Cold Hands, Empty Stomach

The diet plan I set up for my time on Phentermine seems to be too much food. I find myself forgetting to eat for long stretches of time. Then, when I do eat, I only eat what I had planned to eat for the last meal. If I try to make up for lost calories, I feel as if I have eaten a feast. So, I'm not even hitting the 1400 calories on a daily basis.

This worries me. My hands, feet, and tip of my nose have started turning ice cold during these forgetful fasts. If I go too long, I suddenly lose all ability to focus on any task and must eat immediately. It's almost as if the narrator from Gauntlet is intoning "Your Hero needs food." over and over. Then I rush out, eat all of 360 calories and feel as if I am going to burst once the food hits my stomach 30 minutes later. If I try to use this 30 minute window to eat a respectable number of calories, then I feel nauseated later.

Though, I'm not really complaining so much as I am amazed. Still, I am looking forward to not worrying about my health as much.

Another worrisome development, I have developed periodic tingling and numbness/reduced sensitivity in my left hand ring and pinkie fingers. This radiates a bit downward into my hand, also.

The causes I can find in my research are diabetes and carpal tunnel. Diabetes has long been a worry, but is unlikely in this case. My urinalysis didn't contain sugar a few months back, so pancreas function probably wasn't decreasing. Plus, given the amount of time I spend typing about a computer in any given day, carpal tunnel seems the most likely cause. I have an appointment with my doctor on Friday of next week and will bring it up then.

Update: I realized that carpal tunnel syndrome affects fingers other than the pinkie. I found another source which suggest I have nerve compression and that I should splint my arm at night and take ibuprofen. Still going to talk to my doctor about it though.

Oats of Diets Past, Present, and Future

Yes, yes, I like puns way too much. Aren't I clever?

I made up a Diet Plan table on Google Documents to show my past diet plan, the current plan, and I am working on getting the future one done.

I know this may sound odd, but I am not really at all sure how much food I will want to eat after I get back off the phentermine. A lot of the eating I was doing during my lull in diet loss wasn't so much to feed hunger, but because something was telling me I needed to eat.

The nice thing about the Phentermine is that it helps me get used to smaller amounts of food again. I'm eating half portions for 2 out of 3 meals. (This scares me though, so I will be adding some vitamins to my routine.)

Still, I have serious doubts that I will be able to maintain a 1350-1400 calorie diet and maintain the exercise routine I have managed to stick to for the last week and a half. I may have to revise the plan, but we'll see when the pills run out. I remember in college I was able to eat a similar number of calories but I had to use nicotine as a meal replacement to do so.

Though, this reminds me of another funny thing. In both cases a drug cost was mitigated by the lower cost of groceries. I am buying almost literally half the amount of groceries I was previously. The phentermine is only $45/month supply so the groceries completely offset the cost. (I remember food being so much cheaper when I was broke.) The cigarettes of course were more expensive than buying food and left me feeling terrible. I will ramble about quitting some other time, as this is already "Too long, didn't read".

Getting my due from the devil

I found a way to describe my feelings about phentermine.

Phentermine is the devil. If I'm going to make a deal with the devil, I want to get my due. This past month I did just that.

Went to the doctor today and I had lost 22 lbs since last month. Big, big swing.

If you look at the second tab on the chart (the one with the graph), you'll notice that I went from being 28 days behind schedule to being 37 days ahead of schedule.

Of course, only about 12 lbs of this is "real" weight-loss. The first 10lbs or so came off easily and so were most likely the water weight people always talk about. I had most likely gained that water weight back when I was eating out the month before last.

Also, I've managed to keep walking the past few days. I am still trying to make it into part of my daily habit. Just a morning walk everyday before work.

So today is good news, but it's hardly time to celebrate too much yet. I want to make the changes I am working on become habitual before the 3-months on phentermine is up.

I'm also adding a menu plan to the left hand side.