Dairy, I think we should just be friends

I was 176 this morning and all my measurements are stable, but I felt trimmer. Hopefully this means my body is done with the excessive retaining it was doing. At any rate, I'm wearing my skinny pants, which are size 8 Dockers that undoubtedly stretched during my gradual weight gain this school year, since all the rest of my pants are 12s that fit and 10s that don't. Still, I didn't fit into them a month ago and they are a very flattering shape so they're making me feel good.

Another thing I have to keep in mind (TMI warning) is that I've only been having a small bowel movement every 2 days or so, as opposed to one every day and occasionally 2 during the first part of my cycle, so the actual weight of my food is being retained more without necessarily having anything to do with fat. In this light, it now makes a lot more sense why I have large and frequent bowel movements during my period - getting rid of what I've been holding onto in all sorts of ways.

I want to try and reduce my dairy consumption to one serving of yogurt, one or two servings of cheese, and - for now - one serving of milk per day. Eventually I'd like to mostly phase out cow's milk in favor of plant milks and broth. This may help me lose weight, but the primary motivation is ecological. Eating lower on the food chain is always more energy-efficient, and cows are a particularly expensive animal, in addition to emitting methane, a greenhouse gas. Cheese and yogurt are uniquely delicious and really cannot be imitated with vegan products (they try, but they fail), plus yogurt is a safe and natural probiotic, so I'm just going to try to reduce those. Milk is yummy, but some of the alternatives are equally yummy for drinking and cereal, and it can be substituted in most recipes. Nuts have a similar nutritional profile to milk, and I don't eat a lot of nuts now because I don't like them dry, so nut milk (starting with almond) is my favorite idea for phasing out cow's milk. Of course, for that I need to first get a blender...

Ice cream is currently not included in this plan. I probably won't make a huge effort to reduce ice cream, since I already don't eat it that often and have been enjoying the recommended 1/2 cup servings. However, I might look for coconut milk ice creams. There was this Sharon's Sorbet at one of the grocery stores in town a few years ago that was really great... I don't know if they still have it or not.