That Time of the Month

It is all very well to crap on about experiencing and breathing through cravings until the miserable monster of menstruation rears it's ugly head.

My period is due to arrive in 4 days. How I know this so accurately will be revealed later, but PMS has arrived with a vengeance. My breasts feel like aching cottage cheese and my belly resembles an inverted mould of fruit jelly.

Combined with the fact I was home all day today which is also a recipe for disaster, today was not particularly great. No carb overloading, so some progress there, but I ate altogether too much. Half a roast chicken with salad followed by yogurt and then some scrumptious but very calorific [is that a word?] protein powder/nut flour muffins. Probably ate about 1700 calories which is OK, but I didn't stick to my plan.

The book of the moment recommends setting a plan and times to control overeating. So I plan how much I am going to eat before I eat it and then set a time in the future when I can eat again.

I had 1/4 chicken and salad at about 12:30pm and set my next feeding time at 4pm. At 2:30pm I had the same again [that is TWO lunches]. At about 6:00pm I ate some yogurt and jumped on the treadmill for a 30 minute power walk [Aside: I wore my heart rate monitor for the first time in ages and it said I was working at 80% of max heart rate. I don't think it is possible to exercise for 30 minutes at 80% without falling off the treadmill so my monitor is dodgy or my true max heart rate is more than the popular 220-age formula]. I then cooked 4 muffins and intended to eat only one. Guess what -- I ate two. I then quickly put the last two in the freezer because I would have gobbled those down as well.

So day 6 -- good food but too much too often. Not clean but not a major carb binge. I will have to think of a different term for it -- unclean? subclean? semiclean? fuckin' guts?

Back to the accurate menstrual cycle information. I went to the doctor last week to get the pill to help with my agonising PMS and period. Now us girls know that you can't start the pill until day 1 of your cycle. BUT I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS TO MY HUSBAND who presumed that I was already taking it. OOPS! Why? Because our current form of preventing pregnancy is the reliable (??!!!?????!!!) withdrawal method. So technically we had contraception failure this morning.

So I found out that you there are various web sites that will calculate your fertility cycle according to your last 2 periods. After entering the data I was informed that (a) my cycle is only 25 days long and (b) my next period is due in 4 days and (c) I am unlikely to be fertile this close to my period unless my eggs last longer than the ones in the fridge. PHEW!!

Sorry if this is too much information.

Thank God I threw those lollies away earlier this week because I could definitely eat those M&Ms RIGHT NOW!! Shall I defrost another muffin ........................... NO.............................. AHHHHHH!!!