Last week was rough. I really struggled on Tuesday to the point of having a food related literal meltdown (*embarassing*). I read once that individuals on diets become intellectually diminished when experiencing an increased appetite. Basically, it means dumber when hungry. That's me!

I tried to learn from it and build a better plan. I did much better Tuesday evening to lunch today. Lunch today was straight up awful but, boy, did I enjoy it. It also made me feel so energized and alive, like I could fly for the whole afternoon. All so very wrong as my lunch was cola, popcorn with the "butter" topping and 5 servings of M&Ms. Seriously, I think this would make the average adult nauseated and exhausted at the very least. To me, it shows there is something fairly off about how my body runs. For the record, I am not diabetic. I felt so good for the day it makes the absurd calories feel worth it. I know they aren't and my diet needs to be healthier. The thing is I feel worse when I eat healthier even when I am able to do it for a sustained period of time. Believe me, I am not justifying a bad diet. It is just hard to stick to without some type of positive feedback.

Ultimately, my calories in the evening need to be limited. It is a large limit but I must stick to it to make it through the day. I will probably edit this post during the week depending on how I am doing.

In the end, I lost a half a pound and am sitting at -51 pounds. Up 1 and half pounds from my lowest this month and year.
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EDITS:
Monday 11Aug: Fighting for it but will likely lose. Above my calorie target but with in the buffer zone. Three hours and forty-eight minutes left. Very hungry even with a reasonable lunch. Doing this weird shallow open mouthed breathing thing when trying not to eat even though really hungry. It is similar to how I breath sometimes when I am reaelly sick with a fever and stuffy head. This makes me feel so stupid as it shouldn't be this hard. Have started eating ice chips with a spoon to try to stave off this uncontrollable appetite.

Tuesday 12Aug: Failing, utterly failing. I made it through yesterday but promptly overate today. The scale was a pound lower yesterday and this morning. I also overate on Sunday. Therefore being within my calorie goal yesterday is an illusion. There is no progress so far this week. I am a person of reasonable intelligence and reasonable willpower. Why I am I unable to manage this condition (obesity)?

In an effort to get some traction, I have raised my calorie goal. We'll see if this higher number is manageable right now. This process is so monotonous it is easy to disengage. In some ways, that is the bigger goal- to stay engaged every week, everyday, every hour, and even every minute. I blew my day in 20 minutes. That has been the case for me on many occassions.

On a bright note, I am back to ice skating and it is going really well! In fact, I am going to switch back to wearing my favorite fleece that is in my signature color. Ever since I was struggling with my skating, I have been wearing a very bright color so folks can see me coming and generally they would very kindly make space for me.

Wednesday 13Aug: Today was a step in the right direction. Still over on calories even with my higher limit. If I continued to eat the way I did for the first 3 days of this week, I would be on track to gain about 40 pounds in a year. If I ate all year the way I ate today, I would, in theory, gain about 14 pounds in a year.

Bottomline- the overall calorie count was lower. Now to edge it even lower on a consistent basis. The big challenge! Tomorrow will also be above my new higher daily calorie limit but it is lower than my maintenance calorie limit. Tried a couple of new things today that seemed to have helped with controlling my appetite. Scale was up a half a pound this morning.

Thursday 14Aug: Scale the same today as yesterday. Overall today was successful and I stayed within my new target calorie limit. In theory, this would lead to a 20 pound weight loss in a year. Need to be able to stick to it tomorrow too.

Friday was good regarding calories. Saturday was a day of celebration and I was over on calories. It wasn't too bad though. Just as the behind the scenes calculations predicted, I gained a half a pound this week (at -50.5 pounds total). The scale teased me until the end. For the last several days, it was showing at least a half pound loss but not this morning on official weigh-in day.

Already over today mostly because I gave up. The willpower tank was empty and I didn't stick to the plan. I keep trying to start over every hour but striking out. If I can stick to my perfectly reasonable and modest plan, I have 284 days left before reaching my stated target., On the bright side, my blood pressure is looking much better at home. Now to get it to look better at the doctor's office.

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EDITS:
Thursday 21Aug: Well, I got my wish. My BP at the last doctor's visit was 120/60. Unfortunately, I think the med tech just kind of phoned it in. When I got home, my BP was 148/86. I think this week is going well looking at my 'game stats'. Below calories is a win (W), at maintenance is a tie (T), and over the calorie target is a loss (L). 3 W, 1 L, 1 T. The scale is staying the same.

Friday 22Aug: 1:00 pm- What does one maintenance day followed by two lower calorie days get me? A one pound gain! Doing better doesn't show up on the scale. I think if there were immediate feedback such as eat well, scale goes down and eat poorly, scale goes up, I would do so much better. Staying on-track is really hard for me and days like this it feels so pointless to even diet. At my calorie target for the day and still hungry of course. Need to hang in there for the next four hours.

Saturday 23Aug:
2:00 pm- Over on calories. I was able to white knuckle it through until 5:00 pm (calorie reset time) and then did the usual of overeating. I had a big dinner and was working my way through the evening. I was having serious sugar cravings which I was shrugging off for hours. I decide to have something small and it turned into something large. I was at my maintenance calorie limit by bedtime. To stay there, I would need to fast until 5:00 pm which I of course did not do.

Ate reasonably so far today but am still hungry. I really don't know how I can get this weight off. I struggle every day. So far this month I am looking at least a 2.5 pound gain. I really wanted to lose 5 pounds this month. I have not overeaten so much as to gain nearly 3 pounds. I've tried making big changes, moderate changes and small changes. I can't get any of it to work. I sat down and made an ambitious meal plan through the end of the month (9 days). Then I cried. Although ambitious, it is a reasonable plan and there is no way I will be able to stick to it. Hence, the tears.

I want to go back on Ozempic but I didn't like the vision changes that came with it. I feel like my eyesight has improved since stopping it. I am going to see how much an out of pocket eye exam will cost. I would like to see if the improvement is measurable. Then maybe I will restart the Ozempic. Three hours to calorie reset.

5:00 pm- The daily calorie counter has reset. Managed to stay as least off-track as possible. The 9 day plan consists of 207 hours. Will I lose weight in that time? Well, no and will be lucky if it is not a gain for the month. Will I try? Well, yes! Just need to stick to the plan as best as possible. I've even written the plan down.

The scale stayed the same this week so I am at -50.5 pounds lost in total. I have so little faith that I will be able to maintain this 50 pound loss, I have not added it to my sidebar or my signature.

Blood sugar this morning was good. Blood pressure was up probably because of a coping mechanism I was using last night to stay on-track. A short video recommended using salt crystals to stay reduce cravings while fasting. I still felt really hungry when trying to go to sleep but woke up not feeling hungry. So far this morning, I am on plan. 16.5 hours down, 190.5 hours to go in my 9 day plan. 8% of the way there. Dreaming of a 3 pound loss in that time to be able to record new weight lost rather than losing re-gained weight. No guarantees but I will probably be updating this post frequently during the week.
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EDITS:
Monday 25Aug: ~54 hours down, 153 hours to go, 26% complete. Have I stuck to my plan perfectly? Nah, but I am doing well enough. I haven't eaten this little in two days unless I've been sick in possibly ever. Earlier, I made the decision that I am not going to weigh in daily during this 9 day white knuckle dieting palooza. In addition, I am not even going to weigh in on my 'official' weigh in day, Sunday. I am going to wait until Monday, the end of the month, and will use that weight as my weight for the week.

In the meantime, I quite stunned at how effective using salt has been to shut off my typically uncontrollable appetite and my absurd sugar cravings. Generally, I think it is a very bad practice with everything we know about salt and blood pressure. Especially considering my blood pressure runs high. Yesterday, I did a search on eating salt and whether or not it is safe. The results were that it is dangerous and not to do it. It made me worry. Today, I did a search on why does salt stop my sugar cravings and got some interesting information.

More specifically, sugar cravings may actually be salt cravings in disguise. At my next doctor's visit, I will ask him about this. The daily recommended allowance for salt is 2.3 g. The average American eats 3.4 g of salt. The amount of ingested salt that can hurt you is 35 g. Ten times the average intake! So whew! Not gonna die using this for the next week. I also weighed out 1 gram of the extra salt and will not use more than that. It does not make me thirsty and I am not drinking more. However, I am peeing a lot (apologies if this is TMI). Still quite stunned about this effect and want to better understand what is happening.

Wednesday 27Aug: 102 hours down, 105 hours to go, ~50% complete. Doing okay. My salt trick didn't work yesterday but still managed a small calorie deficit. My plan is not robust enough to tolerate a schedule change. Not overly hungry but do feel like eating. I was really tired today. Almost forgot I wasn't weighing in this week and nearly weighed myself twice. The calculated calorie deficit shows I should have a pound and a half loss this week. I'll believe it when I see it.

Thursday 28Aug: 126 hours down, 81 hours to go, ~61% complete. Today was okay and had a good sized calorie deficit. Above my intended plan but good nonetheless. Tomorrow is not looking great and will likely be a maintenance day. Made a misstep today by taking my vitamins late. I think that led me to being hungrier in the evening and the salt trick didn't work. Also, I exercised a lot today. In addition to walking 2.4 miles, I did an hour of Pilates and ice skated 3 miles. So far still on track to lose 1.5 pounds this week, in theory of course.

Friday 29Aug: 151 hours down, 56 hours to go, ~73% complete. Was over on calories but still in a deficit. It drops the calculated loss to just over one pound. Not sure what to say. I feel very flat and dull. There has been less food noise but it probably because I overate above what I had planned. Had a non-scale victory- I stopped in the grocery and only bought items that will help me with my attempts to lose weight. I spent a fair amount of time staring at the candy though.

Saturday 30Aug: 1:00 pm- 164 hours down, 43 hours to go, ~80% complete. Doing okay on calories and have about 4 hours before the calorie window resets. Kind of hungry but it is manageable. This has been a hard week and still only looking at just over a one pound loss from this effort. I am not surprised I was unable to stick exactly to the plan. However, I am really happy with how well I have done. Not sure if I can keep doing it but at least I did something different this week. Hoping the scale shows a good result on Monday but I am not holding my breath.

Tomorrow is the big weigh-in day. Felt weird not to weigh in today. Fairly certain there will be tears tomorrow, either from joy or frustration. Personally, hoping for the former over the latter. The numbers don't look great. It should be just over a pound lose. That will put me up like a pound for the month-ugh! I am really frustrated by this journey because it is easy to see how much further I still have to go. It is really, nay impossible, to see where would I be without this effort. I think without this effort, I would be more that fifty pounds heavier which is such a depressing thought.

The reality is this will be a struggle every day forever, heaven help me. I will edit this post with the result of tomorrow's weigh-in. Wish me luck! Preferably, the good kind.
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EDITS:
Monday 01Sep: Tears of frustration- gained a half a pound

Tuesday 02Sep: Unbelievable- gained another pound

Thursday 04Sep: Utterly Absurd- gained another pound

Friday 05Sep: up an additional 2 pounds

No post last Sunday because, quitely frankly, I was pouting. Last Sunday, I was up 2 pounds (-48 total). I've maintained that this week despite overeating. Basically for the last 2 weeks, I have been intuitive eating which results in lots and lots of calories.

This has also resulted a disrupted sleep schedule because I have been eating more sugar. Trying to get back onto a better routine. Really not much to say aside from the same old refrain. My efforts amount to very little and it is hard to continue something difficult without some sort of positive feedback.

I ate really well and lower calorie for 9 days and the result was a half pound gain. I was very careful with regards to calories and I counted everything. There were times where a accurate calorie count was difficult to obtain so I over estimated. This moderate restriction resulted in a rebound of overeating and my weight stayed the same. It is all so ridiculous!

Will focus on getting better sleep. Last night was particularly awful and I went to bed at 3:40 AM.
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EDIT:
Saturday 20Sep: Haven't done anything well regarding my weight loss plan this week. I have not been weighing but think I have probably gained 5 lbs this week.

Well, whew! Only gained one pound this week (-47 pounds total). Trying to get back to business regarding losing weight. My biggest issue right now is my disrupted sleeping pattern. I am going to bed well after midnight still. My goal is to be in bed by midnight at the absolute latest.

I have a doctor's appointment this week. At such a dead end with that. My symptoms are so non-specific, they can't figure anything out. Now that I am getting older there are other health changes that are overlaying the bigger underlying problem. It has become even more difficult to get real answers. One thing I will discuss is the delay my body seems to run on. It takes me an hour and a half to fall asleep and at least that long to wake up or feel full (if I ever even feel full).

I want to go back on Ozempic but want to get my eyes tested first. I definitely noticed vision changes while on Ozempic and I would like to understand if they are measurable in an eye exam. The other worry I have about Ozempic is muscle wasting. Where I lost weight on Ozempic is far different than where I lost weight with my own efforts. With my own efforts, the loss was all over with noticeable changes in my waist. With Ozempic, the loss seemed mostly in my limbs and my waist seemed like it stayed the same. My waist was definitely bigger at a total loss of -50 than at a total loss of -40 with my own efforts. This makes me concerned the extra 10 pounds I was able to lose with Ozempic was mostly muscle. In the last month, my skating has really come back. I can't help but wonder if the Ozempic contributed to my skate problems. So complicated!

Also in the last month, I started doing Pilates again. I wasn't very happy with the Pilates coach I restarted with. She didn't listen to my concerns about moving slowly and she didn't have a good understanding of the number of repetitions for each exercise. She was having me do way too many repetitions. I think this also contributed to my sudden deregulation. I found another Pilates place that is more knowledgeable and I will try to get in there. The class sizes are very small so it is hard to get in. Trying to stay strong since the weight seems to be here forever.
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EDITS:
Monday 22Sep: Ended the day at what I believe is my maintenance calorie limit. This is an improvement as I have been overeating all month. Will have to be careful to not go over it tomorrow. I'm having a couple of muscle twitches and was really shaky after exercise today. To be clear it is the same exercise I have been doing consistently for over a decade. 20 minutes on the elliptical. It was also hard to keep my heart rate up. I will talk to the doctor about it tomorrow. However, I have had this problem before without resolution. I did go to bed at a reasonable (for me) time. I did take a sleep aid. Usually, when I do this I can barely get out of bed in the morning. Interestingly, this was not the case this morning. It was windy, raining and 55 degrees for my last walk of the day. During the one a couple of hours earlier, it was 72, sunny and also windy. Guess Fall really is here.

In danger of just fading away on this journey. No post the Sunday before last because I was on vacation. It must have been a good trip because I gained 5 pounds in four days.

Saturday 27Sep: -48
Sunday 05Oct: -43

Plus I am more exhausted than ever. At the start of September my sleep became really bad and I can feel it. I'm also trying to add in more exercise but I am so tired other routine exercise is falling off. Skating in on the brink of failure again. I have dropped from 46 laps to 11 laps. The off-balance feeling returned on 26Sep and the following skate I was just really tired. In fact, too tired to skate the next day.

Still posting and trying to lose weight but struggling to see the value.

As frustrated as I am, I can't really give up on this journey. I want to have better health and weight loss is the key to that. This week, I lost 1 pound (at -44 pounds total). Down 1 pound for the year; up 8.5 pounds from my lowest weight of the year.

I've been tracking calories and am slightly horrified at the totals. It helps in a weird way because I understand I deserve the higher readings on the scale and I am not hungry all of the time. I've also started tracking sodium which is a pain. I eat way too much sodium. I am hoping I can coax it down and my blood pressure will improve.

I have been extra tired lately because I am trying to add in an hour of Pilates a week. The class is not so strenuous that I should be so tired. Skating seems to have rebounded and I am working my way back up to 40+ laps.

I have a eye doctor appointment next week. I have minor double vision in one eye that I am pretty worried about. I will also talk to them about the effect Ozempic had on my near sight. I would also like to understand if and how that is tested. I am planning on restarting Ozempic after that appointment.

Big changes coming up work wise. My contract was set to end at the end of December. Unfortunately, the date was moved up to the end of October. I need to find a new job but am worried I will cross paths with the vipers again. In part due that awful experience, my esteem is pretty low and I lack confidence in myself.

Guess I am fading. I thought it was only 2 weeks since posting but it has been 3. Currently at -42 for a total loss; so up 2 pounds from 3 weeks ago. I am officially unemployed and it hasn't quite sunk in yet. Although unlikely, I am hoping I get called back in January. In the meantime, I am taking a class in AI in hopes it will help me find a job. I have been taking a class on preparing for the ski season. It has made me more and more impressed with myself for even being able to ski at all. I can not do any of the leg exercises without some sort of modification. Or in some cases, I can not do them at all.

Oh my! Quite the gain at -39 lbs total loss, a 3 pound gain across 2 weeks. Really need to get this figured out.

Was on travel so no posts the few weeks. Also, I am feeling less motivated about posting and this whole weigh loss journey in general. I have been at it seriously since January of 2018. Coming up on 8 years of not reaching my goal of losing 70 pounds. I only needed to lose < a quarter of a pound a week to be successful but here I am. Only about half way through and stalled out with exhausted willpower.

Technically, I have met the minimum set by the National Weight Control Registry to be considered a success since I have lost over 30 pounds and have kept it off for over a year. It is a small consolation because I still have so much weight to lose. I am coming out of a gain cycle that started at the end of August when I really tried hard. I successfully stuck to my diet, eating the fewest calories for 9 days since recording my calories. I gained a half a pound which seemed like it broke something within me. I have struggled extra hard since then.

My doctor has adjusted my thyroid prescription. The first change did not go well and I gained 5 pounds in that time. I just started the most recent change and it has been wonderful! I have been waking up at a regular time feeling rested and ready for the day. It is very unusual for me and I hope it continues. I am also down 1 pound (at -39 pounds total) from the Friday before Thanksgiving.

Looking at a 4.5 gain this year so far. Hoping to edge it down.

Lost at half pound this week (total loss is -39.5 pounds). Actually managed to track calories for a couple of days. One was within the target for weight loss. The other one was not but it was also not an outrageously high number either. Even though I am not tracking, I am weighing out portions so I could track if I want.

Feeling so much better with the thyroid medicine increase. I am trying (with doctor's permission) some variable dosing and I can feel it on the days I take less. The accepted medical theory is that it would not be possible for me to feel differently. That is what makes this so tough.

Had a great ice skating week and skated 150 laps this week. Still hoping to whittle some of these pounds off by the end of the year.

So up one pound since my last post two weeks ago (at -38.5 total pounds lost). Really trying to get my act together for the new year. I have been feeling pretty well lately which is exciting.

Happy New Year!

Ending the year with a 7 pound gain and at -34 total overall loss. Started a new thread to chronicle my on-going efforts.

340 days to go