WazzuCoug
Member
If you saw some of my comments over the last couple weeks you may know that I was without power and water at my home for 10 days. We were able to save a few things in our freezer, but everything in our fridge had to get thrown out. The town closest to us didn't have power for a few days either, so to get to a store we had to go a bit further. We did not make good food choices. We got take out a bit and packaged food, snacks, and such that didn't need to be refrigerated and didn't cause us to have dirty dishes and such. We cooked a little bit, but not much because of the aforementioned desire not to need to wash dishes since we were buying water at the store and the rainwater we collected was for the toilets. Anyway, I got off track on food and almost immediately felt a slide toward old habits.
I've been pretty proud and happy for myself over the past, 7 months since surgery. I had completely changed the way I eat, what I eat and when I eat. Weight loss was pretty consistent, and I was closing in on 100lbs lost. Then unexpected life happened with the ice storm. One inch of ice on everything and 10 days without power.
When we got power back and started transitioning to normal, I weighed myself. 6 pounds heavier. I knew I was snacking too much, even though we tried to get "healthy" snacks, but between the power/water situation and work pressures, I succumbed to convenience and the ease of snacking. I also realized that I had not set myself up for success in that situation. Obviously, if this had been a major disaster like an earthquake, all bets are off, we are going to eat what we can get and resort to emergency supplies (we didn't need to do that, at all), but in this case, I could have been better prepared and certain could have made better choices.
The crappy food choices made me feel worse, which lead to more poor choices. It was quite an eye opener. Now, five days past my weigh in I'm back down 5 pounds and only 1 pound heavier than I was before we went dark. That tells me a couple things. First, I was definitely dehydrated as water was even hard to get at the stores during this time, so none of us were drinking that much. My body was retaining every bit of water it could, and I believe a fair chunk of that extra weight was water. I also know that my sodium intake went way up with the various snacks and such, and certainly I wasn't feeding my microbiome like I usually do.
I'm 100% back on track now and things get better every day, but my experience is a good illustration of how quickly things can change when "life happens" sometimes. I think it also illustrates how important it is to try to get back on track if you do slip in some way. I think our new bodies can recover and get back on track more easily if we don't let things get off the path too far for too long. However, I think some of us may always be on the precipice of that slippery slope, so we need to be EXTRA mindful of our choices and also be better prepared for the unexpected, like the lose of power, water, regular food supply, etc. As we've seen in Texas and other areas of the south and mid-west, it can happen anywhere.
I've been pretty proud and happy for myself over the past, 7 months since surgery. I had completely changed the way I eat, what I eat and when I eat. Weight loss was pretty consistent, and I was closing in on 100lbs lost. Then unexpected life happened with the ice storm. One inch of ice on everything and 10 days without power.
When we got power back and started transitioning to normal, I weighed myself. 6 pounds heavier. I knew I was snacking too much, even though we tried to get "healthy" snacks, but between the power/water situation and work pressures, I succumbed to convenience and the ease of snacking. I also realized that I had not set myself up for success in that situation. Obviously, if this had been a major disaster like an earthquake, all bets are off, we are going to eat what we can get and resort to emergency supplies (we didn't need to do that, at all), but in this case, I could have been better prepared and certain could have made better choices.
The crappy food choices made me feel worse, which lead to more poor choices. It was quite an eye opener. Now, five days past my weigh in I'm back down 5 pounds and only 1 pound heavier than I was before we went dark. That tells me a couple things. First, I was definitely dehydrated as water was even hard to get at the stores during this time, so none of us were drinking that much. My body was retaining every bit of water it could, and I believe a fair chunk of that extra weight was water. I also know that my sodium intake went way up with the various snacks and such, and certainly I wasn't feeding my microbiome like I usually do.
I'm 100% back on track now and things get better every day, but my experience is a good illustration of how quickly things can change when "life happens" sometimes. I think it also illustrates how important it is to try to get back on track if you do slip in some way. I think our new bodies can recover and get back on track more easily if we don't let things get off the path too far for too long. However, I think some of us may always be on the precipice of that slippery slope, so we need to be EXTRA mindful of our choices and also be better prepared for the unexpected, like the lose of power, water, regular food supply, etc. As we've seen in Texas and other areas of the south and mid-west, it can happen anywhere.
