It's been four months

It has been four months since I have had a new low on the scale. At first I was patient because weight loss in never linear.  I have been pleased that I have been maintaining within a ten pound range. 

But the truth is I don't want to maintain, I am not at maintenance weight. I want to keep on losing another 40+ pounds. 

These past 4 months were not wasted. I feel that I have been learning a lot. How to travel both for work and vacation and balance out my eating plan. I have been doing a lot of mental work to accept that I need to change old thoughts that don't serve me and contributed to my weight issues. 

I don't want to be a foodie anymore. I want to find other healthy ways to celebrate and commemorate important events in my life. I don't want to spend much time trying out new recipes or creating new dishes or eating at new places. I do better when my food choices are limited. I don't want to turn to food to buffer discomfort. I want to be okay with the fact that in order for the end result to change what I put into it needs to change also. I want to keep learning and growing and I want to accept things that aren't easy.

It's interesting to me that these are not universal at all. Other people may need to change other stuff in order to lose. There are plenty of thin people who can be foodies or cook a lot or bake or celebrate with lots of feasting. Currently this is not me.

Primed with this insight I am going to start tweaking things with more deliberation if I don't see a new scale low in 2 to 3 weeks.  We'll see what happens. It will be interesting no matter what.

post Europe

Well my vacation is over and the 4+ days of jet-lag have almost cleared out. I was super happy to see that I did not gain weight over my vacation even though there was quite a bit of carbs and wine over the 2+ weeks. 

In fact it seems that my weight range has shifted downwards by about 3#. 

I attribute that to being in a totally different food environment and my overall stress levels being lower and all the food being different on the micro level. Different water and different soils growing the food.  The same thing happened to me the last time I spent a couple of weeks in Europe. Of course my activity levels are also different. I tend to do lots of walking on vacation. Most days I walked until my feet were sore and I almost limped back to the apartment.

I feel so much more confident going forward with my eating and maintaining my weight loss. Although I probably will not make my goal of 100 pounds gone in a year I still feel good about my (slow) downward weight trend and my increasing health and comfort.

Now I am looking forward to the rest of the summer. Doing some fasting. Maybe doing a bit of carnivore for a couple of week or months. Or perhaps I will wait for cool weather to do that...
 

Europe, Keto and Food

Food on vacation has been going fairly well. 
I cannot find 100% chocolate any where and I really miss it. 
I have figured out bacon and eggs and olives and so much cheese at home in the apartment. 
There is lots of Indonesian and Suriname take-away. Both yummy and easy to avoid rice, bread and potatoes.
My blood glucose and ketone numbers have been good even with the occasional piece of bread, potatoes or spoon of rice or fruit. 
My scale isn't working but clothing feels normal.
Stress is way down.  
Italy next, but I am not fussed about it. I feel confident that I can handle it.
All is all vacation has been going well and I am looking forward to seeing the dogs and getting back to fasting times.

remembering to breathe

or perhaps breathe deeply?

I am getting ready for vacation and everything is very full of stuff, both work and personal life. Wrapping up projects, sorting packing questions and arranging pup care are a needed yet stressful parts of the preparation. 

My success at work-travel, fasting and eating aside. I find that a 2 week vacation is raising a different set of questions. Do I want to take my meter to measure glucose and ketones occasionally?  (yes) Is it worth it to buy a small traveling scale as I feel that helps my overall awareness level? (probably) Am I ready to interact with food and eating on vacation in a new way? (um...sure?) Can I relax and reach for more intuitive eating patterns? (that would be nice) Can I accept that I can not make concrete plans as a lot of travel to a new place deals with facing the unknown? (yes, fortunately I don't have to like it) 

So ... I am going to do my best. Focus on relaxing more than fasting. Focus on awareness of the new and wonderful more than worrying about all the stuff I don't know or can't plan. Focus on pleasure and light.  Focus on trusting my body.

And remember to breathe deeply as often as possible!

more work travel success

My business trip was one day shorter this week and I got a 44.5 hour fast in along with a 34 hour fast. There was a long of flight delay with stress/boredom flying out so the fact I didn't eat was a major victory for me. 

I also forgot that when you are in the south and you order smothered pork chops they will be breaded even if the menu doesn't say that. As per usual when faced with the unplanned I defaulted to eating. (I would love for this to change some day) They were extremely yummy and my blood glucose and ketones bounced back well. However they may be the reason why I was actually hungry for breakfast Friday morning -- that's why the second fast was only 34hours.

My wife laughed herself silly when I told her about it ... of course they would be breaded.

This coming week is busy and has no travel so I am going for a 72 hour fast midweek. 

Then there will be tons of vacation travel so that will be the next challenge.  I wonder if post-vacation things will be a bit calmer. I may be kidding myself.
 

fasting while business traveling

I kept on thinking all year that I 'should' be able to fast while traveling for business. Thinking but not doing.

Finally last week I managed it. I got a 48 hour fast in and a 40 hour fast in during a travel week. It makes me very happy that I managed to do this. Now I have another work travel week and I will repeat my success.

I wish I could put my finger on why I was able to do it. I got more comfortable with saying no....I had a bacon stash for emergency boosts... I kept trying trip after trip.

I suppose the "try, try again" was really the key thing. No new lows this month yet, maintaining in a narrow range with downward trend. Feeling committed and healthy and I believe the stress levels are also trending down.

pretty sure my cravings aren't hormonal

In yet another attempt to calm my cravings I tried two things last month.

I stopped drinking flavored waters, tea and coffee during my fasting hours. The theory was that the flavors (even though 0 calorie) were somehow triggering insulin and/or cravings.

It didn't make any difference.

I also did 3 weeks in a row of routine ADF on MWF. Just finishing up the last Friday fast now. Again no change in cravings. 

In fact as I came home from walking dogs just now I realized I wanted to eat. I was craving eating. I am still physically stuffed from last night. I literally don't know where I would put it and it would probably make me feel sick. Still want to put food in my mouth and chew it.

I think I need to accept that right now my cravings are purely mental/emotional/stress-based.  I don't want that too be true but it seems that it is.

Oh well. More reason to meditate.

On the bright side: I lost another half inch on my chest, my body seems to be doing that re-composition thing, more fat getting squishy and I feel committed and motivated to keep on with my health journey.