242.2 (A funny thing happened on the way to 228...)

Well, not funny.  Serious.  And seriously bad.  Last week I wound up in hospital for a rather nasty case of cellulitis.  As a result, I was taken off my diuretic for a while, spent most of four days generally immobile, and packed on 11 lbs in the matter of 36 hours!  You can read more about that adventure on my other blog found here.

Now even though this is a bit discouraging, that doesn't mean I'm off the weight-loss train, though.  I'm back on half a diuretic dose to help remove the excess fluids in my system, and that's helping.  As of this morning, I'm back down to 239.0, which is good.  And I'm not using this convalescence as a reason to eat up (although that's been a challenge from a "I wanna be comforted!" sorta way), but I am allowing myself more food in a day.  My body needs calories and nutrition right now, and trying to keep the weight-loss active in this time is actually not very helpful to the healing process.  In fact, it can directly hamper healing, especially since I'm fighting an infection.  The antibiotics I'm taking screw with my gut flora, and make certain vitamins and nutrients hard to absorb (particularly Vit. K—or potassium) which in turn leads to things like nose-bleeds and trouble clotting, so what I eat is really important.

So this is a time to relax a bit on the 1500 kCal a day diet and heavy-duty labor that was working so well.  I need to get past this infection and heal, and to do that, I need to eat more.  Not crazy more, but more than I have been.

But one thing I haven't lost is confidence that I can and will see 225lbs by the end of summer.  Diet and exercise works, and I got it to work all on my own, eating a varied diet that was very satisfying.  But wisdom is illustrated by knowing when to relax as well as when to put in lots of effort.  Rest=healing.