I felt great for five weeks, then landed in the hospital

Hi, I’m brand new here — only week one — and your post honestly scared me a little because I’ve already caught myself doing coffee, then crackers, then nothing. Thank you for sharing it. I’m not asking for medical advice, just logistics: when you were in the thick of it, was there a specific time of day you kept missing? I’ve started keeping a bag of frozen edamame and a couple of hard-boiled eggs where I can see them, plus a water bottle by the car keys, but the 3pm pickup rush is still my danger zone. Did anything actually make real meals easier with two kids, or did you have to lower the bar and call a snack plate dinner? Wishing you a gentler week.

Not to be that spreadsheet person, but my trendline says my crash days weren’t the 8 lbs—they were 3–4 days of <50g protein and almost no fluids beyond coffee. My resting HR ticked up 8 bpm before the dizziness hit. Sharp question: were you tracking anything besides weight? “Not hungry” days always look great on the scale for 48h, then my energy score tanks. I now keep one boring emergency lunch in the fridge so I don’t skip two meals in a row.

oh man, that crash sounds terrifying. I run a cafe so I'm surrounded by pastries and "just a taste" all day. What saved me from the same spiral was forcing one real meal at 11am—even just a small bowl of soup or two eggs—before the snack drawer had a chance. Otherwise I'd graze on crumbs and feel awful by 3. Did you get any warning signs before the dizziness, or was it sudden? Asking because I'm trying to listen to my body better.

Fellow daily weigher here. The 8 lbs is real, but so is the crash — my trend line loves a skipped-meal week until it doesn’t. One thing that helped me: I track a second, boring metric, “ate an actual afternoon meal y/n.” If 3pm is just coffee and crackers, that’s my cue to grab a turkey roll-up or yogurt before school pickup, not after. Were your first five weeks also weirdly low on sleep or high on stress? Sometimes my scale drop and my energy crash are the same data point.

Not OP, but I ran the coffee → crackers → nothing loop for a solid month before it caught up with me. What finally clicked was tracking three numbers instead of one: ounces of water, grams of protein, and hours since my last actual meal. My own rule is if that third number hits six, I eat something with protein whether I feel like it or not — hunger just isn't a signal I can trust right now. Scale moved slower but the 3pm shakes stopped.

Curious what your first week back home looked like food-wise? Specifically what you could actually get down when your appetite still wasn't there.