Sorry for the no posts over the last week. As noted in my last post I was on vacation. I had intended to spend a little time each day blogging but it didn’t happen. I had a week to spend with friends and get things done and I used it for that. While I do apologize for my absence I’m sure you all can understand why I won’t apologize for making time for friends. I hope you wouldn’t apologize for that either.
Having said that we are well behind on my weigh in progress and for my first post back I am going to fix that problem. Going into the vacation I was a bit worried about one thing, how much weight I’d gain back. The reason being, I decided to go off keto for my time in Bellingham. I felt this would make it easier on my friends who I was visiting. I’ve worked hard since January 1st to take the weight off and I wasn’t happy that this would cause some of it to come back. As with most fears, the actual events were certainly less scary than the fears themselves.
The first weigh in of the month I weighed in at 285.4 pounds. I mention this because I decided to go off keto a couple days prior to flying out. I’ve had keto days off since the beginning of the year and never reacted poorly to them. The past few months I’ve been really low carb and was worried that introducing a lot of carbs all of the sudden might make me sick. I didn’t want to waste any time on vacation on that. So I started a little early, and did feel a little off. Mainly felt a heavy feeling in my stomach and a bit tired. Nothing too bad. This was before my Monday weigh. As such I had already gone up in weight. On 08/13 I weighed 288.8 pounds. I hadn’t even flown out yet and I was up over 3 pounds. More fear creeped in.
Now while I was in Bellingham I did eat whatever I wanted, but I kept it in reasonable amounts. As an example, the first night I was there I went to McKay’s for trivia night. This was an old weekly ritual we had when I lived there over a year ago. Clearly we spent a lot of time there as one of the bartenders said he missed me and was happy I was back. This made my day. Food options at McKay’s are limited and definitely not keto. I had a couple slices of pizza, some cheesy bread, and cinnamon sticks. But I didn’t go crazy and eat a whole pizza or drink a ton of alcohol. I enjoyed myself but kept it in boundaries. The other bit of balance I brought with me was the commitment to get in a lot of walking each day. I easily doubled my usual walking time every day I was there. And unlike here in Alabama where it’s mainly flat land, Bellingham, Washington State is hilly as all get out. So twice the time and twice the difficulty. I did this every day I was there, without exception.
The week went by pretty quick and I arrived home mid evening on this past Tuesday. I had been fasting from a few hours before bed on Monday. I had coffee, and a packet of Nomatic Keto creamer (35 calories of MCT Oil and fiber) but nothing else. After relaxing for an hour at home I knew the time of accountability had arrived. I walked into the bathroom with a small amount of trepidation, ready to survey the damage.
And then the scale made me realize I had been more worried than I should be. I weighed 295 pounds. After a week of carbing up and not worrying about food choices I hadn’t even gained a full 10 pounds. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t happy I’d put on nearly 10 pounds, just happy it wasn’t the 15-20 I feared it might be. The story gets better. I had told myself I would do a 48 hour fast. I still had another day of fasting to go. After I was done fasting I’d weigh myself again to see what the results were.
I fasted all day Wednesday, went to sleep, and Thursday morning I carried out my usual routine for weighing in on Mondays. I stepped on the scale and to my surprise I only heard one beep. Now the scale I use from Greater Goods (affiliate link below, just click the image) syncs via wireless to their server and then an app on my phone. The first beep means the weigh in is done, the second means the results have been synced to the server. By the time I looked down to see what was going on the screen was already blank. So I stepped off and stepped on again and this time when I heard the first beep I looked down and the screen said 284.4 pounds. That was the problem. The scale has automatic user detection. It does this by figuring out which user is within 10 pounds of the weight. As I had weighed in at 295 pounds on Tuesday my scale didn’t know it was me. I got a glass of water, took my shower, got dressed, and then looked up how to tell the scale I’m me. After figuring that out I went back in and told it I’m User 1 before weighing in. This time it would have detected me anyway as I weighed in at 285.2 pounds due to the water I had drank, and most likely absorbed while showering.
The second number is the one I’ll use as it’s the one that was recorded into my log. So I started out at 285.4 with 39% body fat, or 111.3 pounds. After everything was said and done I was at 285.2 with 39.1% body fat, or 111.5 pounds. Basically after all that I found myself back where I started. Not bad for a week plus break from keto.
I’ve had a few days since then. I’m back on keto now. I’ll weigh myself in as usual on Monday morning and we’ll see how the numbers hold. As for right now I’m pretty happy with it. I realize now, as is often the case, I worried too much as it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Most of the gain was water weight that I quickly purged via a fast. It also reminds me that even if your diet isn’t great if you can just get out there and exercise you can tip the balance back in your favor.
That’s it for today’s check in. Now that I’m off vacation I want to go back to trying daily posts. We’ll see how that goes. But as I’ve learned from the last week or so I’m going to just roll with things and not worry so much about consequences as worry is a no win game. Hope you’re having a great day, and see you soon.
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