And the stress goes on...

I hadn´t really believed that I would be able to finish my work in time before I´m officially on vacation, had I? The number of COMAFUS (completely monumental administrative f...ups)  that had to be taken immediate care of has been staggering these last two weeks, and the pileup of files that need taking care of before I can close up shop for the year has been rising proportionally. So, no weekend. No preparing for the holidays at leisure. Instead, I am chained to my desk for the time being, racing the clock for everything that needs doing to be done. So, no Robinson act (he had all his work done by Friday...), but the one thing I had wanted to avoid, namely the end-of-year dash for dear life. 

Weightloss, under those conditions, has been impossible. The extra stress hormones that restricting what I eat would have triggered would probably have driven me over the edge of a burnout. So, no restricting. I have been eating, unrestrictedly, to the point of satiety. Carbs, too, for their tranquilizing effect. And I am paying for it with another two-pound gain already. 88.7 kilos.

WTF. 

Actually, I have to take it easy with the late working hours. If I get less than seven hours of shuteye, my concentration and everything goes downhill fast, so, no all-nighters except for the last one, after which I can sleep a bit longer than usual. 

Browsing on Amazon, I stumbled upon the works of one Matt Stone. He´s critical of the whole Paleo movement, and of dieting in general, claiming that undereating (or eating the wrong kinds of food) for a lengthy period will downregulate one´s metabolism, by way of a continuously activated stress reaction, because -as he says- ketosis involves the secretion of adrenaline (at least that´s how I understand it) and you can run yourself into a bad case of adrenal fatigue by long-term dieting. 

Unfortunately, the way he writes it it sounds a lot more stringent than what I just wrote. And the list of symptoms he offers, I could turn into a checklist of what is not feeling quite right about my body right now. 

The scary part is his solution. Unlimited eating. Whatever and whenever one desires. He claims that the body will finally self-regulate, even if it does at first gain weight. 

If my body were able to self-regulate I´d not drag around 44 pounds of extra blubber in the first place. Then again, I have been down another 20 pounds already, with the regain obviously being driven by the extra stress I had this year, as if dieting stress plus workload stress had been too much for me. 

Perhaps that explains the infamous weight switch being activated after the flooding. 

Now if I knew how to make my body stop gaining without toppling myself over into a burnout... 

I´ll be having a two-week vacation over the holidays. Perhaps that will help. 

I´d rather be losing weight than losing the fight against my body...

And if Mr. Stone´s premise is valid, I´ll be losing the fight. 

I am scared of gaining it all back. 

Julia