Uh-oh! Gently does it. First decide to stop overdoing. Then, a few days later, worry about reducing. Gently. Cause yeah. 🤯

PAV8888 wrote: »

Are you sleeping good?

No! Fall asleep too early. Or wake up at odd hours and can’t go back to sleep. Yawning all day. Yeah - the answer is definitely NO.

Doing better today (so far). Just trying to maintain- and not add more poundage! The days I lose control aren’t about hunger. It’s eating anything in sight to control the anxiety. Never been able to fully conquer that response to stress. But at least now it lasts only a day or two - or three.

It's the most difficult stuff actually Laurie. We get in the loss groove and everything works for a while.

But controlling the hormonally induced rebound(s) (the hormones potentially also being either a secondary or, in summer cases, primary binge trigger) is where the game often gets lost.

I still log because I LIKE my blanket now!! It's an lovely blanket 😎

Fighting my meds. Apparently weight increase is a side effect! Oy!! I’m fighting the trend but treading water for now. No progress but no regression so 👍

“How does that work, Yooly? Do the meds make you more hungry? Or slow your metabolism? Sounds horrible either way”

It sucks! The meds slow my metabolism way down. That also results in a lot of fatigue and lack of energy. Brain fog too! The promise is I will adjust and get back to normal speed after the first year. But in the meantime I’m also aging so…. I’m back to the gym at least three times a week.
Waiting for a miracle?

An epiphany in the middle of the night.

I'm very conscious of the fact that too much calorie restriction will result in uncontrolled eating. At some point. At some time. Might be an hour, a week, a month or a year - but - without a doubt I will switch from weight loss to weight gain.

I'm trying to be mindful of that, more than ever. I really really don't want to live the rest of my life on this rollercoaster. Though I joke with friends that I'm on the weight loss or weight gain cycle of life - it is no joke.

I always think, at some level, that it is just something I need to learn to control. That if I know that I've had enough nutrition/calories I will learn to control any desire to eat more (binge).

It came to me last night, on a deep level, that this is not any more in the realm of control for me than my heart beating.

If I eat too little my body(?) some deep primitive part of my brain(?) pushes me away from the controls and takes over. This sounds a bit dramatic but I don't think it is. It is how it works. For me - maybe for all of us who have struggle with weight management at a significant level.

PAV - you have spoken of hamsters and I have used that myself. But not on a deep - absolute control level. I thought of the hamsters as something I could train or trick or appease somehow. As hamsters! :) I'm not sure if that is how your meant/regard your brain hamsters.

This thing I became fully aware of last night is more of a big dark behemoth that lives deep in the ocean. So deep we have never seen it. Unnamed. Slow to move yet absolute. Maybe part of a future Stephen King novel :)

Oh I hope this epiphany means something for me in a big picture way - not just a middle of the night "a ha" moment.

As someone who is ridiculously independent and absolutely certain of my ability to control "me" - this is a big pill to swallow. Maybe that is why it has taken so long?

"In my case it has taken me a while to realize that often when I'm starting to think about various foods or food combinations it is actually because I am getting hungry/haven't had sufficient calories for the level of activity."

This is very interesting - something I will watch out for. But I think I really need to make sure I'm eating enough calories so this doesn't happen. But eating enough calories is very very strange!!!

It is 8:45 here and I feel like I am pretty well done eating for the day - except maybe a tea. I'm feeling content. Definitely not hungry. But. But. But. I've only eaten 1514 calories today and my Fitbit/MFP calorie goal to achieve a 1 pound per week weight loss is 2203. I'm not certain that calorie goal is correct yet - but it is probably not too far off. Can't tell by weight yet because I lost 5 pounds in 3 days this week :) obviously there are adjustments going on.

Last time around I would just be super tickled that I ate so few calories today and click the green "complete this entry" button at the bottom of the page and call it a day. I think I have done that a day or two this week even. That has to change.

This time around I'm going to eat something else before the day is done. Maybe not 700 calories worth, but I'll try to get to 2000 calories without going bananas :) This sounds so easy - but it goes against everything my "weight loss brain" is telling me.

And, really, 2,000 calories is a lot of food, if I am eating well. Throw a cake or a bunch of donuts or even hummous and crackers or peanut butter and crackers into the mix and boom 2000 calories are ingested in a blink. Especially since I seem unable to eat those things in moderation. So tonight I need to find 500 calories that will not trigger overeating. Hmmm….

Once I get this thing sorted out - and am closer to my goal weight (again!) I'll be more prepared to move onto that long slow period to flatten the curve while I lose those last 20 or so pounds. I will remember that "flattening the curve of ups and downs is the goal. If I'm up 5 lbs in a week I will take 5 months to go down." (oh my god, PAV - how how how did you do that???!!!)

I managed to maintain my 125 pound weight loss of 2020 for a year - then weight started creeping up in 2022 and continued. That year wasn't a proper maintenance. It was a yoyo up and down of 5 pounds or so. A mini, high frequency roller coaster. Not bingeing, but definitely overeating followed by extreme low calorie days. That worked until I hit the shoulder surgery and then the other 6 surgeries and I was loathe to employ the extreme calorie reduction I was accustomed to using to quickly lose those reoccurring five pound gains. And then it all just spiralled out of control. And here I am.

So the hormones never settled.

But I am still here. I never gave up hope. I am learning from experience and especially from all of you wonderful people. And PAV's never ending patience to keep saying the same things over and over in different ways until it sticks :)