Bewildered.

Typical of me:  when I'm not sure what to do, find some numbers and turn them magically into a piece of "new"  information.

In the last two months of my weight loss, the loss rate had slowed to three-quarters of a pound per week.  This means that, by the end, I was running a deficit of about 375 calories per day.  So, I guess, it's that 375 calories I'm trying to fit back into my diet -- not the 875 calories I feared earlier this year.  Right at the end I added 30 minutes of running to my weekly exercise plan.  That's not so much divided over the week, but it might bring the total number of daily "extra" calories up to 400.

I am still failing to track properly, failing to make observations, and so I still feel bewildered and without a map or a plan or a new set of established habits.  Sometimes I have a bedtime snack and sometimes I don't.   Sometimes I eat a big breakfast and sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I have seconds and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I eat when I feel a little hungry and sometimes I don't.  And every time I have one of these extras I disappoint myself, because I haven't exactly proved to myself that I can "safely" do it.  Yet I am resisting doing the work that would establish what I can and can't do.

Nor is my old mantra of "don't be a glutton" helping me out anymore.  It seems that I can either be a glutton or an anorexic.  I can't seem to feel right, or at peace, about any amount.  If I finished my meal a little hungry, I can't stop thinking about eating more food.  If I finished my meal a little overfull, the remorse lasts until I digest it.  

Maybe I'm still a little giddy at being "allowed" to eat more or less like a normal person.    Maybe I should (while continuing to weigh, so that I can intervene with calorie control if necessary) just allow myself a little bit of a honeymoon, until the holidays are over and my food choices become more predictable, and then I can try the lengthy series of experiments and observations that will help me figure out my lifetime eating plan.  

It's just not happening right now.

But the weight is still  on track.   I spent two days in the "too low" range and no days in "too high" mode over the last three weeks, the rest of the time staying in my maintenance range.  The data shows I'm doing something right!  

But I don't know what it is!   

Weird.