Cabin Fever

It's just about this time in February that I start getting cabin fever and longing for spring. Happens every year no matter how mild or bad a winter we had. This year was pretty mild so I'm not complaining, it's just that I'm tired of dark mornings, dark evenings and having to bundle up every time I go outside. It doesn't help that all the magazines are showing spring fashions and makeup so I'm dying to bust out my warm weather clothes.

Anyway, I'm back to my regular macros as of today. I switched up my high and low days this weekend because we're going out to dinner tomorrow, but other than that things are back to normal. I must say that even though I don't feel that ultra low carb/ketosis is right for me, I think this was a useful experiment. Here are the pros and cons of my week.

Pros:
1. Hunger level. I definitely experienced much less hunger of the growly stomach kind. I still experienced hunger in that I knew when it was time to fuel up but my stomach didn't growl right after a meal or before the next one. Also I was able to cut down to three bigger meals with one small bedtime protein shake. I don't feel that was better, just different.
2. Eating foods I have difficulty working in at higher carb levels. Since I raised the fat level, I was able to eat avocado, macadamia nuts and my new favorite brownie every day. Not all on the same day but sometimes two of those in a day. This was a nice change of pace.
3. Macro manipulation. I feel like this experiment has made it much easier for me to know how to move macros around and what foods are better for low carb and which for higher carb. I ate very healthy foods and I see them now as their components and not so much which are going to be more pleasurable. I eat the foods I like but I've changed my perspective on food a bit more through this exercise.

Cons:
1. Energy level. This went down considerably. It wasn't so much that I felt weak. It was more a total lack of motivation to move around and when I did move around (such as taking a walk) I definitely felt overall body weakness. Not a good feeling. I suppose that if I had kept up with it, or lowered my protein and carbs and raised the fat even further I might have shifted into true ketosis and overcome this. It wasn't worth it to me to do that.
2. Sleep. This was definitely affected. I was consistently waking up around 3 am (I go to bed between 9-10 pm). After a few days it seemed it didn't affect me during the day, but that may have been one of the reasons for not wanting to move around so much. I really like to sleep longer and I think it's healthier and better for fat loss, so this was a con for me.
3. Weight loss. I weighed on Friday and gained 2 lbs. up to 223.2 lbs. Now, I'm not attributing that to the change in macros directly and it could have been something that was going to happen anyway since I've been losing weight so fast. But the sleep loss and sedentary behavior didn't help my cause at all, so overall I think this is a con.

Overall, I glad I did this and it was a good time to do it since I'm not doing heavy workouts. But I won't be going back to it since there was no advantage for me to do so.