Lost a little weight around my stomach

Yesterday I had a few errands to run - had to go to the post office to pay some bills and get a few things from the supermarket, so I had to go out to the local shops to complete those errands.

I had a nice, long, luxurious shower and used my favourite organic body lotion to make my skin feel nice, which then made me feel nice too and washed my hair and styled it nicely before I left the house.

When I tried on my black khaki pants, I was surprised to find that they were looser on me than they were the last time I wore them! This means I have lost a little bit more weight around my stomach, hips and thighs in the past few weeks, which for any woman, is a good thing. I think I lost maybe 1-2 kilos, which on someone who isn't that big makes a difference.

I haven't been exercising much (a little each day, but not enough to cause the weight loss) as I have been feeling sick for the most part lately, but I haven't been eating much food during the day - I usually only eat 1-2 regular meals a day and maybe some snacks, like dark organic chocolate (that's every day), so my input of food in terms of energy each day isn't enough, probably isn't the recommended daily calorie intake, so of course I have lost a little weight.  Not a lot, but just a little, to make my trousers and jeans and even tracksuit pants, a little looser than normal.

The other good thing is that now my menstrual cycle has finished, my stomach went from the bloatedness it had to flat (well pretty flat considering I haven't been doing many exercises for toning the muscles), so that was also nice too. My stomach is pretty flat even without any exercise, as I have always exercised in the past, so the muscles have stayed strong. It's amazing how menstruation affects me - the bloating, the pain, the iron loss, the mental anguish, the extreme tiredness - and then when menstruation is finished, all of that is gone as if it never happened in the first place.

Anyway, after I came home yesterday, I made some really beautiful tasting baked chicken drumsticks, baked sweet potato and pumpkin and oven-roasted potatoes - all organic. The taste of the chicken itself was unbelievably sublime as I added some herbs and spices and garlic with it. The baked vegetables were also really delicious.  After I ate, I went to my bedroom and fell asleep for two hours - I think the cooking and waking up early not having enough sleep, must have taken all my energy.

Feeling like crap today

I really feel like crap today, physically. I don't feel well at all, tired and lethargic and my lungs hurt still, because of the bronchitis that's still affecting me, which is making me cough a lot.

I am also menstruating at the moment too, which is another factor making me really tired and unwell. I always feel extra sleepy when I am menstruating due to the loss of blood and loss of iron and as I don't eat much meat anyway, it means I am losing a bit too much blood/iron and am not replacing it with the iron in my food and this makes me slightly anaemic. I don't really like red meat that much, so that means I don't eat it much either and that, together with the heavy blood loss each month contributes to my lower than normal iron (and haemoglobin) levels and makes me much more tired than I normally would feel at this time each and every month.

I also get menstrual pain, sometimes quite a lot, during the week of my periods, so that just adds to the whole misery and no painkillers ever help that much.  It also hurts to touch my stomach/abdominal area to the point where I couldn't even have my handbag on my side, as it was touching my stomach and making the pain much worse. I once had pain so bad, that not only did I have the severe cramps, but I also felt like throwing up, I felt dizzy and couldn't even sit down. I went to hospital and they wanted to give me morphine!  It happens very rarely that the pain is that bad, maybe 1-2 times a year, so that is a relief that it doesn't occur like this every month, but when it does, it really is unbearable.

And in addition to the above (as if that wasn't enough), I also get really major bloating in my stomach that makes me look like I am about 4 months pregnant. My stomach gets so bloated that I cant wear my normal clothes, I have to wear one size bigger. Even my jackets, even the loose ones, that are normally baggy, I cant even button up as my stomach gets that big, due to the fluid retention!

I had a nice dinner - spaghetti bolognese - with some nice shaved Parmesan cheese on top.  While the sauce did contain some minced meat, it wasn't enough for my body to re-stock its iron and haemoglobin levels back to normal. It did give me a bit of a boost, but not enough it seems.

In addition to all of this, I have bad insomnia, which means I get to bed really late at night (or rather early in the morning) and then wake up later in the day. Today, though, it was a record sleep. I woke up at 4.50pm after getting to sleep at around 5am this morning!  Obviously I needed the sleep, but when I woke up this afternoon, I felt so sluggish and out of it! It's now almost 9pm and I still feel really tired and sluggish and just feel like going back to sleep again!  I think I need to read instead and try to stop coughing so much.