Day 13: Surprise...

Weight: 176.8lbs
Overall Change: -9.2lbs
Change in the last 4 days of fasting and restricting and torturing myself and my family: +0.2lbs

You know where this is going...

So here's what happened today. No wait, I have to start yesterday, at about 4pm when I was starting to feel really, really hungry and had to make dinner for my family. The usual Thursday routine is that I make supper, one kid or the other turns up her nose at it, then we have a big fight about eating supper, getting appropriate clothes on for taekwondo class/gymnastics, hair tied back, water bottles in place, shoes and socks on, and then it's out the door for the evening's activities. You see, this can't possibly all happen without me getting angry at the best of times. Put this routine at the end of a fast day and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Suffice it to say that I was crankier and snarlier than usual but too tired to pose much of a threat to anyone. I dragged myself through the evening's activities, served ice cream to my children after our evening workouts, and put them to bed. Then I went to bed feeling bad about being so grumpy and snarling at my family because of something I was inflicting on myself....but at least I was going to get on the scale in the morning and see a drop of a good three or four lbs. Right? Especially since I had yet to see any real results in week 2.

Imagine my reaction, then, when I dragged my butt out of bed at 4:45am, got on the scale, and saw a drop of...1.2lbs. 1.2lbs? Not even enough to shed the rebound water weight from carb day? 36+ hours of eating nothing and feeling weak and tired and bitchy for 1.2lbs?

Okay, I thought, fluid balance can be a funky thing. Just keep trucking - two more days. And today is carb day. BUT, I thought,  enough of this no coffee nonsense. I set aside 6g of carbs for milk in my coffee, made coffee, and got out the peaches and cream oatmeal I had prepared the day before. Drank my greens, took my supplements, and sat down for oatmeal and the best cup of coffee ever. Halfway through I was feeling HAPPY for the first time in days...

I went to work, trained one client, then had a break and went home. I was home in time to cuddle with my kids as they rolled out of bed. Made them breakfast (feeling warm and fuzzy and happy), and sent them off to school. As my husband left for work, he said "I love you when you're happy. No more fasting diets, okay?"

Ate my second carb meal: egg whites, steam-fried potatoes, and veggies - yum. Seriously too much food though; WAY more starch than I'd normally eat. Headed back to work feeling too full, my husband's request and the number on the scale rattling around in my head, and feeling bitchier by the minute.

Fast forward a few hours, and I was scooting home from work in an attempt to get home before my kids got home from school. I had been feeling mildly ill all day from all the starch earlier on and hadn't been able to look at the protein/fat meal that I brought to work, so I was feeling pretty hungry. Kids walked in the back door at the same time that I walked in the front door; fresh, warm bags of popcorn clutched in their little hands.

Shit - it was popcorn sale day at school today.

At that moment I thought, "Enough already - I'm done with feeling weak and tired and shaky and growly. It's gotten me nowhere this week. I'm done." And the kids and I snacked on popcorn while we caught up on the details of our day.

So I fell, no, I gleefully leaped off the wagon on Day 13 of the 14-day challenge. There were a lot of instances today where I was doubting myself and wondering if it was worth finishing, and I kept thinking that I MUST finish or I'd be super disappointed in myself. But you know what? I don't feel the least bit bad about it. In fact, I feel better than I have in days. I'm looking forward to a good hard workout tomorrow. And Sunday marks the beginning of my next project, which I'm excited to start! Stay tuned!