I didn’t fast yesterday. I’ve been toying with the idea of giving up all-day fasting (at least temporarily) and just seeing how much progress I could make by eating one giant salad per day. Although I’m only about a pound lighter today, it occurred to me that a similar loss every day would result in the same sort of results I’m getting from fasting two or three days per week. Granted, there have been regular missteps with the fasting—I’ve wiped out weight loss during the week with weight gain on the weekends, for example—but if I can lose five pounds per week without having to fast, I’d be satisfied with that. There are other benefits to fasting (which I’ve mentioned before), but it’s a chore to get through a day with no food. This nagging irritation is constantly present when I fast, and it’s hard to keep pushing through that.

I’m probably still retaining some water given that I added the last of the salted cashews and cheese to my salad last night. I also added some pickle chips (which I had also done the day before), which are, of course, ridiculously high in sodium. As I mentioned yesterday, my consumption of salt undoubtedly skews my weigh-ins because it causes water retention. Given that I suffer from high blood pressure, I need to be better about restricting my sodium intake anyway, so the cheese will have to go. The nuts can stay, but they’ll need to be unsalted.

I’m going to try to fast all day today just to sort of “reset.” Tomorrow, there’s a BBQ function at work, so I may gain a bit of weight as a result (or at least not lose any). Of course, BBQ brisket is full of salt, so the likely outcome will be some weight gain, even if it’s just due to water retention.

In addition to my coffee, I drank some green tea yesterday, and it wasn’t as awful as I’d remembered. This is probably because I made it correctly by not letting the water get to boiling temperature and only steeping it for three minutes. Matcha is green tea powder, and drinking  it concentrates the benefits of green tea because the tea leaves are actually consumed (in the form of the powder). Given that coffee and tea make me pee more often than I’d like, I’ll try matcha and drink only one cup per day rather than two or three cups of green tea.

I don’t have anything else to say today. I regret not yet finding the time to read more about healthy eating and flesh out the website. It seems like there’s always something I’m doing for work (even if I’m not actually at work) or, lately, some class I’m taking in an effort to position myself for a less stressful, more satisfying job. I really believe that reducing the amount of cortisol my body produces every day makes a difference in how effective my diet is, so I need to figure out how to better manage my general anxiety. Yoga and meditation seem like they’re worth a try, but, again, the issue is finding the time for them.