The Reset Button

This is me, mad at myself for blowing out half a blog! Redo!

So here I am, age 58, nearly 40 years of yo-yo dieting, and in general disordered eating. I've just taken off 27 pounds....well I guess its closer to 25 since I've reached p4.....and now it's time to add in starches and live the rest of my life. This looks like a slippery slope at best and a disastrous history waiting to repeat itself at the very worst. It is a world of contradiction.....eat intuitively but you must get your calories up to 2000 even if you don't feel hungry. So I really needed something to grab onto to give me direction, perspective and a place to gather information.

Enter.......ETP or Eat To Perform.com I believe this site was originally created for athletes who had hit some kind of plateau in their performance. It is backed by a lot of research. It makes no grand promises, it isn't trying to sell you anything (well okay it does sell you the E- book, access to the forums, coaching and support.) But there are no shakes or supplements and once you've paid, you've paid. How do I know this? Because 2 years ago, when I had taken off some weight and was doing CrossFit, I joined for $49.00. But here is what happened...I was still living the low calorie paradigm and when I put my stats into the TDEE calculator and saw what it said I should be eating, I freaked out and ran the other way. Well we know what happened, I gained back all the weight blah, blah blah.

I signed in the other day and to my surprise my account was still there! I don't have to pay anything else and now, instead of just putting my stats in and getting a calorie count from the calculator, I send my information to a coach who, considering my age and activity level, and what my goals are.....provides me with an appropriate calorie count and some direction of not just what to eat, but how to eat it......I can't tell you how welcome this information is!
So I am already hitting my rest day calories which are approximately 1700 and on my training days they are about 2100 (yikes!) I'm not there yet, but they are having me up my carbs by 25grms each week on my training days till I get there. If you add too fast you get bloated (yep, been there!)

I feel a little out of my element there because I am NOT an athlete, but I believe in exercise and the need for building muscle if you want to stay strong and healthy. So I'll give it 90 days. Either I'll be sporting some nice lean muscle or.....or I don't know, If I start to gain or have a problem I just post in the forum and the coaches will look at my food and adjust my TDEE and macros if needed or tell me to get off my *** and log more consistently or meet my goals more consistently.

So I keep one foot in HCG land, because I may very well be back, and I have one foot in ETP land because there just isn't much in the way of guidance in P4. That being said I have to say that the support and guidance of Scotlandforever, Leez, Grammie and Rose has been indispensable. Without it I wouldn't have been eating enough and we all know where that leads! So a big shout out to them and to everyone here who has cared and been supportive.