It’s that old adage of counting them before they are hatched. That’s probably what I should have been considering yesterday, one might suggest, because I did go out running around as though everything were back to normal. Not entirely, of course, but enough; so today, which is the fifth day of my fifth round, I woke extra wiped out. Although to say that I “woke” that way is being kind of generous. Really, I simply had not slept.

My Saturdays usually begin with me feeling a bit under the weather, underwhelmed and under-inspired, but this also tends to give way by mid-afternoon. Unfortunately, in spite of how great my Friday was on many levels, and it really was, I just could not manage to do two essential things in the evening. One of them, possibly the more essential, was to digest that amazing Porterhouse steak that I made for dinner. It was an incredible feat, actually; I love a good steak, but I am profoundly disappointed in the ones I make much of the time. It’s an issue with the quality of the meat or the cooking time or whatever; but yesterday I hit that damn nail straight and hard and it was just about the most perfect steak I have had in ages. Certainly the best one I have made at the house, not to mention that I did it on the stove instead of my usually preferred grill. But there it was. And it had to be eaten. And so did the sides. (I am, after all, committed to healthy balance with my food.) But, really, I shouldn’t have put so much on my plate… In retrospect, more leftovers might have been a valuable asset for today. Thus, my digestive system decided to work extra slowly. And while indigestion is something that I have been basically cool to live with for the past few months, it was striving for a level of particular annoyance throughout the night.

Which brings us to the other essential thing I could not accomplish: the aforementioned sleep. Between the indigestion (or non-digestion, as I was beginning to consider it) and the absolutely amazing volume of fluids I was apparently carrying in my bladder, I was up just about as quickly as I could get myself back down from lights off until sunrise. My plans for a fun and productive Saturday had been dashed into the realm of not being able to keep my eyes open or my head up for more than a few minutes at a time until at least half-past noon. After that, I was simply sluggish.

Naturally, the question arises: did I bring this upon myself?

To address that, I’ll have to say first that I do not regret having had a full day on Friday. Why would I want to have regrets? It seems pointless. But then, we all must learn from the past if we want to navigate the future more seamlessly. To that end, I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out if I did anything that was categorically wrong.

I get one thing.

I should not have overeaten. Don’t ever overeat.