Day 48 - Starch Solution

Today’s stats:

Well, let’s start out with the good news, or at least the semi-exciting news. I had set the target of getting my weight to touch below 90KG before the end of October. That I achieved that on Monday the 19th of October. This was one of the days where the weight just seemed to drop hard for some reason - a blip that corrected itself pretty much the next day.

So as a semi-stretch goal (and remember I’m doing this just for fun) I thought I’d see if I could get my general weight below 90KG. That happened at the beginning of last week or so. So finally as a stretch goal, I was thinking it would be nice if I could get the trend below 90KG. That is always difficult because the trend always lags behind real performance and it’s pretty hard to shift it around. That is actually the whole point - even if there was a big surge in weight or a large drop, the trend filters that out nicely.

It turns out this morning, I got my lowest recorded weight for a while (if we ignore the biggest drop to 88.6KG), and managed to hit 89KG. Yesterday the trend was at 90.1KG so I had hoped that it might get down to 90KG, which would just ever so slightly miss my stretch goal. However, because the drop was quite big yesterday, it pulled the trend just below 90KG to 89.9KG. So I made the stretch goal, even if it was only just scraping by.

The fun thing is that I’ve not actually been trying to win these goals, they’re just there for my interest. A big reason for this is that I’m really just competing with myself, so trying to game the system isn’t really doing anything other than cheating myself - which is pretty pointless. Also, more weight that I take off today by adapting my food intake, will just come back on tomorrow and the trend will average them out anyway. In other words, trying to game the system is pretty pointless.

Unfortunately I still got up late today. I woke up pretty early but I felt quite sick for some reason. I had a muggy headache and felt a little off. This happens usually when the weather starts to turn (especially if there’s a storm brewing) so it’s not entirely unusual, but it certainly is unpleasant and unwanted.

In any case I didn’t have time to eat breakfast or even take painkillers for the headache. I barely had time to take my weight before getting dressed and running out the door. So much for the cereal I’ve been planning to eat all week. At least tomorrow I will get a chance to eat it! Actually I might have some tonight as a snack, just to make a point :)

I did make it to uni on time, but there I got another surprise. For all the previous lectures in this course, although they had allocated a full day of time, only took up the morning. This is because the lecturer kicked into high gear to try and deliver more content in a much more compressed time frame. The first two lectures I had, I brought a lunch box so that I’d have something to eat (not much safe to eat on campus). I stopped doing that because we always finished early and then I could eat at home which is always preferable.

Of course today I don’t have my lunch box and today we find out that the lecture will last all day. To add insult to injury, I could have had my lunch box but I turned it done because I “knew” that I’d be able to come home and eat for lunch. Just my luck…

Still it wasn’t as bad as I feared because it turns out that there is a Subway near to the campus. Yay for veggie delite! However, this particular branch is far more stingy on the amount of veggies they put in compared to the one near my home. Still, it was much better than nothing so I am all for it.

I did end up getting another sugary caffeine drink that afternoon. Headache was just really getting to me. I downed the drink and within 30 minutes, the headache had cleared. Not ideal I admit, but I’ll trade delaying a bit of weight loss for removing a potential migraine any day of the week. Of course it would be better if I didn’t have the headache in the first place…

Dinner ended up being eating out with some friends. We went to our usual restaurant, where everyone (everyone that is except for me of course) ordered the usual. Lots of very tasty food, very tasty food that I used to eat a lot of. That said, I identified three possible dishes that I could eat, and we were able to agree one with the chef that he could cook to my preferences. The first time it came made with a fish soup, so that went back and they then brought out the water based one. It was actually pretty tasty and I had that with a bowl of white rice. I also partook in a glass of beer to wash it down ;)

It could be send that my starch solution attempt is no longer pure. I’ve had sugary caffeine drinks, I’ve had coffee and I’ve had alcohol. However, I think I am still more on the path than off it. Like I’ve added new foods and capabilities that are McDougall approved, and even though I’ve slipped a little now and then, it was done consciously. By that I mean that I haven’t gone back to drinking 4 energy drinks a day or ordering soy lattes etc. Instead I consciously weigh up the pros and the cons and I make an informed decision. Most of the time that means I follow the path. Other times I diverge slightly.

To be completely clear though, I haven’t stepped off the vegan foods, nor have I knowingly consumed any oil. I’ve diverged a little on the “no processed foods” due to the drinks I’ve had - but that’s basically the only diversion that I am aware of. I still think I’m doing really well, and the longer I do this, the easy (and more complete) the conversion will be :)