On the positive side, I was down to 190 on the scale this
morning so that was okay.  How I got here (two pounds in two
days) is not good at all.

I have had as rough a week at work as I have ever had in my
professional career, as stressful as it can get.  In the
past, were I to get to this state from a stress point of
view, I would likely have found solace in food and would
have started eating everything in sight.  No big secret
about how I gained weight in the past.  Just for some stress
management I plan on running away to the mountains this
weekend to wander through the woods and listen to the birds.
Anna Ruby Falls in North Georgia should do the trick, nice
hikes in a beautiful place and the weather, on Saturday at
least, should be beautiful.

Now, I'm not posting here just to whine about work as there
really is relevance to low-carb eating and diet in general.
While I don't begin to claim to understand all (any?) of the
physiology involved in this, I can tell you that this week
my body has been screaming for me to feed it, as I've not
had happen since starting this way of eating.  Not cravings
so much, just more food than the 1400 calories/day I have
been eating.  As nothing else has changed recently--activity
levels an such, though I am back to my nasty habit of only
sleeping about 2 hours/night--the only thing I have which I
can attribute this to is stress.  Since Monday I've bumped
my daily calorie intake back up to the 1800-2000 calorie/day
range.  The funny thing is that, though I am very cognizant
of the amount of food I am consuming this week, I am not
really counting and intentionally capping calories, I am
just eating more at each meal to the point I feel very full
and literally can't eat any more.  The bizarre thing is
that, this week, I am still hungry.  So, I've dropped two
pounds, I am eating more, I still feel hungry, and I feel
like hell.  That damn stress thing I think.  I'm actually,
finally, feeling much better this morning so I think I am
going to go back to my 1400 calories today.  I'll see how it
goes.  BTW, during this entire time I have managed to keep
my carb count to 45-50g/day.

When I was doing low-fat diets I invariably found myself at
this point about 3 months into the diet and would have
succumbed to it by a binge which would have ended the diet
and started the weight gain again.  I'm not guessing about
that, I know it because I have lived it.  That I have
survived this week without starting a binge is remarkable
and affirms for me once again that with this way of eating
is sustainable, and the weight loss from it will be
permanent.  It's not been fun this week, but doable
nonetheless.

Finally, thank goodness for comfort foods as this helped
last night more than I can begin to state.  For me the
ultimate comfort food has long been a simple good meatloaf,
which my wife made for the family last night.  I prepared a
side dish of cauliflower gratin (one of her favorites) with
a nice salad and we all, including the kids, had a pleasant
dinner eating to our hearts content.  And, since I love my
meatloaf with ketchup, having that new low-carb Heinz
ketchup in the house was an excellent accompaniment to enjoy
guilt free.