15 April 2012

I'm still alive

I"m not entirely certain what happened to the past few months. As I mentioned in early February, I've been trying to get my weight down and my sleep pattern under control. So far, I'm failing with both.

As I put an effort into exercising regularly by doing treadmill sessions twice a day, my food intake rose to match. Along the way, I've suffered tendon pain from not warming up slowly enough at the start of each session, then after recovering from that (which meant no sessions at all for several days), I suffered muscle pain and ankle swelling. That meant buying and wearing graduated compression support pantihose (including under my male clothes, which I generally prefer to avoid) whenever the swelling gets bad, making some dietary changes and making an effort to drink more water during and after each session. After more missed and reduced sessions, I temporarily got back on track with the exercise but I still wasn't losing weight.

My sleep patterns are still a disaster, and trying to fix them and get other things done has meant that sometimes I've had to skip morning sessions. On other occasions, I've realised that it's after midnight and I haven't done my evening treadmill session. Given the options of either a 40 odd minute treadmill session, recovery time and a shower before getting to bed, or just cleaning my teeth and going to bed, the latter has won more times that I'm happy about. Sometimes if it's not quite that late, I'll compromise on a shorter treadmill session.

After over 3 months, I'm finally technically able to return to work. There are practicalities that interfere, though, such as the new system that I'm supposed to work under being much more complex that the one that it replaced, meaning that things that took one hour before look like taking around 5 or 6 hours initially, and perhaps reducing to around 3 hours when I get accustomed to it. There is also so much procedural paperwork that I can't get my head around that I don't know when I'll actually be able to start working.

Of course, work also means needing to get my sleep pattern and morning routine sorted out. Instead of getting to bed late and getting up similarly late, having breakfast then spending over an hour on facebook before doing a treadmill session then having a shower, I need to get to bed early enough to do the treadmill session and shower in time for at least a 10am start, if not earlier. I don't know how I'll go with that, or whether I'll simply have to cease the morning sessions.

In amongst all of this, I've been out en femme just twice since my last blog post. Once for a nail appointment and to one cafe night. I've continued to get my waxing done about every 6 weeks, and to get my nails done every fortnight and do other regular grooming required for going out, though. My current nail colour is not as bright as the red that I wore for a couple of days last year, but it's certainly the brightest I've worn for a whole fortnight, and as usual I've noticed very little reaction from anybody when I'm in boy mode. I'm considering my colour options for my next appointment, and that red is certainly a leading contender, possibly with gold French style tips. :)