Return of the Bride

Day 140, Fast Day #55 - First one since August 12

I am BACK after my blogging and fasting hiatus!!!

First off I want to thank all the people that wrote guest posts for this blog while I was away. So thanks again to Becky Clark, Brianna Prigge, Oleg, Sabine, and Sarah Berger.

Since I last blogged, I survived my wedding (and am a lot less stressed now), married Zach, honeymooned on the Oregon Coast, and vacationed in Kona, Hawai'i with the in-laws. The wedding was a lot of fun and it was wonderful to be surrounded by the love of friends and family from all around the country. We were both overwhelmed by emotions and happiness. On that note, it was a lot of fun, a lot of money, a lot of work, and I hope to never, ever *knock on wood* be a bride again.

Mandatory wedding picture.

I am now back home in Seattle to my small apartment that looks like a tornado swept through it, a daunting list of unopened emails, a mass of laundry that needs to be done, and a backlog of work. As one would expect after a month of basically zero rules, zero counting eating and drinking, I put a bit of weight back on. I initially thought I had gained 5 lbs, but it turns out some of that was likely just bloating from the plethora of carbohydrate rich, sugary, processed food I had been eating. It appears I actually gained 3 lbs (1.4 kg) back (6 lbs or 2.7 kg up from my lowest while alternate day fasting) since the wedding, which is not too bad considering what I ate (pie, cake, ice cream, Spam, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, pizza, and lots of alcohol especially in beer form). To put things in perspective though, I am still 23 lbs lighter than I was this past April and I wore bikinis on the beach in Kona without feeling incredibly self-conscious.

The first day that we got back home there wasn't any food in the house and we ate out, so it was a feast day. Then one of Zach's friends from out-of-town was in town for the weekend, so we feasted again. After the weekend I came down with one of those 24-48 hour colds and had no motivation to resist an extra bowl of turkey chili or leftover gnocchi. It is really hard to get back on the fasting bandwagon (much less off of the wheatwagon) when excuses to eat and drink are everywhere.

Today I am attempting a 500 calorie fast after about a month of gluttony. So far I've had a cup of coffee, a lot of tea, low-calorie can of soup and some left over beef stir-fry for lunch (the recipe and how-to is in the works) and a glass of green juice (with kale, radishes, ginger, lemon, and a couple slices of apple) to get the rest of my calories. The day has been passing by at a snail's pace while my stomach is wondering what happened to the Times of Plenty. I am looking forward to breaking my fast soon!