We just returned from a five-day vacation. We had mixed food security- the main event was a wedding so there was poor food security with two dinner receptions offering up buffet and family- style service party foods- (the groom is half-French so there was a high food bar!). We were able to provide moderate monitoring- we kept an eye on him but didn't keep him at our sides constantly as it was too difficult to do. We also ate out at every single meal as one typically does on vacation. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly a week of light eating. Still, Sasha somehow managed to lose 2 full kilos (about 4.5 pounds!) in 6 days (since his last sodium check). The last time we went on vacation in London, he lost weight, too (and that was before he started on oxytocin). Go figure! Maybe we should write a book on the "vacation diet"... how to lose weight while indulging in eating out in restaurants 3 meals per day, LOL!
During the last 5-6 days while on vacation, his appetite was moderate. He definitely ate a healthy amount but didn't appear to "pig out" and was sated after each meal. He was able to stop eating when full and even passed up certain courses because he was full. As for food seeking (his biggest liability), it is still difficult to say if it was better or worse or the same as before the dose change. Because there was no way to enforce food security on vacation (especially while attending wedding banquets), we had to provide the security by keeping a close watch on him. Because we had to rely on our own labor to enforce the food security (rather than that of a built-in secure system with locked up food, regular meal times, etc.), it took more of an emotional toll on us than what we probably would have experienced being at home with our secured kitchen and predictable eating routines. For me, personally, I felt that there was less intensity than what we experienced during our family camp trip during which I KNOW his food seeking was intense (before we upped the oxytocin dose). When I asked my husband, he said that he felt that the food seeking during our most recent trip was still requiring high maintenance but it is unclear to me if he thought that Sasha's intensity was acute or if my husband merely felt a heavier burden of policing him since we were away from home. I suspect that the higher maintenance of being away from home did put more emotional stress on my husband so I know it needs to be taken into consideration when attaining input on my husband's opinion about Sasha's behaviors.
In any case, the weight is declining and we will continue to use his weight changes as one objective variable to track as we continue with this oxytocin experiment. Because Sasha does not appear to have the rapid weight gain symptom of HO in the absence of overeating, his weight loss is not our primary goal (his current height is 5'7" and he weighs 164 pounds or 170 cm and 74.5 kilos.) Nevertheless, we welcome the weight loss as one possible sign that he is needing less to eat.
If only we had a more convenient and objective way of measuring his food seeking behaviors!
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