It's not just the flu Worldwide and spreading fast Grab toilet paper
Okay, I couldn’t resist making another crack about the toilet paper hoarding, because really, what is up with people? Do they think toilet paper is some glorious all-purpose thing that will help families make it through global catastrophes? Do they know something about toilet paper that I don’t? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is no.
Not that I can go out and buy some to find out, since they’ve already bought the entire world’s supply in the last week.
Next: Going out and trying to buy toilet paper for real (we’re down to four rolls).
Italy has been quarantined. Yes, the entire country of 60 million people.
The U.S. response is being handled about as well as you’d expect with an orange-skinned narcissist sociopath leading the country.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of all isn’t the cancellation of large events like car shows, professional sports matches and the like (which is logical if you are trying to slow the spread of the virus), but the one thing the general public is fixating on above all else.
Toilet paper.
Yes, for reasons still unclear to me, people are panicking over toilet paper running out. I mean, sure, it’s nice to not have to find toilet paper substitute if you do run out, but what is the actual train of thought here? Do people think toilet paper factories (TPFs) will suddenly close? Do they think trees harvested for paper, including toilet paper, will be placed under quarantine and no longer cut? Do they think the manufacture of everything else–except maybe hand sanitizer–will be unaffected somehow and that only toilet paper has the unique qualities that will see it go scarce?
Of course, due to panic buying, it is now scarce. Here’s a shot I took at the local Save On Foods this afternoon (March 11). Not a single roll of toilet paper to be had:
Good thing we still have a few rolls in the condo. We’ll have to ration them for the next six months, I guess.
This month started out with a fizzle, but is ending on a mostly better note, or series of notes:
My weight is down. Yay.
I am exercising again. Also yay.
I think I’m sleeping better in general.
My writing is…well, more on that below.
Work is [redacted]
On the poop side of things, my writing has gained no traction at all, whether it be fiction or this blog. I fell way behind on my usual one-post-per-day average, just as I did last month, and despite a few posts today, I will still come up short, unless I post ten haikus or something. I’m pretty sure I won’t do that.
I have also fallen behind on my modest reading goal this year. To meet it, I need to read a book every two weeks. To date I have read three this year, so I’m one behind. This is due to a combination of wanting to veg out during my commute and often not getting a seat because the [redacted for adult language] SkyTrain car will be standing room only at 6:30 in the [redacted] morning. It’s insane. I get on at the fourth stop on the Expo line. After my stop, Sapperton, there are 16 more. I’m pretty sure it’s SRO by the second station, Lougheed. It’s silly. Does everyone work in downtown Vancouver? Yes. Yes, they do.
For the writing, I’m not sure what to say. I think about it, sometimes I start, but nothing much happens. The latest book on writing (I’ve read oodles of them now) has the author assert there is no such thing as writer’s block and technically that’s true. Unless you are in a coma or otherwise physically incapable, you can always write if you have some time. So it’s not that I can’t write, I just don’t. And I’m not entirely sure why, because I’ve read some of my stuff recently and while I’m not trying to toot my horn (heh heh), I quite like some of it and think I should write more.
And maybe I will. Soon. I do actually have some additional thoughts on this and will spill them out of my head in another post.
(I’m not talking about work on a public blog. You’ll need the key to my heart diary to find out more about that.)
The good news is that I am indeed down 0.9 pounds for the month vs. where I was at the end of January, and I did it with two fewer days in the month, too. Not only that, it also means I’m 2-2 for the year to date, which is pretty good for the winter “eat everything you can get your hands on” months.
There are a few caveats, though. The main one is that I weighed myself around 9:30 in the morning, about fours later than normal and this typically means I will weight less, due to the way my body processes food. Now, it’s true I might have weighed more anyway if I’d eaten a box of donuts before stepping on the scales, but fortunately I did not do that (I did break my donut rule, though–see below).
The other caveat–though that’s not precisely the right word here–is that my body fat has been climbing of late. In part this is expected, as you can shed weight faster than the overall body fat of your body, meaning that you can go down in weight, but the overall percentage of your now-thinner body that is fat actually increases (temporarily) and that’s where I’m at now.
Anyway, I ate a giant jelly donut yesterday (they were a special end of month treat at work), was trending up in weight for the last three days and still went down, so I’m sticking to Christmas miracle in February.
February 1: 171.5 pounds February 29: 169.6 pounds (down 0.9 pounds)
Year to date: From 171.8 to 169.6 pounds (down 2.2 pounds)
And the body fat:
February 1: 21.6% (36.7 pounds of fat) February 29: 21.9% (37.2 pounds of fat) (up 0.5 pounds)
Last Sunday I got on the treadmill and had a good ol’ workout for the first time in weeks, finally recovered from The Great Flu of 2020.
The next day at work I was feeling a little phlegmy and at first dismissed it as some lingering effect from the flu. I felt fine otherwise. That night I went to bed thinking that this was something. I woke up in the night, my throat raw and inflamed, my sinuses itchy and annoyed. It was something. Something bad.
I missed a day but seemed to bounce back quickly, so returned to work on Wednesday. Thursday I realized that I had not actually recovered, but was simply entering a different phase of what now seemed to be a cold. The most delightful part was getting to experience a whole different set of symptoms compared to the flu.
Thursday was the “running nose” day and when I say running, I’m talking Olympic-caliber sprinting here. It was awful. Also my sinuses began this back and forth of being clogged and unclogged, like a dam that was constantly releasing water, the shut back up, over and over.
I missed another day on Friday. It was now the long weekend and I was sick again.
By Friday night the first of the coughing began. The nose ceased its running and choose instead to just clog up permanently. I tried drinking some water while it was in this state and the experience was weird and unpleasant. Go ahead, try drinking something while holding your nose shut. Do this over a sink or outside, though, because you’re bound to spill. Turns out that breathing is important.
I kept waking up Friday night with my mouth bone dry, because I was breathing through it rather than not breathing at all. Saturday the stuffiness seemed to wax and wane again, but the coughing continued. My voice began to grow hoarse. The cough medicine did nothing or produced an effect that I could not measure with my working senses.
Speaking of senses, the last few days I have lost both my sense of smell and taste. I lifted a garbage bag with a day-old fresh chicken wrapper in it that had to stink to the hills, but smelled not a thing. That was kind of nice. But eating food without tasting it kind of sucks.
By tonight–Sunday–my nose is now officially only half-plugged, a major breakthrough. The coughing is worse when I sit or lay down, so my voice has also gotten worse. I don’t talk right now so much as croak. My voice cracks like I’m revisiting puberty. Once was enough, thanks.
But my sense of smell has returned a tiny bit. I had some mango passionfruit tea tonight and if I smushed the dry teabag right into my nose I could faintly detect a pleasant aroma of fruit.
Tonight I will take NyQuil and hope that my nose stays partly-functional through the night. Tomorrow I hope I “turn the corner” on the coughing because it wears me out, almost as much as getting sick with a cold right after recovering from the flu. It’s silly and wrong and I wonder what karmic payback this is for. Or maybe it’s just riding public transit every day.
Anyway, I thought about complaining about being sick and how it wouldn’t really change anything or make me feel better, but it got me writing, so there’s that. Here’s to better health for the rest of 2020 (pretty pretty please).
Yes, given how awful and lingering this flu has been, I am now dividing my life into pre-flu and post-flu.
Every night for about the past week I have intended to post something to the blog–maybe a haiku, or a comment about the weather (done), but every night, after dinner and by mid-evening I find I have no energy left. The idea of laying down becomes immensely appealing. The idea of engaging my brain while sitting upright seems like far too much work.
That said, I’m forcing myself tonight, as you can now see. So here’s a haiku on the flu. A fluku, if you will.
The flu strikes swiftly Energy sinks like a stone Weeks later, still blah
Okay, not exactly my finest work, but it’s a start. Of something.
It’s a new year and time for new fat! Well, hopefully not.
First, a review of last year. I started the year at 167.5 pounds, 17.5 pounds from my target of 150. I ended the year at 171.8, up 4.3 pounds. As weight loss plans go, this was not exactly the ideal. The only positive is that I got through the month of December without gaining (or losing weight), a somewhat impressive feat given how much candy and treats one gets plied with over the holidays.
I start this year at 171.1 pounds, which is down for the month of January. I had dipped even lower thanks to the flu, but some last minute indulgences pushed me back over 170 pounds. I used food as comfort again, which was bad and I feel bad. But it was yummy. But still, bad.
So here I am 21.1 pounds away from my goal. I am almost recovered from the flu and will start running again. I have managed to keep the snacking under control lately, so who knows, maybe this will be the year I actually dip below 160 again.
January 1: 171.8 pounds January 31: 171.1 pounds (down 0.7 pounds)
Year to date: From 171.8 to 171.1 pounds (down 0.7 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 21% (36.1 pounds of fat) January 31: 21.6% (36.9 pounds of fat) (up 0.8 pounds)
Of which I gained back 1.8 pounds overnight, after eating the world’s most calorie-rich homemade French onion soup (it was very tasty, however).
Here’s the final chart showing the max just before the flu hits and the bottom where I still had very little appetite. As of this morning, post-soup, I am 169.7, so already I am perilously close to edging above 170 pounds again, which is BAD.
The secret to the weight loss was not actually getting sick, of course, it was not eating. Having no appetite due to the ravages of the flu (P.S. get your flu shot) just expedites the process.
The tricky part starts now, as my appetite returns to normal. For the last week I have not done much of any snacking because the idea of snacks has been grossbuckets. Now, though, food can once again return to something I find comforting, reassuring–a welcome distraction from whatever is happening. And therein lies the return to the fat.
But I’m going to try. I really want to stay under 170 for the rest of the month and build on that. I have five days to go and snacks in the pantry.
I hadn’t got around to getting my flu shot yet, thinking, “What are the odds?” Then my partner got the flu and I thought, “What are the odds?”
It turns out the odds were quite excellent, as two days after his symptoms appeared, mine did the same. What has followed has been five days in which I have slept copious amounts, along with bouts of sneezing, coughing and all the other fun stuff one associates with colds and the flu.
And as always, the flu remains an excellent way to lose weight, as lack of appetite played prominently the first few days. The Fitbit chart above shows how I managed to drop 4.1 pounds in four days. For months the goal of breaking under 170 pounds has eluded me and all this time all I had to do was get incredibly ill.
Now to explain the asterisk. Although I was technically up for the month by 0.4 pounds, I have been trending down for several weeks and it was only due to a mysterious overnight gain of 1.6 pounds on the night of the 30th that I was up at all.
For the year to date, my total body weight did not change over the last month, still up 4.3 pounds. The accumulation of body fat also slowed, and for many days in the last two weeks my weight was in what is considered the “normal” range, so there’s that.
Looking ahead, I am reasonably confident that I can keep shedding weight, because December has already bucked the usual weight gain trend and I am continuing the same habits going forward. For example, I could be eating a big chunk of fudge right now at 8:56 p.m. as I type this, but instead I will eat nothing. Ta-da! Also, I have no fudge.
As recounted yesterday, my goal is to still hit 150. I have 21.4 pounds to go. I can do this, and without even needing surgery!
We’ll see what progress I’ve made to that end come January 31.
December 1: 171.4 pounds December 31: 171.8 pounds (up 0.4 pounds)
Year to date: From 167.5 to 171.8 pounds (up 4.3 pounds, unchanged from previous month)
And the body fat:
December 1: 20.1% (34.5 pounds of fat) December 31: 21% (36.1 pounds of fat) (up 1.6 pounds)
This post is brought to you by spin. When you have bad news to present, spin spin spin!
There is not much to spin but here is what I have: my weight gain slowed for the month. Last month I picked up a cement bag-like 4.1 pounds. I still marvel at that (in horror). This month, though, I only gained two pounds!
But I am still up and that’s where the spin ends. The rest of the news is fat and bad.
On November 12 the Fitbit app officially declared me overweight with a BMI of 25. I lucked into normal on November 27 when a rounding error declared the BMI to be 24.9, but was otherwise deemed overweight for the month of November. Yes, I’m aware BMI is a controversial measurement. But my waistline is non-controversially more expansive than it was a month ago. I am gaining weight and as the stats below reveal, it ain’t muscle.
A couple of things have contributed to the weight gain:
Yeah, that whole putting food into the mouth thing. Especially snack food. All attempts to curb this failed, with one notable exception: I promised myself a last oatmeal fudge bar from Starbucks yesterday, walked to the store, then turned around and left, a rare moment of impulse control.
Along with the food-in-mouth problem, I didn’t run much. This was due to a couple of things, like the usual “too dark after work” issue that plagues me during late fall through early spring. I also managed to pull a muscle in my lower back, then a week later pulled another muscle in my upper thigh. The latter was especially vexing. I was given opiates for pain! I did not become addicted. When I did finally run again, I was very slow, but I was also carrying 170+ pounds by that point.
My burdensome current weight reminded me of when I was at my most svelte. This was back in the summer of 2012 when I was running 10Ks three times a week (and walking 4 km to and from the lake each time). I recently found some shots from the MyFitnessPal app I took on my iPhone at the time that showed my current weight. This one is from July 29, 2012:
Yes, I was 144.8 pounds. That seems surreal now. It was also 27 pounds ago. Even the starting point of 159.8 (I apparently can never shed that last 0.8 pounds) is still 12 pounds lighter than I am today.
But there is hope ahead, even as we head into December, the snackiest seasons of the year:
As mentioned above, I’m off the oat fudge bars
I’m still off donuts
I swear no shortbread this year. The shortbread most readily available at nearby stores is covered with sprinkles and crap, so I’m unlikely to be tempted
Still running on weekends
And the one new change: I’m getting a treadmill. Woo! It’s actually commercial grade and honking big. I’ll be able to use it for my weekday runs when it’s too dark/snowy/scary. And then I’ll be able to use it any other time, too. In other words, I’ll be exercising regularly again, which is also what I was doing in 2012 when I was impossibly thin.
So here’s to December being the month the weight starts dropping again, instead of continuing to pack on like it’s being fed through a particle accelerator.
The fatty stats:
November 1: 169.8 pounds November 30: 171.8 pounds (up 2 pounds)
Year to date: From 167.5 to 171.8 pounds (up 4.3 pounds)
And the body fat, now fatter than ever:
November 1: 18.3% (31.1 pounds of fat) November 30: 20% (34.3 pounds of fat) (up 3.2 pounds)
Among life’s little annoyances is wax buildup in ears. Why do our ears even have wax? Does it serve a purpose, other than to be bothersome and clog up your ear canals and just generally be kind of gross?
I asked the internet and this is what it said (answer is courtesy of kidshealth.org:
Earwax has several important jobs. First, it protects and moisturizes the skin of [sic] ear canal, preventing dry, itchy ears. Second, it contains special chemicals that fight off infections that could hurt the skin inside the ear canal. Finally, it acts as a shield between the outside world and the eardrum. When dust, dirt, and other things enter your ear, the earwax traps them so they can’t travel any further.
Apparently earwax will magically fall out of your ears without any action on your part. The same site says this explicitly:
If you want to get rid of earwax, here’s what you need to do: nothing!
I can do nothing quite well, so I am set. My doctor confirmed the same today (that no action is needed against wax, not that I generally excel at doing nothing) when I had both ears squirted repeatedly with a syringe of warm water to remove approximately two kilograms of embedded wax.
Before this squirting occurred, I spent 11 (!) nights putting drops of extra virgin olive oil in each ear before going to bed. Putting oil in your ears is as much fun as it sounds like. It generally didn’t dribble out, but laying on my side and waiting for the oil to settle/soak in for ten minutes night after night was not an experience I am eager to repeat. Much like ear wax itself, it was annoying and kind of yucky.
Speaking of, when the deed was done, I took a photo of the results floating in the container that I had to hold up to my ears to catch the water. It is kind of appalling to think that stuff was inside my body. Just thinking about it makes me not want to eat for the next week. Or year.
I thought about posting the photo here, perhaps behind a spoiler tag, but it’s just too vile. It will be my own special (?) memory. Maybe I’ll add some googly eyes to the container one day and then post it. For now, no one gets to see and everyone should be grateful.
Here’s to my ears not immediately clogging up again in a month’s time.
