Sabbatical - The Plan

Monday was officially the first day of my 2-3 month sabbatical. I decided that I needed to take a break for my health after my employment contract ended. I want to focus on getting more exercise, losing weight, and starting to feel better as a whole. I also decided that I needed to quit smoking. Although I had drastically cut back in the past few months, smoking no more than 3-4 a day, down from 10. I stopped Friday.

Here's the plan:

• Breakfast - Fruity Hemp Protein Smoothie, Supplements
• Exercise - Up to one hour of exercise, at least 20 minutes.
• After workout snack - 5 min quinoa flake bake. Flavor depends on the fruit in the house, and the matching recipe from one of my favorite blogs: Healthful Pursuit. These are absolutely fantastic, and so versatile!
• Lunch - Yummy salad, ingredients dependent on the produce in the house, topped with a gluten-free dressing, Supplements
• Exercise - Up to one hour of exercise, at least 20 minutes.
• After workout snack - Nut and granola bar
• Dinner - A delicious dinner, gluten free and low carb.

So far things have been going fairly well. I found a great new game called ExerBeat. I really like it because it has a ton of different exercises. Even better, though, it has a story line. I was in shock. A workout game with a story? How unusual is that? In this game, you accrue miles for the time you have worked out. Those miles are used in the story line to move your character around the world.

I've worked out for an hour each day, and haven't eaten anything too terribly bad for me. I've cleaned the kitchen, done a few loads of laundry, and overall felt relaxed. The ability to relax is really important to me right now, as I feel that I haven't been able to do that since I started working. The hubby and I have been putting puzzles together every night :) It's been fun getting to enjoy something like that with him - when I was working we'd just watch tv together.

The only problem I am now encountering has to do with my teeth. The far back right side of my mouth hurts really bad. It only happens at night, when I'm trying to sleep. I'm in so much pain that I can't sleep (Hence the reason I'm finishing this post at 3 am...) I'm currently waiting for tylenol to kick in so I can get some rest. So far, from the research I have done, it could be one of several things - Nicotine withdrawal, a new side effect of my anti-depressants, TMJ, or wisdom teeth. I've ruled out wisdom teeth because it doesn't hurt all the time, and I don't grind my teeth, so it's not likely TMJ. I've been on this anti-depressant now for almost 2 months, and this just started 2 days ago, so it's likely nicotine withdrawal. I guess since it's the only withdrawal symptom I'm having I should be happy, but it's hard when it hurts so much.

Well, I'm going to try to get some sleep now. I have a 10% off coupon for my local farmer's market tomorrow, but I have to use it between 9 am and 1 pm. I need some sleep so I can be productive! Tomorrow's tasks - farmer's market, more laundry and hopefully some more house cleaning!