Finally! An Answer

Maybe a reason?

Or is it an excuse?

From the LA Times:

a study has found that for at least a year, subjects who shed weight on a low-calorie diet were hungrier than when they started and had higher levels of hormones that tell the body to eat more, conserve energy and store away fuel as fat.

Is that ever true!

I managed to lose 22 pounds between June 15 and August 22. I Managed to hold that lower weight within a pound or so until..

this week

when I slowly crept up again by 4 pounds over my lowest weight.

And as I read the article yesterday about this weight regain problem I could nod my head in agreement. I have noticed that in the past two weeks the hunger started being more noticeable. I was "craving" food in ways that I had thought were past. I was noticing that I was also getting more frustrated with myself and the whole process.

Now I know why. At least on some level, my body is making sure that I don't starve. That is a real survival skill the body has had to learn through the millennia of evolution. Now it's working against me.

The first thing though is to know it's happening and it's not something strange about what I have or haven't been doing.

Beyond that, my guess is that I need to be a counter evolutionary. (Sorry about the pun. I couldn't resist. Blame it on my genes.) I need to continue the things which lost me the weight in the first place. Maybe I need to re-kick start the diet process. Probably I need to push the exercise up a notch.

But I should not get down on myself, allow the frustration to turn into depression or drag my self-esteem back down. With a lot of support and help I managed to get this far. And the article says it's not about me.

That helps.