Paying Attention and Water Weight

OK, first I'd like to talk about something odd and kind of embarrassing.

In my last 12 week plan (ended mid-August), not quite halfway through, my weight loss slowed down vastly. To nearly a stop. By a little after halfway through, I had gained a few pounds and wasn't losing anything at all.

I was demoralized. At MY weight, I ought to be losing a helluva lot more weight. I stopped tracking my food, that "obsession taking over my life" since apparently it wasn't doing a damn bit of good. I kept forgetting to weigh... I told myself I didn't care. I was still eating mostly ok but I guess I just kind of gave up, angrily.

I remembered to weigh near the end of the period, which was a low weight even though only a couple pounds lower than I'd been like 10 weeks before, so I put it in my spreadsheet and abandoned lowcarb for a month of true hedonism. Not surprisingly, after a month of high-carb and gluten, I had asthma, allergies, massive bloating, zits, was exhausted, weak, and could barely move in the mornings.

I realized last week that I couldn't find a food log for the end of that period. Now, how can I look at what I was doing and say "This doesn't work for me so let's do something else," if I hadn't tracked it? ME, the measure-to-the-gram, USDA-obsessed, counts to-two-decimals freak?!

Well I went back to start another 12 week cycle. I'm an incurable optimist. I'm not going to be so obsessive about weighing food but I must return to what is right. I know that I eat lowcarb for some reasons that aren't even about fat. So even if I am not losing weight, I still need to eat well. My normal 'extremist' nature tends to make it one or the other.

And looking at my tracking sheet, I realized how much my psychology had been affected by weeks of demoralization in the middle: I failed to even NOTICE that by the end of 12 weeks, it had turned around and I had lost a total of 33 lbs in those 12 weeks. Now, I lost nearly all of that in the first 3.5 weeks. Then I lost nothing, then gained some, then lost nothing, and only re-lost a couple pounds and then a couple more at the very end of that period. Of course, understand that 20 of those "don't count" -- they are water weight I will gain/lose with carbs; I only really counted the others.

The problem is, I blogged about lowcarb not working the way it did for me, and while it IS true that it definitely does NOT cause the degree of weight loss with me it did initially, I think I was injust to lowcarb, inaccurate and not by any possible means fair when I griped about 'no results'. I wonder if I am more psychologically sensitive due to the degree of my weight, or if I just quit believing in it in my despair, I quit paying attention, and so made some assumptions that weren't fair.

Anyway. Seems like people are always assuming anybody who's fat is a moron and lying about their food, so I feel horrible publicly talking about having been a little inaccurate and a lot unfair, as if I'm a bad example of the cliche. But I felt it wouldn't be honest of me if I didn't fess up publicly.

***

I've been pretty sick the last few days. And I went back to lowcarb the night of the 18th (the two are not related, except that perhaps the HC/gluten caused a lung infection that ended up in sinuses/everywhere).

In 1.5 days -- between late evening 9/19 and early morning 9/21 -- I lost 13# in water weight. Ye gods. That's nearly 2 gallons! I've had to pee like every 30-90 minutes depending for two days, haven't really slept in two days, every part of my face hurts from sinuses, and I am in general very unhappy physically. But it's an amazing thing to drink nearly a gallon of water a day and yet lose nearly two gallons of body-water in 1.5 days time! The minute I ditched carbs and shifted to "meat", took very little time -- it is interesting that every time I would be in the restroom I could feel my right thigh and FEEL that it was just slightly less bloated than 30-90 minutes before! How amazingly efficient the body is.

Already I don't wake up feeling like I'm "overstuffed-inside" and nearly immobilized. I feel kind of weak and unbalanced but I suspect that's as much about being sick as it is such a drastic sudden weight loss.

When I began LC it was 9/18/06. So my recent re-beginning was on my two year anniversary. For all my griping about it not working consistently and more, the fact is that I have kept 100# off for nearly two years now and lost some more in the meantime. I should credit getting off carbs and gluten for more than I do: even if eating well doesn't always result in anything like the kind of weight loss I had initially (I guess I have been unrealistic...), obviously this has worked for me to some degree and the weight has, in general, STAYED off my body -- that is frankly far more impressive than the weight loss, if you look at the maintenance % of weight loss in our society.

I do seem to have some issue with losing/regaining the last 15# several times over the last 18 months but since I keep sliding off lowcarb, I can hardly blame that on the eating plan.

It's always a cascade failure, and it always starts with insufficient protein. Always. If I get 100+g of protein a day, I stay on plan. When I don't, for 2-3 days running, I end up eating something I shouldn't, or deciding to go out to eat, or whatever. It's so obviously a "feeding behavior" much like we measure in animals it's almost embarrassing, though I think it's good that it's become so clear. At least what keeps me on plan -- or sends me off it -- is pretty evident.

OK, I need to get back to feeling sorry for myself here, or I'll be wasting all this valuable time being sick. (haha)