Friday

So, I'm up a bit - 154.2 - but the walking seems to be paying off, because my clothes all fit. I'm wearing my Gap size 10 skinny jeans, and they're loose around the waist and hips. So I guess I don't need to be getting all weirded out about it. I will continue to try to get my eating away from the candy-laden mess it's been for the past couple of months, because, health, you know, but the muscle-weighs-more thing is surely true.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• scrambled eggs
• 2 turkey sausage links
• salad with dressing
• 3 pats of butter
• macadamia nuts - not sure how many
• burger with bacon and cheddar cheese
• fries with ketchup
• several dark chocolate peanut butter cups
• 2 potato chips

I think that was it. We were out picking Elizabeth up at the airport last night instead of sitting around eating, so that's good. For what it's worth, I was at Trace ketones last night at bedtime, and have been having a mild set of digestive symptoms this morning, which may have dropped my weight even further.

Sleep was not good. I woke up several times and had to resort to audio to get back to sleep. I'm a little ragged this morning - could be worse, but not great. I don't think that it was hot flashes, nice to say - I was just awake. 

Thursday

Got a walk in last night - before sundown, barely. And at a nice brisk pace for much of it - I think we even hit the 11-something minute mile there for a few moments. On the other hand, I was starving after dinner and ate cashews. I think I need to give up my cashews. Sigh.

153.6 this morning. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
• D3 and magnesium
• 2 turkey sausage links
• 2 string cheeses
• about 6 slices of salami
• an apple
• about 10 macadamia nuts
• 1 dark chocolate peanut butter cup
• a bunch of cashews
• a hamburger patty
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• a Haagen-Dasz strawberry ice cream
• a small handful of potato chips

I think that was it - there could have been more. It was a lot, regardless. I don't know, maybe not eating breakfast is a bad thing again. 

I slept reasonably well; woke up at 4 am, unfortunately, for good. So I'm a bit draggy today. I did eat breakfast though - hoping that will help me get through the day without noshing myself into insensibility.

And just for today, I'm not eating cashews.

Wednesday

Didn't make the walk last night - Lee wanted to go eat steak. He plans to be home at 6 tonight; wonder if I can get home enough earlier to get a walk in after feeding the dogs (I think that will still need to be done), since it's starting to get dark around 6 these days. Or maybe I can persuade him to go for a walk after he gets back - but at the gym (sigh). It's really summer-over when we have to walk around the track at the gym. I think the laps are half as long as a trip around the building at work.

We skipped breakfast yesterday in order not to get up - today as well. Here's how yesterday went:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• the innards (roast beef and tomatoes) of a roast beef sandwich
• a pickle spear
• caesar salad
• 6 oz sirloin
• Southern-style green beans
• 5 salted dark chocolate almonds
• 1 dark chocolate peanut butter cup
• 1/2 cup cashews

So not bad, really. I hit Trace ketosis at bedtime, and am at 153.0 on the new scale this morning. I like the new scale - it does one thing and apparently does it well - not a lot of delay figuring out the number, and I can read it without my glasses from the standing-on-the-scale position. And it doesn't seem to fill the bathroom with blue light, so I could (should I feel the need) weigh myself at 3 am without bothering anyone. 

I did end up eating 3 turkey sausages today, and some vitamin D3 and magnesium. And I have lunch with me. I think I overdid the fasting thing a few years back, and don't want to do that again - it probably slowed my metabolism into starvation mode, and that hasn't been helpful.

Good sleep last night - I fell asleep within a half-hour of lights-out, and woke up a little after 5 am. So grateful!

Tuesday

Reasonably sane day yesterday; increased sleep is helping, and the cold weather is helping provide increased sleep. That said, we went for a walk after work yesterday, and it was freezing out - I think the thermometer said 43, but it nipped at the nose, and the gloves I had on did nothing to insulate my fingertips. We did a pretty brisk pace for much of it, but slowed down on the home stretch to bring the average to 17:04 for a mile and a half.

Eating was pretty good - went like this:

• tea with cream
• the usual supplements
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• 2 string cheese
• about 5 slices of salami
• an apple
• 2 macadamia nuts
• chicken tortilla soup with "carnitas" added in - a fake Mexican Gumbo - and shredded cheddar
• More of that apple tart (we finished it off)
• about 1/2 cup of cashews

If I could just stop with that final snack thing! I was feeling quite satisfied and unhungry, but still felt snacky around 8:30 last night. At least I managed not to bring out the entire container of them.

153.6 this morning, so I'm starting to shed whatever was bugging me last week. Thank heavens. The plan (mine, anyway) is to walk pretty much every night this week (okay, probably not on Friday), weather notwithstanding - so I'm glad to see a sunny day that is supposed to be warmer than yesterday!

For the record, ketones were negative yesterday and I slept pretty well - woke up at 1:45 absolutely freezing, so I put the mattress pad back on and pulled the covers up over my head for a while - was back asleep nearly instantly once I got warm, and didn't stir until 5:26. I will so take it.

Monday

Okay. New week, new start. New scale, for that matter - our previous one went all possessed and flickery on us and refused to light up at all after we replaced the batteries. 

I was going to say that the new scale is the reason that my weight is up from last week, but then I looked at my tracking spreadsheet, and I'm actually down. 154.2 this morning. So it may well be as accurate as the last one. 

Eating over the weekend was not great - I'm fighting carb cravings and mostly losing - to the tune of 2 different bouts of eating tortilla chips yesterday, as an example. I also made an experimental apple tart - trying out gluten-free piecrust - which I spent the day smelling and had some of for dessert. And while the crust wasn't perfect (I'd added too much water, so it was more like eating a cracker), it tasted awesome. I haven't had an apple pie since I can't remember.

Anyway, not really doing the heavy lifting for weight loss, this past weekend.  And yet, I lost weight - on paper.

Got in 2 3-mile walks over the weekend. The weather was amazing - sunny, crisp-to-warm, just perfect. Unfortunately, I didn't get credit for either on my FuelBand - due to some issues with their website, I was led to believe that it had developed an issue that required a factory reset, and nothing done since Tuesday was saved. Sigh. It's back working now, and I plan to get a walk in tonight, so we will start again. I did, however, take my phone and used the Running app, so I got credit for both walks there - that's how I know how long they were.

I brought a bunch of macadamias in to work again. I'm hoping that they will help with the urge to snack in the afternoon - either by providing satiety or as the snack. I'm thinking a homemade version of Qdoba's Mexican Gumbo for dinner - we braised a pork shoulder in the crock pot yesterday (to freeze for quick dinners) and I have some tortilla soup frozen that we could thaw out for it.

Sleep last night was good - I think I woke up only once, at 3 am. Hot flashes are occurring intermittently again - don't know how long this bout will last, but undoubtedly longer than I'd want (they've already achieved that).

Friday

Bad week. Awful week. I'm overreacting to minor stresses, snapping at perfectly reasonable requests, eating crap, failing to sleep, gaining weight. 155.something today - the scale is all psycho to boot, so when I bent down to look at the details, it faded out and started flickering. Perfectly justified; yesterday was a complete carb-fest. Apart from a little cheese in the morning and a Jimmy John's unwich, my diet consisted of Mexican food and candy. We did manage a walk, and ended up going to bed before 8. Probably a good thing, too, as temperature fluctuations woke me up good and hard at 11:40, and I didn't get back to sleep until around 2:00. I think that works out to around 6 hours' sleep. 

I need to research what life is like post-menopause. I hope it calms down a bit, because this just sucks. The sort of existence that makes a massive solar flare wiping out life on earth seem like an enticing prospect. Given the utter lack of real hardship, I'd have to say it's a good thing I don't have a hard life or any real problems - I'm poorly suited to handle them, obviously.

I hope I get good sleep this weekend, and that next week is better. I think I might need to spend a lot of time outdoors this weekend, see if that helps at all.

Thursday

153.8 this morning. I don't really have anything to add.