Nice, but still not back down to where I was On Sunday. Today is 142 even on the Wii, 135.5-136 or so on the analog. 

Yesterday, I got 4 miles on the treadmill and ate about 1,500, so what I ate and what I burned came out about even. I slept like a rock. I woke up feeling flu-ish and panicked for a minute. From what I understand, the flu that's going around is HORRIBLE and people are down for days. I've heard of people losing 7-10 lb. in a week, and while that would put me at my goal, that is NOT the way I want to do it! I'm feeling better now that I've had some coffee, but I'm going to take some Occillo this morning.

Better, but still I'd like to know why it is so easy to go UP in huge increments while invariably the DOWN increments seem to be infinitesimally small. Or at least smallER. I mean yes, 1.3 is a big drop, but I worked at making that happen and it still wasn't as big as the surprise gain that I did not see coming. A steak day that is properly executed can make it come down 2-3 lb. But those 2-3 lb. drops out of nowhere...where are they?

Oh I don't think so!

I walked 5 miles yesterday with much of it at my top speed and with the incline up all the way! I was sweating buckets! I ate almost no carbs and (with the exercise figured in) less than my allotment of calories. I know I was burning like a fiend, because I was actually hungry to the point of my stomach hurting a few hours after dinner. I ate a 80 calorie piece of goat cheddar...and showed great restraint that I didn't blow it when my daughter (who was feeling ill) wanted a hot buttered English muffin that I had to toast, butter and carry to her room. The muffin made it in one piece, but it was torture for me!

And I am a little sore (still or again), so maybe thats what this is. Or, I am paying for the transgressions of Saturday night now. Or the breast tenderness that's gotten so much worse is indicating that I can expect a nice big drop in a day or two. Or the fact that I didn't sleep for beans and got up at 5:30 am is registering on the scale. 

I would do a steak day today even if  technically I don't need one, except that I am an unwilling carnivore. I am a hypocrite. I went vegetarian 20-some odd years ago because I couldn't stand the thought of eating flesh and never could stand to handle meat raw. The only reason I do now is because I hat being fat worse. I am lucky enough to have a husband who cooks it for me, however. He loves to grill year-round, and when we cook meat dishes in the house, he does the meat part...I do the rest. Or if I'm alone, I don't eat meat...or I eat what he's cooked ahead and left in the freezer. Another option would be to take myself out to dinner and let someone else cook.

In any case, he's unavailable to help me out tonight. He has prior commitments. 

Thus, I either do an 'egg day', for which I'm not prepared as I have no eggs made (and will be at work) or I assume that what I see on the scale is not reality. I'm choosing to assume that this is not reality.

If tomorrow, when I weigh at a normal time and have caught up on sleep, this is still registering, Dave and I have agreed to a steak day tomorrow. That would mean fasting all day, and then having a nice steak and an apple for dinner. It's never failed to bring me down more than a lb., and once THREE. It's hard, but it is do-able. 

Later-
We'll see if a steak day is even required. I did sort of a protein blitz that might qualify as and Intermittent Fast (IF) day.

I didn't eat until about 2:30 pm. I was shooting for an egg day, but I had to make the eggs when I got home from work, and I was just to hungry to wait for the cooking and the cooling and the making. So I had a cup of tuna and a piece of goat cheddar along with my supplements. 

When the eggs were cooled and all, I ate two eggs. 

After a couple of miles on the treadmill I had 12 Brussels sprouts. All total, I've consumed 697 calories and burned 229. Most of those calories were protein and fat, with a little bit of complex carb.  

Later  I had about 1/2 oz. pistachios. 

I may still have a piece of homemade chocolate. I'm not sure about a 3 oz. glass of wine. It depends on my DH. I'm actually so tired I could just go to bed and drop into a dreamless sleep immediately, but he's been up longer and worked harder and he doesn't get to even be home yet. So I'm up until he gets home, and then I'll go to bed when he does. That is likely another 1/2 hour. He may want to hot tub. He may want a drink. He may not have enough awake left in him for either. 

I was astounded by that, but very pleased. I had two glasses of wine last night that not only put me up over my calorie goal, but knocked me on my butt. I had poured a third glass only to (rightly) not drink that. I don't feel too bad this morning, but did wake up with breast tenderness and bloating again, so I was expecting to be UP at least a pound. I also tried to felt a knitting project by hand yesterday, and after 1/2 hour and very tired arms/back, I gave up. I also reupholstered 4 dining room chairs, which required very long screws and heavy use of a screwdriver. I'm sore this morning. I was mentally gearing up for a steak day before I even got out of bed.

Looking back, I've lost 2.5 lb. since I stopped protocol! That is exactly what my goal was on the calorie counter. I figured out the average weight loss for my 7 weeks of protocol. I lost 20 lb. Most of that was in the first couple of weeks. If you average it all out, with the painfully slow last week or two (or so it seemed) it was 2.8-2.9 lb. per week. And I am now eating more than double the calories...of food I like! 

That does not mean that I'm considering protocol a waste. Like I said before, I tried to get rid of the weight all summer and couldn't the 'traditional' way. It's like protocol kick-started my body into letting it go, and now I'm on a roll and much happier with how I feel and look already.

I hope I can keep it up!

I didn't expect that! What a nice surprise! I actually felt a little bloated today, and yesterday I didn't get a walk in. I worked in the morning, then came home and did some work here at home. DH and I did about 1/2 hour of yoga, but not full out sweaty yoga. When I went to bed, I told my husband the day might yield a gain, but as long as it wasn't a pound or more, I wouldn't insist on a steak day. If it was, steak day for sure.

Could be, but I doubt it. I still ate less than I burned yesterday, thought not by as large a margin as the days before.  

I attribute this to the fact that I weighed in 2 hours earlier today, at what I consider to be last night, since the sun wasn't up yet! I also expect the next couple of days to be wonky because I'll likely weigh late, and tonight I'll be having wine. 

Monday will be a better gauge. 

I was actually surprised by that. The analog looked to be a gain, and considering my system is still trying to figure out what to do with all that extra food from yesterday, I thought it might look like a gain until tomorrow. 


BTW, I posted the totals and content of my first real stabilization meal, but I have to say here that a lot of math was involved in that and it was a pain in the arse. 

These are foods I will likely incorporate into my 'usual' staples. I wanted to put them in as a 'custom food.' FitDay calculates it for me if I recall, but this app didn't. It would store a custom food, but I had to enter in all the data. 

So for both the dressing and the salad, I looked up the approximate amount of each item, the nutritional content of each (I stuck to calories, fat and carbs), wrote that down, then added up what the whole amount would be. For the dressing, I had to guess at how many servings were in the whole batch and then divide the total to come up with a serving size estimation. Yes, it was time consuming, but most of us have only about 6 or 8 things we keep in our typical rotations. We may mix it up on occasion, but we are creatures of habit. I will have to do this a few times, but then it will be in the system and easy to find.


In looking ahead at exercise options, it looks like we are in for normal chilly temps and some snow until at least next weekend. I will get my treadmill in early since it's unlikely I'll walk later. I only have one appointment, so I'll be home researching and writing. Tomorrow is a full day of appointments for the Real Weight Release program. My point being they will be totally different kinds of days, with different activity levels and different eating patterns. We'll see how that shakes out.

Love that! 

I also loved my coffee this morning. It was a double with 2 tbsp. cream, which was 100 calories according to the package; 103 or 104, depending on the other two sources.

I plugged all of my information into two different tools to get an idea of what I'm looking at here. I should do this with the Wii too. I will tomorrow if I remember. 

Anyway, I used one tool on the computer (an on-line resource) and one on my mobile (an app). I put my current weight (143-ish according to Wii) and my goal (121 by my birthday which is mid-April). 

Both warned me that more than 2.5 lb. per week was an excessive goal and I should consult with a caregiver.   

One told me my daily calorie goal was around 2,000 calories. The other told me my total calorie goal was about 800. There is a bit of a difference there. And while the difference in calories in my creamer was small, I feel here is a good time to point out these are just tools based on averages.

And I say this because there are clients who will say, 'In your handouts, you have chicken as this many calories, but I looked it up and my source says it's (some minuscule number of) calories less/more.' Uh huh. And the point is? Or they will be upset that the scale in my office is different than theirs at home...when they weigh nude first thing in the morning at home. Of course it is. 

These are just tools based on averages. You can get on the scale 1/2 dozen times in a row and get widely divergent results. I know this because I've also had clients tell me they've done this...and then used the average weight. Personally, I think that's silly. It doesn't really matter what specifics the tool is providing! And I don't care if it's a several hundred (or thousand) dollar tool either. It's just a machine. It's giving you and idea of where you have been, where you are and where you might go. That's it. It gives you are reasonably close proximate idea of these things if it's the expensive tool. The free app on my iPad? Or online? Not so much. 

That does not mean it's not useful. It is. It gives me an idea of what I might be shooting for. I might find that it's totally wrong for ME. That requires self-knowledge and common-damn-sense. 

At this point, it would seem I need to eat somewhere between 800-2000 calories. Actually, I know from past experience that there is never a time in my life that I can eat 2000 calories and not gain weight, no matter how active I am. My personal parameters have been about 1400-1600 in the past. They may have changed. We'll see. I'll start with the 800 and work my way up. Or not. If I am reaching my goals at 800 and it's comfortable for me, I'll stick to it.

Later-
This is what a stabilization day looks like:

1/2 grapefruit for breakfast (after the coffee)

Lunch:
100 g. burger (plain, still)
12 spears asparagus (also plain)

Dinner:
A BLT salad with romaine, tomato, 1 slice bacon, 1 hard boiled egg, 100 g. chicken breast, 1 tbsp. onion and 1 tbsp. homemade blue cheese dressing. YUM! I am very full!

According to the app (that was easier to use than the website), it looks like I've consumed about 879 calories, although the 4 miles I walked on the treadmill at an incline starting at 12 and moving down over the course of an hour and a half, the app says I have a deficit and could eat 588 more calories. This app, BTW, is the tool that said I should eat around 800 calories. FitDay told me 2,000.

Now, considering there is no simple carbohydrate in my day, and there is a deficit, that SHOULD mean that I'll still drop at least a little tomorrow. Even if I decide to have a snack later, it would be a homemade stevia sweetened chocolate with coconut oil. The calories would still be in the hole and there would still be no sugar or starch.

I'm  not counting the calories from my supplements because I'm taking the same stuff I did during protocol. I just assume I need to round up on everything to compensate. 

Today is my third day of VLCI after the last injection. Technically, I'm supposed to be in a holding pattern, within 2 lb. in either direction, with that last weight. Considering I gained .4 over the last two days, I guess I am. However, even if this were to continue, I would run with it beyond the 2 lb. limit. I am just really damn close to my size 6 cloths, and I'm not giving up. I won't continue on 500 calories or anything, but I will take what I can get. 

Yesterday I actually was a little hungry twice. In the middle of the afternoon, I'd say around 2 pm, I thought, 'Oh hell no! I'm never going to make it until 6 pm to eat again!' On a scale of 0-10, with 10 being 'I'm so hungry I don't CARE if it makes me gain, I'm eating the first thing I find!' I was about a 5. But I didn't want to be a 10. So I had 1 oz. of pistachios. 

 Then, but the time I ate dinner, I was back up to a 4 or 5. I had a 100 g. burger, 10 spears of asparagus, and 1/2 grapefruit. I was good for the rest of the night. 

I did not wake up hungry. I've now been up for hours and I've had two cups of coffee and about 24 oz. of water. 

Later--
Sort of a repeat of yesterday as far as food goes, except the fruits were switched. Oddly enough though, I'm over-full now. I ate the dinner rather mindlessly. (I mean, what's to enjoy at this point?) When I got done with my apple, I realized I was too full. I still am. 

The one difference is that I walked more and harder today. 10 incline; almost 4 miles. Yesterday, no miles, but I did do the hot tub (which I don't plan on tonight).

So. This is it. my 72 hours of continued VLCI. Tomorrow, cream in my coffee! Whoohoo! I will start counting calories and tracking exercise on the iPad, phone, computer or all of the above. The intent is to keep eating sort of what I am for the next few days, but I'll mix up the veggies. 

But I'll start with the cream!

Nonsense.