my jeans felt tight today

I have ONE pair of jeans with the number 6 inside the label. ONE PAIR! (Honestly, I also think it's a fluke; they're "girlfriend jeans" which means they're oversized and meant to be a little extra schlumpy but not quite as schlumpy as "boyfriend jeans.") And today they fit tightly.

This is after a week of working more on intuitive eating, and eating without restrictions  and also, interestingly, starting to work out again.

I've been holding off on working out because the Bright Line Eating program recommends that you eliminate workouts while you're on the weightloss plan -- both because really you don't have enough calories on the plan to give you the energy for workouts, and also because apparently, working out can mess with sticking to the plan because your sneaky brain wants to rationalize that you should eat more because you worked out. All of this is actually fine with me for the moment; it may be flawed, but at the same time, I see the reasoning. However, I have actually recently been CRAVING working out!

Monday I went running because I felt like I had so much nervous, jangly energy that I really wanted to run it off. Running was harder than I thought it would be, though at the same time, I guess I sort of did better than I thought I would. I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes so that I stayed out there with some sort of objective measure instead of calling it before I should, and I ran as much as I could for as long as I could and then switched to walking until I felt ready to run again (rinse and repeat.) And I didn't run for as long as I would've wanted to, but also made myself run up a hill toward the end while battling the part of me that was chanting, "I can't do this," and countering with, "Yes I can! Yes I can! Yes I can!" That was part of working out that I remember liking -- my body showing my brain that it COULD do something that my brain was saying it couldn't do.

Then I worked out with a trainer and did a strength-training routine on Wednesday, and then repeated it myself yesterday.

So perhaps my jeans fit a little tight today because of the inflammation from workouts. Perhaps because I'm at a low enough weight that I can't maintain it without being really strict and careful.

Last night I had a cheeseburger and a few drinks. I also finished off the last of a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Certainly none of that has a place in Bright Line Eating. But I'm also trying to lift restrictions, and so all those things have a place on the list of foods I crave. Then today I ate rather haphazardly and ended up with fish, Brussels sprouts, and salad for dinner. So, is this intuitive or a return to restriction? Only time will tell as we see it on a continuum of eating and behavior.

Thanks for following along and listening in! This promises to be an interesting ride, and I'm glad you're accompanying me on it.