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.

100's, I Hardly Knew Ye (P2, D36)

After breaking the 200 barrier and getting in the 100's, I was back up the next day and then stayed the same today.

There are two possible reasons: 1) Remember that ONE ELBOW of mac and cheese that I ate on Saturday night? I know you aren't supposed to have any starch at all; they even discourage powdered stevia for the amount of starch/binder in that. I honestly didn't think that small amount made a difference, but it seems like it probably did. So am I really in the position of losing 2+ weight loss days out of my last week because I ate one elbow of mac and cheese, which was totally not worth it? It would appear that is my situation. 2) I ran out of voodoo drops on Friday unexpectedly, so I was taking a lot less than I normally take until I could get more (planned for Monday night, when I was already scheduled to see Shannon). Since I still don't didn't believe in the voodoo drops 100% (I reckon I do now), I thought it would be no big deal to cut way back until it was convenient to take more, and/or stop entirely for a day or two. I managed to get some on Saturday, so I only went a day with fewer drops.

Kristoise would say it is the scale's inaccuracy or some normal bodily vicissitude that will correct itself. But look. I have deviated from the food plan exactly twice: once for a modicum of organic, free range turkey on Thanksgiving and once for one elbow of mac and cheese (have I mentioned yet that it was only ONE ELBOW!?!?!?!?) Both times I stalled or gained. I have deviated from the rest of the plan three times: I was using mint toothpaste early on (which you're not supposed to use with the homeopathy drops) and I was unwittingly using a Burt's Bees lip balm with oil in it, and I was taking about 1/4 of the recommended dosage of the HCG on Friday and Saturday. When I fixed those three things, the plateaus broke. So in my small case study of one, I have learned the following important lesson, which I guess I could only learn for myself despite being told it again and again by Shannon and others: FOLLOW THE FUCKING DIET. :) *

I only have three regular blog readers that I know of (at least commenters), and two of you know me well enough to know that I am not exactly a world-famous optimist. The third has been reading along long enough to have probably figured that out! I have been thinking and thinking this morning about the concept of self-sabotage--it seems a very common phenomenon that when someone breaks through a meaningful or symbolic barrier for them (under 200 pounds, back to their wedding weight, etc.), they fuck it up and gain it back within the next week.  So I've been thinking, did I eat that ONE ELBOW of mac'n'cheese because I couldn't handle being under 200? Did I let my drops run out because I couldn't handle the success I'm having?

The possibility of this kind of self-sabotage doesn't resonate deeply with me...I don't feel like I'm afraid of success on this diet. But I also wouldn't put it past me or discount it entirely. I would honestly not be surprised if I uncovered some self-sabotage underneath everything if I really spent some time on it.

But here's the thing. Today, I am really not down at all about losing 2+ of my final 7 days of weight loss because of ONE ELBOW of macaroni and cheese or getting hubristic about not needing the drops. I was sort of beating myself up for fucking up almost out of habit, but I dunno, maybe Olivia** is starting to rub off on me, but I sort of look at this last-minute backtrack as a gift. And here's why:

1) After weeks of worrying about maintenance, I have started to get cocky about it and drink the kool-aid that it will be magically easy for me to resist foods that are bad for me. I think I needed to be pulled up short and reminded that I am someone who struggles with food. I just am, and I probably always will be. I'm hoping this weight loss gives me a jump start and motivates me to want to keep it off through healthy eating and exercise, but I am never going to be a person who looks at a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and says "meh, I could take it or leave it." So on Saturday night, KNOWING that any starch at all could jeopardize DAYS of weight loss, I said, "fuck it, I'm eating one elbow of macaroni and cheese just to get the taste of it."

2) I have got to chill the fuck out about a pound gain here, a pound loss there. Gaining at the very end and not really making a federal case about it in my own mind feels really nice; like I am letting out a breath I have been holding in.

3) Similar to #2, being gentle with myself feels kind of liberating. This is something I have learned am learning from Olivia. My fear with being gentle with myself is that it's a slippery slope to a completely libertine world view. So, to take this as an example, if I don't beat the shit out of myself (metaphorically and mentally, of course) for fucking up the diet, then I will continue to fuck it up. What else would get me back on track other than severe punishment and recriminations? What I see Olivia do is be as gentle and forgiving with herself as she would be with me, and then GET BACK ON TRACK ANYWAY. It's kind of amazing, and it is a skill I'd like to practice. If it doesn't work and is, in fact, a slippery slope, I can always go back to beating myself back up. 

4) For the cost of a pound or two and a stall of at least two days, I learned that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (called "macken" in my house) is not good. It just isn't. When you shovel it mindlessly into your mouth and get hit with that nice salt and fat combo (see David Kessler's excellent book, the End of Overeating, for more on how the salt+fat+sugar trifecta gets you addicted to processed food), you feel good, and it tastes warm and comforting and yummy. It used to be one of my favorite "crap" foods. But when you have been eating a lot of air pie for 35 days, what it takes like is cheap, pasty, grainy pasta with watery, salty, flat-tasting cheese-ish sauce. More than learning that macken isn't good, I learned that some foods I used to love aren't good. I hope to carry that through to maintenance and beyond and learn to taste foods anew each time to discover if they are worth the time and calories before mindlessly eating then. This discovery alone was worth the cost.

Let me stop there lest you think the lady doth protest too much if she feels the need to write 101 reasons why she doesn't care at all that she gained/stalled. The bottom line is, I'm okay. Happy, even. I'd hoped to lose 35 pounds on this diet, and I still might. But if I only lose 30, it's okay. It's all good. I just need to keep doing what I'm doing--I'll try to get a walk today, drink plenty of water, eat foods that are protocol-approved, and NOT EAT EVEN ONE MACARONI ELBOW! I need to "watch and work and [not] give up." (~Anne Lamott)

My last day of drops is this Friday, then I go three more days on 500 calories, then Tuesday, a week from tomorrow, is my first day on maintenance.

*For those of you who are still skeptical about why or how someone's weight could be affected by all these seemingly silly and random rules, I have thoughts on that beyond the alleged chemical interactions of these foods. I'm going to do a separate post on that, hopefully later today if the ole day job doesn't interfere too much.

**Olivia is my groovy HCG diet buddy; can't even remember how we connected now, but we are on the same general P2 timeline, very close in weight, and have other similarities that have to do with a general willingness to try alternative/hippie dippie shit (does that sound fair, Olivia?) and a thoughtfulness about weight loss that is not characteristic of your average "ZOMG, I am sooo fattt" LOL" twitterer. Olivia is into EFT (or, what she calls "tapping") and Jesus***, and knows far more about these two topics than either of my two readers or myself.  She is also a super optimist, a lovely soul, and someone who constantly looks on the bright side. She lives on the West Coast and we have never met.

Olivia blogs publicly at http://happyluau.blogspot.com/ and she also has a private HCG weight loss blog. She may or may not be willing to share that private blog with you, but she might if you prove yourself to be a caring and sensitive soul on the HCG journey yourself, and if you walk over hot coals and give her a tribute of four gold shekels, she might be willing to give you access. No promises.

***for some idea, the idea of hyperlinking Jesus to a Wikipedia article in the same way you would link FIFA cracks me up.

Day 29	11/29/2010	203.2	-0.4	-26.4
Day 30	11/30/2010	203.2	0.0	-26.4
Day 31	12/1/2010	201.4	-1.8	-28.2
Day 32	12/2/2010	201	-0.4	-28.6
Day 33	12/3/2010	200.8	-0.2	-28.8
Day 34	12/4/2010	199.6	-0.8	-30
Day 35	12/5/2010	200.8	1.2	-28.8
Week 5 summary: down 2.8# this week; 28.8  total
Day 36	12/6/2010	200.8	0.0	28.8

Starting Week Five (P2, D29)

Very small loss this morning (-0.4) but I woke up really excited and hopeful about starting a new week. I have two weeks left, and I realize I'm getting obsessive, anxious, and really focused on numbers and what maintenance will bring. I keep looking at the last 10 days or so as a mini-plateau, but two Mondays ago I was 212.4 and two weeks later, I am 203. That's actually really awesome, and I don't know why I need to undermine my success. It's my perfectionist-yet-underachiever thing at work, I think.

So today, I'm resolving just to work the plan the best I can, mix it up a bit where it makes sense, and just let go of the obsessive focus I've had the last week, which did not do me a bit of good.

I need to bring calm focus to all areas of my life including my job, my marriage, my weight loss protocol, my relationship with my children, and the fucking holidays. I think "calm focus" can be best summed up by the Serenity Prayer, which has always spoken to me (even when I was a child), even though I have not, until very recently, identified as an addict. I am just a puppet master who likes to be the boss of everything.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

So I woke up this morning with a spring in my step. I had grapefruit for breakfast instead of waiting until lunch to eat anything. Did a work conference call, then felt scattered, so instead of fucking around on Facebook, I took a very brisk 45 minute walk. I did a lot of thinking on that walk that I think was very helpful to me. I don't spend very much time alone with my thoughts (I prefer to be busy and distracted), and whenever I do it, I can usually uncover something valuable. Plus, I got to listen to really good music.

I did that on Saturday, too. R and I got in a fight and I took a walk (instead of eating, crying, fuming, shopping, or any of the other coping techniques I might usually employ). Wow, this looks remarkably like sanity!

When I returned from my walk this morning, I straightened my office (sometimes I think I need an organized environment in order to have an organized head). Then I began work in earnest around 11 a.m. I worked two solid hours before losing my focus again. So here I am.

Anyway, the point is that I am renewing my commitment to this diet for the last two weeks. It never really waned, and I think I've been doing everything right, but I'm going to try some new tactics this week and see what happens:

• mix it up with eating times. I have gotten in the habit of having only coffee for breakfast and not eating food until lunch. I'm going to play around with eating a fruit for breakfast or maybe even trying a double protein lunch and no dinner.
• I'm going back to eating only chicken and grass-fed beef. I've been adding some shrimp, tuna, white fish and other meats for variety, but my weight loss has also slowed down. Who knows if that is why.
• exercise every day, even if only briefly. I had so much time off last week with the kids and holiday schedules that I missed a lot of days.
• water: I've been getting lazy about water since it's gotten really cold here. I've definitely been getting 64 oz, but some days not more than that, and I am recommitting to drink at least 100 oz a day (48 oz so far today at 2:00 EST)
• stop stressing about the numbers on the scale. They are what they are, and what I lose in 40 days is what I lose in 40 days.
• stop stressing about maintenance, which isn't happening for 2 more weeks anyway.

Doing this diet has really given me a number of gifts, which I need to do a separate blog post about so that I can keep my focus on the positive. All these changes are good and necessary.

Onward, ho!

Self Care

A therapist told me once that when you have any kind of addition (be it food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, whatever), your development of coping tools basically stopped at the onset of that behavior. In other words, "normal" people spend most of their adult lives developing tools for their "coping toolbox," but people who have an addiction or an addictive behavior STOP creating and honing new tools.

I started binge eating in my early teens. Pretty much ever since then, it has been my go-to behavior for any extreme emotion. My most favorite thing to do when I'm feeling low, tired, sad, bored, or even celebratory is to get something sweet (ice cream, cookies, candy) and read in bed while eating until I am stuffed and just on the edge of overfull. In other words, my main forms of comfort, self-indulgence, and self care have to do with eating and being lazy. And if you follow the theory this therapist shared with me, my self-care and coping techniques are kind of stunted back to the behaviors of a 12-year old, because that's when I started binge eating and stopped developing other tools.

I felt like I was starting to turn that around earlier this year when I was exercising and training for the triathlon. I got to the point when my body was looking forward to movement, and it felt like self-care to go for a swim or a circuit-training session. But then I got a pretty severe injury three days before my first race (tore two ligaments in my ankle and am still recovering 4 months later).

So I want to come up with some other ways of taking care of myself during this protocol (both the low-cal phase and the maintenance phase). As I've said before, I feel like if I don't work on my brain and work on my habits during this time, then I'll just go right back to where I was before, and I really don't want to do that.

Self-Care Ideas

• take a hot bath (this will be nicer and nicer the smaller I get, because right now, the water doesn't cover my whole body, but it will in a few months! Also nice during the winter months!)
• have a cup of tea and listen to music
• take a walk around the block with my ipod
• yoga (usually I don't want to "waste" my exercise on yoga because I don't think of it as hard enough, but it will be a great thing to do while I'm eating so few calories, and will maybe help me relax as well) 
• journaling (both on this blog and in a notebook I'm keeping where I track my daily foods and weights)
• reading (instead of watching Hulu all night, if I read at least an hour before bed, I feel a lot calmer and more rested).
• bed by 10 p.m.
• creative pursuits (when I feel my creativity, I feel happier. I need to figure out a way to make some time every week to do something creative.)
• regular check ins with friends who make me feel good about myself--not necessarily the people I see the most or the people I'm related to, but the people who make me feel strong and confident and loved--if you even know about this blog, you are on that list!

I am a mother of two young children (age 2 and 5) with a full-time job. So time is in short supply, and one of the nice things about binge eating as a coping mechanism is that it doesn't take any time. Most of the things on my list take time.

But look, I have to just make the time. I have to replace what I've been doing with something else, because if eating less just opens up a huge, needy hole, then I will fail.

Any other suggestions? What do you do for self care that doesn't involve food?