Day 71

This morning while I was laying in bed, trying to make myself get up, I had a nice stretch and happened to notice the tops of my arms and hardly recognised them as my own! They were almost shapely, I could nearly see my biceps as I flexed them and I couldn't see a trace of 'bingo-wing' either which helped me start the day with a smile on my face.

I seem to be shrinking steadily all over my body apart from my belly which is a little bit behind the rest and my bust which doesn't seem to have shrunk at all. I'm still having trouble seeing my feet, I've always struggled with that really, but hopefully I'll drop a couple of cup sizes at some point on my CD journey. Well I do hope so, if not I'll probably fall over.

Day 70

I'm feeling very pre-menstrual today indeed, I was desperate for food from the moment I woke so I took the opportunity to have a little light lunch with the boyfriend. I poached some frozen broccoli and pollack in a little low-salt veggie stock and chucked in lots of parsley and some black pepper. It came out very well and we both really enjoyed it but I found myself feeling quite hungry not long after so I thought it was best to go out for the afternoon.

I ended up going to a friend's house to do some work on a creative project and hopefully take my mind off the hunger and it worked very well. I wasn't really hungry, just feeling under the weather I guess, eating can help me in these situations but I do find myself feeling tempted to eat more than I need to sometimes so I have to be careful. Once I was out of the house and distracted I did feel OK and my friend commented on how well I'm looking which always helps too. We had a constructive and pleasant afternoon, we got a good amount of work done and had a great natter too. On the way home, we popped into the supermarket to grab a few essentials and I realised that while I've been on SS+ and SS, the food I miss more than all others is actually fruit, especially a nice, crisp, juicy Braeburn apple. I miss them more than pizza, and for me, that's a pretty major thing.

This evening, I realised I haven't measured myself for a while so I measured my waist and it's down to 43ins now. It doesn't seem to be going down as fast as I'd hoped but I'm not losing weight first from the same places I put it on first. It's all still heading in the right direction though, so I mustn't grumble. I also tried on the trousers I bought a few weeks ago only to find that they are a bit on the loose side now. I wouldn't usually mind but they are high-waisted trousers and look quite odd on now. I'm tempted to try and dig out the receipt and take them back to the shop. I also tried on my mini-goal black jeans and apart from a bit of 'muffin-top', they fit me now. In a week or two they should fit me perfectly and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm off to have a rummage around for old receipts.

Day 69 - Meeting with CDC

I had another very positive meeting with my CDC today and a pleasant little surprise at my official weigh-in too. I have been quite anxious about my weight this week so I weighed myself about 2 hours before CDC was due, it was around the 16st 2, 2.5, 3lb mark. When he arrived I stepped on the scales again, here are my official stats for this week:

• Weight: 16st 1lb
• BMI: 35.6

I'm not sure why I weighed less than I did a couple of hours before, maybe my bust obscures my view of the dial, I don't know, but there's no way I'm complaining about a 7lb loss. It's also strengthened my resolve for the coming week. I'm going to do my very best to stick to SS and see if I can get that stray pound off so I can get to a nice, tidy 15st 7lbs at my next weigh-in. I do like those nice round numbers, maybe it's the geek in me, maybe I have a touch of OCD, who knows. One thing I do know though, is that at the next weigh-in I could well be seeing a total loss of a whole 3 stones since the start of my CD journey and that is something I will have to celebrate!

I had a little chat with my CDC about my worries about visiting my grandma and I think that I might try and explain CD to her. She's a very smart woman so she might surprise me and be very understanding but she's just as likely to go all 'feeder' on me. I think if she does insist I eat, I will just have to eat, as sensibly as I can at the time, but I don't think I will be able to get out of it. At least I know now from my burger experience last week, that it will only take me 2 or 3 days to get back into ketosis, and with the help of a bit of careful eating, I'm sure I can do it without going completely mad.

Day 68

First thing this morning I stepped on the scales so I could get a rough idea of what to expect at tomorrow's official weigh-in and the result was not too bad, 16st 1lb. I'll probably weigh a couple of pounds more at my CDC meeting as I get weighed in the early evening but it should still show a reasonable weight-loss for this fortnight, despite my burger madness last week. I probably could have lost a little more if I'd behaved myself a little better but I don't think I've done badly enough to seriously jeopardise my chance of reaching 15st by family visiting time.

I'm already starting to feel a bit anxious about the visit even though it's over a month away. Some of my family; my siblings and my dad, know about my diet but others don't and I don't know how I'm going to wriggle out of eating while I'm there, especially at my granny's house. If I could think up an excuse to avoid the starchy components of whatever she feeds me I'd be OK but she isn't the type of person to take no for an answer when it comes to food. For example, I'm mildly lactose intolerant, I can have a certain amount of milk every day but if I exceed it I am quite unwell, but if I ask for a black coffee or no butter on my toast she'll just scoff at me and do it anyway. I have no idea how I can explain CD to her without freaking her out, I can't even think of a way to work around it. Any suggestions more than welcome!

My kitchen has been out of bounds again today, apart from the odd 5 minutes to get a cup of peppermint tea, but I didn't mind at all, I had no appetite whatsoever and there was magic going on in that kitchen. I even forgot to have breakfast until about 5pm! I'm off to have my last sachet of the day in my beautiful, lime-green, freshly redecorated kitchen.

Day 67

Some friends of mine have been decorating my kitchen today, they started on Saturday and they have a little more to do tomorrow. It's very exciting indeed, my kitchen has been semi-decorated for a couple of years. Originally I had asked for some help to do it myself seeing as the boyfriend is too busy either being at work, exhausted or sleeping to help me with the heavy stuff. I just needed an extra set of strong hands, but the friends decided that as I had saved their computer's life a couple of times, they would do the whole thing for me to return the favour. Gawd bless 'em!

Not only is my kitchen looking awesome, the decorating is having the added advantage of keeping me out of the kitchen, so all those little Quorn pieces and fillets of Hake in the freezer are safe. I've kept myself busy preparing for some work next week and I've almost finished a couple of my crochet projects off today too, plus I've had a perfect SS day. What surprises me is the complete lack of hunger today, I still don't understand how I can be so hungry some days and have no hunger at all others. I thought it might be to do with levels of activity but it doesn't seem to bear any relation. I've had days when I've been busy but still fighting off the need for food and other busy days when I've almost forgotten to have all my CD meals, I've also had lazy days when I've had pangs of hunger all day and lazy days when I've had to force myself to have all 3 sachets. I just wish I could settle into some sort of routine like I did on 810kcals and SS+.

Days 65 + 66

I did a ketostix test first thing yesterday morning, before I'd even had my coffee and was relieved to find I was back in ketosis. It was still tricky stopping myself from eating though as I'd had food every day for a few days in a row and I'm back in the habit again, but I just decided to be a good girl and gritted my teeth and got on with it. I did allow myself an extra CD meal (in the form of a lovely peanut bar) last thing at night as I was feeling quite hungry but I figure that was better than just eating conventional food and I'm quite proud of myself really.

Sunday was a totally different sort of day, I was feeling so hungry I wanted to cry so I had some chicken breast, a bit too much to tell the truth. I don't know why I'm struggling so much today, I don't understand why one day I'll feel so positive and find it easy to stick to the plan but the next day I struggle and fight to get through the day without eating everything in sight! I'm not sure if I would have a better chance of keeping it together if I went on to SS+ again or if I should just keep on going as I am now. I'm going to have a chat with my nice CDC about it when he comes over on Wednesday and see what he says.

Days 63 + 64

I've had a really tough couple of days, I'm still not back in ketosis after my burger and chip foolishness and I've been feeling ravenous and so fed up today. I thought about calling my CDC and suggesting I go onto SS+ again for a while until I can get back into ketosis but I've decided not to bother him as I've been doing SS+ on Wednesday and Thursday anyway and I'm planning to get right back onto SS as soon as I stop feeing so horrible. I don't feel too guilty about it because I've been eating sensibly and well within the SS+ rules and it's got me through this difficult couple of days without completely falling off the wagon.

Earlier today I had a sort through some of my clothes to figure out what I can still wear and what has to go. I've now got 5 pairs of trousers, 2 dresses, 2 skirts and 3 tops that I can't wear any more. Some of these clothes have not been worn much so I plan to sell them on Ebay, a couple of items haven't been worn at all, they may even still have tags on them so hopefully I'll get enough cash for them to go towards some clothes to wear when I get down to my target weight. Because I haven't been that small for many years, I don't have many smaller clothes left but I do have plenty of clothes in all the sizes in-between so I'm not too worried about that. I also have a few ideas for modifying some of my favourite clothes when they get too big. I do love to make my own clothes but modifying existing clothes is just as much fun and can save lots of money too. My taste in clothing has always been, lets just say 'unique', and being a larger lady, there was a really poor choice of odd clothing in my size, even when I modified horrible fat clothes to look more interesting, I didn't really feel like being exuberant at that size so I didn't want to stand out particularly. I'm really looking forward to looking as odd as I feel again, without feeling shy. I've already made myself a few lurid accessories for the winter and I've planned to make a crochet cardigan/jacket for the spring in hot pink and black. I'm going to have lots of crafty fun!

This evening I've been feeling really cold and the hunger is becoming slightly less overwhelming so I'm hoping this is the start of ketosis. I know it's pretty cold this evening, but I shouldn't still be shivering with the heating on, a blanket around me and fingerless gloves on should I?

Days 61 + 62

I've had no work so far this week and I've been at a bit of a loose end. I was hoping to use this time to relax and let my painful knees recover a little before my Thursday and Friday appointments but it's not really worked out that way and I've found myself feeling quite bored, despite all my half finished crochet projects. I'm just finding it hard to get motivated which is a shame as I have lots of reading and research to catch up on and lots of arty/crafty stuff to do. I think it's my lack of energy, and I know that is to do with the menstrual problems I'm having (still). I have an appointment with my doctor but it isn't for a couple of weeks so I'll either have to put up with feeling horrible and exhausted all the time or try and blag an emergency appointment which is like trying to get blood from a stone! You have to phone the surgery at 8:30AM sharp and be prepared to see whichever doctor can fit you in, which may involve seeing a locum who I've never met before or seeing the rude old fart doctor who thinks everyone should just 'Snap out of it!'

After Monday's positivity, I really let myself down on Tuesday. I was feeling hungry for carbs, I've never had a craving for them on CD before, I've always had meat or veggie cravings but that day all I wanted was pasta or noodles or chips and it was making me feel really miserable and slightly unhinged. I did a Ketostix test and I was still very much in ketosis as I had expected but the hunger was so strong it was really preoccupying my mind so I decided to go to our local Zavvi with the boyfriend and treat myself to a DVD to cheer me up. We had a nice little stroll around, visited the local second-hand bookshop and then had a look around Zavvi. Boyfriend bought himself a couple of good books and I bought 2 series of 'On The Buses' (only 2 more series to get then I have the complete collection!!) and we strolled home at a leisurely pace. On the way back I manage to talk myself into feeling OK about having a cheeseburger even though I knew that it would knock me out of ketosis, I don't know how I let myself be so stupid. I was even daft enough to steal some of boyfriend's chips! I just can't understand how one day I can be so well behaved and then talk myself into thinking that something so daft is an OK thing to do.

This morning, no surprise, I wasn't in ketosis any more and I've spent the day feeling really hungry and a bit embarrassed. I thought a good way to soften the blow would be to have a Sole Source Plus sized meal so I had a portion of tuna sashimi and some dry fried mushrooms, which worked out at about 90kcals for the lot, and it does seem to have helped me because I got through the rest of the day without going near the cheese in the fridge. I also gave myself an unofficial weigh-in and I've lost 3lbs since last week which is not as good as some weeks but not too bad for a glutton.

I'm off to get an early night now and hope that I can get my act together tomorrow. I have to go out to see a client in the afternoon and might gawk at some hideous granny shoes on the way home, that should keep me away from the food.

Day 60

For some odd reason, I slept for a whole 12 hours last night! Looks like the last few weeks of poor sleep have finally caught up with me in a big way. I woke up at Jeremy Kyle o'clock feeling confused and disorientated by the daylight streaming in through my window. I'd been waking up before it got light for so long I had taken to leaving the curtains open when I went to bed lately but I really wish I hadn't this time. Despite my extra long sleep, I was feeling so run down and tired today I had to go out to stop myself from going back to sleep after lunch.

In other news, I'm back on track with the CD after my bad weekend. I had a lovely cappuccino mousse as a breakfast treat, a peanut bar for lunch as I was out and about and a lovely leek and potato soup (with a big spoon of psyllium) for dinner. I spent a rather nice afternoon with a good friend and with her help, and various types of herbal tea I stayed on the straight and narrow all day.

While I was digging through the recesses of my wardrobe for some clothes that wouldn't fall off, I found a pair of size 18, grey jeans I hadn't worn for a couple of years that I had completely forgotten about. I remember wearing them only a few times before I got too large for them and I remember how disappointed I was with myself when they became too tight to wear. I'm going to keep thinking of my size 18 jeans and just keep on with the diet. I'm feeling really positive today, I really feel like I can do this!

Days 57 - 59

On Friday, as soon as boyfriend left to go away for the weekend I decided to go out and do something useful so I went out shopping. As anyone who knows me personally or reads this blog regularly will know, I absolutely hate shopping, but I've been after some smart-ish clothes to wear when I go and see new clients because turning up with ill fitting jeans and battered sneakers doesn't exactly inspire feelings of trust. I found a good cheap pair of trousers a few days ago which are a little tight on me at the moment but quite wearable and I already have a few plain, nondescript tops I can wear but my main problem is shoes. I have really wide feet, always have had and also my taste in shoes is a bit over-the-top to put it mildly. My favourite shoes are bright (almost neon) lime green, huge, chunky, Swear-Alt trainer/boots and apart from a pair of 7 year old olive green and orange sneakers, the rest of my footwear collection is pretty outlandish too. What I need to find is something simple, flat and comfy, in an extra wide fit and are suitable for a couple of miles of walking (so no slip-ons and no pointed toes) but don't look like 'granny shoes'. I quite fancy red or dark pink but anything will do really as long as they are affordable on my tight budget and not too hideous. But can I find anything suitable? Can I heck!! I came home with some Chas and Dave records and rather nice sleeveless blouse that will hopefully fit me when I reach my goal weight from a charity shop, and few other bits and bobs, but no shoes. Ah well, at least I can have a proper cockney knees up now if I want to....

Saturday was a day of pointless shopping, feeling rubbish and horrible cheating, I don't know if the cheating caused the feeling rubbish or the other way around but I did eat a fair amount (although no carbs!) and my digestive system went completely crazy in the evening, to the point that I had been a bit scared to go to bed and be on a different floor from the toilet!

The afternoon hadn't been too bad though. I had spent a couple of slightly nostalgic hours at East Street market, just around the corner from where I used to live in Camberwell. It's a great market, really cheap and cheerful with loads of different types of stalls. I actually found one pair of little red ankle boots that I rather liked, they looked foot shaped and comfy. The guy only had 1 pair left, they were about my size and they were only £5 so I tried them on. Unfortunately, they were just a little bit too small for me, they were a bit tight width-wise and I could feel my toe touching the end of the shoe. It didn't feel too bad but I knew it would become very uncomfortable after a bit of walking so I left them and stomped off bemoaning the difficulty of buying half sizes.

Much later that evening, while I was laying in bed, drifting off to sleep, I realised that on both Friday and Saturday, I'd only had 2 CD meals! What a fool! No wonder I'd succumbed to food so easily on Saturday. It was the same sort of food as last time, red meat and dark green vegetables. I'm still having my terrible TOTM problems and had decided it was probably an OK thing to do. I'll just have to be more careful really because I find once I have allowed myself food, it's hard to stop again and after my recent weight-loss progress, I really don't want to mess this up.

This morning (Sunday) I woke up at about 5am after a glorious 8 hour sleep, the first one in weeks, feeling like a different person. It's the first time I had felt like I'd actually had enough sleep in a long time and also my stomach had settled right down, so all in all, I've had a fairly restful day. After going out walking 2 days in a row, my bad knee is so bad that every time I have to walk anywhere, even across the room, I want to cry! For some reason my normally good knee is really hurting too which is like adding insult to injury really. I'm back on track with he CD though and my ketosis is still going strong

Day 57 - AM - Some mini goals

I'm up incredibly early again today for no real good reason, although I did get so sleep about 9pm I only managed to sleep for 5 hours which is not ideal. I tried my best to get back to sleep but at, 3am, feeling fully alert, I decided to have some coffee and start my day. Although I'm a bit disappointed by my lack of sleep, I am quite fond of this time of the morning. I love the peace and quiet and I like being on my own , it gives me time to ponder, plan and generally potter about.

While pondering this morning, I've come up with a couple mini goals, some things I'm really looking forward to achieving on the way to my ultimate goal weight:

• To fit back into my favourite black jeans by mid December, I think they are a generous size 18 (or possibly a small 20) but I'm not sure as I got them second hand and they have no label.
  
• Get down to 15 stones before I go to see my family just after Christmas.
• To be slim enough to climb out through my bedroom window onto the roof of my flats to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks over central London.
• To be able to use my nifty little electronic body fat monitor without it giving an error message. I'm not sure how long that'll take because I'm not sure what it's limits are, but it works on my family so it would be very useful if it worked on me too.
  

I think I have a good chance of achieving all these goals as long as I put in a bit of consistent effort and stay focused.

Day 56

Well, I managed to sleep for just over 4 hours last night, that seems like quite a good night compared with the last week but it still isn't great. I have another very busy day lined up, I had to rescue a sickly computer this morning then in the afternoon, a friend came to visit me bringing lovely gifts for my spoilt cats. I was also planning an exciting visit to the local council office with a jar of Pharaoh ants but boyfriend went for me in the end.

Although I do feel little let down that I didn't get past the 2 stone lost mark at my weigh-in yesterday, my CDC just wouldn't let me feel sore about it. He's always so positive about my losses that even when I feel I could have lost a little more, he'll remind me of the bigger picture and how far I've come, it helps me feel good about my progress and it really keeps me focused on my goal. We had a little chat about my plans for the coming months as I'm now around a third of my way to my goal weight, he thinks it would be good for me to have a plan. I've decided to do 810kcals per day for the week over Xmas as I'm only allowed to do a VLCD for 12 weeks anyway, then I have to take a break for a week and then I'm allowed to do another 12 weeks on SS if I wish. Ultimately I'm planning to have reached my goal and eased myself back on to proper food by my birthday (25th April in case anyone fancies sending me prezzies!). Not that long ago I was a quite reluctant to make plans this far ahead, it seemed so far away and I was not sure I would be able to stick to CD for that long, but time seems to be slipping past so quickly that my birthday no longer feels that far away.

Day 55 - Meeting with CDC

I managed to stay awake long enough to see my CDC today even though I only had about 3 hours sleep last night and had a pretty productive day at work somehow too. I was actually busy enough to stop me feeling too tired all day but I will be having an embarrassingly early night tonight and I really hope I get some sleep this time.

My CDC meeting went great, well I haven't imploded but I am very happy. Here are my lovely new stats:

• Weight: 16st 8lb
  
• BMI: 36.7

I didn't get below 16½st but I have actually lost 2st and that's nothing to grumble about!

I'm too tired to type this evening, I'm going to slope off to bed and save my ranting for another day.

Day 54

I had another afternoon nap day today. I did manage to grab 3 hours sleep last night and tried my best to get back to sleep but I failed miserably. I thought if I could get through the day and get a really early night I would be OK but I couldn't do it and by lunchtime my eyes were rolling back in my head and I was as good as useless. Because of my 'broken' day I've had to work hard to make sure I had enough water and sachets. I think I had an extra one some days and other days I may have been one short but how can I know for sure when every day in the last week has been a different length?

Ah well, at least I'm still in ketosis and my weight is still creeping downwards. I'm quite confident that tomorrow my official weight will be below 16½st and if it isn't, it won't be far off. I seem to lose about 7 - 8lbs or thereabouts every 2 weeks which is a decent loss as far as I'm concerned. I do wonder if it would have been any more if I hadn't had the little sneaky protein and iron rich snacks but I'm hoping that seeing as I stayed in ketosis, it hasn't made too much impact. I'm absolutely sure that the tiredness, sleeplessness and iron-rich food cravings are all very closely linked and I'm quite surprised that the iron tables didn't help me, I just hope my doctor can do something because I refuse to go through this on a regular basis.

Day 53

Apart from having no sleep at all last night and a 4 hour nap this afternoon, I think today has gone OK. From a dieting point of view it's been fine, no cheeky bits of food, plenty of water and a couple of miles of walking. Now if I could only get my sleep under control that well I would be laughing. I don't have any work tomorrow so it'll give me a chance to get things back on track for Wednesday when I have a full 9 - 5:30 work day and a meeting with my CDC straight after.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing CDC, not just because he'll be bringing me more yummy bars either. I'm fast approaching the 2st lost mark and I'm getting so excited about that I've been jumping on the scales every single day, sometimes more than once. As soon as I woke up today, before I'd drunk all that heavy water, I weighed less than 16½st but now I weigh a couple of lbs more. I think tomorrow I might go for a nice long walk and try and burn off as much flab as I can because if I weigh less than 16½st at my official weigh-in on Wednesday, I'll be so happy I might implode.

Days 50 - 52

My plan for Thursday night/Friday morning went a bit wrong, I failed to stay awake much past 7am and then only slept for 4 hours. I was feeling so tired I ended up passing out a few hours later and having a 3 hour nap. I did get a fair amount of crochet done though, I've made a decent amount of progress on a little handbag that has been sitting half made on my coffee table for months and I also did a a few rows on a blanket I started making late spring. I got half way through it in the summer and then got bored, I figured now is a good time to finish it seeing as I'm so flipping cold all the time these days. I didn't quite get round to doing any actual work though. There isn't a fixed deadline on this project, but I need to just get on with it because I find it easy to lose the flow of creative things when I don't just get on with it.

By about 1am Friday night/Saturday morning, I was feeling exhausted so I went off to get a bit of sleep. It was an almost normal time to go to sleep and I was feeling quite pleased, but when 7am came around and I still hadn't had a wink of sleep I started to get a bit annoyed. Eventually, boyfriend got bored of watching me pacing up and down and went out for a walk and I finally managed to get to sleep at around 8:30am. I planned just to nap for a couple of hours so both my alarms were set for 10:30 and I managed to sleep through them both again and eventually woke up after lunchtime to find the boyfriend had fallen asleep on the sofa. I spent most of that afternoon trying to think of something fun and distracting I could do without causing further damage to me knee but eventually I just left the house with no plan as the smell of boyfriend's roast dinner was sending me insane. I really should have thought it through a bit better because I was out for ages and ended up eating some prawns. What a fool! I guess it could have been worse, I managed to bypass all the sandwiches and just had the prawns and some extra water to try and balance out the saltiness.

While I was out, I also managed to find a rather nice pair of cheap and cheerful, smart-ish trousers that were just slightly too small for me to replace the ones I usually wear which are now at that almost falling right off stage. I don't want to buy too many clothes in my in-between sizes but I can't really get away with wearing jeans all the time, especially when I go and see new clients. I need to at least have a veneer of respectability, even if the bright green hair is a dead give-away! I do have a few smart skirts to wear but they aren't very good when I'm on my knees with my bum in the air, crawling under desks and fiddling with computers.

On Sunday morning I managed to get 3 hours sleep and woke up at 8:30am with an uncontrollable craving for rare steak. Red meat is one of the most common menstrual cravings I have, along with spinach, kale and other dark greens. For me it's more common than craving chocolate and seeing as my TOTM has been going on for a couple of weeks now I though it would be a good idea to try and fulfil this particular craving so I had an iron tablet. Unfortunately it didn't make me feel any better at all and I ended up having a small piece of griddled rare steak a few hours later which really hit the spot. I'm going to have to go and see my doctor very soon about this, I think I might be getting as bit anaemic around my TOTM, they seem to be going on for ages and unnaturally heavy too. I'm sure it's not caused by CD because it's been a problem on and off for many years but the last 3 months has been worse than ever before, I've been feeling really tired but not getting enough solid sleep and the food cravings I'm getting are totally uncontrollable.

I had to take a nap in the afternoon again and I slept for about 5 hours I think. I woke up late in the evening and had to work hard to remember where I was with my sachet and water consumption. This last few days have been so confusing, I think I've had more than enough to drink but I get the feeling I'm a few sachets behind but I can't be sure. I've just had a broccoli and cheese soup sachet and sneakily added a nugget of frozen spinach to it to try and calm my iron craving. I checked the packaging carefully and each of those little nuggets of chopped spinach contain about 5kcals and o.14g of carbs so I think I can safely get away with this without it really counting as a cheat.

Despite all my cheating and messing about this weekend, I've still been in ketosis the whole time and I've lost 2 or 3 lbs since my unofficial weigh-in on Wednesday. Imagine how much weight I could lose if I actually stuck to the plan properly!

Day 49

My sleep pattern is all messed up now, I managed to get to sleep at 7am and woke up about 1pm today, same kind of hours as the day before. I only had one job today and it was at 5pm so that wasn't a problem but if I can't get my sleep the right way around it's going to make things very complicated soon. So the plan for tonight is to drink plenty of coffee and stay up all night and try not to sleep until late afternoon or early evening tomorrow. I've got a nice fun creative work project that I can get on with or I can get on with one of my unfinished crochet projects so I definitely won't be bored. I'm not quite sure how I'll space my sachets out though, I guess as evenly as possible would be best but seeing as I don't know how long my day will be, I'll just have to do my best to be sensible. I know the next day will have to be very long too, if I'm going to sleep early evening, I'll probably wake up in the early hours of the morning. I think if I try and have 5 sachets altogether before I go to sleep tomorrow then 4 the next day that'll probably be about right.

In my pre-CD-life, in these situations, I would just eat when I wanted to which frequently ended up being a bit of binge. The problem is that when I'm tired I may not always be able to sleep but I know I'm tired and my body knows it needs energy so I tended to feel really hungry. I'd crave lots of meat and veggies and proper food as well as sugary things and usually I would just eat whatever I wanted. This is the first time since CD I've tried to 'loop-the-loop' my sleep in this way and I'm a bit worried about it to say the least. Luckily, the only sweet things in the house are my CD shake sachets, so that should help.

I've been sleep juggling on and off like this for many years now, since I was about 12 years old. School was a horrific experience because of it and full time work was really difficult too. I did manage to work regular full time hours for a few years although I favoured unskilled work because my brain turns to custard when I haven't had enough/any sleep and I tended to do agency work so I could chop and change my hours around when things got tricky sleep-wise. These days, because I am self employed and work from home, I can choose which projects and clients to take on, decide my own hours and generally work around the sleep problems when they arise AND I get to use my brain for things that interest me!

Day 48

Last night was hard work, especially after the positive couple of days I've just had. I went to bed just before 11:30 feeling extremely tired but at 3am I was still awake so I had a vanilla mousse. At 5am I was still awake and feeling miserable and I crumbled and ate a piece of corned beef. I know it's not a lot of food but I really feel like I let myself down after vowing to be good this week. I eventually got to sleep around 7 this morning, slept through 2 alarm clocks and woke up at lunchtime. Good job I had no work today! I'm going to blame TOTM for all this hungriness and sleep upheaval. I had a look back at my blog entries from this time last month and there is a little cluster of insomnia. At the end and beginning of each month I seem to have sleep troubles but in the middle of each month it's quite manageable. It's been going on for years and I never noticed how closely it tied in with my menstrual cycle until I saw it written in my blog!

Being my non CDC week, I gave myself an unofficial weigh-in today and the results pleased me. I've lost 5lbs in a week which takes me comfortably below the 17st mark and makes my BMI about 37. I'm so relieved that my weekend eat didn't effect this week's weight-loss. I didn't eat a massive amount but it was enough to get me out of ketosis temporarily. I decided not to bother measuring my waist, I already knew it was smaller because my very favourite trousers actually fall off me these days so I'm wearing jeans that I hadn't been able to get into for over a year.

I have been deftly avoiding having my photo taken for a couple of years now but having seen some of the 'before and after' diet photos around the CD forum I though it would be good to get some of myself as a record of my progress so a few weeks ago I got a photo taken. Next week after my CDC meeting, I'm going get another taken for comparison and I'm planning to do the same every 4 weeks. In a few months I might post them up on this blog if I feel brave enough.

Day 47

I saw a friend today who has been reading this blog (Hello Coral!) but hadn't seen me since well before I started CD and she said she could really see the difference. I was slightly surprised because although I feel a little different and my clothes are feeling more comfortable, I don't see any real difference yet when I look in the mirror. Perhaps that's just because I see myself every day and she hasn't seen me for about 2 months or maybe my brain is having trouble catching up with my body. Anyway, it was a great little boost for my self esteem and I'm going to allow myself a touch of smugness.

I've been working from home again for most of today. It was fun creative stuff rather than the usual technical stuff and even though I was pretty busy, no amount of fiddling with artwork is enough to burn up all the extra energy I seem to have these days. By the evening I was desperate to go out so I went to the supermarket to buy real actual food for the boyfriend. My local big supermarket is just over a mile away so I stomped there to the dulcet tones of V/VM on my mp3 player then stormed around and grabbed everything I needed to the merry melodies of Venetian Snares (and no, I didn't get stuck staring at pizza and pies again) I didn't have much to carry, seeing as only boyfriend is eating and I only needed some peppermint teabags for myself, so I decided to walk home. I got to the crossing outside the shop and pivoted slightly to press the button to cross and as I turned my knee gave out! I had to hobble to the bus stop and get a bus home instead. Fortunately, by time I got home the throbbing was subsiding a little and the 4 floors of stairs weren't too bad but I was feeling rather cold and despondent. I'm just glad I'd only had 2 sachets during the day so I could cheer myself up with potato and leek soup and it really worked.

Even though I'm sitting here with a really sore knee, I feel really happy with how the day has gone. I haven't been feeling hungry and each time I go out food shopping or cook, it's slightly less stressful than the time before.

Day 46

I'm not feeling so ill today thank goodness! I was so worried that being on CD had either caused my illness or would slow down my recovery but I feel much better now, not 100% yet, but pretty good. I was also quite concerned that I would find it hard to stop having food again after yesterday's dinner but it hasn't been too bad at all. I've had a few cravings for food but nothing I can't deal with and getting back on the straight and narrow has been mercifully straightforward. I did a Ketostix test this morning and I'm already back in Ketosis which was a bit of a shock to me, I thought it might take a day or 2 but I'm so relieved it didn't.

For my final meal of the day, I treated myself to the last bar I had left with a huge mug of white tea with a cinnamon stick in it. I've been quite impressed with the bars, not only are they rather tasty but they are also really easy to split up into two smaller meals or even tiny snack sized pieces, very handy. I've not decided on a favourite variety yet so I think I'll try the other flavours next time I see my CDC.

Days 44 + 45

I've been feeling quite ill for a couple of days, I've had some stomach nastiness. I don't know if it's anything to do with CD, it's more likely to be a simple stomach bug but it's really thrown things out of whack and I've not slept properly for 2 nights. It's just typical I would get all sickly right after my last positive, enthusiastic blog. I did go out for a while on Saturday to try and distract myself but it was cold, rainy and miserable and I almost wish I hadn't bothered.

After a miserable Friday night and a horrible Saturday I had a cheat on Sunday and came out of ketosis. Now I feel ill and hungry, how annoying. I'm not going to chastise myself about it too much. I know I've been a fool but I've promised myself a well behaved week and I know I can do it. Also, I've decided to stop taking the psyllium for a day or two to see if it makes any difference and I'm going to buy some peppermint tea tomorrow, hopefully that'll soothe my aching belly a little.