Monday, March 7, 2011

Day 3...I don't like waking up!

Ask my mother about getting me up at 5:45 am everyday so I could have enough time to get ready for school in High School.  Living across town from my school meant that I needed to wake up earlier, and my parents drove me to school every morning for three years (I drove my Senior year).  My mother though made sure I woke up with my alarm every morning, knocking on my bedroom door and encouraging (the nice way of putting it) me out of bed.  By the way, thanks mom for this, I know I was a pain!

Although I have the ability to wake up at those hours, in more recent years that is more likely the hours that I am going to bed!  I've always said that one should never wake up before the sun.  Now 5:45 am is not when I'll be waking up anytime soon, but I do think that I could wake up at 8 am if I tried a little harder.  I'm slowly working on my sleep schedule since I know that in order to have any other form of a routine during the day I need to begin with when I wake up and fall asleep.  So far, I'm still working on that...



I have a few, road blocks you see in doing this.  First, I'm an insomniac.  Yes a legit insomniac, there are nights where regardless of how tired I am, I am not getting to sleep until 4 or 5 am.  My brain wants to shut down, but can't stop, so I toss and turn, watch a Disney movie (who doesn't fall asleep watching a Disney movie late at night?  Me.), drink some sleepytime tea, or take a bath and most of the time I still struggle to get a nights rest.  After a night like that though, I usually won't wake up till 11 am because my body still needs 7-8 hours of sleep and messes up my sleep schedule the following night.  It's a cycle that is not easily corrected, or changed.  I have been told that sticking to a routine where I go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning will help decrease the number of sleepless nights I have.  Going to bed a little earlier every night and waking up a little earlier every morning.  So last night I went to bed at 1:30am (didn't get to sleep for another hour [which was a good hour for me], but that wasn't the point) and today I woke up reluctantly at 9:45am.  The waking up part is a lot harder than the attempting to go to sleep part I think.  Slowly this week I am going to try and work on my sleep schedule before working on the daily schedule.  Baby steps, right?

In other news after two days I seem to be doing all right with the new menu (not calling it a diet, I hate that word!).  I've found some really good recipes, that not only taste good, but are easy to make too.  For instance last night for dinner I had polenta (or corn grits depending on what part of the country you're from lol) with chicken and spinach with a salad with green apple and pecans.  It took me about 15 minutes to make, and was wonderful.  Next time I might add some spice to the chicken though since that was a little bland.  I've also made the most AMAZING chicken salad!!!  I was worried that it was going to taste bland and have a strange flavor since rather than Mayo you use yogurt to bind it, but I couldn't believe how good it tastes!  This is going to become a lunch staple I think!  Here is a picture of some of the foods that I've been cooking.

Polenta Chicken and Spinach with Mixed Greens Salad with Green Apple, Pecans, and Low-Fat Ranch


Curry Chicken Salad Sandwich


Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal and chocolate milk

Minestrone Soup

Ok to me, these do not look, or taste like diet food, which is great!  I have had one flop though, and it was a big flop!  Mac and Cheese I don't think can ever be made into a tasty diet food!

One last accomplishment before I end this post.  Yesterday I needed to run to Walmart for some forgotten items from my previous grocery trip.  I know going to the only Walmart in the county on a Sunday afternoon is suicide, but I did survive.  When I got there rather than driving around looking for a parking spot near the front I parked in the furthest spot in the lot and walked, I also resisted the girl scouts selling cookies outside the door.  God how I love cookie season, but I am going to try and refrain this year.  Small victories, right.  =)

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