s00sh's Blog

Missed last week's weigh-in due to travel. I spent a weekend in Chicago and a full week in Madison. You can only imagine the sorts of food I was eating! My husband and I were on a mission to try all sorts of things we can't get at home (Nepalese, Ethopian, etc). We had some amazing meals, and I tried really hard not to stress too much and just enjoy myself. Our hotel had a fridge and microwave, so I was able to have oatmeal for breakfast and salad/yogurt for lunch a few times. Unfortunately the hotel gym was closed for repairs, but I did get a lot of walking in.

I felt awful and bloated for several days after getting home, but eventually started to get back to normal. I lifted on Monday for the first time in two weeks and was so sore for two days I wanted to cry. I was able to get back at it yesterday, though, so with a bit of a schedule shift I should get 3 weight room sessions in this week.

Found out I'm going to be spending all next week in Omaha, so here we go again with a ton of eating out. No fridge or microwave this time, either. I may be living off Quest bars for awhile.

ANYWAY...the weigh-in: 158.5

Down a pound or so, which I must say is surprising after some of the naughty things I did last week. My plan was to end the reset on September 17th and start a cut, but I may extend things for awhile. I'd like to get to a point where I'm really able to dial in what my maintenance TDEE is...I think I'm close but not quite stable enough for my liking yet. It will be a lot easier to fine tune when I'm home for an extended period and can really be meticulous with weighing and measuring things. Plus, I'm really liking this eating a lot thing, and if the scale isn't going up, I'm cool sticking with it. Lord knows my body could probably use the extended break.

Made the mistake of weighing myself on Monday because I was so bummed out about going up to 160.8 on Friday that I figured "I'm probably down a bit, I'll check". 163.4! Immediately after that, TOM came to visit - so yeah, bad idea to get on the scale.

I then spent the better part of the week being really, really bummed out. I also ended up getting sick, which meant I wasn't working out. I tried to adjust calorie intake accordingly and eat a bit less since I wasn't burning anything exercising, but still stay relatively close to my goals. I'll be damned if I'm going to give up on this now because I'm starting to freak out a bit.

Scale today - 159.8. Down almost 4 pounds from Monday's super bloat, and one full pound from last Friday, when I'm sure I was already starting to retain water. That's a total gain of 2.2 pounds in one month of the reset. I was hoping to get through 8 weeks with not much more than 5 pounds, so I'd say I'm on track.

Bad news for healthy eating - we're headed to Chicago for the weekend to visit friends, then immediately to Madison on Sunday where I'll be spending the week while my husband works on a project for work. 8 days straight of eating out is going to be crazy. Our trips to Chicago usually revolve around our favorite things to eat, and you can't spend time in Wisconsin without drinking a ton of beer and eating fried cheese curds, hehehe. I did pick a hotel that had a fridge/microwave and a nice looking gym, so I should be able to get some workouts in, plus lots of general walking around for sight-seeing. Next week's weigh-in may be a doozy.

*Disclaimer: If you don't want to read about menstrual cycles, this probably isn't the post for you ;)

Made the mistake of weighing today and the scale is up. A lot. And I'm not remotely upset. In fact, I'm really happy. Why? I got my period!

 You may be thinking Why the hell would you be happy about that?? Well, after spending 20+ years being totally regular the last couple have been pretty random. I went well over 6 months without a period. My doctor put me on meds that were supposed to force me into having one, and they didn't work. I was given an ultra-sound but they didn't see anything out of the ordinary so I was scheduled for more tests. Right before I was supposed to go in for those I had a light period so the tests were cancelled. I then went 6 more months without one. I thought maybe diet and exercise might be the culprit, but in my mind I was eating plenty - I didn't really understand BMR. 

I upped my calories a bit before I truly started EM2WL and got a period last month (which was one of the catalysts for researching the eat more philosophy). For me, the real test of whether this was something my body truly needed was if I got another one on schedule, and sure enough, I did. I don't know if there's a much clearer sign than this that I'm on the right path. 

Due to a few uncontrollable circumstances I had to eat out several nights this week. I tried to keep my sodium as low as possible, but in a few cases (wtf, Chili's?) it wasn't really possible. I had a bad feeling going into this weigh-in - not sure if TOM is visiting soon or what, but I've been feeling really hormonal and weird all week.

Sure enough, I was up almost 3 pounds: 158.0-160.8.  Now the crazy psychological stuff will truly begin for me. First big weight gain plus moving up into a different set of scale numbers (seeing that '6' about gave me a heart attack). There is certainly some sodium bloat at work here, as well as some possible female issues - obviously I haven't eaten an extra 10,000+ calories this week. But the old me is screaming from the back of my brain "You need to immediately eat way less, get on the treadmill and get this under control!". It's hard not to panic when I have put so much work into this weight loss journey. Especially when the last few pounds have taken forever to come off.

I think this upcoming week might be a big turning point for me. I'm going to do my best to stay calm, stay on the path and trust that this is all going to work out for me in the long run.

After a comment on my last blog (thanks, Ge0rgiana!) I made a concerted effort to reduce my sodium the last couple days. I can't believe how ridiculously hard it was for me to stay under 2,500mg when eating 2,000+ calories! I still went over a tad, but it was quite a bit better than I had been doing. Will probably go off the charts over the weekend, but plan on really trying to watch it most days. Stocked up on a ton of fresh fruit, which should make it easier to get my carbs in without all the salt.

Weight last week was 157.8 and this morning I was 158. Two ounces gained since last week, and four ounces total. I was really worried I'd have a huge jump this week since I started lifting again, so this was another pleasant surprise.

Two weeks down, six more to go. So far, so good. May increase calories a bit next week - can't quite figure out if I'm "light" or "moderate" on exercise levels. I cut out almost all cardio except a 30 minute walk after dinner every night, which is pretty leisurely. I lift heavy three times a week, but it's really only about 45 min to an hour, and I'm pretty sedentary the rest of the time.