Creature of the Light

I woke up before sunrise this morning. It isn't hard to do this time of year, but it never used to happen. I've always been a creature of the light. I went to Burning Man a decade or so ago and, if you've never been, it is super hot during the day so most of the activity happens at night, I was out of my element. I would wake up with the sun, just as everyone else was going to bed; I would need to go to sleep just as everyone else was getting going. I loved the art but I missed a lot of the social element and the fire shows because I could not break my connection to daylight.

So generally this time of year, I am hibernating; I am struggling to get out of bed by 8:30 and stagger into work by 9:30. (Thank goodness for the summer months when I wake up by 5:30 and am working by 7.) My vitamin D levels were bottomed out last January at an all time low of 7.5. If you've never had yours measured, recommended levels are between 40 and 60. My doctor told me she had never ever seen anyone with levels as low as mine and she immediately put me on 10,000 ug twice a day. 

I say all this because although we talk about all the vitamins that are packed into the MF packets, we may not actually be aware of what that means. And what it will mean when we aren't ingesting 5 of them a day. It isn't just about calories and carbohydrates and protein. A healthy diet is so much more than that. I am not currently taking any vitamin supplements. And I am awake before the sun most days. Like 2 hours before the sun. It could be ketosis, or it could be that my body is getting all its vitamins and minerals such that my body isn't having to hibernate. We credit a lot of what we experience on ketosis, but what if it is more simple than that? What if it is that we are finally getting our recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals AND calories and protein and carbohydrates? 

I am many many moons from T&M, but lemme tell you, there's a lot of challenge in those phases.  I am going to start connecting to my body now. And really listening to what it has to say. Because, as hard as 5&1 may be, the next two phases are no sludge walk.