PMS Monster

The office smells like buttery pancakes and syrup, and how the hell is that fair to those of us (which, admittedly, is a minority here) who are watching what we eat?  It's hard enough to stick to your guns when people aren't forcing delightful scents up your nostrils!  Well, you pancake-bringers are enablers, and you're not taking me with you (today), so ha!  I say "ha!" at you and your delicious, breakfast goodness!

(Actually, this is kind of like torture.  It's smelled sooo good in here since 7:30 a.m., and I've been fighting off cravings all morning).

I weighed in on Sunday.  Still 193.0 lbs., although I did hit 192.6 at some point during the week.  At least it's not a gain, but I've had very little appetite all week, so it's very disappointing to see the scale stall after a whole week of eating like a saint.  My biggest sin was snacking on a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie -- only 160 calories!

At this point, I'm pretty sure that all of my troubles can be accounted for by the dreaded PMS Monster:

• Little/no energy for "silly things like exercise"
• Bloating (hopefully 1-2 pounds' worth)
• Salt cravings (hello, salsa and corn chips!)
• Taking my irritability out on pancake-eating co-workers via a passive-aggressive blog
• Tearfulness (when I think about all of the amazing foods I can't eat anymore)
• Feeling important enough to post a blog about the PMS Monster

So my plan is to defeat this mini-success-plateau before it turns into a six-week-long-plateau-of-no-weight-change-that-makes-you-cranky-enough-that-you-binge-then-fall-off-the-wagon kind of deal.

Despite the humidity, I'm going for a walk on my 15-minute break this afternoon.  I shall return a sweaty triumph, and then I'll drink a ton of water, and it'll be amazing.  Maybe I'll even walk up the 8 flights of stairs to my cubie!  Hmm... that's a big maybe.  Or maybe I'll walk up 4 flights instead, and take the elevator the other half of the way.  Baby steps!

On the gluten-free front (for those of you who are playing along at home), I continue to learn as I go.  I accidentally "got glutened" on Friday night and spent most of the weekend wallowing in gassy, crampy agony on the couch.  I saw my doctor again on Monday, and she agreed that I seem to be responding generally well to the elimination diet.  They drew blood to run the celiac panel, and they're running a slew of other tests "just to be on the safe side."

I'm SO DONE with being sick all of the time and frequent trips to the clinic.  I'm hoping for some conclusive answers so I can get on with my life.