Rejuvenation

When I have done my eight hours in bed, roll off it and started descending the stairs towards my breakfast, and get stuck on the first step with a painful cramp in my calf, something isn´t quite right. And I know what it is.

For years and years, my body got more and more stiff and hard to get going, not just in the morning but any time I was trying to get moving after having been sitting down for a while. Not so you´d notice, but I sure did. I am pushing fifty, after all (ok, 48, but that´s close enough), and most of my friends who are fifteen or twenty years older than me are showing the signs: the sudden halt four inches out of the chair, the grunt, the evident extra push to finish the rise. I was seeing my future.

Then I started the intermittent fasting scheme. Michael Mosley turned me onto it after some seriously convincing arguments in that documentary everyone saw last year. After some experimenting with what worked best for me I have gone on the 16:8 version, which allows for eating during the first eight hours of awake-time (that would be breakfast and lunch, which coincides with the husband´s lunch and dinner), and then fasting until the next "morning". It´s like steroids for sleep. After a few weeks of this I was feeling like a new person: young, strong, lithe. Others depend on coffee, like the Yarn Harlot, who made me laugh so hard - again!

However, a couple of times I have lapsed. What happens is, I enter a period when I can´t fall asleep. It could be stress and having to mess a lot with my sleeping pattern, which in the long run is death, basically. Or it could be related to time of year, spring & sudden influx of sunlight-induced insomnia is a personal classic, getting worse every year. In my desperation, I convince myself that old remedies like "have a glass of milk" or "have a small sweet snack" will put me to sleep. It will not, of course, it will only make it worse. And, it will rob me of the quality of whatever sleep I get, in the end. Lately, I got into the habit of having a glass of full-fat yoghurt with roasted sunflower seeds and honey. Sooo good! It didn´t help me go to sleep any faster, but it got my mood up, at least.

They only thing that gets me back on track is pain. So now I´m back on track. First morning after a night of fasting and I feel better all ready!