Listen to these ladies! :-)

You'll be just fine - just get back on plan, that's all. :-) What's the worst that could have happened, from one day of going off-plan? You *might* have knocked yourself out of ketosis, but there's a fix for that. It's called......starting again tomorrow (or, right this minute). Sure, it might take you a few days to get back into ketosis, but those days will pass anyway. Wouldn't you rather be back on the path, headed in the right direction while they do?


Honestly, you know what's really helped me stay on track so far - funnily enough? It's that 'ketosis taste' in my mouth - that slightly sweet tinge to my saliva. If I can taste that, I know that I'm in ketosis - and I know that I don't want to ruin ketosis, because I know it's working for me.

My household has been chock-full of all kinds of temptations this last week - my daughter wanted me to help her make brownies (I did, then had a MF brownie of my own), a friend made an apple-cider cake as 'payment' for my hubby plowing her driveway (I had a taste the size of half my little fingernail - it *was* good), my hubby and kids made sugar cookies (little carb-bombs, those are - I really wasn't that tempted), hubby and I were out and about, and I had a couple of shakes and water with me, while he stopped for Burger King.....although I didn't *really* want that, the smell was SO juicy, and the mayonnaise was calling my name. I sucked on my shake and dealt with it. ;-) But the toughest part of the week so far was when my hubby made steaks for us to take for lunch - and to go with his, he made a mushroom gravy that was out of this freaking world. I pulled ONE mushroom out of the sauce, and almost fell over, it was so tasty. It was hard to know that that wasn't passing my taste buds in bulk!

But, I like my ketosis more than I like those tasty things. I know that once I'm done losing, and into maintenance, I can have those things again, in moderation, if I really want them. And I can wait.

(Another thing that has helped me is - if things smell good, then I smell them. Really, really smell them - last night, hubby offered me a tiny fraction of a very flavorful potato chip he'd just gotten - I didn't accept, and instead, I stuffed my face in the bag and took a deep breath. It was perfect. :-) After all, taste is mostly smell anyway. I satisfied my taste buds through smell, and that was enough.

I understand that for some folks, even smelling something might be a terrible trigger, but so far for me, it's only been satisfying in its own way. As long as I'm eating all my meals on time, so I'm not actually hungry, and being unfairly 'pushed' by my drop in blood sugar, then it's a lot easier to just say no to eating something, but thoroughly enjoying the smell anyway.

The important thing is to think about what it was that prompted you to make the choice you made. Were you stressed out, sad, angry right before you went off plan? Make a PLAN for the next time those feeling come up. As long as you learn something from it I don't consider it "messing up". Also, just own it and keep going. If you drop you cell phone do you stomp on it till it's completely broken:) Nope. Learning these things about yourself while your on your weight loss journey is key to being able to keep your weight off and be healthy for life. You've got this!

Ok. So last week wasn't great. I slipped up a little. I weighed in this week with a one pound loss. At first I was really frustrated, but then I thought any loss should be celebrated. Anyways, I'm back on track. The day I started MF I stopped exercising. This is my fourth week so I'm starting to exercise again. The first day I spent about 20 minutes on my elliptical and ended up with a huge headache. Should I be adding more protein when I exercise? Is this normal?

I have messed up quite a few times. I think that the body just wants all of that bad stuff....sooo badly. But when you do get back into ketosis, you will lose what you gained, for me, I lose and half the rate that I gain. (Life sucks, and then you die.).