This post is coming from a headspace where I have been thinking of myself as this unstoppable health machine. I didn't "get" how people could fail so hard, so fast (I read lots of weight loss stories on 3fc). It has never occurred to me that I would have a set back, or struggle with moving forward and maintaining my journey. Or even come to a place where I would feel any amount of guilt for any reason because I am awesome (and totally not at all full of myself LOL)
Anyway...
I gave myself permission to eat what I wanted over the Thanksgiving holiday. My father was in town, and is eating similar to the way I eat (he is on the Paleo diet these days). This means that I got to cook food that I eat and show off my cooking skills, which are pretty terrific if I do not say so myself. The following were my dinner menus for the 2 nights he was in town:
Thanksgiving Dinner:
- Roasted Chicken with Onion and Fennel gravy (made from the drippings and the veggies it was cooked with; no flour or additional fats)
- Simple Roasted Root Veggies (Rutabaga, Beets, and Sweet Potato)
- Mashed Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic
- Pan Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
- Apple-Spice Cranberry Sauce
- Mandarin-Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce
- Punkin Pice Cream (my personal recipe, made with Butternut Squash this time)
Friday Dinner:
- Bouillabaisse (with clams, mussels, cod, squid, and shrimp we picked up fresh from the Half Moon Bay Fish Market)
- Roasted Turnip Rounds
- Black-Bean Brownies with Cocoa Nibs
For the whole weekend I did not count calories, and I did not tell myself "no" even when what I wanted was a big ol' spoonful of coconut butter. My portions during meals were normal for me, but I snacked long and hard. I even had some butter on my popcorn! And slices of sheep's milk Parmesan from the farmers market!
So, while I did not break down entirely and eat off my personal list of allowable (ie, no sugar, no bread, no alcohol, nothing terrible for me... except those couple of bites of crispy chicken skin which I normally would stay WELL away from) I am quite positive that I went over my calorie allottment. Probably 5-fold. I honestly don't even really want to know how far I set myself back just from this one weekend of gluttony. I never ate 'til I felt sick, which is a personal triumph (I think I have only done that 2-3 times since starting my journey). But, I also ate when not hungry. It was like this little devil on my tongue and in my brain that was saying eat! eat!eat!
So now I am in damage-control mode. Since September, I have been in maintenance calorie range (for me, that is 1800 calories when I am not exercising). I have no idea how many calories I need to make up for from this weekend, but my plan is to stay in the 1200-1300 range until my weight drops 1 pound from where I started, and maintain that pound loss for a week, before I go back into the 1800 maintenance mode. In this way, I know I will have "fixed" what I did this weekend. I predict that I can drop that pound in 2-3 weeks and then another week to see if it "takes".
That, in a nutshell, is my next mini-goal. Stay on this track for 1 month. 1200 is loooow and hard for me. I have been having dizzy / tired / sicky spells almost every day if I do not get the appropriate amount of protein in me. Balancing the need to eat protein every couple of hours against staying this low is a challenge. I managed it yesterday. I can only hope for as good of results for the next month.
One weird thing that has come up in the last 48 hours for me, mentally, is that this strict control on what I am putting in my mouth makes me feel better. In maintenance mode, I have felt like little nibbles were OK. Now I am not feeling that that is the case. And I just feel more in control in general. I guess I am an all or nothing person. I will have to think on that further...
