Wednesday

Hey - it's not snowing today!  It was, however, very cold out - painful earlobes cold.  I don't know the exact temperature, but a chill wind is hurtling along some of the major streets outside, making it feel much worse.

I saw some tweets from Melissa McEwen yesterday, talking about how a cold environment helped her stay leaner.  I can see the logic in that, but emotionally, I'm not sure I'm on board.  I'm not pinin' for the fjords right now, that's for sure - maybe the saguaro.

Whatever.  It is late Fall, after all.  And I'm back down to 145.0 this morning.  Lee lost yesterday as well.  I think he had some ham and cheese around mid-day, and I had some cheese, so we basically ate the same thing:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese
• stuffed pepper with spaghetti sauce
• salad with meat and blue cheese dressing
• hot tea
• chocolate almonds
• a few potato chips

Oh, and by the way, yesterday's entry should have included hot and sour soup.  I don't know that it influenced anything or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

Sleep has been pretty much the usual - I have a short wake in the wee hours, and the leg cramps have resurfaced, much to my dismay.  They don't seem to be waking me up as thoroughly as the last bouts, though, for which I am very grateful.

I have a business trip next week, so I am already plotting.  Bringing nuts and maybe jerky with me, and going to see if I can find out what "breakfast" means to the conference organizers.  I'm sure it won't involve fat and protein, unfortunately, so I'll be doing my usual get up early and buy my own routine.  Kinda annoying, but in the grand scheme of things, bearable.

Tuesday

I made it all day yesterday without snacking between breakfast and dinner - not a huge accomplishment, but, perhaps, a tribute to the staying qualities of eggs and meat.  Also an indication that I had meetings pretty much all afternoon after lunch, so I would not be bored enough to start fantasizing about junk food.  I had not brought cheese with me, so it was a good thing.

146.4 this morning - a slight loss, unusual, considering I had Chinese food for dinner last night, and it normally is unhelpful in losing weight.  Here's the day:

• scrambled eggs
• sausage links (not turkey)
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements for Monday
• chicken with garlic sauce
• rice
• hot tea
• one fried noodle
• fortune cookie
• chocolate almonds
• a square of Lindt 85% chocolate
• walnuts

That was it. 

Lee's struggling with his weight again - gained some on his trip, and found himself up 2 pounds overnight after the Chinese dinner.  He had more of the carbs than I did - more noodles, more rice - and came home and, for some unfathomable reason, had a bowl of oatmeal because he was cold.  Well, that ain't gonna help anything - but I can't be his eating sheriff.  His stomach reacted badly and immediately to the meal, so something was off.  I imagine his 2 pounds are to do with carbohydrate digestion, and will be gone if he gets away from them for a while.  We shall see.  He's giving up lunch, he says, which should help him a bunch.  If he sticks with it, that is.

Monday

And here we are again.  Monday morning, seeming later than it is, after a busy and productive weekend.  I was 144.4 on Saturday morning, 146.8 this morning.  In between was a dinner of Mexican food, including a margarita, and a meal that included both potatoes and dessert, and wine.  I'm still down 2 pounds from a week ago, so I guess it's progress.  Here's what I recall of yesterday:

• bacon
• turkey sausage
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• hot dogs with mustard
• potato chips
• cheese
• a glass of red wine
• flank steak in various marinades (we made 2)
• a twice-baked potato half - sour cream, butter, cheese, bacon
• southern-style green beans with bacon
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• iced tea
• pumpkin tart with blackcurrant preserves on a pecan crust - included brown sugar, jam, maple syrup (and was damn good)

I think that was it for the day.  I spent much of it cooking, always fun, and I can say that the dinner consisted solely of ingredients, except for the blackcurrant preserves.

Had a conversation with my sister about her health.  She's battling Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and just coming off a month-long elimination diet that was not the Whole30, apparently.  Her healthcare provider determines food allergies/sensitivities by having her hold items in one hand and testing the strength of that arm - strong indicates no issues, weakness indicates an allergy.  This worries me - as far as I am aware, there is no scientific basis for such an approach - but I didn't say anything about that.  I did ask her if anyone is looking into healing leaky gut issues, since they're supposedly a factor in autoimmune conditions, including Hashimoto's and allergies of various sorts; she didn't know.  I worry for her - this is bound to be a time-consuming odyssey, and while the elimination diet was a good start, it would seem that she may not be in the very best of hands here.  If it continues not to work, maybe she'll ask me to point her to some resources, but I'm very hesitant to offer my non-expert opinion unsolicited.  I did show her my new cookbooks, both of which are very grain-free in nature.

Over the weekend, I had a sense that I may be about to go through another round of hot flashes.  I'm tempted to get the prescriptions for the HRT filled, just in case.  These don't feel the same as the ones during Lent, so it may be something else - and for what it's worth, when I've been hot, so has Lee, and I'm pretty sure he's not having hot flashes.  He's felt a bit off since getting home, so it's also very possible that we're both having a virus of some sort.  Will be keeping an eye on it.

Friday

Spent yesterday enduring an oh-so-mild migraine.  It was looming at breakfast, making my arms feel weak, and by the time I made it to work, had produced a sort of headache that lingered all day, influencing my tea-drinking (more!) and eating a bit.  Sometimes I felt hungry, other times, rather sick.  It was kind of nasty - and, of course, I had no Advil with me, so all I could do was suffer it out.  Got home, and took 3 of them - and with that, and an Epsom Salts bath and a bit of dinner, I got to feeling less awful - just wrung out.  Not pleasant at all.

Despite that, I ate marginally okay.  Here's the scoop:

• fat bomb smoothie
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese
• potato chips (salt cravings)
• more cheese
• salami
• some very nasty gluten-free nut thin crackers, looking for some crunch
• an apple
• more cheese
• walnuts
• chocolate almonds (only 3)

Was asleep fairly early, I think - before 10, anyway - but slept rather roughly; some passing fasciculation/cramping in one leg, and an inability to get comfortable and stay that way.  I didn't exactly wake up at any point, but I wasn't fully asleep all night, either.  Woke up at 4:40 and put on an old radio playlist, which I remember hearing start, but no details of, so I suspect I went back to partly-asleep.

145.8 this morning - down a bit from yesterday.  Probably down to a weight zone where I will spend the winter, I'd guess - mid 140s.  I was looking back at this time last year, and I was in the just-under-150 zone, so I can't complain much.  I feel a bit thick about the middle though - my jeans are a little bit tight, and at one point in the past year, I can recall them being very loose.  Something to work on - we haven't been doing much in the way of exercise recently, what with the travel and everything, and we should be.  Maybe next week, things will simmer down to normal and we can get back to the gym.  For today, though, I'm just glad not to have that headache anymore.

Thursday

It was 14 degrees out this morning.  Surely there's someone we could call about that.  On the other hand, it makes for perfectly wonderful sleeping weather - especially with the monster double duvet.  I woke up for the first time at 5:15 - just a bit ahead of the alarm clock.

146.2 this morning - the water is finally leaving me.  Here's yesterday's eating:

• fat bomb smoothie
• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese throughout the day as needed
• shrimp skillet from Paleo Comfort Foods (seriously yum, even if I over-emphasized the lemon at the expense of the garlic)
• rice
• chocolate almonds (7 or 8 in total)
• walnuts
• more cheese

I believe that was it.  Finally got my copy of Make it Paleo last night and it has oodles of things that look extremely tasty - in fact, I lay my eating of walnuts and cheese directly at its feet - the pictures made me very hungry.  They even have instructions for making one's own almond and coconut milk - both look easy, although I don't see myself doing it.  As with the other cookbook, I will probably substitute butter or ghee where they call for coconut oil, but there's a lot of stuff there that looks very worth a shot.  Huge swaths of desserts, as a matter of fact.  And now that I have my coconut and almond flour, I can give some of the "pastry" recipes a try.

Another smoothie this morning - I made a whole batch yesterday and Lee wasn't up for eating, so I just kept it in the fridge - it actually works out very well that way.  Had some bacon with mine this morning, which may help keep hunger at bay a bit longer.

Wednesday

Seems like about this time last week I was bitching about the snow.  And this week?  Bitching about the snow again.  Not an auspicious start to the cold season, if you ask me - weekly heavy snowstorms (they're calling it a "blizzard" on the south side of town) in the dead center of Fall.  Will Winter be worse? 

I thought I ate fairly well yesterday, but only lost a small bit - 148.2 this morning, and my feet are still swollen.  This kind of reminds me of the cruise we took after Elizabeth graduated, when I had to get a lymphatic massage to get the fluid in my ankles to drain.  Nowhere near the magnitude, but definitely as persistent.  I'll add to it that my ears are stuffed up - inflamed.  Something is out of kilter, I guess.  As we will be working through several Paleo cookbooks for the next few weeks, I would anticipate that whatever it is will return to kilter.  And I will be cutting way back on the sugar, especially with the holidays on the horizon.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• cheese
• a fun-size Nestle Crunch bar (I did not look at the ingredients)
• turkey breast
• mashed cauliflower with a bit of butter
• "gravy" made from chicken stock, herbs, and potato starch
• cheese
• chocolate almonds (only 3 of them)
• walnuts

I think that was it.  I had hoped to get a deli turkey breast, but they didn't have any, so I got a vacuum-packed thing from Jenny-O.  Not exactly the flavor I was looking for, but it filled me up, when combined with about half a head of cauliflower, cooked to mush with chicken broth and attacked with the stick blender (turned out pretty good).  I added a pat of butter to it, and that vastly improved the flavor.

Tonight we're trying another Paleo Comfort Foods recipe - shrimp skillet, shrimp with bell peppers, tomatoes, onion, and herbs.  It looks quite tasty, so I am hopeful.

Tuesday

Halloween is not the best day to try to get rid of water weight.  Just sayin.  I was - I think - pretty well-behaved; I had some chocolate almonds - either 8 or 12 (can't remember how many times I went back for more) - some dark chocolate, and 2 Halloween treats: M&Ms and an Almond Joy.  And didn't want any more after that - they were way too sweet.

My legs, feet, and ankles are still pretty swollen.  148.4 this morning, so I got rid of some of it.  I did not have breakfast today because of mild indigestion - guess the Almond Joy was just too much for me or something. 

Finally (!!!) slept like a rock overnight.  I think I woke up maybe 5 minutes before the alarm went.  I stayed up until 10, partly because I was finishing a movie on the iPad and partly to start resetting the body clock to deal with next week's return to sanity.

Here's yesterday's eating (junk):

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• potato chips
• two pieces of cheese
• bacon and tomatoes
• pecans and cheese spread
• chocolate almonds
• dark (85%) chocolate
• M&Ms (fun size)
• Almond Joy (fun size)

I think that's it.  Lee's home tonight - late, I think, based on when he left Phoenix - so we should get back to our regular eating patterns starting tomorrow.  I think I'll do a bit of grocery shopping tonight and aim to have something from Paleo Comfort Foods for dinner tomorrow.  Apparently, my copy of Make It Paleo finally arrived at my parents' house, so I should see it some time this week.

My sense this morning is that I've been struggling with weight lately due to an excess of sugar, more than anything.  It seems like the 3 times I've had to put some effort into getting back down to my base weight have been sugar-related - it's not poisonous to me, but it starts a chain of cravings that I have trouble controlling.  A useful insight, I think.

I brought the Halloween leftovers in to work today, as I did last year, and will spend the day eating cheese - not fasting this morning, so I will probably have one pretty soon, as the indigestion passes off.