I can't believe I'm the last poster and the first!
So I gained weight. I weighed myself this morning and I was 148.6!!!! I don't even have the heart to change it on my ticker, but I really should (and did). The only reason I didn't change things before was that I was sure that holiday bloat would drop right off in a few weeks (HOW when I was still eating like crap? :-/). Now I really need to start over from scratch. Anyway, it's no mystery WHY I gained weight. Yesterday and Friday were like a free-for-all for me. I have no idea why I do that to myself.
So I recalibrated. I don't know what all is causing the bloat or weight gain as far as actual food I'm eating, so I went grocery shopping yesterday and got a lot of healthy food (traditional Super Foods) and arranged it so that it's easily accessible to me (like buying already cut up broccoli/cauliflower (I like them raw, not cooked), apples and oranges outside the refrigerator in a bowl, kale already cut up, cut up green and red peppers, etc.
I decided that while I like IFing and it feels good, I need to focus only on weight loss right now and that I need to go back to what I was doing when I was being so successful back in November -- running was my exercise and I ate a big, big salad for lunch with a hard boiled egg, 1/2 of a chicken breast, 1/4 of an avocado, all kinds of veggies, homemade vinaigrette that also had olive oil in it. So plenty of healthy fat and protein and LOTS of veggies, plus some kind of fruit. For dinner I would have some sort of lentil soup or vegetarian chili or a stir fry with chicken or shrimp without the rice. For breakfast I would have some sort of omelette. If I needed a snack, I'd have a piece of fruit or some almonds.
So I would do that faithfully during the week and then on the weekends, I'd let loose a little. I didn't mean I'd go to town and eat out at McDonalds at every meal or anything, but it would allow some flexibility for when I go to my parents' house for dinner or if I had some sort of social event. I lost weight every week I did that and didn't go crazy on the weekend. I even had some social events during the week that I was a little "off plan" on (like Halloween). That's how I got down to 141 from 151 (mostly). Plus, I ran 30-40 minutes.
Now I think strength/resistance training is super, super important and should be part of my life, but I'm going to temporarily drop it until I get closer to my goal weight. The reason is, I don't want to be thrown off by not losing weight because of the water retention and building muscles until I'm at a point where I know for sure that I am losing weight steadily doing what I'm doing. Otherwise if I hit a stall I won't know whether I'm not losing because of muscle/water weight or because of how I'm eating.
And for REAL, I'm dropping the wine during the week. I want to go to having it only on Fridays and Sundays.
So I'm putting it out here so others can see my plan!