Maintenance Calorie Trajectory ---> Week 11 ---> Holiday Client Party Edition
So, here we are at week 11. As you can see from the trajectory below, I am opting to hold steady at 1638 cals/day this week. We can also see, there is a little re-distribution of weekly calories. I work for an engineering firm. And, we throw 2 Holiday Parties annually. One is our Holiday Open House, which invites most of the architects and contractors we work with in the surrounding area. And, one is an Employee Appreciation Dinner. This will take place the week after this one.
I'm continuing to stick to 2300 cals for these kinds of occasions. It seems to be what this body is comfortable with. I'm choosing to hold steady, regardless of whether or not I see a loss on the scale tomorrow, because it will offer me a little cushion for the party. It's fully catered and has every IPA beer one can conjure up. Not to mention some good wine.
Now, my first year at this party I wasn't even remotely thinking about healthy lifestyle changes. It was 2016 and I was so overcome with joy at so much selection of good alcohol, I drank A LOT. Enough so that I was not able to make it in to work the next day. LOL. The 2017 party, I was knee deep into practicing healthy habits and still learning to manage a new MS diagnosis. I gave myself a limit of 3 glasses of red wine.
I had 6 glasses and half a cuban cigar :-) But, hey I was able to make it into work the next day. Albeit, looking like something the cat dragged in, ate, and barfed up.
The boys asked me this last "Thirsty Thursday" (we have beer Thursdays at work) - what limit I was giving myself this year.
I said, I'm REALLY REALLY going to try to limit it to 3 glasses again.
The truth is, I'm such a light weight now. And, even with 3 glasses I can get a bad headache the next day. I don't know if I'll stick to just 3, but I am getting over a cold and trying to help this body replenish its white blood cell count. This is no joke because I'm already on meds that set up to destroy at least 30% of what I have. In short, I want to have fun, but I want to be good to this body.
Either or, I want to give this body some cushion in case I go over the 2300 cal mark, which is why I'm not increasing cals this week if that makes sense.
In other news, I learned that I may be "hyper-metabolic" right now. I found out haphazardly, but I'm so glad I did. Ever since I've been slowly increasing cals, I started waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. And, we're not talking night sweats like hot flashes. That is mild in comparison to what these nightly sweats provoke. We're talkin', so drenched, I have to change clothes sometimes. The sheets are soaked, and so are the pillow cases. It actually feels like water was spilled on the bed. I didn't think this body was capable of sweating that much.
I don't have them every night. Maybe, once or twice a week or once or twice every 2 weeks. I never thought to see if these sweat fest's coincided with a hard workout or calorie increase for the week. One of the members of the "maintenance mastermind group" I'm in is attempting to gain some weight right now as the initial goal weight chosen does not feel sustainable to her and she finds herself feeling hungry often. She chose to up her cals by 300-400 per day, and immediately started having the same symptoms I was having. Her nutritionist assured her, the syndrome is known as hyper-metabolic. In fact, many recovering anorexics will incur this when their cals are increased.
And, no - a person doesn't need to be anorexic or underweight for this to happen. Not everyone, will become hyper-metabolic when increasing cals. But, there are some benefits to this and one is that folks who are hyper-metabolic tend to require maintenance cals beyond that of someone who has a metabolism that is less fast.
In fact, this may very well be a contributing factor towards why I've continued to lose. I am now 10 pounds under the official goal weight (which, I have no problems with). I'm using a loose approach to the reverse diet method as I transition back, but I honestly didn't think I was one of those folks that had a sensitive metabolism. Some do, some don't. This is actually good news, because it may be possible to create a maintenance cal level beyond what I once thought and still be able to lean out some.
So, cheers to hyper metabolisms, and 3 cheers to sweat fest's!! LOL
For the record, it's also temporary. I read up to 3-6 months. Since, I'm transitioning slowly, I am assessing this body will be hedging towards the 6 month mark, but maybe not. There are no for sures. All I know is if I keep losing, I'll keep increasing cals until the sweet spot is found. I agree with my health and weight loss coach. It's important to eat the most calories one possibly can to maintain, because it's frankly what keeps that metabolic fire burning
