Get under 220 pounds and stay there.

After getting down to about 245 lbs, I am now back up to about 275 lbs. I have to do something about this, and soon.

For 6 months, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to what I eat. I’ve also been working my body, sometimes much, much harder than I have in the past. Sometimes, watching what I eat is really hard. Sometimes, I completely lose it. Today was a perfect example of this.

I started the day all right. For breakfast, I had 16oz whole milk, 3oz fat free turkey breast, a slice of whole grain bread and just a little mayo. Added up, this was a 5 block meal on the zone diet. I ate at about 5:00 AM. At 9:00 AM, I had 3 oz turkey, 1/2 an avocado and 2 small granny smith apples. At 11:45 AM, I had 4-5 oz turkey, the other half of the avocado, several walnut halves and another 2 apples. I got home at about 2:30 PM.

When I got home, I was ravenous. I felt like I hadn’t eaten for days. Suddenly, I cracked and started devouring everything. 2 slices toast with copious butter and jelly. 4 oz turkey. 7-8 chocolate covered, peanut butter filled pretzel bites. 20 minutes later, I was still starving. I ate 7-8 peanut butter pretzel sandwiches and drank another 16 oz whole milk. Finally, 20 minutes later, I wasn’t hungry.

Now, it is 6:00 PM and I have a craving for food. This is different than when I got home though. This is a mental desire to be eating and has nothing to do with the stomach churning hole than demanded to be filled. I don’t understand either urge but I would call the earlier one hunger and this one a craving. I seem to be mostly successful fighting cravings but I collapse against hunger. For example, while I eat everything that was handy earlier, I’m not eating anything now.

I don’t understand how to fight hunger or even if I should. Should I refrain from eating and only eat to my specified schedule, no matter how hungry I feel? Is ravenous hunger an indication that I’m not giving myself enough fuel to support the muscle building that is happening. (This is possible as I’ve just finished 4 days of incredibly tough workouts.) Is there something I can eat to fill the void without destroying what I’m working so hard to achieve? What do you do when you are fighting hunger or cravings?

I was back up to 252 after Thanksgiving but today I set a new record low at 243.5 lbs. New CrossFit inspired workouts with my trainer and actual CrossFit workouts throughout the week are working magic on my body with visible changes nearly every day.