ARGH (Round 3, Phase 2, Day 9)

The last two days, I hate this diet. I really fucking hate this diet. I am hungry, I feel deprived, I feel desperate for real food in a way that feels really fucked up and unnatural. Last week was pretty easy in terms of hunger, but this week is not easy at all. It is taking every shred of self-control not to dive into a pile of food and eat like a depraved, starved animal. We've had kid birthday parties the last two days, with positively delicious-looking pizza at each one. I've had to handle and serve pizza and cupcakes and potato chips and not have any. My kids had barbecued chicken, buttered peas, apples, and roasted potatoes for dinner last night, and I thought I was going to knock them over to get that food. And the weight loss is soooo slow so I don't even feel rewarded. Two nights ago, I was so hungry that I ate an extra apple and a tangerine, and last night, I had an extra half grapefruit. Sort of cheating, I guess, because I ate more than my daily allotment of 2 fruits, but it is the lamest and most unrewarding cheating I have ever done in my damn life.

At the suggestion of faithful blog readers Kristoise and Holly, I did some math. Math: the refuge of desperate people.

• Not counting load days, but starting from pre-load weights: By day 9 of Round 1, I had lost 5.6% of my body weight. In Round 2, I've lost 3.5% of my body weight in the same amount of time.
• Including load days in total weight loss: Round 1, I lost 6.1% of my weight in nine days, and in Round 2, I have lost 5.8%. 

Either way, it is definitely slower this time around, no doubt about it. Could it be because I have less to lose (but then wouldn't you think the percentages would be the same?) Could it be that I don't have the same slavish devotion to every rule? (I had an extra fruit and a half this week and even, GASP, mixed my vegetables one night). Could it be that I am approaching the weight that is ideal for my body, and that even if I'd like to lose more, I'm close to the weight my body wants to be? I don't know what it is, but it is fucking frustrating.  

Can you tell I am feeling testy?

I decided this morning that I was only going to do 20 days on this diet this time and then maintenance. Then I decided I was going to stop when I got to 187, no matter how soon that happened. I am just hating it so much.

But then I did three things:

1) I went back and looked at my day 9 blog post from Round 1, and realized I was feeling a lot of this stuff then (albeit with more positive stuff mixed in). So even though I was kind of miserable in the beginning last time, by 2-3 weeks in, it felt really easy. It helps to be reminded by my own self and my own experience that this will get easier soon. Has anyone else noticed a real flagging in motivation right around 1.5 weeks?

2) I went and tried on this pair of Gap khaki jeans that I have saved for ten years. I have a picture of myself wearing them almost ten years ago, standing with Holly's kids when they came to visit me in DC shortly after my 25th birthday. I remember getting that picture developed at the time and thinking, "wow, I kind of look . . . good! I look like a normal person and not a fat person!" I had been on WW for about a year and a half at that point and had weighed around 186 for many months in a row. I'm now 192.6, so I thought I'd try on the pants. They fit! They are a tiny bit tight, but not too tight to wear in public. They are, of course, 10 years out of style, but whatever. They're just khakis, right?. I also tried on a bunch of skirts I bought at H&M about 10 years ago, and they fit too, and even look sort of cute! So to be able to wear these very symbolic pants feels like a huge milestone even though (have I mentioned this yet? Have you heard?) I really hate this fucking diet lately.

3) I went back and looked at my old WW weight logs. When I first started losing weight in 1999, it took me TEN MONTHS to lose 37 pounds. And it did not feel easy, it felt pretty hard. This time around I have lost 37 pounds since Halloween, or in roughly 3  months. And yes, it has been hard, FER SURE, but it has been in 1/3 the time. And though I have been very focused on weight loss this second round, I daresay the biggest benefits have not even been totally weight related. I know, HERESY.

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Total Loss: Round 2	Total Loss: Cumulative
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

I felt very committed last time, and once I actually started, I was very certain I would finish the whole 40 days no matter what. I don't feel as committed or certain this time. So, look, no promises. I'm going to keep on keeping on until 21 days and see how I feel. That gives me 12 more days, which I can certainly do. I'm going to increase my drops from 12 drops three times a day to 15 drops three times a day. Either I will lose a bunch of weight in the next 12 days (10+ more lbs would be nice), in which case that will motivate me to keep going, or I won't lose a bunch of weight, which will motivate me to stay on longer.

Meanwhile, I'll just take it one day at a time and try to be "good" so I can lose as much as I can as quickly as I can. And I'm going to a fucking superbowl party tonight, where I will furiously knit in the corner and glower at the chili, chips, and onion dip, imagining that 100g of naked chicken, a tiny apple, 2c of spinach, and a bottle of water is JUST AS DELICIOUS AND SATISFYING as queso blanco, cold beer, and honey barbecue chicken wings.