Wednesday

Fasted yesterday.  No weight change - still 150.0.  It's all hormones, and I hate not being in much control.  Nonetheless, I will plug on.  Sleep last night was, well, adequate, I guess.  Nothing more.  I woke up at about quarter to 4 for no reason other than discomfort.  Not in the shoulder I've been slowly healing - it's been fine recently - and not in the other shoulder that produced a nasty knot yesterday morning.  In my lower back.  Go figure.  I'm still not entirely sure what that was about, but I got back to sleep, and it wasn't obviously there the next morning.

Neither of us was hungry this morning - odd, considering how little I ate yesterday, anyway.  Here's the list:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• cheese (1 piece)
  
• salad with chicken, and blue cheese dressing
  
• a peppermint-chocolate-chip shake (at Chik-fil-a)
  
• a glass of homemade eggnog
  

So, a lot of fat, a little sugar, and the rest meat-and-leaves.  In any event, I just won't eat until I'm actually hungry today - and unless that occurs while I'm out around lunchtime shopping for leggings for the road race tomorrow, not until dinnertime.

Pie-making starts tonight. I can at least get the crust started - maybe not blind-baked.  Time is so short right now.  Yikes.

Tuesday

I ate fairly well yesterday until evening, when a significant potato chip craving hit.  And I didn't put the chips in a container, but brought the bag out with me.  Bad move.  150.0 this morning.  Still stiff and swollen, but I gotta cut that sort of thing out.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
  
• tea with cream
  
• bacon
  
• the usual supplements
  
• three almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
  
• stuffed pepper
  
• salad with blue cheese dressing
  
• raspberry ice cream
  
• 1/4 of a fundraising chocolate bar with caramel
  
• some substantial number of potato chips
  

That was it.  Sleep was okay last night, although I did have a leg cramp at some point - it didn't wake me up enough to care about what time it was, though.  Lots of dreams, which I tend to attribute to the melatonin.

Fasting this morning for convenience.  Don't know if it will last all day or not, since I have not much of anything to do today - boredom could take over my willpower.

Monday

Took Friday off and worked around the house - got a lot done in three days.  However, I also culminated my weight gain for the week at 150.4 both Saturday and yesterday.  So I guess it's a relief to see 149.0 this morning.  Nonetheless, not a good weight.

Much of it's water, and that's hormonal, I guarantee.  Right now, I ache all over, and I'm pretty sure that's all water.  Just took a couple of Advil in hopes of making it stop.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• Cracker Barrel low-carb double meat breakfast (eggs, bacon, bacon, tomatoes)
  
• cheese
  
• cashews
  
• an almond-flour chocolate chip cookie
• homemade eggnog
  
• steak (grassfed sirloin)
  
• salad with balsamic vinaigrette and blue cheese
  
• homemade ice cream (raspberry this time)
  

Wow.  Seemed a lot worse than that at the time.  I spent yesterday working with eggs and dairy.  Made a cooked custard eggnog recipe that came out pretty tasty, although not quite "eggnog" flavored - still working on what that might entail.  And ice cream - this time from raspberries and a bit of raspberry liqueur, on top of a custard base.  I much prefer the texture from the custard base than one from straight cream - not sure whether it's the egg yolk or the milk that does it, but it's quite good.

Saturday I made salad dressings - thousand island for Lee and blue cheese for me.  We had giant chef's salads for dinner that night.

Stuffed peppers for dinner tonight.  I had breakfast today, so my goal is to avoid snacks until then.  I'm hoping all the fat I had yesterday will help me by putting me most of the way into ketosis today.

Thursday

This is not fun.  Sleep continues to be crap - I woke up three or four times last night - and I'm gaining weight.  Granted, yesterday was not a fast day, but still - I'm up to 148.4 this morning.  With bulgy ankles, so it's water.  Add in cranky and achy, and I suspect I know what comes next.  Does that mean that the hot flashes are hovering over the horizon again, too?

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• double quarter-pounder with cheese, no bun
  
• small order of fries
  
• pork roast with maple dijon glaze (that mostly vanished)
  
• salad with blue cheese, walnuts, and cranberries (balsamic vinaigrette)
  
• three almond-flour chocolate chip cookies
  

I think that was it.  I was really hungry at lunchtime yesterday, which is why I grabbed McDonalds.  Probably should have skipped the fries, but they tasted amazing.  

I may know one reason for the bad sleep - the window over my side of the bed was closed tight the past few nights.  Lee's been cold, but that seems a bit extreme.  I opened it about an inch; we'll see if that allows both of us to sleep comfortably tonight.

Day off tomorrow.  I need it.

Wednesday

I'm taking off Friday from work, so of course, this week is lasting far too long.  Sleep last night was fairly awful - woke at 11:00, certain it was morning.  Also 2:38 and some time around 4:00.  The water retention has begun in earnest, too, so much so that my toes are sore, just from lying in bed.  148.0 again this morning after a partial fast yesterday - I had peanuts around 2:00 in the afternoon because I was very hungry.  Here's the details:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• peanuts
  
• cheese (a total of 3 pieces)
  
• hot and sour soup
  
• beef with green peppers
  
• a square of chocolate caramel bar (fund-raising chocolates)
  
• walnuts
  

I think that was it.  Woke up with some indigestion, so we skipped breakfast again this morning.  I might eat lunch - going out to run errands at that time, at least.  We shall see.

Tuesday

I thought I did better yesterday; suspect some of the 148.0 I saw this morning is water, and the usual delayed reaction to my eating habits.  Fasting this morning; Lee was not feeling well and it wasn't a big deal to eat or not - in fact, my stomach is mildly upset this morning, so a rest is a good thing.  Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
  
• tea with cream
  
• bacon
  
• the usual supplements
  
• beef jerky
  
• the last (!) two Ghirardelli dark chocolate mint squares
  
• meatza with pepperoni, canadian bacon, and mushrooms
  
• the last half-handful of M&Ms
  

See?  Really not all that bad.

It doesn't help that they're having a "free smoothie bar" at work this morning, for some bizarre reason.  In conjunction with a book fair.  Fortunately, a smoothie doesn't even sound remotely appealing - neither did the lobster mac and cheese featured on Triple-D last night, although it had Lee going.  And I wasn't tempted by the baked goods one of my team brought to work - well, maybe I was tempted to respond with almond-flour chocolate chip cookies; I might have to make some of those tonight and bring them in tomorrow to share.

Monday

I've had a horrible, dragged-out case of the munchies for the past few days.  I have found myself with a distended stomach just after a meal, wanting to chew on something crunchy.  So, it's probably not too surprising that I'm at 147.4 this morning.  Combined with the reduction in hot flashes, I suspect that I'm going through another weird fluctuation in hormone levels - I'm also rather cranky this morning.

Not sure I recall everything I ate yesterday, so I'm not going to list it.  Lots of nuts, 3 meals (I hate weekends, because if Lee wants lunch and I don't eat, he gets mad, so I eat lunch), M&Ms (which, thank heaven, are nearly gone).  And I wanted cookies and pizza and cinnamon rolls and mashed potatoes in the worst way - and had none of them.  So I guess that's good.

Sleep is obviously improving, although I can tell I'm not over the time change just yet - I keep waking up well before 5:00, thinking it's time to get up for the day.  Hoping that this week will take care of that.