Today I was on track. Yay! for that. Yet again though, tomorrow will be tough.

We ended up with 7" of snow. I did all three of my walks despite the temperature being 10 degrees (F). Those were hard as I have been very low energy all day. I have been taking something to help me sleep every night this week. Alternating between melatonin and Benadryl. I have been sleeping well but I am so tired and groggy when I get up. I also went ice skating today and for the first time in memory, my toes got very cold.

Our beautiful Christmas tree is still up. It is a real one and has been holding on very well. The needles are still soft and flexible. Hardly any needles have dropped off of the tree. The special tree collections place will close this Sunday. I'd like to keep the tree up until we have to take it down. It is the prettiest tree we have ever had.

Ticker weight -30.5
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EDIT:
Fri, Jan 7- same old same old- Out of calories but hours (3) left until calorie window re-opens

This morning, I was surprised with a new low weight on the scale, -33 pounds. It would be great if I could keep it until my official weigh-in day. It is unlikely because, as usual, I ate too much this evening and it will be challenging to stay within my calorie count tomorrow. I will try though.

Today from my kitchen window, I saw Marine One (the Presidential helicopter) fly by accompanied by a V22 (Osprey airplane). He was surveying the damage from the fire. The ice skating rink is still closed and under going restoration. They've cleared out all of the player's equipment and locker rooms. There is no estimate of when they will reopen.

Ticker weight -30.5

This morning I was surprised with a 2.5 pound gain and weighed in at -30.5. This matches my sidebar weight. Hoping it will tick back down tomorrow. However, it is weigh-in day. Many, many, so many weigh-in days have a higher weight. I still haven't figured out what causes this bump up. My leading theory is inflammation from doing skating and elliptical on the same day. During the rest of the week, I only do one other other per day. Weigh-in day is also rest day and I do not exercise at all. I don't even take my walks.

My entire Saturday is centered around exercise. Today it was rec center, lunch, walk 1, skate, walk 2, walk 3 and dinner. I am too tired for housework and it shows. I have been working on getting little bits done at a time. I use Fly Lady as a resource for helping break things up into manageable tasks. I know that housework counts as exercise. However, I feel like it doesn't count because I can't really measure it.

Skating at busy rink has been a challenge. It is extremely crowded and I am not able to skate as fast as I would like. I was also disappointed because there is not enough space for me to do my skating drills. Ultimately, I realized that I am working on my skating skills the entire session. I am having to dodge and weave through all of the other skaters. A bonus of the bigger rink is their pro-shop. I can get my skates sharpened and they are very quick. At my favorite rink (currently closed due to smoke damage from the area fire), they only sharpen hockey skates and I have figure skates.

Even though I didn't think I would be, I was on-track calorie wise today. I am so tired, I may actually go to bed early tonight instead of my usual staying up too late.

Ticker weight -30.5

So, the first weight of the morning showed I was up an additional 2.5 pounds which would be a total of up 5 pounds from my new low weight on Thursday. The numbers are what they are are but truly that is absurd. Thankfully, the second weight of the morning and the one I used for the "official" weight was only up an additional half a pound at -30. As such, there is no confirmed loss this week and it is an unconfirmed half pound gain.

I am quite mystified at this consistent bump up on weigh-in day. Several times, I have done things completely differently but still see the same increase. Even with the bump though, over time the weight should decrease on weigh-in day and it hasn't. My weight on weigh-in day has been about the same for a month. The monthly unofficial weights are going down.

Ultimately, this adversely impacted my eating for the day. I was just sick of all of my good choices adding up to nothing so I ate freely today. It was not in good spirit though. I found myself eating pretty much for the sake of eating. My thought was 'if I don't eat this now, I won't be able to eat it later' and is not the healthy relationship with food I am striving for.

I have been really tired today again. This fatigue is interfering with my life and I don't know how to get rid of it. I've tried the doctor route with no success.

Ticker weight -30.5

So I more or less broke even calorie wise today. It was a small deficit. The scale was up again at -28 pounds. I am now four pounds higher than the start of the month. I haven't been doing great. On the flip side I haven't been doing so badly that I deserve a four pound gain. The really odd thing is the ketone test strip read much higher than usual today. That little bit of feedback made me happier.

Another bright spot is my favorite rink may have some public skating sessions this week.

Ticker weight -30.5

I just feel like I am on the skids. I had a really hard time going to sleep last night and only slept for about six hours. Boy, did it show in my eating. I just kept piling it on with one rationalization after another. At first it was - oh I only have a few calories left so I will just use my maintenance calorie level. Then it was- oh I'll just go a little over and it will be fine. To finally, oh- it's okay, I am just trying to make sure my body knows there isn't a famine and it is okay. Such disordered thinking.

The other thing I have been thinking about is this really isn't a lifestyle change. I feel like a lifestyle change would mean the tough decision I have to make on a daily basis to lose weight become automatic. They haven't every food choice is difficult and most of them trigger an internal battle. Sometimes, like today, I lose the battle. I am bit alarmed at how disengaged I was today. Hopefully, it is because I was overtired.

Another bummer is I missed my skating session today. My favorite rink has changed their plans and did not open this week. The only session available was at the furthest rink but I had a call that ran long. By the time I got off the phone, it was too late to go. Now I need to decide if I will go tomorrow to make it up. However, tomorrow is a rec center day and it is hard to do both on the same day. I do both on Saturdays but I have all of Sunday to recover.

Ticker weight -30.5

Over on calories again today. I have given myself an inch and myself took a mile. Meaning, I gave myself permission to aim for my usual calorie target but would be okay if I ate up to my maintenance level. Well, I surpassed my maintenance level. I will try again tomorrow. The scale was alright this morning and I am now only two pounds above my monthly start weight.

So I decided not to squeeze in skating tonight. I am really tired and I haven't slept well the last two nights.

Ticker weight -30.5

Over calorie wise again from my target. I was even over what I believe to be my maintenance level. However, the ketone test strips are still turning color, even on days I am over. My weight on the scale this morning was okay. I'm trying to give myself a little leeway right now so I don't go way over and I can still stay engaged in this process.

I was really tired this morning but I went ice skating and got all of my walks in any way. It is so frustrating. I am really tired all of the time but cannot go to sleep any earlier.

I am going skiing this weekend and I am not sure if I will check in here or not. They say skiing burns 600 calories per hour. I usually ski about 5 hours each day. I don't really think it burns that many calories. They also say ice skating burns that much too. I don't really believe that either. It is definitely not true in my case.

Back from skiing! I fell quite hard on the first day. Pretty much flat on my face with my skis on either side of me. Until that moment, I had no idea my body could bend in such a way. Overall, I was not hurt right away but in the next day or so I had some soreness on sides and inner thighs. I am surprised I did not knock the wind out of myself. A bunch of people saw me fall and more embarrassingly someone stopped to help me up. To complete the mortification, he was not able to. I needed to take one of my skis off to get myself upright again.

I did really well with my eating while I was away. Unfortunately, and as seems typical, the scale was unkind and showed a two pound gain- ugh! I talked a lot with my friend about all of the exercise I do and my systems I have in place to work on my weight. She was reading a book on habits and how to create good habits. Ultimately, the whole conversation has left me feeling a little down. I am doing so many of the right things. However, they are not habits even after doing them for nearly two years. I have to think about each and every action to make myself do it. Even worse, the positive benefits that I can see are so few and far between, they feel like no benefit. I am continually telling myself the healthy things I am doing are benefiting me in ways I can't see. My patience is thin.

Also, I am in the 90 day danger period where I am apt to gain weight. 73 more days to go but I am very worried. Tonight for dinner, I was going to order healthy items and in the blink of an eye, I ordered unhealthy items. I was tired and it was such a stupid, impulsive thing to do. Now, I have 100 calories for tomorrow until 5:00 pm. It seems highly unlikely I will be able to stick to that. Hoping to at least stop at the maintenance point which would allow me a total of 350 calories.

My favorite ice skating rink will be open tomorrow. It will be the first time I've been over in that area since the devastating fire.

12:25 pm. That is the time I went over on calories. I just couldn't stop eating and didn't have the patience to try any of my tricks. Myself told I, myself doesn't care in this moment. I was just tired of feeling hungry. Tomorrow is another day to try again. Spoiler- It's not looking good.

I went skating at my favorite rink. It is not back to normal just yet. They had a ton of air cleaners running and it still had a smoky smell.

Freezing rain stopped me from walking outside today. Typically, I don't let the weather stop me but the sidewalks were coated in ice. I have broken each wrist from slipping on ice so I wasn't going to take any chances. Well, I took a little chance by going to the rec center to walk there. The parking lot was indeed slippery and I wore wrist guards just in case. I did the equivalent of two of my walks. My husband and I were headed back to the rec center later for our usual exercise and to do the last walk when we learned it had closed early due to the weather. Now I need to figure out how the add the missing exercise into my schedule to make it up.

Today, I picked something else besides my planned meal to try to stay on track. It didn't work out and I think I should have stuck with my plan. I was over my target calorie limit but below my theoretical maintenance level. This means I had a smaller that intended calorie deficit. I'll take any deficit. Me was livid about the change in plan.

The ketone test strips are encouraging, however, nothing is translating to the scale. Ultimately, this means I need to do more and need to be better about staying on plan.

My plan is fine. My plan is not fine. Well, which is it? The plan I have is fine in the sense that it would work if I could stick to it. My plan is not fine in the sense that I can not stick to it. So I guess this means it is fine but the execution of it is lacking.

Seriously though, I am doing my best and it is not good enough. Currently, I am three pounds (unofficially) higher that my monthly starting weight. My oddball tricks and secret weapons are not helping me like they use to. I've tried so many things and failed at them.

Today, I created a smaller than planned calorie deficit. It seems like there is a critical level for a calorie deficit. If it is too small, it doesn't make a difference even over the long term. It seems like my body just slows down my metabolism to account for it. Ultimately, I feel like my metabolism slows faster than I can cut calories. I am not sure how to work around this and break through this 13 month plateau.

Just muddling along. Definitely over my calorie target. Was I over on my maintenance calorie limit? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on how the numbers are calculated.

Today, I was short on exercise again. I am 1.4 miles behind on my walking for the week. The sidewalks were icy again today so I didn't go. I almost went back to the rec center to get some of it in. It was too close to closing time though. I say back to the rec center because we were just there to make up the Wednesday exercise session we had missed. Unfortunately, we didn't realize the pavement was too slick for walking until we got back home. My husband, my daughter and my dog have all fallen down on the slick pavement in the last few days.

Last night I had a hard time falling asleep because I was hungry. I am hungry again tonight. The scale was surprisingly kind this morning. Not kind enough to show a loss for the month but much closer. Here's hoping!

It pains me to say it but I do not deserve a good weigh-in tomorrow. I have been off plan for several days. Each morning and evening, I swear I am going to get back on track. I don't. I also feel a bit lost and unsure of how to move forward. Sure, I have lots of knowledge but I just can't seem to put it into practice.

Today was a particularly bad day. I overate a lot, 100 calories at a time. I kept getting different little snacks but never felt full. I believe most of this is from stress. Work is not great and Monday will likely be a tough one.

As expected and, honestly, deserved, today's weigh-in was not great. I am at -29 pounds. If today were the monthly weight, I would be looking at 3 pound gain for the month.

I am trying my hardest today and it has paid off. I will make it to my 5:00 pm calorie reset time within in my allotted calories. Not gonna lie, it has been hard and I've been thinking about food all day.

Here's a quick recap of my current program.

Daily calorie limit (based on my weight and to a lesser degree the amount of exercise I do)
Calorie day is 5 pm - 5pm (rather than the calendar day)
3 walks totaling 2.4 miles/ six days a week
20 mins on the elliptical / three days a week
30 mins (sometimes more) of ice skating/ three-four days a week

I have other parts of my plan but I haven't been following them lately. I think about adding them back in again but I am so challenged by what I am doing.