Tuesday

150.2 this morning - not too surprised. My weight generally goes up on Tuesdays, it seems. Not sure why.

Eating followed a fairly normal pattern - breakfast, a few macadamia nuts, dinner. I managed to limit evening eating to 4 salted chocolate almonds and a cup of tea with cream; I'm really hoping to have broken the nasty habit of mindless snacking after dinner. I hit 71% fat with fewer than 50 grams of carbs, and that's where I am back targeting. But I wonder if I really need to do the movement to keep things heading down. Maybe so.

Ketosis at bedtime was back to somewhere between Small and Moderate, and I slept quite well - woke once at 2:30ish and turned the mattress pad back on - I was actually too cold. Go figure.

No walk last night - we had a hailstorm. In late September. The only explanation is that I said, "Hey, let's go for a walk tonight" at breakfast time. We're going to try again tonight - so far, it's sunny out. If it's not, I vote for the gym.

Monday

Yesterday morning, I got up, went to the bathroom (TMI? sorry!), and stepped on the scale. Then I stepped off, waited for it to turn off, and tried again. Because I simply did not believe my eyes. It said 149.0. After being up to 155.8 last week, there's no way I was buying this. The second attempt agreed with the first, and I didn't feel like spending the morning trying to convince it to change, so I let it be.

This morning, same routine, after a day where I'd eaten more than on Saturday. I figured, even if yesterday was the truth, I'd be back in the 152 range - wine with dinner, heck - wild rice with dinner last night. And dessert. So today's reading? 149.4. To say I'm a bit gobsmacked is an understatement.

I spent the 3-plus-day weekend (starting at 3 pm on Thursday) getting fresh air and walks, sunning myself, sewing, and being alone. Exercise, sun, solitude, and creativity, just as planned. Do I feel less stressed than I did on Wednesday? I think so - the urge to bite someone and run screaming from the building has gone. That seems like a good thing, although I don't know how long it will last. Probably key here is that I need to find a way to keep the de-stress momentum that I've managed to start, and not get myself into the state I was in last week.

A few things come to mind, that should be pretty much a matter of nature - no planning involved. No houseguests. Nobody moving and needing our help. Few to no weekends involving work. But those are all fairly passive external things that will keep the stress from exceeding the threshhold. I can't control them. What I need is things I can do to maybe raise the event threshhold, by restoring the sane inner voice in the way I did this weekend, but in situations where I can't shut the world out for 3 days.

I think we need to walk more. Not for exercise, but for this purpose. It's the one thing that I can probably control that really seems to help. Friday, I set out on a short walk that ended up being over an hour long, and it was so relaxing. Can't do that every day - and with night drawing in and winter approaching, even the short walk may become a challenge, but I'm going to try to do it nearly every day, somehow. Get outside in the weather and walk. Breathe the air, smell the scents, listen to the non-machinery-made noises. I managed 3 walks in 4 days - didn't quite make it out yesterday - and I think it was critical.

I need to find some alone time. This hasn't been much of a problem in general, in the summer, at least, with Lee golfing. It will be an issue once that's not an option for him. Sewing is probably my best bet, or baths. Both of which I can do in the winter, no problem, and will. And normally, when I don't run up against houseguests, weekend work, and intense meeting weeks at work all in a short period, sewing or baths or reading in the den is plenty of time to recharge. I guess I just need to recognize when I might need the extra time because things have got bad for some reason, or are about to.

Useful 3 days, I'd say.

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Friday

When we last left our heroine…

It does seem to have been that sort of week, for sure. However, it's Friday, I'm taking a day off work, the dogs seem to have settled down a bit, and I lost something like 3 pounds yesterday.  152.6 this morning.

Suffice it to say that my stomach has been sub-par. It's getting better now.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• cheese
  
• one cranberry-pecan-pumpkin muffin
  
• more cheese (5 total pieces)
  
• a large ground bison burger (about 1/3 pound)
  
• spaghetti squash with browned butter and "mizithra" cheese
  
• a bag of Frollicks cheese crisps
  
• 5 chocolate pringles-shaped things from TJs
  

The "mizithra" was actually ricotta salata, and I have to say that the whole thing was so good I literally drank the leftover browned butter out of the bowl, after mopping up as much as I could with the burger. I managed, for once, to go all evening without doing the mindless snacking, too. And I got a walk in.

Eating yesterday was 76% fat and 30g carbs (6% total), much better than the day before.

What else? Sleep wasn't great - I let the dogs sleep on the bed because they've had a rough week, and they take up about 4/5ths of the area. I don't feel too bad, though. Ketones at solid Trace last night. One good thing about the sleep was that it took me about 12 seconds to fall asleep after I turned the light out.

Plans for the weekend include a walk each day - starting as soon as I press "Send" on this - and outdoor time, probably reading in the chaise. Maybe some sewing. So, a little exercise, sunlight, solitude, and creativity. If I can achieve 3 days of that, I should be in much better shape come Monday.

Thursday

I thought about skipping posting this morning, but that would be cowardly.

155.8, the scale says. Up TWO POUNDS from this time last week, which was up from the week before.

Should I mention that I'm not currently having hot flashes? Would that help? It doesn't help me.

Here's yesterday's eating:

• tea with cream
• two sausage patties
• a multivitamin
• one pumpkin-cranberry-pecan-coconut flour muffin
• about 1/4 cup macadamia nuts
• 3 soft corn tortilla tacos with ground beef, veg, and cheese
• ice tea
• 4 salted dark chocolate almonds
• 1 finger of scotch
• 3 pieces of cheese

That was IT. 67% fat, 61 grams of carbs. Trace ketosis at bedtime, even. And considering the day we had yesterday, I think I did admirably. Furthermore, I can probably pull up a dozen or more blog entries right here where a similar day's eating led to significant weight lost. 

However, yesterday was signally bad for stress - the worst this week so far. On the way to work, I followed other cars swerving to avoid something, only to realize that the something was an injured cat - apparently it had been hit just before we got there and definitely still alive. I know I'm strung pretty tightly when something like that really upsets me - and it had me in tears most of the way to work (we did manage to get hold of someone at the sheriff's office, and by the time I got to work (an hour and a bit later), I heard that the cat had been taken away somewhere. 

But that wasn't the worst of it. One of our dogs hadn't been feeling well, and we got word in the afternoon that she has become diabetic. Requiring twice-daily insulin shots and a structured lifestyle with monitoring of her blood sugar. Meaning that I am no longer going on a road trip this afternoon, because Lee can drive a trailer and I mostly can't, so I'm elected the dog nurse.

Personally, I think the Scotch was fully justified.

Anyway, since I'm no longer going away this weekend, I am going to try to do a bit of battery recharge here. Get the eating under control. Get some sunlight and a few walks in. Spend time alone - with the constant meetings at work last week and this, and having to work last weekend, I'm down to one smoking nerve, and need to crawl into a cave for as long as I can manage. I already have tomorrow off, and I'm keeping it off. And I may just spend most of it sitting in the chaise on the front patio, watching the leaves turn, or something.

Wednesday

155.4. It just keeps getting worse. I had to drive home, talking to myself over a low background of classical music, and was discombobulated and surly once I got home. The past month or so has been pretty bad, what with multiple projects at work, getting Biz off on her move, and now, getting the car back to her. Will it calm down soon? Not the work stuff, that I can see. Certainly not the commute - it gets worse by the hour, or so it seems.

At this point, with everything that's going on, I am going to plan on getting back on the keto horse on Monday. We won't be stopping for meals on the road, I think, or only briefly, and while I won't just eat the SAD, obviously, nor will I be in a position to eat clean. I'll try not to lose the adaptation I have, such as it is, but beyond that, no unnatural efforts.

Sleep last night was good, surprisingly. I roused briefly at 4:20, and woke for good because the alarm went off. Been quite a while since it actually woke me up.

Tuesday

154.2. Stressful day yesterday - I got home with a raging headache, my shoulders around my ears. Today is not looking likely to be as good, even. I think I need to get a handle on this before anything else calms down. Damn it.