14 Pounds (Or the scale lies)

That's how much weight I lost last week. Same scale, same clothes, same time of day. I'm having another UC flare, and when I do, I just completely loose my appetite. In fact, I get a weird combination of feeling extremely hungry but having zero appetite. It's a very odd feeling. Although, I am eating, some. Midmorning seems to be my window of opportunity for food. And to sneak in a little caffeine to prevent caffeiene withdrawl.

But... I was thinking about the 14 lbs. Let's say I burn 2000 kcal just going about my day (you know working, etc. Basal metabolic type stuff. I haven't been exercising. Martial arts class isn't fun if you have to run to the bathroom several times during the class. Also, it doesn't seem wise to exercise when I'm not eating much. ) And, let's say that I'm eating 500 kcal/day (I actually am probably eating more than that, but stick with me here). So.. there's a 1500 kcal difference each day. 1500 x 7 is 10,500 kcal difference each week. Each 3300 kcal you burn more than you eat is a pound of weight lost. So, 10,500 would be ~3.2 lbs. So, 14 lbs would be a 46,200 kcal difference. Or, to look at it another way, even if I ate nothing all week long, I'd only be down 14,000 kcals, which is less than 5 lbs. If I really lost 14 lbs not eating at all (which, I have been eating, just not a lot), I would have to burn 6600 kcal/day. That's like marathon-running or climbing Everest levels of physical activity, or burn-patient levels of metabolic activity, which I'm just not doing. Admittedly, work's been particularly busy as of late, but not THAT busy.

The weird thing is, I'm not really dehydrated. I keep up with my fluids pretty well. I made myself eat more yesterday, and I must have replaced my liver glycogen (for you non-docs, your liver stores sugar so that you can use it between meals), because I'm up 2 lbs from yesterday. That's another weird thing.. forcing yourself to eat. It just feels bizarre. And the scale number seems to be pretty consistent. Although I actually feel kind of puffy, so I am wondering if maybe I had a barbel in my pocket or something when I weighed myself last week. If I'm feeling this puffy, that number can't possibly be true. Actually, with the laws of thermodynamics in place, that number can't possibly be true.

If true it would be good, in a way (almost half of my prednisone pudge would be in those 12 lbs). But bad, because I have a doctors' appt on March 12 (switching docs, at long last to a nice private GI, but between his busy schedule and my busy schedule, that's the soonest I could get in). And between now and March 12, I have a trip to Toronto for a conference, and I have a trip to San Diego on March 14, and I don't have a lot of energy right now for preparing presentations, etc. for those trips. And besides, it's never good to loose 12 lbs in a week.

Anyway, just some random ponderings.