So how do y'all do this then?*

Remember Sunday?  Remember when I was all pumped and recommitted to my goals and ready to go balls-to-the-wall all week to get back on track?

I'm so cute when I'm naive, don't you think? 

It was a good idea.  Solid plan.  Go back to doing all the things I was doing before that worked.  Count calories again.  And really, I've been pretty good.  I haven't skipped any exercise.  I have tracked, every day.  And while I haven't always been within 1700 calories, I've usually been within 1800, which is close enough.  Except for last night, when there was comfort wine and extra pasta and a grand total of about 2300 calories.  Oops. 

Here's the problem.  It's that TOM, which means that for the last week, my hormones have been whacked the hell out.  I shouldn't complain, because I don't get PMS.  But I do get moody.  I do get demotivated and a bit depressed.  Oh, and hungry.  Really, agonizingly hungry.  I looked all over the tubez and there are a lot of forums where women ask variations on the question "Why do I turn into a ravaging insatiable hosebeast for a week?" and they always get replies of "You burn more calories, duh."

Last I checked, my college degree was not issued by the University of It Stands To Reason**, so I did some fact checking.  I found a lot of random people saying that the week before a period, metabolic rates go up.  But I couldn't find any studies on the subject that were more recent than 1923 (yeah really), and no one agreed on how much the variance was.  Some said 4%, some said as much as 10%.  Which means there are a lot of people out there playing armchair biologist on forums, but no real actual science.

So what's a girl to do?

This house has moved on from pre-TOM to TOM-proper so rationality is returning in fits and starts, and hopefully a decreased appetite along with it.  But I think in future months, I'll just allow myself an extra 200-300 calories per day in the week before.  If my BMR actually does increase during that time then this is something I should be doing anyway.  A 500 calorie daily deficit is reasonable; 800 calories is not.  If it's all in my head, then even adding an extra 300 calories will still mean I'm running a deficit every day and although my loss rate will be slower, it will continue. 

What do you ladies do to cope?

*I'm not actually Southern.  But "y'all" is a great word, so I'm stealing it.
**With apologies to Terry Pratchett.