Hunger - physical, emotional whaddever

Ketosis is an odd thing. I read how it makes people hyper-energetic and immune to physical hunger. Not me. I know I'm in it (and have the puce pee stick to prove it - actually it's in the bin but you know what I mean) but I'm still hungry. I'm not sure what I find hardest - the physical or emotional hunger because I have both.

I've got flu - or what I assume is (genuine) flu - not snotty, but shivery and achy and exhausted. And although part of me doesn't want to eat (not like a cold) the other part really wants something to 'make me feel better'. Nothing I can eat is going to make me feel better but it does feel as if toast and marmite (comfort food - and probably because I've been making b/f yummy seeded white bread, proper bread, not shop pap) and chocolate would! I mope about wanting something, not sure what but knowing I can't have it anyway! It's an odd feeling, especially the not having it bit, but I reckon even skinnies self-medicate with chocolate at times like this. Perhaps it's just that their times are fewer and further between and involve less of a chocolate hit when they DO give in.

I lost 4lbs in my WI. I think my CDC doesn't deal in fractions of lbs and makes them in my favour but hey. That means 12lbs in official WIs and 3lbs in my first few days. I'm close to getting my Christmas weight back off and if all goes well, that should be done in the next week. If I had the energy I'd be (grimly) pleased!

I've been thinking more on the thorny issue of exercise too. At the moment I have that VLCD light headed thing and even if I did have a burning desire to hit the gym, I don't think it would be wise - I'm pretty sure I don't faint like a period drama heroine. I suspect I'd crash to the floor rather than waft, I'd probably go a funny colour, flash my undies (perfectly nice ones I assure you but not so pretty on moi) and probably dribble. At least. So I'm avoiding that. I will have to start trying to walk the 2.5 miles in from an earlier tube stop to the office again though - IF IT EVER STOPS RAINING. And ultimately, I have accepted that I am never likely to have the funds to join a glossy gym and do kick-boxing (used to love it - disturbingly so - made b/f cower with a cushion so I could show him the kicks I learnt!), body pump (god knows why I liked it but I did), pilates and the odd dance based exercise class. So I have to move on from this. We have a "gym" in the flats where I live. Pros - it's free (or within our astronomical service charge) and it has a couple of bikes, treadmills and rowers as well as range of weight machines. Cons - everything else. It's in a small unventilated basement room. As you can imagine, with no air con or windows it gets hot and smelly in the summer and just smelly in the winter. There's nothing to distract you from the unutterable tedium of the treadmill - there's a cheap portable TV but in order to hear it above the machines, you have to have it on at a volume that drives the flats above it insane (understandably - would you want to wake up to Fiona Phillips at the volume of a jet fighter? Although a jet fighter probably has more interesting and incisive things to say). I may have to bite the bullet and get down there once I'm back on food though. I have managed to get into that numb, unquestioning, routine, not-quite-there state that you have to use on the commute with gym-going so I could do it again. It's painful to get there though - like ketosis! And I don't get the endorphin rush thing either damnit, just a vaguely smug feeling which kicks in when the scarlet sweaty feeling wears off.

The other thing my obesity specialist said - apart from the thing that exercise was key to keeping weight off (bless him, he suggested dancing the tango for me!) was that people who are diet tarts have some success. He didn't use this phrase - it wouldn't occur to him. And diet tarts aren't like pop tarts, oh no. What I mean by that is people who do a diet - say, South Beach and then when they get bored of that they do Weight Watchers and when they get bored of that they do Slimming World etc etc ad lib to fade (away). I guess he's saying that boredom is the enemy of success and strictness and however you restrict your intake it doesn't matter, as long as you don't take your eye off the ball. Food for thought (only bleeding food I'm getting!)