Recouping: Diet Day 437

This is the first time I've lost this much weight, the first time I've made a regular habit tracking both my daily weight and my daily food. It's the first time I've ever deliberately pushed the pause button on a diet, and definitely the first time I've ever re-started a diet after stopping (but before regaining all-and-then-some of the weight I'd lost).

After a hiatus of several weeks, it feels good--comfortable and safe--to get back to tracking what I eat. I can envision a time when it'll be enough to do that intermittently, say one week out of the month, but that time isn't yet. I still need that tool.

I haven't quite turned the weight trend line downward again. It takes a couple of weeks for any consistent calorie change to show up there. That's true in either direction, which must account for that magical thinking at the end of a diet that says, "Hey, look! I can now eat all I want and not gain weight." Because for two weeks or so, that's true. The metabolic train doesn't stop on a dime.

Once it does slow down, there are a few weeks where the re-gain is deniable. Then there'll be a couple more weeks where you can't really deny it, but you're not ready to stop it. Then two more once you finally re-take control, and two more after that before the undeniable gain starts to go away again...

The moral of the story, for me, is this: it's easier to stay on the diet than to get back on it, and easier to get back on it sooner rather than later.

I want to remember that.