Face the Truth Friday (Also Day 4 of SofDDDY): Feel Great, Eating On Plan, but Up From Salty and Carby Choices and maybe Hormonal Blippiness...and Learning to Love the Agua! (Food Log included)

Scale: 248.6

Yep. It's UP.

No, I didn't binge. No, I'm not off plan.

In fact, I can say that I've never felt better eating THIS little food. I've stayed at around 1760 or under for almost 3 weeks (some days higher, some days lower, mostly very close). I've been drinking more water than EVER, and I mean EVER EVER EVER.

It's sodium and little-sleep, again. When those two get together, the scale goes up.

I have had weird salty food cravings, carb cravings, and an occasional chocolate craving this week. Were I not menopausal, I'd feel certain my period was due. I was even cranky with my near-perfect hubby (for about 15 seconds) yesterday. I've had a pretty even keel emotion-wise, so the PMS-like cravings and spots of irritability make me think I may have a little hormonal blip due to the recent weight losses (ie, release of hormones stored in adipose cells with the fat loss). Could be why I"m retaining water (not just the salt, natch), even though I took potassium supplements yesterday--and ate fruit and veggies! Well, could be. Dunno.

I figured I drank so dang much water, it would be insane to RETAIN water, but I did push it yesterday. One of my higher carb days (though still under 200 grams), what with the whole grain English Muffin, muesli roll, and kidney beans (one at each meal). Last night's cheese and jarred salsa, canned beans, and processed soy "meat" didn't help, salt-wise. But, right now, it's more important for me to stay in my calorie level. If that means that while the uber-salt cravings persist, I bloat; then so be it: I bloat.

Today, I was running from the alarm and barely remembered to weigh-in. Had my mammogram done (yay, my tatas tolerated it, one of the great thing about menopause--no more torturous, tear-inducing, thumping pain mammograms). I only got 2 glasses of water in before heading out (I refuse to want to pee myself on I-95). I drank 10 when I got home: 8 before "brunch" (missed breakfast as had to leave and was famished when I got home from lack of food and water); 2 after.

What Truth am I Facing:

The water helps. A lot. I'm not seeing the massive drop in poundage, but I'm FEELING better, just generally better. I'm even feeling thirsty in the AM, sometimes in the night, and that's weird, but interesting. My skin is slightly less dry and itchy--which I mostly noticed cause I couldn't do my immediate head to toe cream-on for my itchy-eczema-allergy-prone skin. I thought I'd look like an alligator without lotion (or deodorant for mammogram). No. My skin was soft and only mildly itchy around neck without the Eucerin.

Yes, I clearly NEEDED more water in my life. Truth!

The water helped alleviate a lot of the hunger, too, thank goodness, or I fear I would have really super-duper gone to town. I am truly starting to embrace the water thing.

Okay, so scale was up from whatever combo of factors--not from overeating, for sure!--but my mood, motivation, and enjoyment of my "eating at goal calories" is still present and accounted for.

I am still completely craving salty, and so I am trying to figure out how to indulge that (for now) without going carb happy or calorie-crazed.

But I know somewhere under the fluid retention, there is fat loss. Yep.

The boring details of the day:

First Thing AM:
2 glasses water
fluids: 16 oz

Late Breakfast:
2 cups mixed greens with 1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles and 1 tbsp Blue Cheese Dressing
1 rasher of bacon, 1 hard boiled egg, 1 tablespoon guacamole, 1 large tomato slice
1 ounce fried chicken tender, 1 ounce grilled chicken breast
(I know, weird, I didn't want chicken that much, but I wanted more protein, so I grabbed what was there).
Fiber and vitamin supplements
2 cups regular coffee (16 oz water)
10 glasses water (80 oz water)

Calories so far: 404
Fluids so far: 112 oz

SNACK:
BariWise Aloha Mango protein smoothie (made with 8 oz water) (90 cals)
more supplements (30 cals)
4 glasses water

Calories so far:  524
Fluids so far:  152 oz (exceeded "accelerated" level of intake)

LUNCH:
tofu and veggie stir fry
4 fresh rolls (vegetarian, steamed, chili sauce on the side)
1 cup fresh pineapple
1 WS dark chocolate protein pudding
supplements
4 glasses water
1 cup of decaf coffee with sucralose
( a pretty carby lunch even without rice! Carbiness and soy sauciness and I fear the scale tomorrow. Whoa. Got my veggies in. Yay.)

Calories for lunch: 820
Fluids at lunch: 40 oz

Calories so far: 1344
Fluids so far:  192 oz

SNACK:
a cup of decaf with sucralose
4 glasses water

calories so far: 1344
fluids so far: 224 oz

DINNER (really late snack, instead of proper meal)
1/2 WS pretzel bows
1/2 Kay's Naturals Vanilla protein cereal
cup of decaf with sucralose
1 slice 2% Kraft cheese
2 glasses water
assorted supplements


Total Calories:  1594 (c39/f37/p24)
Total Fluids:  248 oz