Wednesday, June 29, 2011

It's working--177.6

Yesterday's weight was 180.4. I didn't post it because I was getting very frustrated but didn't want to talk about how the scale was tormenting me. I mean, it didn't move for days, even though my food had been clean. My head knows it can take a while for my body to respond to food changes, but my emotions and habits were ticked and perplexed. So I just kept at it and knew it would eventually show a loss.

Today--2.8 pounds down. Woot!

My body rarely loses weight mid-cycle. The same hormones that made me uptight and angry and crazy yesterday keeps the fat on my body too. I've tracked my weight for years in excel (lost the spreadsheet from my original weight loss when my hard drive died, but I started a new one this year), so I know this pattern exists. It still takes a lot of mental strength to realize this fact when I'm in the grips of the same hormones that control so much of me already. When they control the scale, despite my best efforts, it can be disheartening.

At any rate, hopefully the hormones are done with me for a couple weeks. Hopefully the clean, balanced food will keep my body in fat burning mode. Hopefully I can stay true to this food plan. I haven't felt food cravings (much) and I haven't gone through those horrible carb or caffeine reactions, where my body is tired and sluggish after food I eat/drink to try to get some energy. My energy has been stable, at least, even though my hormones were nuts. That's no small thing.

My oats are almost finished cooking, so I'm off to eat my big breakfast and start the day. Almost 3 pounds lighter, in body and spirit.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

4 comments:

Laura N said...

I just realized I haven't had to take any ibuprofen for headaches since I started this on Saturday. I haven't cut out my morning caffeine yet--had my last can of Illy coffee/milk this morning--so I haven't struggled with caffeine headaches. BUT, the afternoon headaches have been absent.

Jill A said...

Why do you think that is? About the headaches, I mean? What do you think was causing them?

So glad the weight loss finally caught up with your efforts! :)

Laura N said...

I think the biggest difference now is that I'm not eating sugar.

Pure sugar foods (like candy) give me a headache. Foods with too much sugar in proportion to the other ingredients give me a headache (like the McD's fruit smoothie, which was loaded with sugar and made me terribly sick & gave me a headache).

Also, caffeine in the afternoon gives me a headache.

Despite these facts, I have used a sugar/caffeine boost in the afternoons to 1) keep me going & awake and 2) relieve me from being bored to tears at my desk.

It makes sense that I'd have a desire for sugar in the afternoon, esp. if the night before I ate carbs/fat junk food, and my morning breakfast was carbs/caffeine/sugar, and then lunch was either fast food or frozen food, loaded with carbs/fat. I mean, no wonder I need more sugar at 2 pm. My body doesn't know any difference! There's a constant flow of sugar. The afternoons is where it usually catches up with me, and I hit it again, and I have a headache, and I take ibuprofen, and 24 hours later I have the same headache and take the same ibuprofen again. (rebound effect)

I am migraine sensitive to a lot of foods (wine, dark chocolate, almonds and peanuts if eaten in larger quantities, some processed foods like Taco Bell and McD's salads, and probably a lot more if I watched it all closely), and have had headaches my whole life. As I've gotten older, I've become more sensitive to more foods. It is nothing for me to take ibuprofen once or twice every single day. Which, I know, can also cause rebound headaches. It's a vicious cycle.

Vickie said...

don't cut out your morning caffeine, reduce it slowly in increments so you don't get a headache.

I went from nearly daily headaches to just a few a year. I think it is the additives.

If we did a big spreadsheet thing, we could probably figure out what additives (in addition to foods you mentioned), but it is easier (in my opinion) to just cut it all out and eat whole foods.

If I have one sip of wine, can count to 10 and I feel very bad that quickly. You and I and your daughter are very similar in a lot of ways.

And she will not have to suffer for so many years (like we have) because she will change her ways at a very young age.

It will quickly become about the habits and how good you feel. Self reinforcing cycle. When we feel good all the time (mentally and physically) we NOTICE when we don't feel good and we attribute that to the cause.

You can see how hard it is for people to maintain if they do not have 'structure' to their food.

they don't know what actually works for their body.

the ones who are in REAL trouble (in my opinion) are the ones who are on 'bars' and 'packages' all during weight loss and then try to switch to food, right as they are entering maintenance. Kiss of death, because they had NO practice. There is a reason weight loss is slow and steady - so we can figure it out and retrain our habits/thinking.