191.4 (11am) Ate 5,204 calories yesterday

O.K. - I ate 5,204 calories HIGH CARB calories yesterday (including take out Chinese, oreo cookies, bologna sandwiches on white bread and noodle casserole. (Carbs came to 425.1 grams (estimate because of the chinese food with fried rice). The day prior to that I ate 4,295 calories (of which 299.3 carb grams were included). I should have had a weight gain of 1.62 pounds. I am up to 191.4 pounds this morning (11am) from 186.4 pounds two days ago. Obviously a lot of that is water weight, but even when I get the water weight to come back off, I should look at being 188.0 pounds again. *Heavy sigh*. I am just trying to put it all in perspective here. I obviously plan to get back to low carb and low calorie today. I just want to note that I haven't done anything I can't come back from. I KNOW I am going to struggle today though. What's funny to me is that none of what I ate yesterday was that good. It was good, but it made me feel physically really gross.

I have been here before though, many times. What matters now is how I handle today.

186.2 (9:30am) 102 BG

I tried on a old pair of Levi Silvertab Relaxed Fit jeans in size 11 this morning. I can get them on and buttoned, but they are too tight to wear. Jeeze. That's just weird. I was spot on plan yesterday, so I hoped this morning's weigh in would be a little lower, but it's amazing how my body continues to change even when the scale doesn't.

186.4 (9: 30 am) after eating pecan pie, 3 orange candy slices and 1 can of chickpeas the prior evening.

110 mg/dL this morning. That's the highest fasting BG reading I have seen in a long time. I forgot to take my Metformin last night and then also ate a bunch of junk. I had hoped I would get a better reading than that this morning. I have lost 75 pounds from my top weight 261.2. I don't think my pre-diabetes will ever improve 100% with even 120 pounds of weight loss (if I am ever able to get there). All I can do is keep doing what I know I should be doing. I am down 53 pounds since I got really serious about it on June 20th, 2013. I would still like to get down at LEAST below 165, but my end goal is really below 140 permanently. The truth of the matter is that my body will probably really start resisting any further weight loss at some point. I don't know when that will be. Formally obese people have really low leptin levels and lots of hypotrophic fat cells, which makes weight stabilization at a formally low weight very difficult. Over time (YEARS), some of the very small fat cells may die off.

185.0 (noon)

I stayed up this morning until 5am and then slept in until noon, so my weigh-in was much much later than normal. Thus the really low (to me) weight. I expect to be back up to 187-ish tomorrow. It WAS exciting to finally see 185.0 after all this time though. I certainly am feeling thinner in my clothes and I think my face is even showing more weightloss than it had been. I had 2 diet pills yesterday and even then, last night was kinda of a white knuckle night. Hopefully it will get better. =)

188.2 (9:30am)

Weight is back down. Ready to get down below 185. I just need to focus. I just had my first diet pill of the day at 11:35 am. I've also been having a cup of Celestial Seasoning Herbal Christmas tea with a tiny amount of sucralose. I think I should have had the diet pill a little closer to 11am, as I am feeling quite hungry already... but will try to let it kick in really good before having my first meal of the day.

Today is Saturday, so I have no plan for working. It rained a lot last night and it quite yucky out still, so I plan on laying in bed with my dogs and my laptop for some time.

Later that day...

So we ended up running around all day. I fixed my car (had a check engine light on that I needed to be off before going in to take emission testing). So I went out around 1 pm to look at the car and by 2pm had decided I needed to go to the auto salvage to see if they might have an impossible to buy wiring harness connector that I needed. I wolfed down 45 grams of cheese before heading out to the salvage. They had what we needed plus a sunvisor clip that was missing from my car and we stopped off at the auto store to get some electrical connectors for splicing the connector to the existing wiring. Not even 20 minutes later we had the ATI sensor hooked back up and the check engine light off! I love it when an automotive repair job goes so smoothly and actually WORKS! We then decided to go get a new oil pan and change the oil in the car before getting it emission tested, so headed in to Walmart. Then decided to go BACK to the salvage to pick up a few more odds and ends that are missing from my car (20 years old and missing a few interior switch handles and such). Then went to goodwill and got a new (to me) pair of down-hill skiing boots ($10 on sale!!) and back home. Then back out to Best Buy to get a game controller. Finally made it back home after 7 pm. So needless to say, I had missed the pill I intended to take at 3-4 pm and I was starving. I went ahead and took a diet pill while cooking my dinner (because I plan to stay up quite a while yet tonight), along with my Metformin (1000 XR), birth control pill, biotin and centrum multivitamin. I then made a stir-fry that I've been eating a lot of recently. 3.28 oz of lean steak (all fat trimmed off) stirfried (in water) with 8.22 oz zucchini, 7.20 oz fresh mushrooms, garlic powder, salt & pepper and then mixed up with 40 grams of sour cream. This is a delicious stir-fry and has lots of good nutrition. I normally make two servings when I fix it and then just refrigerate the second serving for my evening meal (which I then just heat up in the microwave). A big part of making this diet work is having a bunch of go to meals (and keeping ingredients on hand in the freezer and refrigerator) that make it simple to throw together a meal when you are STARVING and TIRED. That is where I have often failed in the last 15 years. By not always being prepared. This coming week will make five months of consistently weighing all my food and making sure to keep plenty of fresh veggies on hand along with appropriate meats, sour cream, neufchatal cheese, unsweetened almond milk, etc, etc.

So right now, I feel really satisfied and hopeful that I can get back on track 100% and get down to 165. I feel AT LEAST 10 years younger at 190 lbs than I did at 245+ lbs. I just can't wait to get even a little bit more weight off. I am really happy where I am right now weight wise, but also know that it will only get even better.

I also wanted to mention that I ate "junk" (hamburger helper hamburger rice, canned refried beans, 6 chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies) last night and I just felt gross in my stomach. I find that when I stick to on plan foods (no grains, potatoes, etc), that I just feel so much better digestion wise. I can be quite full, yet still feel good (not bloated and gross). I also want to note that when I eat on plan, I almost never ever have any gas. (Sorry TMI). But I think it is worth noting, because I think gas is a symptom of an unhappy digestive track. Eating appropriately thus leads to not having gas.

190.0

Yesterday I ate 158.3 grams carbs, so I am up in weight a little today (2,598 calories). October 15, 2013 (exactly one month ago today) I was at 191.4 lbs. I have basically stayed exactly the same for the last month. I may have lost maybe a pound or two. My average calories for the last month (October 19th, 2013 - Today November 15th, 2013 - 4 weeks in Fitday) is 1,890 calories. As I may have lost 1-2 pounds in that 4 weeks, it looks as if my daily metabolic rate is roughly 2000-2100 calories. Which is pretty much what Fitday thinks it would be. My averages for those four weeks were as follows:

Calories: 1890 kcal

Fat: 123.1 grams

Carbs: 122.3 grams - 28.1 grams fiber = 94.2 NET carbs

Protein: 93.8 grams

This was a lot of "good" planned days mixed in with a lot of crap throwing it to the wind days in which I overate a lot and may have even eaten some cookies or semi-sweet chocolate chips or a lot of carrots with blue cheese dressing. I really tried when I was having a "binge" eating sort of day to stick to low carb items, but even when you do that, your carbs can get quite high even eating stuff like carrots.

Overall, I consider this last month a success. I am quite happy to have stabilized at this weight fairly well and think my body probably needed this break. I am waffling between going quite low carb low calorie to get down to the 165-ish area (which I could do by the end of January if I really applied myself) or just trying to do this really slowly. The thing is, is it is quite horrible when you are in that "zone of torture" where you are not quite low enough calorically/carbs wise to consistently stay in ketosis. The ketosis means you inprove in accessing your body fat stores and I DO think my mitochondria are multiplying and improving their ability to access fat for fuel instead of glucose, when I stay low carb / low calorie. They HAVE to improve at it when I stay low carb / low calorie like that.

So, all of that to say that I have really been struggling to stick 100% on plan recently. I think that for the next seven days I will take 3 diet pills per day (11am, 3pm and 6pm) until I can get my body firmly back in ketosis. I hate to do that as that is $31.50 worth of diet pills, AND I have stopped going to the clinic, so what I have is what I will have to lose all the rest of this weight with. I think I have only taken about a total of 10-12 pills TOTAL so far though since I first got them back in July (??), but I really don't like using them unless I feel like it's necessary. Unfortunately, I guess I have gotten to the point where I feel like I keep struggling and hindering my own progress. I DO think it's good I've had a mini-break, but I am still right on the BMI over-weight / obese (30.0) cusp and I really need to get down further. I purchased some (used) down-hill skis this last week and plan to go skiing this winter. I would really like to get some more weight off before I go, as it makes it a lot safer and easier.

So, I am shooting for 720 (ideal) - 800 (maximum) through the end of January. That should result in at least a 25 pound weight loss. Way back in 2001 I lost from 190 down to 163 and I remember it made a HUGE difference in how I felt. So I think that even though 25 pounds doesn't sound like much, it will be worth it to really apply myself for another 2 1/2 months and then maybe try to stabilize at sub 165 for a while before I make a last run to take off the remaining 25 pounds.

188.6 (9:30am) 95 FBG (9:30am) 35.0% Body fat Per Omron 29.8 BMI

I was really pleased to get a weight of 188.6 lbs this morning, as I ate 2200 calories yesterday (all ketogenic of course). I am itching to get under 185 so bad, but I just couldn't seem to control my appetite at all yesterday. I don't know why. I guess my insulin levels are still coming down or something. Maybe I have hit the harder part of weight loss now that I am under a 30BMI (obese) and down into the "overweight" category. I need to get down to 158.0 lbs to be in the "normal" BMI range. That is a loss of 30.6 lbs. I feel like I CAN achieve that, if I focus and continue to log my food and make ketotic food choices. I can lose down to 117.0 lbs and still be in the "normal" range. Under that would be underweight for my height. I've thought it may be possible that I will have to go 125ish for some time to eliminate some of the subcutaneous fat on my stomach. (So I don't end up with a pooch on my stomach). It's possible it just will never look good though. I would love to be able to look nice in a swimsuit, but maybe that just won't ever be possible.

189.2 lbs (8:30am)

I have spent the last three weeks basically at 190. I think I got as high as 192.8 on October 23rd and have been between there (up and down and up and down) since I hit my low of 188.8 on 2/20. So I guess that means the last 17 days. I was out of ketosis there for a while as well. I wasn't eating a bunch of carbs, but I was eating too many calories that each contained carbs and they added up to be too much to remain in ketosis. I felt a lot more brain fog than I have been feeling of late as well as crazy strong food cravings that were really hard to resist, so that was interesting. My urine also changed back to the darker normal SAD pee color instead of the distinct ketogenic pee color.

I think I've been back in ketosis for about 3 days now, but have been eating around 2000 calories each day.

For the last two weeks I have averaged 1897 calories, 123.1 grams fat, 116.1-29.5 (fiber) = 86.6 NET carbs, 102.1 grams protein. These amounts basically kept my weight stable. As I am still shooting for around 50 more pounds of weight loss, I obviously need to lower my calories and carbs back to what I was doing previously. I DO think it was a good healthy break though, which probably increased my leptin levels and let me have a little mental break. It probably helped my skin catch up a little as well. I still have skin concerns with my upper thighs, stomach and breasts, but it will do what it does. I can only continue on.

Right now I am really happy to have found a method of eating that I think will work long term. I am just trying today to focus on the short term goal of keeping my carbs and calories low and striving to get under 185. I am OK with slower weight loss. I may even strive to keep it slow to aid with skin recovery.