Fifteen Weeks.

Seems like last week I was at 192.8. Wait, that's because I was. Another week of no progress, and I am blaming water again. I have two more days to meet February's goal of 192. I think it will happen, either on or around that date. I believe I can claim 8 pounds of weight loss since January 31, since I weighed in at 200 on that date.

The problem overall is finding the correct formula for consistent weight loss without throwing a monkeywrench into the mix. I seem to have a large collection of monkeywrenches, and really don't know enough about my own body chemistry to keep weight loss at any sort of reliable pace.

Another side effect to this diet that can mess with your head is the natural "bounce" of numbers on the scale. The caloric cycle of up/down/up/down reflects each day as fluctuations on the scale. Whereas a day after a "down" day may be a new low weight, the very next day will "bounce" the scale up, sometimes two pounds.

Even if this is followed again by a strict "down" day (where the scale still hasn't recovered from the upward "bounce") water retention may still be in play, due to several possible factors.

• Carbohydrate-regulated retention, caused by molecules of water binding to residual carbs in the body. 
• Muscle-repair regulated retention, because exercise will stress muscles, which causes water to flood the injured areas
• Bowel-regulated retention, due to irregularities in elimination (a nice way to say water is flooding the intestines in order to get you to poop)
• Hormone bloat (for women, who retain water during certain times of the month)
• Medication gain, where some meds will cause a ridiculous bloatfest.
• And dehydration, which makes you retain water if you don't drink enough. 

I won't bother to mention the weight of waste in your system due to the food ingested the day before. I think enough poop talk has been mentioned already.

So, is there any way around the water retention effect? Nope. It will happen. It will happen a lot.

Dealing with scale "bounce" is not a fiery sign that something has gone wrong. It means the diet is just reflecting one of the scenarios listed above, if not more than one. I find there is no reason to freak out, it's just incredibly annoying that waiting for your body to get over itself can fritter away so much time better spent shopping for smaller clothing sizes.

I have stoically endured two weeks of normal "bounce" before the scale started to move downward again. I endured a whole month of it due to meds.

Now I need to go and drink some water, in order to make water weight go away. Counter-intuitive? You bet!

Fourteen Weeks.

Today my weight is 192.8. I am still continuing to lose weight, and have incorporated a modicum of exercise into my habits. It's time, I suppose, to stop treating this as a lark, and get serious about my shape.

As I get smaller, I find two things happening: One: I am getting more impatient for the numbers to reduce to suit my mood. This is not a good thing, and can lead to all sorts of mind games later on. I try not to succumb to the unrealistic desire for the pace to accelerate, after all, my skin won't keep up, and I'll end up with baggy and saggy extra skin. I have no idea if this will happen to me, but hey, I'm creeping up on 51, and there's only so much stretching a balloon can do before it gets that awful look to it.

The second thing I find happening is that I'm starting to care about my appearance again. I have opened the two ear holes in my lobes that I pretty much allowed to close up, in anticipation of wearing the earring collection I used to value. I have purchased some skin items to "tone" my skin, and help with age-related problems. Dunno if any of this will benefit me; I've never used anything more than soap and water, and maybe some zit pads. I have been refreshing my makeup, and using it occasionally. I'm going to the salon soon for a haircut. I haven't had a style in over 14 months. Probably more. I keep my roots covered, but that's about it. My rings are starting to fit again.

It's a long way yet to my goal weight, but I'm starting to adapt to the slightly smaller me. I still don't feel thin yet, maybe it's because I'm not. 193 is still significantly overweight. It's just much better than 229.

Today is a down day, and as an ongoing observation I see very little true hunger on my down days. If I feel a twinge, I usually drink some water, or decaf coffee, and wait it out. It really does go away and leave me alone. Sometime around 1pm I'll start looking at the clock, waiting for the window I allow myself to eat. I like to wait until 2:30, because once I do start to eat on a down day, it seems it wakes my appetite up. So I make sure I eat protein. Turkey and some almonds usually do the trick.

Eventually I'm going to get very tired of these meager portions every other day, but maintenance will be more lax regarding caloric intake.

But now I'm back to Number One: I want the weight off already...

Thirteen Weeks.

This has been a better week overall. My vertigo is gone. My drug-induced stall is gone. I am happy (once again) to announce weight loss, and the scale today read 193.4. I am fitting into my not-quite-as-big-as-a-house pants, I look forward to the week's tally on the scale, and am starting to take my couch potato body in hand with small increments of exercise.

I re-purchased a Wii (I had the Fit board, but my daughter took the Wii when she moved), and am going to take some time reacquainting myself with Wii Fit. I am also waiting for EA Sports 2 to come in the mail, so I can, in the words of Emeril, kick it up a notch.

One thing I've noticed overall is when women lose weight, their girls shrink. On this diet, so far, mine have not. This is relatively unheard of with a 35 pound loss. I literally am still the same bra size as I was when I weighed 229, as in, my bras are still fitting roughly the same even though the rest of me is smaller.

I suppose it's because I'm one of those women who gain over all her body, top to bottom, so I lose it the same way. Maybe the boobs are last. I have no clue, but will definitely keep the blog up to date. I'm looking forward to the day I can actually buy a cute bra. They don't make cute in 40D.

So today is the day before Valentine's Day. It has been a tradition with my husband that we don't go out, we don't gift, and we don't do flowers or candy. We do however, make a splurge meal for ourselves at home. We have cooked bacon-wrapped scallops, lobster, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, and occasionally got ourselves some cheap caviar.

Unfortunately, this meal splurge falls on one of my "down" days, where I only allocate myself roughly 500 calories. Since January showed absolutely no weight loss, I don't want to slow things down again by having two "up" days in a row, yet Dr. Johnson clearly states in his book not to have two "down" days in a row.

He doesn't explain why. Is he concerned about energy levels crashing? Is he concerned about low blood sugar affecting brain function and/or triggering headaches? Is he concerned about birthing an eating disorder more severe than overeating, such as anorexia? Is he concerned about kicking the body into starvation mode and thus interrupting the cycle of up/down/up/down, or is he just assuming that a fat person couldn't possibly restrict calories for two days in a row without going on an eating binge? Does he think a dieter's willpower is in such short supply that two days of relative "hardship" is going to cause a meltdown?

Because of this lack of information (and shame on you Dr. Johnson, for having such a skimpy web site with no forum), I can only conclude quack science and go ahead with two "down" days in a row in order to shift my body over to an "up" day for tomorrow.

On leangains.com, the author says bluntly that starvation mode is not achieved until fasting is done for at least 72 hours. (See #4). He is one of the bloggers who have gone to the trouble read many relevant studies and scientific papers, and put it out there on his blog so the rest of us can benefit from his knowledge.

To recap, not only is the Johnson method NOT true fasting, two days is 48 hours, well under the limit for starvation mode to be activated. So in conclusion, I'm going to ignore the weak admonition of Dr. Johnson, because frankly, he gives no reason at all not to do two "down" days in a row.

The only limitation I can logically see is whether my appetite level will get uncomfortable. I tend to think not, as I've read other comments, responses and forums where people plainly state two days is easily doable with little to no discomfort. Ramadan is mentioned repeatedly, but I'm certainly not doing this for religious or cleansing reasons.

It seems a little ironic that I've doubled my "down" day so I can eat more later. That's not entirely true, since I'm doing it for my husband, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about it and had been considering it already.

So I'll comment next week on how effective (or ineffective) two days of "down" days were, and whether this can become a new tool, or if it's just another day of denial for no good reason.

I just wish I could stop thinking about raspberry pie.

Twelve Weeks.

Since figuring out that my vertigo was not going to go away by itself and making several doctor appointments, I finally got the treatment designed to put things right. Unfortunately, it gave me a migraine. I've long since learned everything has a cost.

During the last few weeks in order to control my vertigo symptoms I used an antihistamine, but it had an unintended consequence: I gained weight. It wasn't supposed to do that, but it did. Seems antihistamines are unoffficial weight gain culprits. It's not a well-known side effect, and I don't believe the makers of any antihistamine are going to admit your efforts at weight loss will slow down and reverse, but that's exactly what happened. I wasn't the only one affected. I scoured the internet (a research tool I may overuse at times), and looked at comments that people made. Many have confirmed the suspicion I had that antihistamines do in fact, have this unintended consequence. Unfortunately I still needed it, as it was suppressing my vertigo symptoms, so I didn't want to stop using it until I could have the Epley Maneuver done to get rid of the spins for good.

The first doc I saw regarding the vertigo gave me a nasal spray. Fine. I'll use the nasal spray to combat the spins. But I saw within days my weight really started creeping upwards. I did more research: the spray is a corticosteroid. And what do steroids do? They make you gain weight!!

I had to make a decision once I undid an entire month's worth of potential weight loss. I stopped both drugs. Enough was enough. On Tuesday, Jan 31, I was 200, the same as New Year's Eve. I understand it was water weight, but it was not only masking the weight I had already shed, it literally stopped my diet from working. Not acceptable. I have since dropped four pounds in less than a week, and weighed in today at 196.

Now I have to undo the gluttony from Superbowl day. Hmmm... maybe I'll go to the gym...