Whole30 - Day 16 – To Sleep Perhaps to Dream

in writing •  7 years ago 

Whole30, Day 16, Wednesday 1/17/2017

The Whole30, day 16. And what is the Whole30? A month of clean eating. In the words of co-creator Melissa Hartwig, the idea is to "eliminate the most common craving-inducing, blood sugar disrupting, gut-damaging, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days…Push the reset button with your health." If you consume no sugar, alcohol, legumes, dairy, carrageenan, MSG, sulfites, grains or baked goods, for 30 days, if you really really do it, the creators of this program promise it has the power to change your life.

Right, I thought. Change your life. Sure.

I was a little jaded going in. I decided to do it with my sister @jayna because I have long suspected grains are causing some of the aches and pains I have. Maybe cutting them out for a month would confirm that once and for all. I expected to feel a little better. I wasn't asking the program to change my life. Wasn't expecting it to. But, oddly, it seems to have done just that.

Walkin' After Midnight

I go out walkin' after midnight
Out in the moonlight
Just like we used to do, I'm always walkin'
After midnight, searchin' for you (wa-wa-walking, wa-wa-walking)
Patsy Cline

I have sleep issues, a few decades of them under my belt now. Some people have trouble getting to sleep, my issue has always been staying asleep. I've had a sleep study done, gone to a sleep therapist, the whole routine. If all those things fail you and you persist in wanting whacky luxuries like holding down a job and constructing coherent sentences, you turn to sleep aids. The issue with sleep aids, as you well know if you are among the legions of the sleep-challenged, is that anything that puts you to sleep may enjoy keeping you there. Take too much or the wrong one and you feel like three zombies and their dog in the morning. Take too little and it doesn't help you get more sleep, it just makes you irritatingly muzzy-headed, but still tired. Happily, a few years ago, I found an herbal tea that worked for me, Get Some Zzzzzs from Republic of Tea. I think it is the Valerian that does it. I get to sleep most of the night, and if I do get up, I can get back to sleep. I am not asking a lot here. I take it every night, or I did.

And the clouds parted and the Zombies sang

After starting the Whole30, I began to have a hard time waking up in the morning. Each day it was worse, another sandbag on my eyelids and then another. I started being late for work because I was so groggy and not moving very quickly. I chalked it up to a head cold I was getting over. But even when the cold was completely gone, I was still having trouble. So, about a week ago, I took the radical step of not drinking my tea at night. And, another Whole30 miracle was given unto me. I slept that night just as well as if I'd had the tea. I was pretty sure it was a fluke, a one off. I'd been sick, maybe I was still getting over it. I came up with quite a few reasons not to believe that after 30 years of sleep problems my issues were fixed in a week without muffins or white wine or pasta. But it has continued.

My man has this dreaming thing down

I now sleep without taking a sleep aid. I have done this for about a week and wake up every morning totally amazed that it happened again, the magic worked, I slept! And I dream now too, dreams I can remember. My husband, who does not take sleep aids, has a vivid and bizarre dream life. The man has fun while he's sleeping, madcap adventures in all sorts of countries. And if I am right there when he wakes up, he can generally remember them and tell me what happened. I think his coo-koo dream life shows he is sleeping deeply, and the fact that I have started dreaming means I am sleeping more deeply now as well. This is a whole different animal from the herb-induced facsimile sleep I was getting before.

Dreams, no extra charge

The other night I dreamt I was in the basement of the house I grew up in with several people from my current life, and oddly, a set of rented silverware. Unlike my husband, who would have had a rented submarine instead, one that The Beatles began climbing out of while singing French folk songs, or a rented goat he was supposed to sell at the market in order to buy back his father's wig which he was to wear while saving the British Navy by making them soup, my dream was pretty uneventful. What was remarkable was how vivid and clear it all was. The few dreams I can remember having since childhood were always set in nightscapes, scribbled over with a black crayon, very little in the way of narrative. This was different, such vivid detail. The basement was enormous, with cathedral ceilings, a breeze coming in at the windows, and walls that had drywall but no paint. You could see the drywall tape outlining each panel. If asked, I might be able to reproduce the pattern on the rented silver. It felt like a real place, a world I could walk around in, just like my husband's dreams only not coo-koo. But give me time, give me time. Coo-koo may come. The path from rented silverware to rented goats is a short one.

What I ate Wednesday 1/17/2017
Breakfast: Eggs, pineapple, coffee
Lunch: Salad, tuna, almond milk
Dinner: Curried chicken and cauliflower
Snack: Walnuts, almond milk, apple

pixabay image

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  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Oh you are a gem! I just love what you come up with, and your funny, unique phrasing. And praise the heavens that you are getting sleep!

Do you think we will be able to stay relatively good when our 30 days are over? Or will we hoist ourselves up to a feeding trough and shove our faces in, pulling out only briefly, and just long enough to hork back a goblet of ale?

It is the million dollar question, isn't it. What do I love more, feeling good and sleeping like I did when I was a youngin' or eating.....ah eating. It is a close thing, but I think a body that doesn't ache and a good night's sleep are going to win out for me. That said, my lovely daughter claims she is taking me to The Cheesecake Factory for a big slab of everything I have been avoiding on 2/1. I'll go. I'll enjoy my cheesecake, but after that, I want to figure out which of the foods on the naughty list I can add back in and which I can't. I do love a good a snooze. Thanks for reading.