Week Twenty-Eight: Mystery and Betrayal Weigh-in

This was an interesting month.

I'd made many positive changes yet still struggled with the types and amounts of food I've been eating. Soups really helped my down days (good), but I also had a small sandwich with the soup (bad). I decided that home-baked bread was the way to go- not only because it tastes so much better but because it was better for me. 

This week I retried a low-carb snack I hadn't had in eons- baked cheese. It was a blend of mozzarella, cheddar, and provolone, and I topped each one off with some leftover pepperoni. I cleaned out the fridge and found all of these in dribs and drabs, so I'd thought I'd get rid of them in one fell swoop.

They were yummy! I did this twice this past week. And then...

Between the bread and the cheese- and don't forget the cheese I'd had in the sandwiches too- I was feeling more than a bit...clogged.

Candy is starting to taste weird, and fruit is starting to taste fantastic! I've been replacing some of my snacks with fruit. I've also been prepping a lot of homemade foods like tomato base. Twenty-five pounds of tomatoes, eight green peppers, and four huge onions make about nine quarts of sauce, and it takes all day to cook down. This time I made a chunky version, which I plan to use in dishes in the upcoming weeks.

This weekend, we wanted to make dishes using homemade pasta. We used the pasta sheeter this time and a new pasta recipe. It was fantastic! We had spaghetti and meatballs with sausage and my homemade sauce, and we had chicken and spaghetti in a creamy garlic parmesan sauce the next day. We didn't do anything special for Easter this year due to the pandemic.

Image by joshuemd from Pixabay 

Everything was delicious. However, last night, I was feeling very bloated with indigestion. Not good when you have to weigh yourself the next day.

Unfortunately, the only significant exercise I'd gotten this week is walking farther in the parking lots for work. Most of what I did this week involved sitting.

The numbers were good! I'd lost several inches here and there, stayed the same on others, and only gained in my chest. But I was still feeling clogged and bloated and was hoping my body would clear out everything before the weigh-in.

Nope.

I was going to take pictures this week, but you'll understand in a moment why I didn't. At least not this month.

Here are the numbers:

Original numbers:        4 weeks ago:            Now:              Difference:

Weight 363 lbs.                330                     332                     +2

Biceps- 23"                   19-3/4"                 19-3/4"                none

Chest- 61-1/2"              58-3/4"                 59-1/2"                +3/4"

Waist- 58"                     57-1/4"                 54-1/2"              -2-3/4"

Hips- 69-1/2"                   62"                     62"                     same

Thigh- 32"                    31-1/4"                   29"                   -2-1/4"

Neck- 18"                     17-1/2"                17-1/2"                 same

This is my first gain since I started this journey. There were a lot of conflicting thoughts running around my head when the indicator settled slowly onto the scale- a lot of 'diet' thoughts:

'Maybe I should take off my shoes.' (Nope- I've been wearing them for each weigh-in.)

'I'm clogged and bloated.' (Perfectly legitimate reasons, but why?)

'I need to hold my breath/breathe helium/stand on one foot, etc.' (None of these work- don't ask me how I know that.)

'Bread and cheese, you betrayed me!' (Completely, absolutely true- but I knew this before I stepped on the scale.)

Sigh. Okay, so maybe not the cheese so much as the bread. And snacking on things I know better to snack on- especially candy and junk when I wasn't even craving that stuff. It was there, it needed to be eaten, so I ate it.

The two-pound gain and the no changes from last month are all on me, not anyone or anything else.

Just me.

Am I going to beat myself up over this? Maybe a little. But I'll use that to improve and keep myself from backsliding. The fact that I had one true setback in over six months of fasting is really a miracle. I'm still losing inches despite the bloat, and I'm more mobile each day- I just need to be more consistent and stay away from bread for a while. 

Oh, bread, you delicious betrayer! I must forsake you- at least for the most part.

I didn't make any soup for this week, but I have plenty of salad stuff and rotisserie chicken. I'll look at my recipes, find a nice brothy soup to make, and have a small salad instead of a sandwich with soup on my down days. I might make a soup with homemade pasta next week, but this week I think I better stick to veggies and maybe a little rice in the broth.

It's still a mystery to me as to why I lost so many inches yet gained weight. Some of it has to be muscle, but I fear a lot of it is just from a clogged and bloated intestinal tract. I guess I won't know until next week, because I'm not planning to touch any bread if I can help it!