Friday was my last day of drops. I ate like a normal HCG day, except I did have a bit of that deli chicken that had the tiny bit of honey in it (I lost both days I had that chicken). Yesterday and today, I was supposed to stay on 500 calories but with no drops. Tomorrow is my last day of 500 calories, then I start official maintenance tomorrow.
Saturday was our trip to Washington, D.C. for the Christmas show with my in laws, my husband, and my daughter. A big fancy dinner before hand is part of the tradition, and because of travel time and other factors, I couldn't bring my own food.
The whole "get the HCG out of your system for three days" is one of the rules that doesn't make sense to me. If the homeopathic HCG is not potent enough to turn a pregnancy test positive and is not potent enough to cause immunity the way the drops do, then how is it potent enough to requite three days of withdrawal? Doesn't make any sense to me. So my plan going into this weekend was that I would try to eat 500 calories and I would stick to the basic protocol, but I wasn't going to worry about chicken vs. turkey or mixing vegetables.
Saturday night, I ordered a chef's salad without the bacon, cheese, dressing, or croutons. So here's what it had in it: lettuce, two whole hard-boiled eggs (I ate one), 6 cherry tomatoes, and about 100g grilled chicken, which they said was prepared with no fat, but who knows. Then I had decaf with about one thimble full of real cream (they had no milk). So I think for the day, I probably had in the range of 500-600 calories, counting lunch. I had almost no water, because we were traveling and in a performance for 9 hours of the day, and I didn't want to have to pee all day in public bathrooms all up and down I-95.
My day was crazy today. We got our tree up with the in laws, and then at noon, I went to my book club holiday book exchange. It was a brunch with delicious food: quiche, french bread, beet salad, seared tuna and cannelloni beans, chili, papaya and raspberries, coffee cake, and prosecco with blood orange soda. What did I eat? NOTHING. I had water. I didn't think any of it was close enough to protocol to risk it. So I had NOTHING because I am VIRTUOUS. Can you feel my virtue seeping through the interwebz?
Right after that, I had to dash to a 60th birthday party we were hosting for my father-in-law at a local sports bar (so he could watch the Browns game, play pool, and drink beer with his friends). There were chips and dip, veggies with ranch dressing, hot wings, beer, etc. I ordered a plain chefs salad, hold the cheese and croutons. It did have mixed veggies in it, and it had turkey and ham, both of which are off protocol. And I had water. For dinner, I had greens, chicken, and apple.
I feel kind of bloated tonight, and I can't figure out why unless it's because the food I ate today at the bar was probably more processed than what I have been used to (deli turkey and deli ham). Or it could be some kind of normal, monthly hormonal thing. I stepped on the scale (always a mistake at night) and I am up four pounds. I know that's the end-of-the-day weight, but I think it means I will be up a little tomorrow. So who knows if it is water or dieting failures or hormones or what.
I really think my body is just done with this. I lost very little weight the last two weeks (though still 2+ pounds a week, which is the healthy rate of weight loss). If I'm up tomorrow, it will be a bummer and I will flagellate myself for not staying perfectly on plan this weekend, but I mean, I did stick with the 500 cals a day and I did stick with healthy meats and veggies and fruits, I just ate a little egg, turkey, and ham two days earlier than I am allowed. I think given the fact that I am soon transitioning to real eating and that I had some challenging and tempting situations this week, I did very well.
I haven't been very hungry the last few days, even less hungry than I was at some points last week.
I have to admit, I'm nervous about maintenance. If I have been barely losing anything the last couple of weeks on 500 calories, how am I going to maintain weight eating 3-4x that much? The math doesn't make sense to me. But my body is done losing for now, that much I can tell. I think if I stayed on the 500 calories another week, I would lose very little additional weight. I think it needs a rest and a break.
So tomorrow, my last day of 500 calories, I will follow the plan perfectly. I will go to pilates in the morning. I will drink all my water and try to catch up from the drought that was this weekend. And then we'll see what happens. Whatever weight I am on Tuesday morning, that is my last HCG weight, and I'm supposed to stay within two pounds of that weight for the next 40 days.
| Day 36 | 12/6/2010 | 200.8 | 0.0 | 28.8 |
| Day 37 | 12/7/2010 | 199.2 | -1.6 | -30.4 |
| Day 38 | 12/8/2010 | 199.2 | 0.0 | -30.4 |
| Day 39 | 12/9/2010 | 198.8 | -0.4 | -30.8 |
| Day 40 | 12/10/2010 | 198.4 | -0.4 | -31.2 |
| Day 41 | 12/11/2010 | 197.6 | -0.8 | -32 |
| Day 42 | 12/12/2010 | 198.2 | 0.6 | -31.4 |
| Day 43 | 12/13/2010 | |||
| Week 6 summary: down 2.6# this week; 31.4 total | ||||
I don't know what to say here, Kat. I think you're doing so well overall---31.4 pounds AND WITH THAT CRAZY SCALE, so I think all will be well no matter what. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out. Just do the best you can (which you are doing) and then...you have to deal with the fear.
ReplyDeleteYou don't want to live in fear that your body is going to betray you and balloon up (I'm talking to myself here too). You have to deal with it in SOME way. You need to be able to eat. Maybe you need to trust the protocol...or if that's too hard because it's too weird, then trust your body.
Listen to your body and eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full. Trust it. If you do some of the old behaviors, then deal with them too. I have a feeling that THIS, NOW is where the real work begins. Where we learn to deal with life apart from food. You need to make peace with food because it is not your enemy, nor is your body. It's just a matter of learning the new way to live---eat good healthy things when hungry, stop when full.
I also think that you should BUY A SCALE if you want good feedback (that is not scale variation) to deal with what you're doing each day. If you don't do that, then don't trust the feedback, because it is faulty.
I am usually up 5 pounds at night from my morning weight, especially if I drink a lot of water before bed (which I do) and have not yet had a BM (which is the norm). TMI. But still. Don't worry!
The fear will mess you up, you need to relax, and do what it is that helps you to do this---spiritually, and/or with techniques like tapping, and/or with supportive counseling, and/or with yoga or dancing or music or whatever, and go aggressive there.
I don't understand anything about this diet, either, and think it is just as weird as you do. I also have a great deal of fear that I have been and will continue to work on.
Today is my first day off the drops (and I took some at 2am last night), so I am okay so far, no change that I can see. I'm hoping there might be a tad bit of weight loss tomorrow morning.
You'd have it too if you had a decent scale!!! Peace, relax, chill out, all will be well if you do, my friend!
PS I was interested in all the gory details! You're a bit ahead of me in maintenance, and I'm fascinated by it all :)
ReplyDeletewow, overwhelmed here from the virtue coming through the internets. you, m'dear, have fortitude.
ReplyDeletei also wanted to pipe in about your saying "I think if I stayed on the 500 calories another week, I would lose very little additional weight" and your worries about maintenance gain. hon, if you continued to eat 500 cal a day forever, you would still lose weight. yes, at a different rate because as you starved more and more, your body would slow down more and more. but you would keep losing until you died of starvation, because it takes more than 500 cal just to live. i checked this before and 500 cal is quite a bit less than what the folks in the concentration camps got every day, for a little perspective.
from what i can tell, the maintenance period is specifically designed so that you are consuming and burning the same number of cals/day. hence the no weight gain. and it all adds up if you run the numbers. right now, you are losing, say 2.5 lbs per wk. that translates to 8750 cal or 1250 cal a day. so you are eating 500 cal and still losing the equivalent of 1250, which means you are burning 1750. so if you eat 1750 cal, you are static. ok, that was all longer than i intended, but i just wanted to put the numbers in front of you so that you would believe them deep down.
Thank you kristoise. This gives us both (Kat and me too) some perspective!
ReplyDelete