Our bodies hold stress

I have been fascinated and a bit horrified at how the stress of this journey has affected my body in what feels like extreme ways.

As of last Friday, I have lost 23 pounds since mid-May.  I'm really enjoying how I look and the clothes I fit into but stress isn't the way I wanted to lose weight.

My appetite is still not back.  In the beginning, I was nausea enough that I called it an accomplishment if I managed to eat something once a day.  Now, I'm getting in at least 2 meals a day, sometimes three although without much snacking at all and my meals are much smaller than they once were.  This has had the advantage that since I'm not enjoying food and not eating as much I'm focusing on healthier foods for the little food I do eat and so I have had very little heartburn for a change.

I think I took almost 4 months off from alcohol completely which even now that I have had a few drinks has significantly changed my relationship with alcohol.  I guess this is for the better in the long run as well.

My sleep has been off since mid-May.  That's about five months of poor to mediocre sleep which has been rough for someone who usually sleeps pretty well.  This has been a huge negative and being physically exhausted makes it harder to deal with emotional exhaustion.

My resting heartbeat jumped up all summer and just this month (specifically the last 8 days) has made a significant drop.  Interestingly the drop happened the day after I handed over my keys to the old apartment.

My menstrual cycle has gotten shorter and lighter.  I don't know what that means for my hormones.  Or maybe it's the start of perimenopause.  I don't know.

I'm still battling foot pain and pain in my lower back and hips.  So there really hasn't been much of a change there.  The back and hip pain started a couple years into my marriage so there is this thought in the back of my head wondering if stress from the marriage that I wasn't really aware of has been the cause of that pain.  Doctors have not been successful in finding the cause so I wonder about unseen causes like stress.

Time will tell how my body settles down as I become more confident in this next chapter of my life and this new version of myself.