August 20th

Well, that seems to have worked.  The heavy cream added to the diet being an assist to keeping things moving along, so to speak.  I'm having it twice a day - once at breakfast and once at night; the taste is beyond amazing and I can understand the recommendation to drink it mixed with seltzer water now - that would probably be really good as a cold drink.  But there's enough Englishman in my heritage that I tend to drink hot tea in 3-digit temperatures, so I don't need it cold just now.  May try it sometime.

Back into our routine - eggs-and-turkey-bacon for breakfast, no lunch (for me, usually), meat-and-plants for dinner, maybe a square of dark chocolate after.  I'm down to 159.0 this morning (maybe down more now...) which is good.  Still carrying a lot of water, though - fingers and ankles continue to be swollen and stiff.  So this morning, I doubled up on the fish oil as an anti-inflammatory; see if that will help.

Anyway, I'm not stressing about the weight being a stall at this point - and again, I think that's because I hit my original goal and am fitting into non-fat clothing (as opposed to eating non-fat foods LOL).  I'm starting to plan out wardrobe updates for fall, and probably even doing some sewing, a hobby that I used to love and that was increasingly frustrating of late as I produced things that looked quite amazingly horrible on me.  So maybe mentally, I'm transitioning from the "focus on weight loss" mindset to more of a "yeah, whatever, I'm thin" mindset, which is more of a maintenance thing.  I think I'll continue to lose, probably slower than I have been, and gradually settle somewhere between 160 and 140, whatever my genetic weight is meant to be.  No real temptation to go back to eating flour and sugar, either - but I've done so much reading about them that they seem, if not poisonous, at least vaguely sinister to me.  I can anticipate occasional desserts and holiday treats - but only occasional.  I have 2 boxes of strawberries in the fridge and will eat some and dry some - they make lovely good snacks dried - and they're crunchy, something this way of eating does lack.

I do mean to get back to weight training one of these days.  Because I would like to improve my strength some - and maybe make my visible muscles even more visible. They are SO fun to watch in the mirror - my forearms ripple as I'm drying my hair or brushing my teeth!