how coud i lose 2 pounds after thanksgiving?

yesterday i was 131.6. today i'm 129.6. huh? i did if yesterday and started lifting a new weight- 15 lbs. and i felt very springy in my legs. maybe this is what some people get with carb cycling- my metabolism has temporarily speeded up.

what i learned from the thanksgiving meal

a couple of weeks before thanksgiving i tried cooking a paleo pumpkin pie with pumpkin, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, and lots of coconut milk. at that time i was thinking that this pie is so healthy, it won't kill me to put some reddi-whip on top. it was so delicious, i kept eating and eating!!! then i was out like a light. i had to sleep from the sugar and insulin surge.

so i learned from that. on thanksgiving day i made the pie, but no cream on top. i also made some "paleo" yams with spice, apples, some butter, etc. these were desserts that were SO good, again i kept eating and eating!!!! at least i didn't go to sleep in the afternoon and my heart wasn't racing- so i count that as a win.

i didn't put any sweetner- no honey, no stevia, no maple syrup flakes- in anything. but- i overate because the cravings just kept building!! i even ate some candy!! that night when i closed my eyes, i didn't see the dark patterns that usually dance around on my inner eyelids before i fall asleep. i saw brighter swirly thingys. so that sugar/insulin response made its way all the way up to my eyeballs. i also had greater temp changes than usual with all those carbs, so i know that must play into my nightly temp changes. the next day i was in a bad mood. so were my daughters.

what i learned is that i will still cook the yummies, but cook much much less so that we can each only have ONE small portion and NO leftovers. the broccoli/cauliflower casserole i got off the everydaypaleo site was yummy- and i will start including that as a regular (not just holiday) dish. my younger daughter helped me cook, which made the whole experience better. she wants a paleo cookbook for christmas.

before thanksgiving i ate little (not much of an appetite), and the morning of thanksgiving was the same. maybe that semi-Ifing helped to mitigate the impact of the meal. so far the scale doesn't register any weight gain, but i know from experience sometimes the effect of damaging your insulin sensitivity doesn't show up for a couple of days.

remember the words of the prophet (Arthur): " there is no failure, only feedback".

great sleep last night/bone soup + leaves

I haven't started taking the iron supplements yet because I wanted to start them to coincide with a new cycle. Today is day 3, and i will start taking one a day til the end of my cycle.

i'm still having forgetfulness, although not as bad as that one day i wrote about. like just now i forgot that i had already taken out the eggs- not a major slip up, as far as my slip ups go, but something i want to improve.

the big news is that last night i had the best sleep i can remember in a long while- no temp changes and no waking up after 6 hours and then having to make an effort to go back to sleep.

it could be the result of cumulative changes, or it could be something different i did yesterday.

yesterday a took an aleve, since my flow was starting to get some small clots. i also had 3 bowls of chicken bone soup, each with a pinch of salt, and a lot of leaves (like baby spinach) thrown in. this is chinese style soup and super easy to make. we just put water with the chicken carcass that was left over from the roasted chicken we got from sam's after my husband first cut all the meat off it. we didn't add any spices to it. then when it's boiling hot, you just throw in some leaves and a pinch of salt.

when i woke up this morning, my heart seemed quieter than usual, i couldn't even feel any beats as i usually can when i wake up. i slept from 9 pm until 4:45 am. then i laid in bed until 5 am and got up to cook breakfast. i only got up at 11 45 pm to put the dog out, and immediately went back to sleep. so that's 7 hours and 45 min of good sleep. Yeah!! also i did IF yesterday morning and one hour of vacuuming. the rest of the day was relatively stress free, although i did have some pain in my right chest area in the afternoon. that came after eating pecans and cinnamon. don't know if they are related. sometimes i have fleeting chest pain and so does my 13 year old daughter. i think we must be deficient in some nutrient- maybe magnesium, calcium, or both. i'm hoping drinking bone soup + leaves regularly will help.

So the bone soup and the iron are the 2 new things i am trying. i don't take iron in the morning because calcium and i think spinach inhibit its absorption. i'll take it on an empty stomach for greater absorption (so i read).