Hmm.

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I just noticed something. While I am seemingly in a down phase, my blood pressure is up but felt fluid levels are down. So perhaps blood pressure is the problem? But something else noticeable is that I am strengthening very quickly. Just the bits I do, like working on my bike, seem to add muscle very rapidly. Not that I look like the hulk, or hugely bulk up, but... from my tinkering on the bike, a few hours at a time, several times, my forearms are noticeably larger and definitely tighter. While that doesn't seem possible, I know it is not fluid somehow, and I am sure it is true. With the water gone, I am bulking up very fast. If I could focus, if I had the energy, working out, biking, and hiking would immensely improve actual strength or size or both. I am not sure if that is a natural trait to me or if it is my body doing what it can while it is able to do so, sort of making up for lost time.

About stamina? I don't really have a way to measure that yet. With the bike going, I might be able to ascertain quality and quantity of that. Though I think it is adjusting upward if at a slower pace. I also don't seem to be losing a lot of fat. I had hoped more regular small meals and simply being even more active than after my initial move here would help with fat loss. I think I have plateaued as far as simply being more active and weight loss, and then lost all the water weight I will. The rest will take a effort. I don't want to lose it all, just to drop another twenty pounds and I will be good. For a bruiser I have a pencil neck, so that measure of BMI doesn't work for me. I have to go by weight and function.

I also wonder if bulking up causes me to tire more easily, odd as that may sound. The body doesn't just order out for muscle, it builds it. It takes raw materials, finds damaged muscle fibers, and through a chemical process heavily in need of protein (a prime substance in what I eat) knits muscle. I am tightening everywhere, but whichever part sees the most work gets the most size... forearms, in this case, currently. Or, I could be all wrong. It has happened, you know. Maybe my eyes, and other senses, are going bad. But I think it is true.