscious of it: despite the hunger side-effect of the Seroquel, I have been making better decisions about what to eat when I eat, skipping Taco Bell Tuesday (a tradition that Grandmother and I have developed over the last year) in favor of a garden salad with roast turkey on it, and otherwise making better food decisions when faced with a choice.

I'm not ready to go on the full-on minimal-carb super-lean diet that I did last year, simply because I kind of got bored with it. Plus, I discovered last year that too few carbs can make my mood go flooey, so I have to be careful. But if my glucose levels rise significantly, or my weight-loss doesn't proceed as planned (I'm aiming at the 210 I achieved last year), I may have to. We shall see.

Pretty!

As promised, your reward for listening to me blather on about the picayune details of my life.

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