Monday

Sluggish weekend; while I accomplished things, none of them was particularly energetic - and they needed to be, I think. Which is to say, 159.6 this morning, and not happy. Time to get something - anything - under control.

When I tried the whole resistant starch thing a few months ago, I believe I gained 4 pounds in a weekend. 4 pounds, furthermore, that I was subsequently unable to lose. One would think that this would have provided me with useful information, but no - I felt compelled last week to try it again. Only 2 or 3 pounds this time, but then, I only took 1 tsp of potato starch. At all. Well, I also ate potato chips (they're cold, right?) and a little potato salad, and some country fries....

Note to self: potatoes may not be an ideal food for you. Also sugar.

I started on this odyssey of dietary improvement about 4 years ago, weighing 32 pounds more than I do now. All things considered, that's an achievement. But somewhere along the road, I've lost my way, and am really struggling to find it again.

I suppose it is possible that by going VLC, I messed up my metabolism a bit. I also suppose it is possible that I've narrowed my eating down so much that I'm starting to miss key nutrients, making me eat in a very binge-y fashion. Stress is a possible contributor - the stupid long commute (seriously, what was I thinking???), the work at nights, the bad cultural fit at work, and then there's that whole lack-of-sleep stuff and Lee's job situation. And hormones, which I think I've been letting take more of the blame than is probably realistic.

Here's what I'm seeing, I think.  

SOMETHING (exact factor TBD) is causing me to go on snacking raids far too frequently, and that something is definitely not hunger. I am not hungry; I want something to chew. I am bored, or frustrated. I need to stop that, somehow.

SOMETHING (I have my suspicions here, but could be wrong) is causing me to crave sweets. And not fruit, but chocolate, sometimes even cookies - though I do resist eating the latter. I don't always give in, but when I don't, I find myself eating things like cashews instead.

I have lost a good pattern for my daily meals. We used to have breakfast, then I would sometimes skip lunch and sometimes eat it, and then we would have dinner, which tended to be meat and leaves. Nowadays, we eat breakfast more rarely, and I still sometimes skip lunch and sometimes eat it and sometimes eat snack-shaped stuff (macadamia nuts being a good example) during the day as a lunch-substitute. Generally we eat dinner, and generally, it's not awful for us, but isn't always meat and leaves.

I am currently low energy and struggling to get any exercise into a given day. That says to me one of two things: either I'm reacting to the crap sleep that menopause brings, or I'm in starvation/fat-storage mode for some reason. Maybe both.

This seems like a pretty good summary of the things I'm fighting right now. I would love to say that fixing sleep would fix everything else - and maybe it would; failure to get adequate rest is a major stressor as well as a cause of being sluggish, and certainly I've read somewhere that tired people eat more as a way to get more energy. All well and good, but the problem I face is that I don't know how to fix my sleep right now. Melatonin has helped, as has the honey, and I will stick with both to keep things from getting worse.

I think we can sort through the meal pattern. Not sure I recognized until just now that I've been reinforcing the snack-eating habit with the macadamias at work, and that's something I can get stopped. I will talk to Lee tonight and see if we can figure out a mutually agreeable pattern, since we tend not to approach this issue quite the same way.

Finally, I need to put a bit more effort into getting a walk at lunchtime. Even a short one. Starting today. It ought to help with the sleep, and maybe with some strength issues I've been working on - and there is the little matter of the upcoming Bolder Boulder in about a month.

All that said, and skipping entirely what I ate yesterday, I have Fat Fast broccoli cheese soup for lunch today. I will eat it and avoid the macadamias unless starvation hits, and I will get out around lunchtime for a short walk around the building. It's a start, at least.