Mindsplat

170.4 today. Slowly but surely. Hopefully I break 170 and 15 pounds before next weigh-in. I'm pretty sure I gained a pound of muscle on the bike trip, which makes me feel weird - I shouldn't mind because it's muscle, but it sets back my numbers and that annoys me.

Did well on calories yesterday, 1675. I've been more hungry since getting back though, and also craving junky foods. I blame the cravings on the energy bars and enriched-flour tortillas we mainly subsisted on during the trip (along with rice and beans, a split can of tuna each day, and intermittent cheese). I ate an energy bar for breakfast the day after we returned because we had no groceries and although it was calorically appropriate, it was like eating cookie dough for breakfast. We still have the enriched-flour tortillas and I'm inclined not to eat them. I know they would be tasty and provide a complex-carb base for any number of meals, but after whole-wheat there just seems like there's something empty and oversimplified about them. I do really want to eat the leftover energy bars though, so I've been limiting myself to one a day. I know something's off in my brain when I think couscous and black-eyed peas sounds boring (it's in fact delicious), am strangely drawn to the salt and vinegar potato chips (I hardly ever eat potato chips), and I am driven to go get a cherry Coke Zero as a substitute.

The quantitative hunger could be an indication that my metabolism has been sped up like I expected, and so 1600-1700 calories now is like if I'd been eating 1400-1500 before - but it surely doesn't help that I've been smoking pot a couple times a day since I got back. Frankly I'm rather amazed that I can keep my calorie intake sub-1700 while doing that.

I'm now running 3.0 miles in the mornings, which is about twice what I was doing a couple of weeks ago. It was great this morning after breakfast to say "well, I've consumed about 400 calories and burned 300 so far."

Went shopping for pants at Goodwill yesterday - not fun. The horrible fluorescent white lights undoubtedly had something to do with it, but I also wonder if I should take a break from reading ED blogs. Starting to get into my head, maybe. Goodwill never has any good pants in size 10 anyway, and clearance sales usually don't either. It will be so nice when I'm an 8 or a 6 and I can actually find decent pants without buying them brand new and expensive. But I need to buy a sturdy pair of 10s at least before school starts because I need to have ONE pair of pants that is not broken, almost-broken, or significantly too big. When I shrink into 8's I have those pants I found in a free box, but frankly, that's not gonna happen for at least a month or two.

My boyfriend is patient but seems to have some low level anxiety about my weight loss. He said a while ago that he hopes I don't count calories for the rest of forever. Yesterday he asked if I thought I would stop measuring my food when I reached 135, and in a different conversation he hinted at not setting a number like that, but just stopping at a point where my body is comfortable and I like how I look. Well... at 165 things are not terrible, but I'm definitely overweight. At 150, which I've been, I look/feel pretty good, but can still use some work. I have about the same amount of lean mass currently as a 135-pound person with 22% body fat. So 135 is probably a good guess. 120 would be on the skinny side, and I'd have to lose muscle as well as fat to get there, but on the other hand, a lighter person needs less muscle power to support themselves and move around, so I think it would not be unhealthy if I went that far. As far as calorie counting and measuring... I don't want to count calories forever, but I'm not just going to stop as soon as I reach my goal weight. It'll take time to train myself to automatically eat an appropriate amount. I'll probably start by recording and counting at the end of the day, without trying to keep track as I go along, and then drop it to a weekly or so audit, and finally leave it as a diagnostic tool if I start unexpectedly gaining. With measurements, I can already estimate if I need to, like when I eat out or at somebody's house, but the more times I see exactly 1 cup the better my estimates will get, and while I'm calorie counting the precision is helpful.