Currently I'm simply not interested in food at such events and generally just don't eat at them. I prefer to wait until I get home and eat the food I bought and/or prepared for myself already. The food isn't why I went to the event in the first place. I go for the reason I went and celebrate that reason (I don't go to food-only events where you try all the food there because I'm just not interested in that).

If I am at an event and feel I can, or should eat something there, I'll pick what fits my diet and log it. Otherwise I leave it and eat later instead.

There was a time where that was not so straightforward. I would crave something, use the event as some justification to eat things that were enticing, and either chalk it up to having a fun day, complain about it later, or just get back on with the diet (or worse the whole experience might start some binge). Those cravings just don't exist now (probably seems a foreign concept, and one even I still find curious) and that is to some extent from being in ketosis these last few months.

Of course I get hungry, like any human, and I need to eat when that happens. But I have to go without eating for a day or two before those feelings trigger, and it feels a lot different than the sensations (and thoughts) I used to associate with feeling hungry. So I can easily eat ahead of time, or wait until later to eat. I can't imagine being in a spot where I am stuck with only bad food choices for days and must choose from only those poor options.

I know most, if not all of that probably sounds insane or impossible, trust me, I spent most all of my life right there myself where this whole explanation would have made zero sense to me at all. But that is how I handle these things right now, and it is not any sort of issue at all. It's ridiculously easy in fact. I just enjoy the event, and either don't eat or choose only from acceptable food options.

Please note this is not in any any way advocating ketosis, that is simply part of this equation. I spent a lot of years adjusting my habits and choices in regards to food which has also contributed. But ketosis has so vividly suppressed any and all cravings and other swings from the insulin cycle which was ultimately a key driver causing me to make bad food choices in my past. I only plan on remaining in ketosis to get to my ideal weight. After that I will get to experience something totally foreign, going out of ketosis and letting carbs back in (eek...lol). Not to mention how keto is such an unusual diet in our society, certainly not one to just take on, and definitely not for everyone (downright bad idea for some people). Many people can't maintain it and simply wind up feeling like garbage from not having enough discipline to maintain it 100% of the time (no room for failure), or fail to meet some essential needs of their body in some way. I recently struggled myself (even fainted) and learned I had to bump my sodium and potassium intake up even higher than I had already done before. Getting labs done regularly is a good idea (not just for any diets, but in general). So please, please, don't think this is a post advocating a ketogenic diet. It's simply my explanation of how I approach today's topic.

Also, as for eating out, I pick food accordingly and log it. I pick stuff where I pretty much know what I'm getting and know I'll be able to log it. I'm not interested in mystery food, no matter how exciting they make it sound. Once in a great while I find myself somewhere with no options at all and then I just pass on the food entirely, but that is extremely rare.

So I think my three week hiatus didn’t really break the plateau, it just made me gain a few pounds I need to lose again. Maybe I made more terrible choices than I thought or maybe I haven’t been eating enough and my body is holding on to anything it gets. Who knows. The whole experience had made me start overthinking what my calorie goal should be, and I realized… I don’t have enough data to really determine that.

So, I’ve decided to do what I do best: Over engineer the situation and make it more complicated than it needs to be, resulting in an absurd amount of numbers in a completely glorious excel file. (Excel is kind of my jam.)

So today I created an excel file that will track the following:
1. My resting, active, and total energy spends according to my Apple Watch.
2. My gross and net calories consumed via MFP
3. What my gross and net deficit is each day, and a total for each month.
4. The minimum (gross deficit) I should be losing a month and the max (net deficit) based on the math vs. what I actually weight.

Calories in calories out is King.

This will allow me to do the following:
1. More accurately determine if my calorie limit set by MFP is too low/high and if I need to adjust my a adjust my activity level back to sedentary from lightly active.
2. Discuss with my doctor if it looks like my numbers are on point and I’m still not losing, because perhaps something else is going on.

So I’ll do this for the 3-4 months I have between now and my annual physical, and I’ll have some data up my sleeve for my convo with my doctor.

So, I'm feeling good about this because Excel always seems to make me feel better about things. Let’s see what I find out.