May I interrupt?

Hi hello and howdy, it’s been a minute.

I feel like I’ve been a lot of places mentally and physically as well as geographically so let’s catch up, shall we?

April (and May) was a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Work is normally a lot, and instead it was a LOT LOT LOT a lot. I ran away to the woods not once but twice to recover, and once again in May, and I am still hanging on but it has taken every nature bath to do it. I have had to really draw boundaries and be excellent at recovery and downshifting to keep myself a productive and also sane human being. Not sure if I’m changing or circumstances are changing but I guess getting older means getting more exacting about what you want and need and my noggin and meatbag are telling me loud and clear. And I guess getting older means wiser – so I’m listening before they yell at me and knock me down.

Early April – we took a quick trip to a campsite outside Pedernales Falls called Yager Creek. This was right in the midst of the work crazy, and it was just what we needed to recharge before getting back to it. We also hit Blanco State Park so two more checked off the TX State Parks scratch off poster!

Mid-April (right after the work thing) – we had a trip to Buecher State Park booked (the last spot in the only TX State Park available in April when we booked – at least within an hour or two of Austin). The fishing for Joel was not exactly the best (the lake was SO dry) but the scenery and hiking and relaxing was exactly what we were looking for. I read three books in a weekend and took at least that many naps.

The weekend between the trip and the convention I was just absolutely flattened. I crawled into bed at about 4pm on Friday and slept fitfully all night (I couldn’t eat, couldn’t relax, it sucked!). Saturday was a nothing day, I could barely get out of bed, and ate like a toddler as that’s all I could stomach. Sunday was a little better but I didn’t push it. Sometimes stress just comes at you hard and kneecaps you. I let it.

Late April (two days later) was a work convention (in Austin). I was amazed with how close this felt to traveling to a convention in terms of disruption from norm and recovery. Three social dinners, two full days of learning and social interaction, and trying to stay on top of actual work at work during. Sleeping in my own bed was clutch but also commuting to things across town was a pain. It was a lot and even without indulging in the six or seven opportunities for an open bar (just the last night and not very much), it definitely tanked my recovery.

Then, the big trip. 11 days split between a hiking adventure (Valley of Fire + Zion + other places around St George UT) and a convention in Vegas. I was a little worried about completely crushing myself on part 1 (hikes) and crashing into part 2 (Vegas) exhausted, but I found out that wasn’t the case. I felt so great after part 1 I carried that energy into part 2 and got through it OKAY even though spending five days in basically an indoor mall wasn’t exactly my recharge vibe (but I did have both a productive and fun time – just not anything I’d choose to do to relax/recharge).

Using my friend ChatGPT, we’ve started analyzing not only my weight and calorie trends but also my recovery metrics like HRV, sleep quality, stress, and body battery – as well as how I’m feeling mentally/physically outside of the numbers. And, since this is my little soapbox, let me share it with you!

Drinking – obviously my #1 way to absolutely tank recovery. One day of having drinks = one day of bad stats. Not a huge deal but I am WAY less tolerant of feeling crappy and carrying on like I am fine now. Two days in a row or more (like, how I used to handle conventions, or even some random weeks) = potentially a week or more to really recover like after GDC. I avoided that this time, thankfully, and it seems to be a good rule. Drinks yesterday = no drinks today. And the number doesn’t really seem to matter after one – two drinks seem to do the same as five. I still enjoy it every once in a while, but the juice is not as often worth the squeeze anymore.

Social overextension – my job is so social that I’m at the point right now where being social at all feels like a job. It’s a huge change from where I was in college – if I wasn’t out doing stuff with other people, I’d be anxious, I was the extrovertiest extrovert to ever extrovert. Now, I know I should enjoy spending time with people I like, but even fun social interactions with people I like peg my stress immediately into the high category and it stays there for quite a while after I am back home. I don’t want to live like “Hell is other people” but physiologically my body is reacting this way. Other humans make me have to be ON like I am on at work so other humans are work.

Sensory overload – exciting things are cool! …in small doses these days. Too much exposure to bright lights, loud sounds, multiple conversations happening in a loud room, etc – at least when I’m already a little stressed – seems to send me into a stress spike.

Unclear transitions – It used to be so easy before the pandemic – I went to work, I worked, I left work, and then I didn’t work until the next workday. Now, work from home has made this more flexible – good in some ways, bad in others – and even on office days, I tend to have 2 or 3 work sessions – home/office/home or office/home. I am pretty good about finishing my day and closing my door, but then I need to figure out what I’m doing next, when is Joel done working, is it dinner time yet, so I usually flail around for about 30-60+ mins not doing anything productive, just trying to figure out my life and then I’m just kind of exhausted from trying to decide ONE MORE THING. This is one of my June goals – I’m going to have a clear transition with a ritual.

Every moment feeling “claimed” – Part of the after work issue with the flailing is that I always have so much more I want to do, but I am either too mentally cooked from work, or there’s just not enough time with the “have to’s” like dinner, duolingo, D&D writing… and then somehow it’s time for bed and I’m getting dragged away before I feel like I get any time to do things I want that are productive-relaxing. Also, a little bit of the resentment for having to do social things that I know are going to deplete me instead of being able to be productive at something I want to do. It’s a crappy way to look at it, but it’s just how it is right now.

Work – any office day pegs my stress very quickly (the other people thing), or any meeting-heavy day at home does the same. Occasionally I’ve gotten to low stress/rest periods while Teams is closed and I’m working on a focus task that is not stressful/high stakes, but generally it feels like I’m in fight or flight most of the day. Just thinking about work on a day off is definitely activating me, so we shall move on. 🙂

Sleep – is a huge factor right now. Good sleep means all the rest of my numbers are good and I’m ready to storm the castle. I can fight through mediocre sleep but not too many days in a row and bad sleep is just asking for the rest of my stats to tank unless I really turn it around the next day with care. I used to be able to pass out anywhere. Now, I need exactly the right pillows, blankets that are not too heavy and not too light and not scratchy, my white noise machine, the room to be not too hot or cold (though cold is preferred), all blinking lights covered, etc. I’m kind of a pretty pretty princess when it comes to the bed.

But we also found what relaxes me.

Movement – incredibly calming to me. Better than inactivity. Walks. Easy bikes, or maybe even a little bit harder than easy but not sufferfests. Chill runs in the right seasons. Up to Zone 2 stuffs. Either outside in pretty weather/scenery or watching stupid TV. I think I recover better during and after movement most times rather than just sitting on the couch. I’m going to try to harness this as my transition from work to home – a 20-30 min bike or walk. Not to get more cardio in or earn more food, but just to unspool the brain. I tried the sitting and just existing thing and maybe I’ll get back to it someday, but it didn’t really work. And right now, I want to play to my strengths. It will also eliminate the “I’m done with work, wtf do I do?” I bike or walk. While I bike or walk, I figure out what’s next instead of the flail.

Nature – I mean… yeah, I knew this one. But my recovery metrics during the trip cemented it. 5 days of epic hiking? Great. 5 days of Vegas? Not so great. The activity took more out of me physically, especially when I went from 2800 feet to 5600 feet in one morning in Zion, but I rebounded the next day always feeling great. I ran 4 miles outside in gorgeous weather on day 6 instead of hiking and marveled about how awesome my legs and my everything felt. Then, I spent 5 days inside a giant noisy mall. Less physically taxing (even though I had very high step counts most days and worked out a few times in the gym) but was definitely not as relaxing to me than climbing pretty rocks.

Structured but spacious schedules with some self-directed creativity – this is a mouthful but bear with me. I like rituals. Knowing what I’m going to do takes a lot of stress and decision fatigue off me. I live for to-do lists and schedules. Problem is when I optimize TOO much, I get to the end of the day spent, and like I had no time to relax, even if I chose that path. This is another June thing. I’m going to try two things:

1. Get all my “must do” items done before my active transition. I know I’m not always going to be perfect, but that means making time for my daily duolingo, making sure my food is tracked, and I did my D&D writing in the discord if applicable before I am “done” for the day.
2. Then I can transition to movement, then dinner, then it’s totally up to me what I do after. Writing? Photos? Reading? TV? Games? It will probably also (maybe) help me with doom scrolling, as I think that’s the default choice when I am still deciding what I want to actually do (and then sometimes, it becomes what I do not by choice).

I mean, also, just a day off yesterday, fully off, giving myself permission to do nothing but my 1-mile walk, felt great too. I think more than 1-2 of those in a row and I’d get restless. But I should remember to give myself permission to do exactly that after transitioning if I am truly cooked.

Going back to my 2026 experimental habits, just to check in-

1. Drinking less. Yep, this one has stuck. It definitely didn’t solve all my life’s problems (in fact, I think my body has gotten more persnickety about recovery now, which is…. eh) but I’m a happier human having vitamin W(hiskey) being a sometimes food.
2. Eating more (protein). Coupled with the above, I feel like my body is healing years of trauma slowly instead of just magically losing weight, which is also frustrating, but I feel like eventually everything is going to come together. I am still in the “debloat” stage post-trip so I have no idea what I weigh (that’s a tomorrow problem!) but I know I survived it better getting 130-145g protein and ~2700 calories per day on the very very active trip I just took vs trying to cut to a lot less than that to either diet or accommodate drinks daily.
3. Aggressive Work To Do Listing. Having reasonable expectations around what I expect to accomplish each day at work is so refreshing and actually makes me able to let go (sometimes) instead of worrying about all the nebulous things that are left and out there to get me. I set up my schedule every evening before, and during the day make notes of what I have accomplished and what’s left and debrief and set expectations before I close up shop. It’s been a nice ritual, I feel like I’ve been on top of things better, and I can set better expectations on delivery dates (“yes, I can slot that in on my Friday Focus day, I’ll get you a draft no later than Monday EOD”, etc.)
4. Flossing every night before bed/stretching or rolling every night – neither of these things became daily habits but they also worked to become much more frequent ones. So halfway wins!
5. Deep breaths/Noticing things/etc – they are tools in my arsenal but haven’t been my “silver bullet” to calm me the eff down. We’ll keep trying. This is what the active transition next month is trying to do – find the “off switch” where I can put my stresses in a box for the night/weekend.

So yeah, my two new habits that are kind of extensions bigger goals (let go of stress/work better) will be:

1. Active transition from work to home (or “must do” to “want to do”) now includes light activity before dinner.
2. Conscious decisions of what I want to do after work with my time instead of feeling like my time is passively eaten.

Basically, I’m trying more things to help myself stand down and deactivate instead of just feeling low grade always on.

June is also a month where we have no travel plans – unless we do a ninja short camping thing last minute over the holiday long weekend – but right now we’re both kind of feeling like a month at home sounds nice, since it will be a while before that happens again. But the new camper is very nice and relaxing and so is tubing so… yeah. We’ll see.

Ok, goal catchup!

#1 My Meatbag!

I am going to skip the weights pictures but here’s some numbers:

April – 185.3 trendweight -> 184.7 trendweight. Considering what I was up against, I will absolutely take it.

May – 184.7 trendweight -> 184.4 trendweight on May 9. I am a little terrified to see what 11 days of hiking and Vegas did to me, but I tracked everything and ChatGPTrainer thinks I supported my activity around maintenance mode and didn’t gain much actual fat. But I expect the scale to be noisy (I do still feel bloated) and for that to mess with my head for a while.

Goal is and continues to be-

1800-2000 on rest days. Trying for the lower end, but I’ve found that my appetite doesn’t really change much on rest vs moderately active days, so I’m carving out more of my deficit on active days where I burn more but don’t feel like I need to eat that much more.

2000-2200 on days with under 1h easy-ish cardio. Maybe a little more (up to 2300) on days I lift too.

2300-2500 on my bigger volume days (~2h) and can go higher if I do more.

And always, this is honoring the hunger I feel (if it truly is hunger). If I’m eating enough protein and I’m not hungry, I’ll go lower. If I’m ready to crime for a snack, I will eat.

More data when there’s data to… more?

#2 Sporty Stuffs.

Last post I said I was mostly just supporting #1 above and I’d say that’s pretty accurate. I’m thinking about resuming the bike plan next week to get some more structure besides “get on and pedal” again. I was considering the run plan, but I had to commit to 5 days a week and… yeah… not going to happen in the summer. I’ll follow those as one-offs on the daily recommendation and focus on biking. In the AC.

Stats for April

• Run 18.5 miles
• Bike 60.5 miles
• Walk 85 miles
• Strength 8 sessions

And stats for May. Improvements everywhere, even if they weren’t Jan/Feb numbers…

• Run 25 miles so far, another 6-10 planned
• Bike 55 miles so far, another 20-30 planned
• Walk 58 miles so far, another 10-15 planned
• Hiking 25 miles (tracked these separately for a badge :D)
• Strength 10 sessions so far, 12-13 planned

June goals – just a little more to the runs and bikes + add in a swim once a week. But again, my biggest priority is #1 so whatever supports that the best. ChatGPTrainer also likes to remind me that even when I’m feeling “not super active” (like April) I’m pretty active. I’m getting a little bit of an itch to do something stupid again soon – another 50k, maybe a metric century or century ride, maybe a half marathon, but I definitely am not starting ANY of that until after Kerrville/fall/cooler weather.

#3 Adulting (the Q2 list)

• Do taxes (done!)
• Get rid of the garage fridge
• Clean off and take the table in the garage back to the front door
• Take garage stuff from work back to work
• Take garage stuff that needs to go to goodwill to goodwill
• Clean out the shelves in my office.
• Clean out the under the counter weird stuff (done)
• and the shelf where the cat food is and just has random junk
• Get the new lights put up (done)
• Call ABC on the thing falling down outside (done!)
• Sell our old garmin watches
• Hang pictures that are in frames
• house painting (this is a biggie, I call this a bonus)

It looks a little sad right now but see the travel schedule. 🙂 I think if we put our minds to it, we can make a big dent in this over the next month without too many obligations. I keep putting off the “cat food shelf” and its random junk and I should like, go do that right now.

#4 Hobby/Fun Stuff

Travels first:

• Camping weekend in April – two!
• Vegas/St George in May – back!
• Possible camping or long weekend trip in June? – no, probably staying home
• Krause Springs camping in July – booked – 4 nights
• Italy/Greek Isles cruise in August OR extended work from camper traveling north to cooler weather (depending on work stuff) <- neither – the EU work trip is happening BUT I think we’re going to do a hut-to-hut hike instead! Stay tuned.
• Kerrville camping in September for the race – booking soon!
• Not sure if anything for Q4 – maybe one camping trip but probably nothing epic.

Now hobbies:

• PHOTO EDITING: Krause 2025 done, now working on New Braunfels 2025 and continuing on all the shorter 2025 projects to get caught up.
• WRITING: Besides participating in the Discord to continue the story (which counts! sort of…) I haven’t touched the backlog. I should be doing that right now but productive procrastination is in effect.
• PAINTING: I painted a mother’s day flower for my mom. Um, yeah. The canvas still is untouched.
• GUITAR: I’ve enjoyed playing a little bit but it hasn’t become a habit. I really could use the 5-minute breaks to destress. Maybe that’s a sub goal for June?
• WALKO TACO – it’s way too hot. Officially fall.
• MORE GAMES WITH JOEL: we have both been super hard into our books and other hobbies. Maybe soon!

#5 Work Life Balance

I talked a lot about this earlier, but it’s figuring out how to care deeply without carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders without an off switch. Still in progress. Probably will always be until I retire!

And on that note, either going to write or clean out the cat food shelf because obv I didn’t actually get up and do it. 🙂 Until next time!