Haven't braved the scale yet, I'll leave that for my official weigh-in day (Tuesday) - but I'm guessing 8-10 pounds, with some of my hard-earned muscle replaced by fat.
I shouldn't be that surprised, really. This always happens while I'm visiting my parents, and this time, there was an added slew of festivities, travel, work stress and missing my husband to deal with. Nevertheless, I am appalled how easy it was to slide back into my binging, overeating, sluggish, living-in-complete-denial ways.
I actually was fully prepared to enjoy life and the food I haven't had in a while, and I was not going to deny myself at my close friends' weddings and birthdays. But on top of that, I cleaned out the fridge almost every jetlagged night, I ran a whopping total of five times for the whole period, and kept my yoga to a minimum.
OH WELL.
What's done is done. I know I can get back on track, and I have started over the last couple of days, but it has not been easy. It's good to have my own fridge again and to be in control of what's going in it. I've gone back to calorie counting and relatively healthy eating, and slowly starting to work out again.
Added problem is that I feel so icky in general. If anything, I was hoping that this bingefest would kickstart my period again, which has been awol for a couple of months now (my PP and I are monitoring that and will start working on it soon). Along with that, my skin has turned absolutely horrendous - I haven't had such horrible acne breakouts since my teenage years.
And while everybody back home was going gaga over my slimmer figure (to the point where I started to find it incredibly annoying, actually) - several people have told me I look a lot older in the face, confirming the impression I've been getting myself over the last few weeks.
So - I'm an old-looking acne face with a (hopefully receding) binge problem and a month-long workout deficit. Far cry from how I felt about all this a couple of months ago.
I need to pick myself up, I know. And I will. I just needed to get all of this off my chest. Thanks for reading...
So sorry to hear about your "further research" into the question of weight gain. I'm sure you've learned a lot. I hope the damage isn't as bad as you think.
Proof once again--there is a difference between not denying oneself anything and bingeing out on everything. It's sometimes a fuzzy distinction!
Good luck with getting on track! You can do it if you want to! Don't let a food item push you around.
Welcome back Heffalump! The good news is that getting back on track should improve the way you feel. You might also want to copy this posting and keep it around to read before your next visit home! (Memory has a way of erasing our lessons.)
The one nice thing that fat does is smooth lines. Someone once joked that if you gain five pounds a year you will have a young and unlined face. The bad news, is that once the fat is removed, the stretched skin shows the lines!
I personally have enjoyed folks guessing I am 15-20 years younger than I am. I have not ruled out a facelift once I get and maintain goal!
Thanks for being there, JayEll and Pandora - I'm so glad this place exists and that there are people who welcome you back.
It's been almost a week since I got back, and things are starting to fall into place bit by bit. I'm still not perfect with my eating routine (we were painting and de-cluttering the apartment over the weekend, so calorie counting fell by the wayside), and I could have fitted in more workouts for sure.
However, today was my first yoga class after the break, and that helped put everything into perspective. Make no mistake: it. was. hard. I'm gonna be in so much pain tomorrow. But I did it, I went there, even though I had to run all the way to the gym to be on time, and I loved every minute of it. Best of all, there is an additional yoga class in the club's schedule that I can go to, so I'm going to get back to my former level that much faster. I also decided to become serious about lifting for the fall/winter and ordered New Rules For Lifting from the library - I miss my tricep and shoulder definition and my flat core muscles and want them back by Christmas!
My skin has gotten a little better as I'm slathering all kinds of acne cream on it and downing lots of skin supplements - silica, yeast and evening primrose. Overall, things are looking up.
welcome back. i too had a break from taking care of myself and really felt tired and gross from it. the past week I have been back on track and am feeling a bit better. Hope you start to as well!
I'm new to the forum, but I saw your story and wanted to wish you well.
Maybe going to that particular uncomfortable, unhappy *place* and returning to this kind of warmer, happier *place* will solidify where you prefer to be and you won't want to go back again.
Thank you so much for your kind words, Faerie and Photochick - you do know that the two of you are such an inspiration on this board in general and to me personally!
Iconoclast, I agree - I am that much happier to see that yes, I can go "home" again and how much that (i.e., my healthy lifestyle) is worth to me. I also learned that I might be able to do something that always amazed me about people with healthy eating patterns - going from (over-)indulging on vacation back to their normal routine and losing the extra weight more or less as a matter of course. I see you've made terrific progress already, you go girl!
cakses (for some reason I've always loved your username, by the way ) - yeah, I am feeling so much better now - pleasantly sore from yesterday's yoga lesson, getting healthy amounts of sleep, feeling the cycles of hunger and fullness again... instead of heartburn, panic attacks, sluggishness, feeling out of control, feeling ashamed - yup, I'll take door number one, please! Good luck with your own rebooted journey!
AND NOW I would like to give a big shout-out to the much-maligned SET POINT - today was braving-the-scale-day, and my body seems to have decided to just go back to the last spot it felt comfortable in during two months of stalling - 160lbs!
Phew. So that's only 4lbs more than the lowest weight I've seen so far. I do know that I'll still have to figure in the muscle loss, but all in all, the weight gain aspect of this whole episode has turned out to be less dramatic than I had feared.
all in all, the weight gain aspect of this whole episode has turned out to be less dramatic than I had feared.
Sometimes the fear of what might have happened is worse than the actual truth.
I've had periods where I quit weighing and got back on the scale just *knowing* I'd screwed the pooch in a big way ... and come to find out that I hadn't done as much damage as I thought.
Amen to that! Much, much better than the other way around, which I've had too in my lifetime. And it's funny how relative these numbers really feel - in those two months of stalling I was thoroughly annoyed with that stupid 160... and oh how joyfully I welcomed it today...
Welcome back! You'll be back in the swing -- and feeling oh-so-much-more emotionally better before you know it, you just need a couple of good days under your belt!
Clawing my way back...
It's weird how I couldn't even stand to read this page while I was off track.
I hope the damage isn't as bad as you think.
Been there, done that. Welcome back to your routine.
) - yeah, I am feeling so much better now - pleasantly sore from yesterday's yoga lesson, getting healthy amounts of sleep, feeling the cycles of hunger and fullness again... instead of heartburn, panic attacks, sluggishness, feeling out of control, feeling ashamed - yup, I'll take door number one, please! Good luck with your own rebooted journey! 
