This morning's weight: 192
I read a nice analogy today on 3FC about dieting and weight loss, and how individuals deal with the inevitable ups and downs. The comparison was to the children's game Chutes and Ladders, with the bottom line being that instead of focusing on the moments of our lives that are chutes, look forward to the next ladder.
I think I have been in a perpetual chute since the end of 2011. I hit 144 pounds, a mere 4 freakin' pounds away from my GOAL, and something happened. It is an intangible something. I did not give up. I did not lose faith in my ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I did not decide to get fat again.
Partially I got lazy. Counting calories and weighing every little thing is sooo tiring. Cooking special meals constantly and dreaming up substitutions all the time is draining. As time has crept onward, I have found it easier to just snack on little things, not really eat big meals, and just try to keep track in my head what I ate. Big mistake. Huge. 52 pounds of mistake.
The other part of this downward spiral is this sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious state of mind I get into. I call it my "Fugue State". It happens when I am in the midst of eating something I shouldn't, or just moments after it is already consumed. My hand-mouth-brain connection gets messed up. Sometimes I tell myself mid gulp "I will eat less later" or "I'm still within my allowance!" or sometimes it is "fuck, did I just eat that, really?"
I want to slim down again. I really do. Thank goodness I have only gained back 52 pounds, and that has taken me a full 2 years which I think, on average, is better than where most folks end up. Most statistics I have read have said that when people lose weight, they generally put it all back on, plus some extra.
Every time I try to reboot my eating plan it fails on day 4. I have a hand-written journal that I keep with me to jot down little things. It is not very full, but there are enough musings in there that I was able to track at least that much. One other thing that I know about myself (and was reminded of after reading the aforementioned journal through) is that I am truly an all-or-nothing kind of gal. Which is why what I have been doing the past 2 years isn't working.
So, all of this adds up to the conclusion that I need a new plan, where I can have tighter control, but think about it all less. Sounds like an impossibility but I believe I may have found an option.
I should also mention that I still eat extremely healthy - it is my portion over the course of the day that is the problem. I am still sugar free. I still limit my bread intake. I still don't eat out very often (once a month?) nor do I eat processed foods for the most part (sometimes my little snacks are bits of my husbands unhealthy foodstuffs. Tasty, tasty garbage...).
I discovered the idea intermittent fasting (IF) again, although this is my first time at trying it. I had heard about it over a year ago and poo-poo'd the idea out of hand without doing any research into it. In my quest to be a lazy dieter, I have now looked into it. I think this is something that might work for me. You can do your own research into it, but basically you give yourself a window of eating and never eat outside of that window. In my case, I am starting with 8 hours of feeding (8am-4pm) w/ 16 hours of fasting. YOu adjust as you go. One doc suggested that the final time frame is more like 4/20, but I am not about to attempt that right out of the gate.
This lets me be lazy in that I can figure out my calories for my week (the breakfast and lunch that I bring with me to work are always the same) and then I don't have to think about food or calories once I leave my office for the day.
It feels like a brilliant plan.
Today is day 2 and I am happily ensconced in my feeding phase right now, ha!. I have been eating cashews, had some soup, and my breakfast, and I still have a salad and an egg for the tail end of the day. I will end up at 1600 calories today. I am letting myself have some extra for these first few days. I will knock it down to 1400 as soon as I feel I can physically handle that, and then ultimately might try for 1200. However, with the fact that I run 2-3 times a week, and I lift 3 days a week, I don't think I should be cutting calories that much. If I don't lose a pound a week on 1400, I'll adjust accordingly.
Yesterday was fine. I really liked that I knew I wasn't going to be eating once I left here. I didn't get up a million times to look in the fridge or the cabinet. I just settled into what I was doing (playing eq2) and stuck with it until bed time. I woke up hungry, but not overly. Had tea instead of coffee, came into the office. By 7:30, I felt like I was going to throw up from hunger, but I waited until 8 for breakfast. I felt floaty headed.
I had coffee (finally) at 10:30. HUGE mistake. I have no idea if I felt like shit (even after breakfast) because I was having caffeine withdrawal, or if it was because of the previous days fast.
The plan for tomorrow is to have coffee at 8 with my yogurt and see if I get that same feeling again.
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