I had to move, rapidly, in late December, into a much smaller place. (WHILE working 60 hours/week for Amazon, because it was Peak.)

Needless to say, a lot of things got left behind... one of those things was my bathroom scale.

Now, under normal circumstances, I'm a daily weigh-er. I get up, pee, strip, weigh, and then do the rest of my morning-stuff. Little fluctuations don't bother me, but it helps me keep my eye on trends, and adjust accordingly.

Then, in mid-March, I had knee surgery. Prepped lots of food before-hand. (Cottage-pie, meatballs, etc) But I was actually using a wheelchair for those first 2 weeks post-op.

Recovery was slow, and one thing I didn't feel like doing (even after my pre-prepped food had all been thawed and eaten)? Was standing at the stove to cook. So I fell into this habit of snacking instead of eating. And, because I had so much time on my hands... snacking out of boredom.

I knew, at some level, that I was eating too much. But without the scale to "yell at" me, it was hard to pay much attention to that nagging voice.

Then, the other day, it was cool outside. I pulled on my custom jeans... and they were too $(#% tight. Really uncomfortable in the waist.

Uh-oh.

SO... went on Amazon & ordered a body-composition scale. (It was one of the cheaper ones, but it happened to come with an app, and I think I'm in love with the app. It tracks a lot of "body comp" stuff -- lean mass, water weight, fat, visceral fat, etc... but it also lets you record measurments: Shoulders, chest, waist,hips, left & right biceps, thighs, & calves. (And it actively tracks waist/height ratio)

This is exactly how I like to track, and I have a really hard time finding anything that lets me do that without also demanding caloric information.

So, from my low of 160, I'd gained 25 lbs. (Granted, that was based on mid-day, and not nekkid. Still.)

Time to get off "maintenance" and back into "Get your butt back in shape" mode.

Even before the scale arrived, I'd started cooking again. (Made a cottage pie... I was being lazy, and took a lot of shortcuts, so it's not as good as normal, but tastes better on the re-heat.) (Yes, I really like cottage pie. It's filling, and lasts several days.)

I've also let my water consumption drop down to... pretty much 0. Need to fix that.

And because I've been off work so long, I'm toying with getting a set of adjustable dumbells, to start trying to gain back some of that upper-body strength I know I've lost. (Doubt I could still lift 50 lbs over my head.)


The good news? Sure, I've gained, BUT:

• I know exactly how and why it happened
• I caught it while my BMI was still close to the "normal" range. Close enough that my physical therapist gets annoyed when I mention having gained weight
• Fixing the problem is just a matter of overcoming laziness and getting cooking again