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.

First Maintenance Summary

Six weeks of ridonculous low-calorie diet, done. Six weeks of maintenance, done.

I definitely edged up over 200.2 a few times, but every time, I knew why. I edged way over 200 twice, the first time on accident, the second time (last weekend) because I was loading up for a second round, and then got really sick and decided to put it off for a few days. Each and every time, it has been really easy to get back down with minimal effort and "dieting." I just cut all carbs and sugar and eat pretty strictly for 2-3 days (lean proteins, veggies, fruits, nuts, cheese) and my weight just slips back. I do think my stable weight adjusted up about a pound (from 198.2 to 199.4, which is what I kept coming back to in the second half of maintenance), but that's really no biggie.

Here's my final weight chart for maintenance, with "over" days highlighted. You can see that in every case, once I made an attempt to get it back under control, it happened pretty easily.

Day	Date	Weight
Day 1	12/14/2010	198.2
Day 2	12/15/2010	198.6
Day 3	12/16/2010	198.4
Day 4	12/17/2010	197.0
Day 5	12/18/2010	198.4
Day 6	12/19/2010	199.2
Day 7	12/20/2010	198.8
Day 8	12/21/2010	-
Day 9	12/22/2010	199.0
Day 10	12/23/2010	199.6
Day 11	12/24/2010	200.6
Day 12	12/25/2010	202.8
Day 13	12/26/2010	203.2
Day 14	12/27/2010	201.0
Day 15	12/28/2010	199.8
Day 16	12/29/2010	197.6
Day 17	12/30/2010	198.6
Day 18	12/31/2010	198.2
Day 19	1/1/2011	198.6
Day 20	1/2/2011	198.6
Day 21	1/3/2011	200.2
Day 22	1/4/2011	199.8
Day 23	1/5/2011	199.2
Day 24	1/6/2011	200.2
Day 25	1/7/2011	-
Day 26	1/8/2011	199.0
Day 27	1/9/2011	202.0
Day 28	1/10/2011	205.4
Day 29	1/11/2011	201.6
Day 30	1/12/2011	199.8
Day 31	1/13/2011	199.6
Day 32	1/14/2011	199.4
Day 33	1/15/2011	199.6
Day 34	1/16/2011	200.0
Day 35	1/17/2011	199.4
Day 36	1/18/2011	199.0
Day 37	1/19/2011	200.0
Day 38	1/20/2011	200.0
Day 39	1/22/2011	-
Day 40	1/23/2011	-
Day 41	1/24/2011	206.0
Day 42	1/25/2011	203.0
Day 43	1/26/2011	199.4

Next post will be on my plans for round two of shrinking.

Maintenace: P3, D32

I'm coming off another spurt of over-weight days, but honestly, I feel okay about it. I feel like it's all part of the learning process and that I'm getting back down to within two pounds of my maintenance weight with relative ease. Does that sound like justification or self-deception? Because it doesn't feel like it. It feels like sanity.

I have been far from perfect in maintenance, and I have been over 200 three times. Last week at one point, I was up seven pounds from my maintenance weight (not including the +/- accuracy range that Kristoise always reminds me about). But I reined it in, had a couple of days where I ate fewer calories and only veggies and protein, and I get back to my maintenance weight with relative ease. Back in my Weight Watchers days, I would gain a couple of pounds for no apparent reason, and it would take me two weeks to get them back off. On this diet, I only gain when I've eaten too much or had a sugar binge, and it comes right back off. For that reason, I do think my metabolism is working correctly in a way it hasn't for a long, long time.

Day 1	12/14/2010	198.2
Day 2	12/15/2010	198.6
Day 3	12/16/2010	198.4
Day 4	12/17/2010	197.0
Day 5	12/18/2010	198.4
Day 6	12/19/2010	199.2
Day 7	12/20/2010	198.8
Day 8	12/21/2010	-
Day 9	12/22/2010	199.0
Day 10	12/23/2010	199.6
Day 11	12/24/2010	200.6
Day 12	12/25/2010	202.8
Day 13	12/26/2010	203.2
Day 14	12/27/2010	201.0
Day 15	12/28/2010	199.8
Day 16	12/29/2010	197.6
Day 17	12/30/2010	198.6
Day 18	12/31/2010	198.2
Day 19	1/1/2011	198.6
Day 20	1/2/2011	198.6
Day 21	1/3/2011	200.2
Day 22	1/4/2011	199.8
Day 23	1/5/2011	199.2
Day 24	1/6/2011	201.2
Day 25	1/7/2011	200.0
Day 26	1/8/2011	199.0
Day 27	1/9/2011	202.0
Day 28	1/10/2011	205.4
Day 29	1/11/2011	201.6
Day 30	1/12/2011	199.8
Day 31	1/13/2011	199.6
Day 32	1/14/2011	199.4

I definitely have lost some attention and focus, which I think is natural but also a little dangerous. On her password-protected blog, Olivia (who is also in maintenance), wrote:

"I never want to return to the way I lived before, and I find myself doing so, not as much on a weight level as on an emotional level. I would say that although I've gained only 2.3 pounds back, I'm about 80% back to the way I lived before."

Olivia, I'm wondering if this is still true for you two weeks later or if you have made adjustments?

I can relate. Although my weight seems fairly stable, I am getting back into some habits that will probably not be good for me long term. When I was on the HCG portion of the diet, I was very conscious of caring for myself during what felt like a challenging period--long baths, early bedtimes, naps whenever possible, striking lipstick at least once or twice a week, not wearing yoga pants all day (I work from home, so can easily get away with looking very schlumpy on a regular basis). I never ate a single bite of anything after 7 p.m. I was eating all organic foods. Not a molecule of sugar, wheat, or artificial sweeteners. I've slipped on all these areas.

People talk about this diet as "miraculous." You know what? It's not really that miraculous. Honestly, to maintain this weight, I have to be committed to life changes long term, which I always knew intellectually but am now really understanding. Yes, I lost weight fairly easily and fairly quickly, and that felt miraculous at times, for sure. But there is nothing miraculous about keeping the weight off--it's about paying attention and not getting too far off course. A miraculous diet would be one where I could eat ice cream all day and still be thin. This ain't that!

I have always thought that my goal was to get to the place where I never think about or worry about weight and food. But I am trying to adjust my image of what it will be like to be a normal weight person. I am already getting to the place where a daily weigh-in feels like information more than it feels like a judgment, and as long as that's the case, I think a daily weigh-in most days for the rest of my life will probably be really useful.

A friend I went running this morning on the treadmills and we were next to a man who told us he was 75 years old, and that he weighs himself every morning, and if he's ever over 175, he makes an adjustment in what he eats for a few days until he gets back under. That doesn't seem crazy and obsessive, that seems like a really good fucking idea.

I start my second and final round in about nine days (I'll do load days not this coming weekend but next, and then start the drops and the 500 calories either Sunday or Monday). I'm actually not looking forward to it. It wasn't that hard the first time once I got over the initial hunger, but it was so damn inconvenient and ostentatious. So I'm kind of dreading it. And I don't hate my body quite so much any more, so the motivation to do something extreme isn't as strong. Still, it was so fast and effective that there really isn't a good reason not to do it, especially since I'd really like to do a sprint triathlon this year, and doing it without an extra 25-30 pounds will make a big difference in my training and likelihood of injury.

I'm going to do another post about goal weight, which is my latest mind fuck.