Quite an achievement

Not a good one, though.
Since travelling for work for some reason I've found it impossible to get back on track. I even had a plan and everything, to stick to low carb for a couple of days and worry less about calories, then ease back into it. I couldn't manage that either! Anyway, the upshot is that in 3 weeks I've put on 10 pounds. TEN POUNDS! Jesus wept.
I guess the good news is that today I sucked it up and got on the scale to discover this appalling fact, so perhaps that will give me the kick up the (ample) behind I need to start again. What a fucking pain though. And how bloody tedious and predictable of me.
I am determined to get rid of this ASAP and get back on track. Watch this space...

Back(ish)

Motivation, where have you gone??

In Thailand last week I did not remotely stick to the diet. Then when I got back on Monday feeling tired and unwell and grumpy I ended up eating pasta and cake for dinner. I planned to ease my way back into the diet by eating low carb on Tuesday and not worrying about calories, and I just about managed it by the skin of my teeth. But then yesterday felt even harder, and I ate a huge amount of tortilla chips plus way too many calories. And it wasn't like I just said "fuck it" and threw in the towel - it was SO. HARD. yesterday. It's a miracle I didn't eat my way through my entire fridge and pantry.

Low carb food doesn't sound appealing, I can't be bothered cooking, I can't summon enthusiasm for meal planning, I don't want to go grocery shopping, nothing is particularly inspiring. In short, the diet gods are not smiling on me this week. Perhaps partly it's hormonal, partly it's stress/general discontent, but whatever the reason I need to just get over it.

Anyway, on that sunny note, plan for today is smoked salmon for breakfast, chicken and cashew stir fry for dinner, and who knows what for lunch. I think I have to force myself to the supermarket and find something that looks easy and reasonably healthy. And just hope that little motivation switch in my brain comes back online shortly.

Tired

Fear not, I've not fallen off the wagon or anything, but I do feel quite tired - physically and emotionally - which is making dieting a little harder.

I'm quite stressed about work this week as I have to give some presentations at a big meeting, and I'm worried about both having a good enough grasp on the concepts and also the presentation itself, as I detest public speaking.

My in-laws came to stay with us on the weekend, and although they are (mostly) well-meaning, good god they are hard going company. Their main takeaways from a 6 week European trip were about all the little mishaps that they encountered, and boring minutiae from the lives of other people they met on their cruise. Add to that the fact that my mother in law just never, ever, ever, stops talking, and this  mild-mannered introvert was at the end of her tether by Sunday night. Luckily H also finds them a bit trying and doesn't mind if I vent a little, and encouraged me to go and seek quiet when I could.

Anyway, they've gone now, but I've woken up with a terrible cold, and dieting, while it doesn't seem impossible, just seems like a giant pain. I'm staying on track (and actually did quite well over the weekend) but for now I've ditched my 2 fast days. I think I'll probably reintroduce them as they do speed up weight loss and I think I need them to compensate for meals out, but this week and probably next week I'm giving myself a break.

I don't know how the low carb thing will go with work travel - most food is provided, and there'll be limited options elsewhere, so I think I just have to do my best but not beat myself up if I eat some noodles some days. I'll try to just focus on keeping calories down.

Patience

I've been doing pretty well this week. Our holiday for the wedding had some nice parts but was predictably, horrifically, anxiety inducing when it came to dressing up, being photographed, and generally just being out in the world as a fat person every day. I don't think I realised how much I hate just being in public. I mainly work from home and so can usually avoid being out much, apart from forays to quiet streets to walk the dog. I hate being out and having to deal with choosing an outfit and feeling self conscious, because feeling self conscious is basically my default mode.

Anyway, luckily I managed not to backslide despite not staying remotely on plan on holidays. I've done well this week, and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 5 weeks. I know objectively this is a good result, but the fact is, it's also not noticeable at all. My clothes are still tight, nothing looks good. I know I just have to keep the faith, but I would love to have a bit of a boost right now. I guess with the amount of weight I have to lose - 50 more pounds to get back to a healthy weight category - it's going to take a lot before I see a change.

Steady as she goes

I've been doing remarkably well on this low carb diet. I'm coming up on the 2 week mark and I haven't wavered once. I've lost a fair amount of weight. I'm not feeling too deprived, and I've been exercising pretty good restraint. I'm starting to feel like this is a diet that could stick (with some modifications - I resent not being able to eat legumes, and I don't intend to forego pasta entirely for the next 6 months to a year - that's just crazy talk).  So I'm feeling a little tentative optimism, the problem being, I've been here loads of times before only to prove myself wrong. I go weeks, occasionally even months of commitment and steady progress, only to trip up, lapse, and gain everything back. This often comes after a big even like a holiday, which is why I'm viewing my upcoming trip to Japan with more trepidation than excitement. Never easy to diet on a holiday, and the land of rice and ramen isn't exactly designed for low carb living. I'll have to travel for work next month also, which I'm already feeling anxious about.

I tried on the dress I'm planning to wear to the wedding and it zipped up this time - but actually, I think it was just a question of awkwardly trying to do a zip up myself that prevented it fitting last time. It's wearable, but not great - which is pretty much the deal with most of my clothes. God, I remember when I used to enjoy clothes and feel great about something I was wearing - I'd love to get those days back and bloody appreciate my figure rather than constantly trying to make it better.

Buoyed by the loss on the scale and the aforementioned deceptive zip success, I tried on some of my other clothes - not in a smaller size, mind, but the size 18s and 16s in my usual rotation that had been feeling a tad snug. Turns out, they're still snug. Pride goeth before a fall indeed. Ridiculous of me to think that 11 days of dieting would magically shrink me, but now I feel quite downcast and disheartened, beyond all rationality.

Tomorrow is lunch out, which I shall have to negotiate as best I can. Apart from that, just keep plodding along and hoping for the best, I suppose.

EDIT: Oh god, I just tried on more clothes. What on earth is wrong with me? I now know that a dress I wore in March is MUCH tighter than it was then. This news is in no way helpful, and has just made me even more miserable. I think I have to put a moratorium on clothes trying-on until at least the beginning of August.

Current status: obsessed

I've become quite fixated on this low carb diet I'm doing. There seems to be a stage on every diet where I become absolutely obsessed with reading everything I can about it, reading online forums, planning meals, and calculating my potential weight loss. It's like I'm completely uninterested in anything else, which has made it fairly easy to stay on plan, but I'm also worried it will burn itself out too quickly.

We also have to go out for lunch on Saturday at a meat based restaurant (good for the diet) at their "endless French fries" brunch (not good for the diet). Hopefully I'll be strong enough to refuse. Part of my anxiety about refusing, to be honest, is the scrutiny it will inevitably draw from my dining companions. I HATE disclosing to people I'm on a diet. The idea that someone knows I want to lose weight is horrifying to me. The idea that I will lose weight is, although welcome, in some ways also terrifying because then PEOPLE MIGHT NOTICE IT. Honestly, that idea makes me shudder. I do desperately want to lose a significant amount of weight, but I want everyone around me not to notice it happen. Too much to ask?

Low carbing it

So, I did not do well at all while in Singapore. Something about travelling - even the airport/plane trip part of it - seems to lead to uncontrolled eating, or at the least absolute inability to even roughly stick to a plan. When I got home late Monday night instead of just going to bed like a normal person, I did the whole "you've blown it anyway so why not go out with a bang" binge, consisting of giant bowl of ice cream and a huge bag of chips. Idiot!

With the wedding trip just two weeks away, and my planned dresses not even zipping up, I am in dire straits. I'm planning to do a combo of 5:2 and low carb, which has been working ok so far (for 3 whole days! My goodness, what willpower!). On the non fast days (I refuse to call them feast days because, I mean come on) I'm trying to stick to 1200 calories (although I got to 1300 today - there's that amazing willpower again!)

I don't think I could maintain this long term - I love carbs, and 1200 feels a little too restrictive, but maybe just for 2 weeks I can manage? I've been googling weight loss constantly and came upon the idea of a fat fast - low carb but with a hellish twist, where you eat 1000 calories a day but 80-90% of that has to come from fat. The idea is it shoves you quickly into ketosis and your body becomes super efficient at using fat for fuel, and it's supposedly good for people with very slow metabolisms. Sounds pretty awful but maybe doable for a few days - if I were convinced it actually worked scientifically. I haven't read convincing enough proof - so the search for the miracle cure continues.

I used Seren's tip and changed my scales to pounds so I would have a less clear idea of where I was, weight wise, but then when I was putting it into some bullshit weight loss calculator thing online it did an instant conversion and I was mildly horrified with what I saw. I was headed back to my highest recorded weight ever, which is just beyond demoralising and mortifying. Anyway, I'm weighing myself again on Saturday, and we'll see how I go.