All That Stuff I Said Yesterday? Scratch That (Round 2, Phase 3, Day 1)

I was going to entitle this post "Uncle," as in "I give up and cry uncle." Why? Because I've decided to stop phase 2 (VLCD and drops) and go into phase 3 (maintenance) as of 3:00 this morning when my hunger woke me for the third night in a row. But this time, I couldn't get back to sleep. I've been awake since then, thinking about the pep talks I got yesterday, thinking about my resolve (renewed only yesterday!) to give this at least another week before giving up on it. I've been awake since then thinking about how I was going to do my 10k training run this morning (70 minutes long including 45 minutes of running) on 3 egg whites. I've been thinking about how badly I want to stick with this, mostly just so I can say that I didn't quit.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought all my reasons for taking a break were better, more solid, and healthier than my reasons for continuing. And that's why I decided not to call this post "Uncle" after all. I am choosing to look at this as listening to my body and intuition rather than giving up or giving in.

Look, this diet works. I lost over 30 pounds in the first 40 days. It was honestly not even that hard. I was hungry at first, but I was losing so much weight it was worth it. I didn't feel weak or tired or low energy. I didn't feel mentally foggy or irritable or anxious. If anything, I felt better than ever. I felt bored with the food choices by the end, but not deprived. Not a single one of my fears about this diet came true, and the first round was awesome. My first maintenance went pretty smoothly; I was up and down a bit, but I feel like I "stuck my number."

For people researching this diet and stumbling across this post: I really can't say enough good about it. It has worked wonders for me.

But round 2 has felt hard and even unnatural from the beginning. It's partially that I feel less desperate, and therefore less willing to take extreme measures or feel extreme discomfort. It's partly that I'm training for this damn 10k, which I feel excited about and proud of, but which may be incompatible with the VLCD (after all, I am burning 400-600 calories in a typical training session and eating 500-700 on training days. It's just not enough fuel). It's partly that I have some strange hormonal stuff going on in my body this month (I won't bore the male readers with my lady stuff). It's partly that I have been trying (and failing)to get away with a few cheats, like a diet coke here and there or an extra fruit or protein when I'm really starving. It's partly that in the last week, I have changed up my meds (antidepressants) a bit, and that can have short or long-term effects on weight. It's partly that I feel like I am approaching what is probably an ideal weight for me, which has got to make the weight loss slower and harder.

Or it could be the combination of all those things together is making this round harder than I'm willing to put up with. Perhaps if I had only one of those things going on, it wouldn't feel so hard.

Whatever the reason, most of round 2 has been miserable. The first few days were pretty easy because I had loaded up well, but ever since, I have felt starving and sleepy and cranky. This isn't the right time for this diet for my body, and it has been trying to tell me that. Instead of trying to "gut it out" like I almost always do, I am going to gracefully and proactively stop before I have a big self-destructive cheat. This worked for me the first time, and I could tell it was working because it didn't feel like a starvation diet, but I was losing weight. This time, it does feel like a starvation diet, which means something isn't right.

This diet works. I have lost 42 pounds since Halloween! I am at the lowest weight I've seen since before my first pregnancy in early 2004, seven years ago. I can wear regular clothes in regular stores!

But most important of all, I kind of think I look decent. How's that for bragging? I like the way I look in clothes now. I like the shape of my body so much better. I do not constantly castigate myself when I look in the mirror. I give myself the occasional compliment.

So today I start 8 weeks of maintenance. I'm going to do a full round of maintenance (which is 8 weeks after the second round) even though I only half a round of HCG drops. I'm a little worried that the overtraining and undereating may have messed with my metabolism a bit, and I want to really get firmly set at this new weight in the high 180's. If I lose a little more naturally, great. If not, I'll decide in 8 weeks if I want to get the last 15-20 off using HCG or doing something else. I'm finishing up round to at 187.6, which means I have another nice, natural ceiling of 190 to watch out for during maintenance. It's a good psychological stop to have it be a nice round number that changes your tens digit.
 

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Total Loss: Round 2	Total Loss: Cumulative
Starting Weight (11/1/2010): 229.6
Weight @ End of Round 1 (12/14/2010): 198.2 (loss of 31.4 lbs)
Starting Weight, beginning of Round 2 (1/26/2011): 199.6
LD 1	1/26/2011	199.6	-
LD 2	1/27/2011	203	3.4
1	1/28/2011	204.6	1.6
2	1/29/2011	200.2	-4.4
3	1/30/2011	198.8	-1.4	-1.4	30.8
4	1/31/2011	198.2	-0.6	-1.6	31.4
5	2/1/2011	197	-1.2	-2.4	32.6
6	2/2/2011	195.6	-1.4	-4.0	34
7	2/3/2011	194.2	-1.4	-5.4	35.4
Week 1: down 5.4 for the week (not counting load weight), 35.4 total
8	2/4/2011	193.6	-0.6	-6.0	-36
9	2/5/2011	193.2	-0.4	-6.4	-36.4
10	2/6/2011	192.6	-0.6	-7.0	-37
11	2/7/2011	193	0.4	-6.6	-36.6
12	2/8/2011	191.4	-1.6	-8.2	-38.2
13	2/9/2011	189.8	-1.6	-9.8	-38.8
14	2/10/2011	189.4	-0.4	-10.2	-40.2
Week 2: down 4.8 for the week, down 10.2 total in Round 2, down 39.2 overall
15	2/11/2011	188.4	-1.0	-11.2	-41.2
16	2/12/2011	188.6	0.2	-11.0	-41
17	2/13/2011	188.8	0.2	-10.8	-40.8
18	2/14/2011	189	0.2	-10.6	-40.6
19	2/15/2011	188	-1.0	-11.6	-41.6
20	2/16/2011	187.6	-0.4	-12.0	-42
Week 3: down 1.8 for the week, down 12.0 total in Round 2, down 42 overall.

So bring it on, maintenance! I'm ready for ya.