Since then, my weight has been steadily creeping up. Half a pound a week, on average. Which has by now catapulted me back to 200 pounds. 91 kilograms.
I am by now convinced that the only thing I can do to stop this is go off the carbs again- and stay well below the 1800 daily calories that should, according to the charts, equal my basal metabolic rate at a weight below morbid obesity and therefore should mean at most maintenance, not a ten-kilogram regain in just seven months.
Looks like my metabolism is even more tanked than I had assumed.
Actually, I have been feeling what is supposed to be the signs of a slowed-down metabolism for quite a while already. Continually cold hands and feet, digestive issues, fatigue, and, of course, weight gain. The whole combined with a continuous feeling of sluggishness and difficulties concentrating. Which was also the reason why I stopped blogging for so long- I was just too fricking tired all the time.
So, when I came upon some books that claimed that the only way to get one´s metabolism back up is to stop undereating and refeed your body, I chose trying to lose my fatigue over trying to lose my weight. The choice was facilitated by the accompanying recommendation that one should eat plenty of carbohydrate, fat and salt. In other words, all the things I had been avoiding when losing were suddenly, not only allowed but preferable.
Supposedly, the body should gain back some weight and then stabilize at it´s "natural" weight.
The only problem being that after several months of doing this, there is no sign of the regain slowing down. At the going rate, I´d be back where I started from within another year.
And the fatigue hasn´t diminished either. My hands and feet are still mostly icy cold. And my digestion still is a mess.
This morning´s scale shock is the point where I have to reevaluate my choices.
Obviously, the "getting my metabolism back up" thing is not working. What with the advice given running counter to everything I did when losing the weight two years ago, it´s likely making my situation worse by the day. Having all the aches and complications of morbid obesity back is certainly worse than having to accept that my metabolism is slow, even if that means cutting way down on the calories. Or the carbs.
So, beginning today, I´m back on the wagon. Carbs below 20 percent of calories and 1500 calories a day maximum. Upping my fluid intake again (another thing that was discouraged for getting my metabolism back up). For the time being, no alcoholic beverages. And using the stairs at the office again even if I´m, by now, wheezing when I arrive upstairs. Trying for 10000 steps a day instead of my customary 5000.
I took seven months to regain those last ten kilos. The first time around, I have been taking nine months to recondense them.
I´ll see how long it takes me this time.
As for setting goals, I am by now aiming to get back to the lowest point I had reached. There isn´t a deadline, as it is mathematically impossible for me to reach that goal by my birthday in March.
And I am, at present, not intending to force my weight down further than that. If more weight should come off, I´d be glad about it, but if that 80-kilo point were where the buck stops for me, I´d accept that, too.
What I won´t accept is being back out of onederland. What I won´t accept is becoming that beached whale again.
Enough already.
Yes, having my stomach growl will probably lead to the production of stress hormones. But so does having to buy new pants because the old ones are wearing through, or starting, once again, to actively avoid everything that might physically exert me. I´m not starting an exercise regimen ( no time for that), but I don´t want to have to think about the shortest way to go somewhere, or the easiest way to do things. Nor do I want to cut out regular activities because they would be too strenuous.
I want my life back. As simple as that.
Julia
