App-etite for distraction, part 2

So I posted a while back about my new smartphone app friend called Lose It!, which I employed in my pursuit of being in better shape. I thought that for grins, I'd see if I could get from 122, my usual weight, down to 119. Being 119 most of the time would make my clothes fit well and give me a little room to have a big meal now and again and not have to loosen my belt. (And before anybody gets smart-assy about being 122 in the first place, remember that I'm only 5'-0", so every pound on me looks like 2 or 3 on someone who's 5'-4" or taller.) So, I set the Lose It! app for a goal weight of 119 and a goal of losing 1/2 lb every week. It said I could reasonably reach my goal in six weeks.

I did it in three.

Three weeks after I started, I hit 118.4 lbs. Hooray! I celebrated momentarily and went on my way, enjoying food and life and making sure that I was staying within my calorie budget each day. The next week, I weighed 117.4 lbs. Hunh? It was another week before Queen Dumbass realized that she forgot to reset the Lose It! app to maintain weight, not to keep losing 1/2 lbs/week. Derp! I reset it to maintain, oh what the hell, 117 lbs. It added 250 calories to my day, which thrilled me. I recall shouting to Guy, "Yeah, muthafucka, I'mma have some cookies!" I stayed within my new budget and kept on enjoying food and life.

The next week, I weighed 116 lbs.

The next week, I weighed 115.4 lbs.

What?


So I took a rest week where I did yoga instead of cardio and weights for two days, and I went to 117.2.  Good news, right? Then I went back to my usual workouts, and I recently weighed 114.6.


Whaaat? I haven't weighed that since...high school?  Junior high, even?

So now I'm left to contend with two possibilities: one, I've turned my mostly-harmless efforts to get healthy into a fun little eating disorder; or two, I had been doing the same workout and eating the same way for so long that this was the jump start I needed for my metabolism. On the one hand, when I see at the end of the day that I have calories left to burn, sometimes I'm not hungry. Other times, I'm not sure I want to eat food that's high in sugar and fat just so I can use up my budget for the day. But there's also a part of me that just wants the gold star every day--not to go over my calorie budget.


As usual, I met up with longtime friend Vinnie, erstwhile antiques dealer and psychologist, and explained my predicament.  (No one understands the psychophysiological seesaw that is fitness and body obsession like a gay man with 30+ years of experience as a therapist.)  When I was finished, Vinnie just shrugged.  "Look," he replied. "The good news is that if you're not really craving sugar or fat or salt at the end of the day, then you've likely trained your body not to want it. There's been research that shows that you can train your body not to want and crave sugar and fat all the time, the way that we do in modern life.  If you're feeding yourself well and healthy, and your stomach isn't growling by the end of the day, then it sounds like you've just gotten yourself used to eating healthy, Pix."


"And your workouts seem decent enough," he continued."You're not doing more than an hour a day, right? So most of your day is being spent living, not being an exercise bulimic.  When it gets unhealthy, you'll know.  I've known you for ten years, and you know when to stop a bad behavior."


Fair enough. I know that tracking what I eat makes me conscious of how healthy or unhealthy my recipes are, but I also have to stay a good judge of what actually works.  I recently slimmed down my turkey enchiladas to the point that they just weren't filling anymore.  They tasted okay, but there just wasn't enough food to fill me up. So I'm still tinkering with that recipe (among others), and I'm experimenting with lunch.  The week I went to 114.6, I ate lunch at a restaurant three times, and only once was a salad (the other two were a burger and a chicken sammitch with avocado--NOM).  And a few nights ago when Guy got back into town, we had Ghirardelli brownies and frozen yogurt for dessert. Also interesting to me is that I don't crave alcohol the way I used to.  There was a time in January and February when I was working a lot, and every night I'd have a little glass of wine.  But no more, not even after having a day from hell--no real interest in having a sip. It makes having a glass at the occasional nice dinner feel great, like a real reward, instead of just a coping mechanism or a quasi-reward, the way people with spending problems will buy stuff constantly and say "I work hard so I deserve this".  It feels good.  I feel good.  And when it stops working, I'll stop.