July 30th, I think

Something about travel just blows my date awareness away.  According to the local clock, it's after 7 am; my computer says 5.  Anyway, it's the last day of the business trip, and I think I've done okay as far as eating goes.  I've had about 3 small bites of bread (the one thing I never remember to ask not to have at the table in a restaurant), and about a scoop (1/4 cup, if I had to guess) of blackberry sorbet that, from the taste, didn't have a lot of added sugar in it - in other words, it tasted great to me.  I've stuck to breakfast and dinner only, had a lot of 3-egg dishes in the morning with bacon, and even asked for and got a protein-style burger (which I had to explain) at the Five Guys burgers at the baseball game - which I have to say was a messy proposition, although darn tasty.  Am I expecting to be thinner when I get home?  No.  I've eaten a lot, in quantity terms, so I think at best I'll have held my own.  

But! and this is key - I have avoided the bagels, watermelon (not a problem for me, I hate melons), muffins, cookies, and candy laid out for the conference.  When I got hungry over lunch yesterday, I had beef jerky (brought with me, just in case - thanks family!).  And I've been fine - even when they were heating them to make them smell more intense, I wasn't all that tempted by the cookies.  And there were 3 scoops of that sorbet at dinner last night, but I couldn't keep going.

Bottom line, regardless of the weight results of this week, I think I can confidently say that this is how I eat now.  Not a "diet" in the weight loss sense, but my diet in the way-of-eating sense.  

But enough of that.  I'm starving, and there are eggs out there with my name on them.

July 27th

Well, the IF got rid of the 1 pound, but nothing else - back to 162.2 this morning.  The tape-measure fat calculator thinks I'm at 30% today, which is nice, but when I look at some of the data there, I'm a bit discouraged.  On July 10th, I was at 165; in the 17 days since then, I've only lost 2.8 pounds.  However, it is a decrease.  And there will be more.

July 26th

163.2 this morning - down from this time last week, but up from the weekend (I sense a pattern here).  Saturday and Sunday mornings I was 162.2.  I did well eating on Saturday, less so yesterday - Chipotle naked chicken burrito without rice but with beans and corn salsa, and we had berries and cream for dessert at dinner (I don't really think that's a bad choice at all, but probably had enough carbs to retain some water - and I feel a bit waterlogged).  It feels like a stall, but I just looked at the raw data, and basically over the past 2 weeks, I've lost 1.8 pounds.  Within that period, over the past 10 days, though, I've only lost 0.2 pounds - been trading weight around for a while.  So it's hard to say what's up; could definitely be cyclical water weight, too.

I would really like to get my sleep straightened out.  I'm too cold or too hot, I make the wrong move in the wee hours and leave some extremity pointed a way it was not built to point (and have to get up and step on it to make it stop); whatever triggers the bad sleep, once I've awakened, even if I get back to sleep (and I did fall back asleep last night after the 1 am launch to fix my left ankle), it's nearly useless from a restoration point of view.  So I'm tired and cranky this morning, and rather achy.  Skipped breakfast; unless a dragon attacks my stomach at some point today will IF until dinner (steaks and something - guac if I can persuade Biz to make some).

And on to the next challenge: a business trip.  We've got vacation periods nailed pretty well, and really, it's not at all hard to tell a restaurant to omit the starch from a meal, so I'm not anticipating that aspect being tremendously difficult.  Where I think it will be interesting is during the conference.  Think about it - hotel catering inevitably believes that breakfast is a meal composed entirely of grain-based food and fruit (I've never seen bacon show up for a conference breakfast bar, but the bagels are there in droves, along with cereal and muffins and maybe even toast).  And of course, lunch is likely to feature sandwich options or pasta, another possible issue.  So, a plan: where there are bagels, there should be cream cheese.  Spread on strawberries, it won't look too primitive, and if I keep the cheese to strawberry ratio high, I should be okay.  Another option is to go to the real restaurant before the thing starts and get some eggs and bacon.  That's probably the way I'll try to go for breakfast.  If I can get a decent breakfast on a given day, IFing lunch is a simple thing - and dinner should be somewhere that involves sitting down and using silverware - except for the ballgame night - and a naked dog is easy-peasy.  So this shouldn't be any more difficult than a vacation trip, I think, and if I have to explain my ways to anyone, well, maybe someone else will get a new perspective on nutrition advice...

But if I forget to bring vitamins with me, I'm toast!!!

July 23rd

162.6 this morning - my opinion at the time was, "it had damn well better be down!"  Rough night - several leg cramps and lots of tossing and turning.  I can't get the temp right - it's been cold at night - more than our blanket and spread are capable of combating - so I turn on the mattress pad, then turn it off, then get cold again, lather rinse repeat all night.  And the stiffness from working out on Wednesday finally showed up this morning.  While I am grateful for the hiatus, it could have gone on without hurting my feelings any. 

Wearing new size 14 jeans today - and the hips/waist are almost too loose already.  So things continue to go well, generally.  I more or less IFed yesterday - got gnawingly hungry in early afternoon and had 1/8 of the dark chocolate bar I keep here.  That helped a little, but I really wanted meat.  Once home, I had a couple of slices of cheese while cooking, and we had taco salads for dinner - followed by a nosh on walnuts and more cheese.  But since that was it for the day, I had some leeway. 

The whole size thing is interesting.  When I started, I was in size 18 pants and starting to find them a bit uncomfortable.  Now I'm wearing some size 16 chinos and shorts and they're still okay although starting to get a bit loose.  I'm down to 14 in jeans and have been at 14 for dresses for over a month.  My new skirts are 14s and I am probably going to have to take the waist in, although they fit right across the butt.  I fit better in a swimsuit from 2004 this past weekend than I did when I bought it.  Really, all most satisfying!

Had an on-purpose mammogram and ultrasound this morning - the doc thought I was lumpy during my checkup earlier in the month and wanted it looked at.  Found nothing.  I couldn't even find the lumpy bit he'd spotted 3 weeks ago, and neither could any of the technology.  An observation, though.  Most of my fellow patients (and I don't know if they were lumpy or diagnosed with something or just preventative) were overweight.  Taubes goes into details about cancer feeding on glucose - and quite honestly, that was why I was totally unworried about the lumpiness - and it made me wonder.  Just another reason never to go back to the Standard American Diet.

What does set my hair on fire, though, are all the rumblings from the government about dictating "healthy" food choices - because what they are proposing to dictate is what's been making everyone fat for the past 30 years.  If their edicts/recommendations were based on decent science, that would be one thing (well, still unacceptable to this libertarian), but they're not - and our children are going to pay horribly as a result.  Ugh.

July 22nd

164.0 this morning - more like it, at least a little.  Sleep was a ball of putrid mud overnight - no leg cramps, but a lot of swapping sides.  I should have been either tired-er or sore-er; we made it to the gym for the first time in forever last night and I lifted - well, I used some of the weight machines.  And amused Biz - she had me try some exercises on the big ball and the weird half-ball that you stand on, and I was rather awkward on both.  Anything for a laugh.  But I'm not terrifically sore this morning; guess that's generally a good thing.  Took extra salmon oil - 2 at dinner last night and another 2 this morning - hoping that it really is anti-inflammatory.  I feel some indication that I've used various muscles, but nothing debilitating, so either the salmon oil is working or I didn't exert myself very effectively.  I'm going to work on leg strength first - they have seemed very weak walking up the hill after lunch when I go out, and I would like that not to be the case anymore.  The workouts are not to do with weight loss; more about improving strength and attaining some definition.  Not to the freak-show level of the bodybuilding women we saw on HBO not too long ago, but a long lean sort of look - and maybe a hint of a six-pack.  That would be a fun thing to carry into my 50s.

Anyway, I skipped breakfast this morning because I didn't feel like cooking (more that than any noble intention of fasting).  I may get lunch today or I may not; depends on how I feel at the time.  I was actually hungry when the alarm went off - we watched the Cooking network shows before bedtime and both of us ended up having a late night minor snack as a result - but it faded when the time came to turn the stove on.  It's sort of back, but I think I'll just ignore it.  And drink a lot of water - that worked well yesterday, I think.

Aargh!

165.0 or 165.2 this morning, depending on which instance of stepping on the scale you believe (it went UP between two attempts).  All I ate yesterday was 2 skewers of white-meat chicken in sauce (probably sweet sauce, but it was fairly caramelized by the time I got it), one-half pound of gyro meat with tzaziki sauce, and 2 squares of Lindt's 85% cacao chocolate.  That's IT.  Some salt in the gyro meat might have added water (okay, I just saw an analysis online of gyros that listed something like 1100 whatevers of sodium, so that could be an issue), and maybe the chicken was on the salty side, but from LoseIt, I only consumed about 700 calories for the entire day.

Having things go in the wrong direction is annoying, certainly.  I'm up 2 pounds from Friday, and some of it might be actual body weight, but I think much of it is water.  So I'm going to drink water like a crazy person today to see if I can get it to flush out. 

The bodyaches are back today, and I slept pretty crappy last night.  Given the issue above and the pain, I doubled the salmon oil at breakfast.  I also doubled the magnesium, just to see if maybe I'm full of it (so to speak).  I don't think so, but it's worth a shot.  If I remember to do it, I'll do salmon oil at dinner as well.

For what it's worth, my waist is slimmer than a couple of days ago and that drove my bodyfat down to 30.2%.  I truly don't think I'm adding muscle right now (muscle weighs more than fat), although I have been meaning to go to the gym, so I do not know what's going on.  It could just be some sort of cyclical thing.

July 20th

164.6 this morning.  I refuse to get worked up about it, but a stall is always annoying.  Although, looking at a week ago, I believe the stall was 2 pounds heavier than today, and it broke wide open for a while, anyway.  Felt really awful yesterday all day.  I finally took a Tylenol PM to get an unbroken night's sleep, which worked pretty well until just before the alarm went off, and I feel much better today.  Although I do recall launching out of bed for one of those outside-of-the-ankle leg cramps at some point.  It didn't wake me up enough to remember being awake so I am much more alert this morning and not at all achy.  In fact, once I got fully awake, I felt really good, so maybe it's just been a few nights of nasty-bad sleep causing the issues.

I finally broke down and bought a couple of skirts last night - size 14.  The pattern used seems to assume a level of visceral fat in the wearer, because the hips fit me just fine but the waist is almost as big as that of the skirt I got these to replace - with the attendant puckering when a belt is worn.  I may have to do to these what I've done to this brand before - haul out the sewing machine and put in some darts at the waist - but I'll wash them first.  The store I got them at does seem to cater to middle-aged women, which may explain the silhouette provided; all I ever buy there is basic pencil skirts in chino (I may be 48 but I don't feel middle-aged and would prefer not to dress that way in general). I got about 25 pounds' loss wearing the predecessor, so am hoping not to have to replace these very soon (although would be happy to lose the weight that would necessitate another replacement).

Had chicken fajitas with guac and sour cream and a bit of green chile (roux-based, so I'm sure it had flour in it, but so worth it!) and maybe 5 tortilla chips with salsa for dinner last night.  I had been speculating that the pain/exhaustion yesterday was to do with too little fat in the diet, and dinner definitely made me feel better (I was starving pretty much all afternoon, oddly enough), so maybe that was part of it.  I IF'ed breakfast today; should get about an 18-hour fast to lunch, which I am going out with a friend for.  Maybe that will shift the stall a bit; if not, I'll pull a 24-hour IF later in the week.

Cravings seem to be in pretty good control these days.  We watch the Food Network a lot, owing to a dearth of anything interesting on the other 100+ cable channels (what a wasteland!), and last night was one of those "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" shows.  An early entry was sticky buns.  I like sticky buns, and these did look good, but my take-away wasn't "Go get a sticky bun or 10", but "I bet brioche dough would work well for those".  Over an hour of food paraded before us, and nobody went after snacks, so we all seem to be over sweet stuff as a craving.  I wouldn't go try eating anything sweet, though - more because of what I've seen happen (stall-baby!) each time I've had dessert than anything.  Going forward, sweets are for special occasions, and in modest quantities at best.

Got a coupon from Vicky's the other day for a freebie - and now that I'm down to an L with them, I can take advantage of it.  In fact, I need to; the XLs are getting loose and almost floppy.  Something the weight loss books do not talk about, but rather satisfying, since when I got the XLs, they were almost too small.