17,500 Calories

I did NOT eat 17,500 calories in four days.

Things were going so well.  I was down to 164.4, I’d lost 13 pounds!  Then I had to go on a work trip for four days.  I tried to stay on plan and actually didn’t do that badly.  But, whether it was the few alcoholic drinks I had or the restaurant food or the general stress of travel, when I got back after four days I had gained FIVE pounds.  FIVE!  I weighed 169.4 the morning after I got home.  And I walked or rode the light rail everywhere, so lack of exercise wasn’t a problem.

 Conventional wisdom holds that it takes 3,500 calories over your daily requirement to gain a pound, so that means that I had to eat 17,500 EXTRA calories in four days to gain that much weight.  Which I of course did not do. 

The only thing I take from this is to not pay too much attention to the scale and stay the course, because many factors could cause weight fluctuations.  But the weight watchers website yammers at me if I don’t weigh at least weekly, and then if I’ve had a particularly “good” day or feel slim, I’ll weigh more frequently, or I’ll “weight cherry-pick”:  my weigh-in day is Friday but if I weighed a few ounces less on an illicit Wednesday weigh in, I’ll log THAT weight on the web site.  Oooooooooo . . . .  End result, however, is that I've become inordinately focused on the number on the scale.

 But, a momentary slip into eating some sugar while exhausted in an airport (and after having had a cocktail) waiting for a delayed flight home has awakened the sugar beast and I am back on the sauce.  It is incredibly addictive to me, and I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to stop right now.  I woke up tired, I’ve slogged through my day with little energy and I have a rough week at work starting tomorrow.  I can barely move my fingers to type! 

Not sure what to do.  13 pounds was pretty good.  It was what I lost the last time I tried this, last fall.  But something happens around the two to three month period and I fail.  It seems like I’ll never drop out of the 160’s ever again.  I certainly don’t want to gain the weight back, especially not with our water park vacation coming up in a month, but right now, the cheap grocery store Neapolitan ice cream left over from my daughter’s pool party is calling my name.  Must set it on the counter to soften . . .

Will report back!