So yeah, I had done two half-assed load days last weekend, but didn't really do them right because I was traveling for work and super busy. And I didn't have my drops with me (you're supposed to start drops on load days, so that your first lo-cal day is actually day 3 of drops). Then on the evening of my second load day, I got what seemed to be the stomach flu and was laid out flat for two days. Seemed like a pretty easy and natural way to switch to 500 cals to me, but my coach/friend Shannon said I should just wait until I was well and could do an honest load up.
So then I found myself 6 pounds up and facing two MORE load days. But I just ate pretty healthy the last few days, nothing extreme, and got my weight back under 200.
Now TODAY, I load up for the second time in a week. This sounds awesome to all of you in perennial diet land, right? It's so weird, but it actually isn't awesome. It's kind of sickening. I went to the grocery store last night and bought all the fattening, carb-y foods that I haven't been having, and honestly, as God is my witness, I was having a hard time thinking of things to eat. When I was on the VLCD (very low-calorie diet) portion of the diet the first time (during which I lost 31 pounds), I used to fantasize about what I would eventually eat. I've been instructed to try and eat lots of healthy fats and as many calories as I can possibly consume over the next two days. I did get my favorite ice cream, Cheetos, and oh, yeah right, the healthy fats like guacamole, salmon, chicken salad, egg salad. I'm going to have pizza one night with this really yummy spicy chocolate pudding that I have been offered (and have refused, faithfully) three times in the last three months. Do you notice I am not exactly craving filet mignon and truffle-saffron infused new potatoes in a port wine reduction? I mean, Cheetos and Ben & Jerry's? It is all so pedestrian and American. Sigh.This tells me that, at heart, I am not a foodie.
But honestly? And I know you don't believe me. But I could do without it. I don't know if it's having permission that takes the fun out of binge eating or if something has really changed in me over the last 12 weeks, but I am just "meh" about everything. I'm finding that the cravings I have for unhealthy fats and carbs have more to do with my emotional state than with hunger or taste. When I started this diet and heard about someone who cut out sugar and flour forever as a result of this diet, I couldn't imagine it. 3 months later, it still sounds less than ideal, but I could imagine it. I hope I don't have to do it, but it doesn't seem like a fate worse than death.
I know, it's crazy. I'm totally full of shit. I have eaten stuff I wasn't supposed to eat over the last three months for sure, despite all this talk about how I can totally live without it. I guess what I'm saying is that when I am calm and in my right mind and eating solely because of hunger and taste, I can resist just about anything. It's those flash cravings, the I MUST HAVE SOMETHING SWEET RIGHT NOW that are hard to resist, and those are not based on real hunger or real taste--I would eat anything sweet in that state, including Twinkies or
Anyway. I'm eating like it's going out of style for two days, then Friday I go back on 500 calories a day. I have been dreading and anticipating the hunger and boredom for weeks, and many times have considered just blowing off the second round. But now that it's here, I'm excited and ready to go. This schedule should have me finishing up my forty days in mid-March.
Meanwhile, I'm training for a 10k in early April (it's a progressive walk/run program). I'm not sure I'll be able to do the full training while eating so few calories, but all I can do is try and see. The worst that can happen is that I'll pass out and fly off the back of the treadmill like one of those sad sacks on the Biggest Loser.
Not sure if I'll post every day in my second round of shrinking, or if I'll need to. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I think I need to revisit my book and protocol. I have forgotten lots of stuff.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Diet in Review
I feel like my tag line (a skeptic takes on the HCG diet) requires me to do a little retrospective of the last 43 days. You know...misty, water-colored memories of the way we were.
When I started this diet, I thought it was absolute horse shit. I had seen a couple of good friends do well on it and had resisted joining them for months while I maintained a small weight loss and recovered from a serious ankle injury. But once my weight started creeping back up and I regained in a month what it had taken me 15 months to lose, I just panicked. I did my research. I talked about it with everyone I know (and most people fell into two camps: very in favor or very against). I weighed pros and cons. I carefully considered. And then I just did it, telling Shannon privately not to be embarrassed or to feel like a failure if I dropped out after a few days. I honestly did not think I could hack being super hungry.
And I was super hungry for the first week or so. I'm told it could be because I didn't load up properly or it could be because I had a lot of sugar detoxing to do. Who knows. But I was super hungry. And you know what? It didn't kill me! I felt otherwise fine. And I lost a shit load of weight the first week (13.8 lbs the first week alone). I started adjusting my expectations and planned to lose 35-40 pounds; after all, if I could lose almost 14 the first week, surely I could lose 26 more in FIVE additional weeks, right?
Weeks 2-5 were actually pretty easy. I ate mostly chicken and lean, grass-fed ground beef with occasional fish thrown in for variety. I pan fried my meat with no oil in a nonstick pan and usually ate it over a salad of spinach or mixed greens, though I did a lot of cucumber and tomato too. I varied my fruit as much as I could considering I was only allowed to have 4 different fruits. I tried to vary the time of day I ate. I did light exercise (yoga, walking) 3-5 times a week (the advice was to exercise a lesser amount but every day, I did more but not every day). My cheats were so minor that I think they hardly count as cheats, considering I could have binged on pizza or something.
I felt GOOD. I felt physically fine, mentally sharp, and mostly upbeat and positive. I felt so good that I forgot to take my crazy pills for a week (wellbutrin and lexapro) and had a bit of a crash, which manifested itself mostly in feeling really pissed off at everyone all the time. But mostly I felt less depressed and less anxious than I have in years. My theory is that sugar really tweaks my anxiety, but it's a theory I look forward to testing in a very conscious, deliberate way either during maintenance or on my next gorge days.
I don't think I had quite as much muscle strength or endurance as I normally do, but I had plenty to do my daily activities with ease plus some light exercise. I had way more energy at night in the 8-11p.m. time frame than I usually do.
I replaced some of my bad eating habits or routines with better habits: I've been exercising with friends a lot this month (shooting for 3x a week of either walks or pilates classes at the gym). I've been knitting at night while I watch TV (mostly Intervention), which feels relaxing and productive. I know watching TV is not ideal and that reading or doing something around the house would be better, and hopefully that will work well for me soon. I have been blogging a lot here and reading up on the diet, which I think has helped my daytime cravings and habits.
Week 6, I started to get hungry again, and I started to suspect that my body was just DONE, but I stuck with it mostly for bragging rights--I wanted to be able to say I finished the whole t hing. But I lost very little weight (in the following chart, you can see I lost only 1.4 lbs in the last 10 days. That would be a pretty normal rate for me on Weight Watchers, by the way; about a pound a week.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that I didn't lose a little more. My goal was to lose 35-40 pounds (I have now learned that the MD associated with my local group says to stop at 34 no matter what, so I didn't even have a realistic goal in the first place!) and then be better positioned to lose the last 20 or so the old-fashioned way. But I have about 30 left to lose, so I feel fairly certain I'll be doing another round in late January/early February to get the last 30 off. And wouldn't it be nice if I could do it in 4 or 5 weeks instead of 6 weeks? I think Holly (a commenter) is going to do it with me then. Olivia can't start her second round until later in the spring because of various other life commitments, but I know she'll be following along and trying to actively participate in her own maintenance.
So, hearkening back to the pros and cons I did at the beginning before I knew what this diet was about, let me give a new perspective on the pros and cons.
PROS (of this diet, as opposed to diets in general):
1. You lose a lot of weight very fast. This allows you to maintain enthusiasm and will power because it gives you instant gratification.
2. You're eating super healthy food--organic meat, fruit and vegetables, which just makes you feel really good and healthy.
3. Anyone can do this--it's so short! It's only 40 days (or less even). If you hate it, you just have to hang in there for 6 weeks. Anyone can do that.
4. I had plenty of energy the whole time while still losing weight rapidly.
5. My body fat monitor says I have lost fat and increased muscle, despite losing 31 pounds in 43 days.
6. The limited choice of food actually frees you up from thinking about food all the time and figuring out how to game the system. You only have a few choices.
7. My sense of taste is greatly enhanced.
8. I understand more about the difference between cravings and hunger and hope to take that knowledge with me into maintenance and beyond.
9. This has been tremendous validation of my willpower for me, considering I haven't had much faith in it. I almost think a total detox diet like this was the only way I could get out of the sugar rut I was in. Had I done WW or a similar program, I would have cheated because I would have still been eating sugar, which would have let to binges.
10. It is relatively easy, or at least it feels easy. While I have blogged at length about how I think some of the rules are really dumb, they really aren't THAT hard to follow, whether or not you believe them. I swear. I know it looks hard, but it really wasn't. I am giving you the straight skinny here--I'm not selling drops or anything.
11. HUGE health benefits. I have lost 31 pounds, reduced my BMI from 34 to 29 (from obese to merely overweight), and some recent lab tests confirmed that this diet (probably in conjunction with the massive exercise program I undertook from January through July) has reduced my bad cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and raised my good cholesterol. The last time I had labs done was in early 2008 right after having a baby, so it's been almost 3 years, but the exercise and diet are the most likely culprits for the positive changes in my labs.
12. Discipline and confidence--it has got to be good for my weight loss efforts and for my psyche overall to really believe I can do something instead of constantly feeling like a big failure.
CONS (of this particular diet, as opposed to diets in general):
1. I was worried about the impact of this diet on my almost-6-year-old daughter, and in fact she was very aware of it. No matter how I tried to explain it to her in terms of health and shrinking my body to make intense exercise safer, she was constantly offering me food. Somewhere along the line, she learned about Karen Carpenter (probably because her horrible Christmas carol is on the radio every five minutes) and in the last few days has asked me if I am starving myself and if I'm going to die "like that singer." I look at it as an opportunity for education, but I would never, ever, recommend that SHE ever do this diet to lose weight (unnecessarily extreme, at least for anyone under 21), which I recognize is highly hypocritical.
2. It ain't cheap. The drops cost between $20-60 a pop, depending on where you get them and what you get. I needed three "pops." I am lucky to have a friend who has been coaching me to prepare for starting an HCG clinic, but some people also pay hundreds for the coaching.
3. Eating is a pain. We eat out a lot, we eat with friends a lot, and there is just no way to do that safely. The food is too specific. So I had to either eat before I went or bring my own food, either of which leads to questions and logistical annoyances. Plus, the food is so limited it gets boring.
4. I felt a little like a crazy person. I have a lot of smart, rational friends and relatives who looked on this diet at best with bemused acceptance and at worst with hostility. This diet just SOUNDS crazy, and when you tell people about it, they think you are crazy. That won't bother some people, but it was really hard for me. The social support for a radical diet like this is just not there the same way it is for other kinds of eating regiments.
5. You get sort of obsessed with your weight and the diet, which could be a bad thing for people with a history of certain kinds of eating disorders. I thought about food very little, but I thought about the diet a lot. I think it would be hard to be very successful without that kind of focus. But I will say my productiveness at work flagged in the last few weeks, what with maintaining this blog and researching recipes and such.
6. There remains little or no scientific evidence of the validity of this diet, which can make it hard to power through when motivation is flagging (which is why the quick weight loss is such a good reinforcement). There are very few case studies out there on the interwebz of long-term, successful weight loss. There are very few studies of any kind either about the HCG diet in general or the homeopathic HCG drops in particular.
*******
On balance? Not the slightest regret. I am so glad I did it. It started out as an experiment, and now I am 31 pounds lighter in 43 days. The real proof will be whether I have kept it off in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. I feel like I have some things in place that will help me succeed on the maintenance plan, and I have learned a lot about my own body that will serve me well in the next round.
Would I recommend it to someone else? A qualified yes. If you have at least 20 pounds to lose, if you have a history of issues with food, if you feel like you have tried lots of other things and failed, and if you are prepared to really commit to this 100% for 6 weeks of weight loss and 6 weeks of maintenance, then yes, I would recommend it for you.
If any of these conditions aren't true, I would consider a more traditional weight loss program first.
Thoughts? Comments? Agree or disagree with any of my pros and cons?
When I started this diet, I thought it was absolute horse shit. I had seen a couple of good friends do well on it and had resisted joining them for months while I maintained a small weight loss and recovered from a serious ankle injury. But once my weight started creeping back up and I regained in a month what it had taken me 15 months to lose, I just panicked. I did my research. I talked about it with everyone I know (and most people fell into two camps: very in favor or very against). I weighed pros and cons. I carefully considered. And then I just did it, telling Shannon privately not to be embarrassed or to feel like a failure if I dropped out after a few days. I honestly did not think I could hack being super hungry.
And I was super hungry for the first week or so. I'm told it could be because I didn't load up properly or it could be because I had a lot of sugar detoxing to do. Who knows. But I was super hungry. And you know what? It didn't kill me! I felt otherwise fine. And I lost a shit load of weight the first week (13.8 lbs the first week alone). I started adjusting my expectations and planned to lose 35-40 pounds; after all, if I could lose almost 14 the first week, surely I could lose 26 more in FIVE additional weeks, right?
Weeks 2-5 were actually pretty easy. I ate mostly chicken and lean, grass-fed ground beef with occasional fish thrown in for variety. I pan fried my meat with no oil in a nonstick pan and usually ate it over a salad of spinach or mixed greens, though I did a lot of cucumber and tomato too. I varied my fruit as much as I could considering I was only allowed to have 4 different fruits. I tried to vary the time of day I ate. I did light exercise (yoga, walking) 3-5 times a week (the advice was to exercise a lesser amount but every day, I did more but not every day). My cheats were so minor that I think they hardly count as cheats, considering I could have binged on pizza or something.
I felt GOOD. I felt physically fine, mentally sharp, and mostly upbeat and positive. I felt so good that I forgot to take my crazy pills for a week (wellbutrin and lexapro) and had a bit of a crash, which manifested itself mostly in feeling really pissed off at everyone all the time. But mostly I felt less depressed and less anxious than I have in years. My theory is that sugar really tweaks my anxiety, but it's a theory I look forward to testing in a very conscious, deliberate way either during maintenance or on my next gorge days.
I don't think I had quite as much muscle strength or endurance as I normally do, but I had plenty to do my daily activities with ease plus some light exercise. I had way more energy at night in the 8-11p.m. time frame than I usually do.
I replaced some of my bad eating habits or routines with better habits: I've been exercising with friends a lot this month (shooting for 3x a week of either walks or pilates classes at the gym). I've been knitting at night while I watch TV (mostly Intervention), which feels relaxing and productive. I know watching TV is not ideal and that reading or doing something around the house would be better, and hopefully that will work well for me soon. I have been blogging a lot here and reading up on the diet, which I think has helped my daytime cravings and habits.
Week 6, I started to get hungry again, and I started to suspect that my body was just DONE, but I stuck with it mostly for bragging rights--I wanted to be able to say I finished the whole t hing. But I lost very little weight (in the following chart, you can see I lost only 1.4 lbs in the last 10 days. That would be a pretty normal rate for me on Weight Watchers, by the way; about a pound a week.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that I didn't lose a little more. My goal was to lose 35-40 pounds (I have now learned that the MD associated with my local group says to stop at 34 no matter what, so I didn't even have a realistic goal in the first place!) and then be better positioned to lose the last 20 or so the old-fashioned way. But I have about 30 left to lose, so I feel fairly certain I'll be doing another round in late January/early February to get the last 30 off. And wouldn't it be nice if I could do it in 4 or 5 weeks instead of 6 weeks? I think Holly (a commenter) is going to do it with me then. Olivia can't start her second round until later in the spring because of various other life commitments, but I know she'll be following along and trying to actively participate in her own maintenance.
So, hearkening back to the pros and cons I did at the beginning before I knew what this diet was about, let me give a new perspective on the pros and cons.
PROS (of this diet, as opposed to diets in general):
1. You lose a lot of weight very fast. This allows you to maintain enthusiasm and will power because it gives you instant gratification.
2. You're eating super healthy food--organic meat, fruit and vegetables, which just makes you feel really good and healthy.
3. Anyone can do this--it's so short! It's only 40 days (or less even). If you hate it, you just have to hang in there for 6 weeks. Anyone can do that.
4. I had plenty of energy the whole time while still losing weight rapidly.
5. My body fat monitor says I have lost fat and increased muscle, despite losing 31 pounds in 43 days.
6. The limited choice of food actually frees you up from thinking about food all the time and figuring out how to game the system. You only have a few choices.
7. My sense of taste is greatly enhanced.
8. I understand more about the difference between cravings and hunger and hope to take that knowledge with me into maintenance and beyond.
9. This has been tremendous validation of my willpower for me, considering I haven't had much faith in it. I almost think a total detox diet like this was the only way I could get out of the sugar rut I was in. Had I done WW or a similar program, I would have cheated because I would have still been eating sugar, which would have let to binges.
10. It is relatively easy, or at least it feels easy. While I have blogged at length about how I think some of the rules are really dumb, they really aren't THAT hard to follow, whether or not you believe them. I swear. I know it looks hard, but it really wasn't. I am giving you the straight skinny here--I'm not selling drops or anything.
11. HUGE health benefits. I have lost 31 pounds, reduced my BMI from 34 to 29 (from obese to merely overweight), and some recent lab tests confirmed that this diet (probably in conjunction with the massive exercise program I undertook from January through July) has reduced my bad cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and raised my good cholesterol. The last time I had labs done was in early 2008 right after having a baby, so it's been almost 3 years, but the exercise and diet are the most likely culprits for the positive changes in my labs.
12. Discipline and confidence--it has got to be good for my weight loss efforts and for my psyche overall to really believe I can do something instead of constantly feeling like a big failure.
CONS (of this particular diet, as opposed to diets in general):
1. I was worried about the impact of this diet on my almost-6-year-old daughter, and in fact she was very aware of it. No matter how I tried to explain it to her in terms of health and shrinking my body to make intense exercise safer, she was constantly offering me food. Somewhere along the line, she learned about Karen Carpenter (probably because her horrible Christmas carol is on the radio every five minutes) and in the last few days has asked me if I am starving myself and if I'm going to die "like that singer." I look at it as an opportunity for education, but I would never, ever, recommend that SHE ever do this diet to lose weight (unnecessarily extreme, at least for anyone under 21), which I recognize is highly hypocritical.
2. It ain't cheap. The drops cost between $20-60 a pop, depending on where you get them and what you get. I needed three "pops." I am lucky to have a friend who has been coaching me to prepare for starting an HCG clinic, but some people also pay hundreds for the coaching.
3. Eating is a pain. We eat out a lot, we eat with friends a lot, and there is just no way to do that safely. The food is too specific. So I had to either eat before I went or bring my own food, either of which leads to questions and logistical annoyances. Plus, the food is so limited it gets boring.
4. I felt a little like a crazy person. I have a lot of smart, rational friends and relatives who looked on this diet at best with bemused acceptance and at worst with hostility. This diet just SOUNDS crazy, and when you tell people about it, they think you are crazy. That won't bother some people, but it was really hard for me. The social support for a radical diet like this is just not there the same way it is for other kinds of eating regiments.
5. You get sort of obsessed with your weight and the diet, which could be a bad thing for people with a history of certain kinds of eating disorders. I thought about food very little, but I thought about the diet a lot. I think it would be hard to be very successful without that kind of focus. But I will say my productiveness at work flagged in the last few weeks, what with maintaining this blog and researching recipes and such.
6. There remains little or no scientific evidence of the validity of this diet, which can make it hard to power through when motivation is flagging (which is why the quick weight loss is such a good reinforcement). There are very few case studies out there on the interwebz of long-term, successful weight loss. There are very few studies of any kind either about the HCG diet in general or the homeopathic HCG drops in particular.
*******
On balance? Not the slightest regret. I am so glad I did it. It started out as an experiment, and now I am 31 pounds lighter in 43 days. The real proof will be whether I have kept it off in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. I feel like I have some things in place that will help me succeed on the maintenance plan, and I have learned a lot about my own body that will serve me well in the next round.
Would I recommend it to someone else? A qualified yes. If you have at least 20 pounds to lose, if you have a history of issues with food, if you feel like you have tried lots of other things and failed, and if you are prepared to really commit to this 100% for 6 weeks of weight loss and 6 weeks of maintenance, then yes, I would recommend it for you.
If any of these conditions aren't true, I would consider a more traditional weight loss program first.
Thoughts? Comments? Agree or disagree with any of my pros and cons?
My Maintenance Plan
The super structure of this diet has really helped me, and while I need to learn to eat like a regular person eventually, I think that maintenance is where the real work begins and is an opportunity for me to stabilize this weight loss physically, emotionally, and psychologically. I think I'll do better if I have some rules.
So. Here's my plan. This is based on a few versions of the official plan that are out there floating around (with my own twist/sanity check on things).
Week 1 & 2: eat similar to P2 with a few changes: all lean meats allowed (still organic, still no sugar or honey involved). All non-starchy veggies allowed (basically everything but potatoes, corn, peas, etc. All fruits allowed in moderate quantities. Eggs allowed. I'm going to shoot for eating 5x a day--3 meals and two snacks. Tiny, minuscule amounts of cooking fats (butter and healthy oils) only so I can start eating with my family again, but still no other fat (like salad dressing, mayo, etc). Still no fake sugar. Still minimal amounts of dairy (a few spoonfuls a day). I'm going to ramp up my calories slowly and not try to eat 2000 in the first week. Today, for example, after breakfast and lunch, I have eaten about 500 calories. No way I can eat 1000+ just in a snack and dinner, especially with the food restrictions I still have. So I think I'll try to increase my calories to around 1000 today and then increase by 200 or so a day and see how it goes.
Week 3: add in dairy (more milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, small amounts of regular cheese on salads, etc.)
m, diet soda if I want it, but I'm going to really try to stay away from fake sugars most of the time. Add salad dressing and more normal amounts of healthy oils and fats. Add mayo (for chicken and tuna salad). Add most soups that do not have sugar in them.
Week 4: add in small quantities: the starchy vegetables, hummus, beans and starchy legumes, nuts and nut butters, ketchup
Week 5&6: add slowly and carefully: whole grains and starches, popcorn, pretzels, still stay away from sugar and refined grains
No promises, but I'd like to try staying away from sugar and gluten just for maintenance. If I do have any, I want it to be very limited and deliberate, and I want to pay attention to how it makes me feel. I really, really, really don't want to be someone who can't have gluten or sugar--I cannot even stress how much I don't want to be that. But I'm trying to open myself up to the possibility that I am without prejudging it one way or the other.
But as I said, I think maintenance is going to be as much about the head game as the food game. So here's the other stuff I'm gonna do.
1) Count calories, for at least the first few weeks. They don't want you counting calories on maintenance, but I think I want to just keep track. I won't let it dictate my eating...if I'm only hungry for 1200 calories, I won't force feed myself, and if I have an odd day of 2500 calories, I won't sweat it. But I just want to keep an eye on it. Since the point of this phases is resetting my metabolism so I can maintain this weight at a higher caloric intake, it seems important to have some vague idea of caloric intake. I'll be using Spark People for this. They recommend 1800-2200 calories to maintain my current weight.
2) Get strong and tone up. I think now that I'm eating more, I'll have more stamina for more exercise. I don't have specific exercise goals yet, but I know I'd like to do Pilates a few times a week and maybe start running again. I don't want to set goals that are too aggressive, because the next few months are crazy at work. This is something I'll think on in the next few days and try and set more concrete goals. I might start running again, but I might just wait until I lose the next 30 pounds (which will coincide nicely with warmer weather outside and spring triathlon training season). Thirty pounds overweight is still a lot of stress to put on your joints for high-impact exercises like running, even though obviously my stats are vastly improved.
3) Weigh every day, and try not to let this make me insane. I do want to try and closely monitor my weight so that I can act quickly if it goes up too much. I do not want to sweat it and feel miserable and like a failure if it does go above 200 briefly. Not sure yet if I want to allow myself to lose any weight. I thought the whole point was to stabilize your weight eating as many calories as possible, but lots of people are reporting losing a little more weight on maintenance (1-2 lbs per week or less). This is another reason I want to track calories. If I end up losing while eating enough calories (1800-2000 a day), then that's cool. But if I'm losing because I am slipping back to eating fewer calories than I need, then that's not cool. I've gotten so used to eating so little that I think it would be easy to slip back into that. So how about this for a goal: keep my weight between 190 and 200 over the next 6 weeks, preferably between 195-200, but I just might not be able to pass up the chance to lose more pounds if it happens for me easily.
4) Begin working through the Beck Diet Solution, which is a 6-week cognitive behavioral therapy approach to weight loss. I'll be using it for maintenance rather than weight loss, but I think it will address the brain part of my weight issue. It has an assignment to do every day. I'll try to do one every day, but I'm not going to get to it every day. I'll write about it here when I do it. I guarantee you that if I do nothing but this diet the way this diet is written, I will gain the weight back. I'm not saying everyone will, I'm saying I will. I overeat for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the reasons this diet supposedly addresses. I have got to get other coping tools in the toolbox so that I don't go right back to eating when I have a fight with R or a stressful day at work or a night of no sleep.
5) Keep writing about this when I can. I doubt I will feel the need to write with the same frequency, but I'd like to keep up at least a few times a week.
6) Sleep: try to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night; preferably 8.
7) Pay attention to my food and its taste. I had eggs for breakfast and olives in my salad for lunch. They were amazing! The longer I can hold on to this appreciation for the flavor of relatively healthy foods, the better off I will be. The more I can pay attention to the flavor of less-than-healthy foods, the better I will be able to decide which ones I should make room for (mint chocolate chip ice cream) and which I shouldn't (Kraft mac and cheese).
I think I'll probably add to this as maintenance goes on. This is just what I'm thinking about for getting started. These are the things I'll be tracking in a chart and sharing here at least a couple of times a week.
So that's the plan! Wish me luck!
So. Here's my plan. This is based on a few versions of the official plan that are out there floating around (with my own twist/sanity check on things).
Week 1 & 2: eat similar to P2 with a few changes: all lean meats allowed (still organic, still no sugar or honey involved). All non-starchy veggies allowed (basically everything but potatoes, corn, peas, etc. All fruits allowed in moderate quantities. Eggs allowed. I'm going to shoot for eating 5x a day--3 meals and two snacks. Tiny, minuscule amounts of cooking fats (butter and healthy oils) only so I can start eating with my family again, but still no other fat (like salad dressing, mayo, etc). Still no fake sugar. Still minimal amounts of dairy (a few spoonfuls a day). I'm going to ramp up my calories slowly and not try to eat 2000 in the first week. Today, for example, after breakfast and lunch, I have eaten about 500 calories. No way I can eat 1000+ just in a snack and dinner, especially with the food restrictions I still have. So I think I'll try to increase my calories to around 1000 today and then increase by 200 or so a day and see how it goes.
Week 3: add in dairy (more milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, small amounts of regular cheese on salads, etc.)
m, diet soda if I want it, but I'm going to really try to stay away from fake sugars most of the time. Add salad dressing and more normal amounts of healthy oils and fats. Add mayo (for chicken and tuna salad). Add most soups that do not have sugar in them.
Week 4: add in small quantities: the starchy vegetables, hummus, beans and starchy legumes, nuts and nut butters, ketchup
Week 5&6: add slowly and carefully: whole grains and starches, popcorn, pretzels, still stay away from sugar and refined grains
No promises, but I'd like to try staying away from sugar and gluten just for maintenance. If I do have any, I want it to be very limited and deliberate, and I want to pay attention to how it makes me feel. I really, really, really don't want to be someone who can't have gluten or sugar--I cannot even stress how much I don't want to be that. But I'm trying to open myself up to the possibility that I am without prejudging it one way or the other.
But as I said, I think maintenance is going to be as much about the head game as the food game. So here's the other stuff I'm gonna do.
1) Count calories, for at least the first few weeks. They don't want you counting calories on maintenance, but I think I want to just keep track. I won't let it dictate my eating...if I'm only hungry for 1200 calories, I won't force feed myself, and if I have an odd day of 2500 calories, I won't sweat it. But I just want to keep an eye on it. Since the point of this phases is resetting my metabolism so I can maintain this weight at a higher caloric intake, it seems important to have some vague idea of caloric intake. I'll be using Spark People for this. They recommend 1800-2200 calories to maintain my current weight.
2) Get strong and tone up. I think now that I'm eating more, I'll have more stamina for more exercise. I don't have specific exercise goals yet, but I know I'd like to do Pilates a few times a week and maybe start running again. I don't want to set goals that are too aggressive, because the next few months are crazy at work. This is something I'll think on in the next few days and try and set more concrete goals. I might start running again, but I might just wait until I lose the next 30 pounds (which will coincide nicely with warmer weather outside and spring triathlon training season). Thirty pounds overweight is still a lot of stress to put on your joints for high-impact exercises like running, even though obviously my stats are vastly improved.
3) Weigh every day, and try not to let this make me insane. I do want to try and closely monitor my weight so that I can act quickly if it goes up too much. I do not want to sweat it and feel miserable and like a failure if it does go above 200 briefly. Not sure yet if I want to allow myself to lose any weight. I thought the whole point was to stabilize your weight eating as many calories as possible, but lots of people are reporting losing a little more weight on maintenance (1-2 lbs per week or less). This is another reason I want to track calories. If I end up losing while eating enough calories (1800-2000 a day), then that's cool. But if I'm losing because I am slipping back to eating fewer calories than I need, then that's not cool. I've gotten so used to eating so little that I think it would be easy to slip back into that. So how about this for a goal: keep my weight between 190 and 200 over the next 6 weeks, preferably between 195-200, but I just might not be able to pass up the chance to lose more pounds if it happens for me easily.
4) Begin working through the Beck Diet Solution, which is a 6-week cognitive behavioral therapy approach to weight loss. I'll be using it for maintenance rather than weight loss, but I think it will address the brain part of my weight issue. It has an assignment to do every day. I'll try to do one every day, but I'm not going to get to it every day. I'll write about it here when I do it. I guarantee you that if I do nothing but this diet the way this diet is written, I will gain the weight back. I'm not saying everyone will, I'm saying I will. I overeat for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the reasons this diet supposedly addresses. I have got to get other coping tools in the toolbox so that I don't go right back to eating when I have a fight with R or a stressful day at work or a night of no sleep.
5) Keep writing about this when I can. I doubt I will feel the need to write with the same frequency, but I'd like to keep up at least a few times a week.
6) Sleep: try to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night; preferably 8.
7) Pay attention to my food and its taste. I had eggs for breakfast and olives in my salad for lunch. They were amazing! The longer I can hold on to this appreciation for the flavor of relatively healthy foods, the better off I will be. The more I can pay attention to the flavor of less-than-healthy foods, the better I will be able to decide which ones I should make room for (mint chocolate chip ice cream) and which I shouldn't (Kraft mac and cheese).
I think I'll probably add to this as maintenance goes on. This is just what I'm thinking about for getting started. These are the things I'll be tracking in a chart and sharing here at least a couple of times a week.
| Day | Date | Weight | Daily Change | Calories | Exercise | Notes |
| Day 1 | 12/14/2010 | 198.2 | START |
So that's the plan! Wish me luck!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Last Weekend
This was a challenging weekend, but I think I did well. No one will be interested in this, but I'm going to write down what I ate just to keep track, since this is kind of like an online journal. And writing helps me sort it all out.
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.
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 | ||||
Monday, December 6, 2010
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 Istill 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 Ihave 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.
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
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
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 |
Friday, November 5, 2010
Phase 2, Day 5 (P2, D5)
I am questioning the precision and accuracy of my scale. My first weigh-in today was 218.6, same as yesterday. That surprised me a bit, not because I'm greedy and unhappy with what I've lost, but just because I continue to be letter perfect and wouldn't have expected a stall so soon, even after pretty quick weight loss.
So I weighed myself again and got 219.4, then 217.2, then 219.8, then 218.4, etc. All within about a three-pound range. K pointed out that basically I need to look at this scale as if it has a 2 pound margin of error. It seems to be directionally accurate (a phrase statisticians loathe) but not precise. That's going to make it hard to identify when I have specific slip ups or mistakes that cause a weight gain.
So what I might do is start weighing myself once a week at the gym, because they have a doctor's scale. It's a pain to do it every day because I would have to go first thing in the morning, which is already crazy enough with getting kids ready for school, carpools, getting ready for work, etc. But once a week I can manage, and it will give me a bigger picture sense of what's happening.
I am happy to report on day 5 that the hunger is getting marginally better, or maybe I'm just getting more used to it. I have been feeling famished by mid-morning and have usually been eating an apple in the morning instead of with my lunch because I just don't feel like I can wait.
Today, I definitely felt hungry all day, but also got caught up on the phone and didn't eat anything at all until 1:30. I felt like I was starving, but apparently not so starving that I managed to eat at noon like I have been doing. So that seems like it's improving somewhat.
Random observations:
1) Food definitely has more flavor. Eating even very simple foods has been satisfying flavor-wise for me. I haven't been doing recipes, mostly just simply seasoned pan-grilled meat over whatever veggie I'm having. It actually all tastes really good to me.
2) I'm foregoing the stevia for the time being, even though it is allowed. Part of this diet for me is about resetting my brain and my attitude, and I think I need to get away from the intense sugar cravings. I had some stevia in my herbal tea the first day, and it was ok, but it's okay without it too. I may fold on this eventually, but for now, no stevia.
3) I have serious humiliation at my "number," aka, my weight. I have a lot of skinny friends who I trust to be gentle with me if I share this blog with them or the fact that I am doing this diet. But I am horrified at the idea of a friend who thinks 150 pounds on her own body is fat seeing that I top the scales at 218 AFTER I've lost 11 pounds. It's just mortifying to think about. I cringe even though I know in my head that 1) they won't judge me 2) no one cares about this as much as I do and 3) anyone who does care about it can probably figure out what I weigh within 10 pounds or so ANYWAY. It's just that for women, that 200 mark is such a source of shame. Women are not supposed to weigh more than 200 pounds, period.
Hey, here's a free tip. If you are fat, don't spend a lot of timing looking at heights and weights of NFL players. There are too many male, professional athletes my height (5'9") that weigh in the 180-195 range. Ugh. Even Serena Williams who is a strong, powerful, BUILT, and hardly slender woman is 5'10" and 185.
My friend K had a brilliant suggestion. She said I should measure my weight in a unit that has no meaning or baggage for me, like kilos or stones (inspired by Bridget Jones' diary). So if it gives me heart palpitations to say that I weigh 218 pounds, I could also just say I weigh 15.5 stones or 98.9 kilos. So I weigh 15.5 stones today and 15.3 stones tomorrow. Nobody knows that that's as much as a professional baseball player weighs. It's just a number. Yes, I think that does feel much better.
4) R (my husband) is getting more and more supportive every day. He was really not happy about this diet at first, but is coming along.
5) I still feel shy about telling people what I'm doing. It just seems so crazy and irresponsible to take a homeopathic form of a female hormone and combine it with a starvation diet to lose weight. It just seems impossible that I will be able to keep it off long term. I will write more in an upcoming post about why this appeals to me so much even though it is so extreme.
6) I have felt really good this week, despite feeling intense hunger at times. Today is the first day I don't feel super energetic and happy and upbeat. I wonder if that's because I didn't lose today, so I feel less excited or if the low-cal thing is just catching up with me. I have done yoga twice this week and taken a short walk; my goal next week will be to pay more attention to exercise.
7) I'm going to another party tonight. My plan is to bring my own food and tell people I'm on a detox diet. Tomorrow night is date night with R. We're going to have to figure out something that doesn't involve dinner!
So I weighed myself again and got 219.4, then 217.2, then 219.8, then 218.4, etc. All within about a three-pound range. K pointed out that basically I need to look at this scale as if it has a 2 pound margin of error. It seems to be directionally accurate (a phrase statisticians loathe) but not precise. That's going to make it hard to identify when I have specific slip ups or mistakes that cause a weight gain.
So what I might do is start weighing myself once a week at the gym, because they have a doctor's scale. It's a pain to do it every day because I would have to go first thing in the morning, which is already crazy enough with getting kids ready for school, carpools, getting ready for work, etc. But once a week I can manage, and it will give me a bigger picture sense of what's happening.
| Day | Date | Weight | Daily Change | Total Loss |
| Day 1 | 11/1/2010 | 229.6 | n/a | n/a |
| Day 2 | 11/2/2010 | 225.6 | -4 | -4 |
| Day 3 | 11/3/2010 | 221.6 | -4 | -8 |
| Day 4 | 11/4/2010 | 218.6 | -3 | -11 |
| Day 5 | 11/5/2010 | 218.6 | 0 | -11 |
I am happy to report on day 5 that the hunger is getting marginally better, or maybe I'm just getting more used to it. I have been feeling famished by mid-morning and have usually been eating an apple in the morning instead of with my lunch because I just don't feel like I can wait.
Today, I definitely felt hungry all day, but also got caught up on the phone and didn't eat anything at all until 1:30. I felt like I was starving, but apparently not so starving that I managed to eat at noon like I have been doing. So that seems like it's improving somewhat.
Random observations:
1) Food definitely has more flavor. Eating even very simple foods has been satisfying flavor-wise for me. I haven't been doing recipes, mostly just simply seasoned pan-grilled meat over whatever veggie I'm having. It actually all tastes really good to me.
2) I'm foregoing the stevia for the time being, even though it is allowed. Part of this diet for me is about resetting my brain and my attitude, and I think I need to get away from the intense sugar cravings. I had some stevia in my herbal tea the first day, and it was ok, but it's okay without it too. I may fold on this eventually, but for now, no stevia.
3) I have serious humiliation at my "number," aka, my weight. I have a lot of skinny friends who I trust to be gentle with me if I share this blog with them or the fact that I am doing this diet. But I am horrified at the idea of a friend who thinks 150 pounds on her own body is fat seeing that I top the scales at 218 AFTER I've lost 11 pounds. It's just mortifying to think about. I cringe even though I know in my head that 1) they won't judge me 2) no one cares about this as much as I do and 3) anyone who does care about it can probably figure out what I weigh within 10 pounds or so ANYWAY. It's just that for women, that 200 mark is such a source of shame. Women are not supposed to weigh more than 200 pounds, period.
Hey, here's a free tip. If you are fat, don't spend a lot of timing looking at heights and weights of NFL players. There are too many male, professional athletes my height (5'9") that weigh in the 180-195 range. Ugh. Even Serena Williams who is a strong, powerful, BUILT, and hardly slender woman is 5'10" and 185.
My friend K had a brilliant suggestion. She said I should measure my weight in a unit that has no meaning or baggage for me, like kilos or stones (inspired by Bridget Jones' diary). So if it gives me heart palpitations to say that I weigh 218 pounds, I could also just say I weigh 15.5 stones or 98.9 kilos. So I weigh 15.5 stones today and 15.3 stones tomorrow. Nobody knows that that's as much as a professional baseball player weighs. It's just a number. Yes, I think that does feel much better.
4) R (my husband) is getting more and more supportive every day. He was really not happy about this diet at first, but is coming along.
5) I still feel shy about telling people what I'm doing. It just seems so crazy and irresponsible to take a homeopathic form of a female hormone and combine it with a starvation diet to lose weight. It just seems impossible that I will be able to keep it off long term. I will write more in an upcoming post about why this appeals to me so much even though it is so extreme.
6) I have felt really good this week, despite feeling intense hunger at times. Today is the first day I don't feel super energetic and happy and upbeat. I wonder if that's because I didn't lose today, so I feel less excited or if the low-cal thing is just catching up with me. I have done yoga twice this week and taken a short walk; my goal next week will be to pay more attention to exercise.
7) I'm going to another party tonight. My plan is to bring my own food and tell people I'm on a detox diet. Tomorrow night is date night with R. We're going to have to figure out something that doesn't involve dinner!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Phase 1, Day 1 (P1D1)
Phase 1, Day 1 means I started the HCG drops today but I'm supposed to "gorge" today. I do that for two days before starting the 500 calorie diet on Monday.
My kids are both sick, which meant I was tied to the house a lot of the day and my plans for complicated, delicious, fattening meals were out the door. I did manage to get out to get my favorite sub for lunch (lots of meat, cheese, and mayo) and had real Fritos and a non-diet soda, which I never do. For dinner, I had McDonalds, not because I love it so much, but just because I can. Considering the range of high-fat and delicious foods out there and available for my consumption, I think this gorge day was a failure. Oddly enough, I don't care that much about what I'm missing. I'm just eager to get started.
I did eat a ton of cookies yesterday (you think I'm exaggerating, but I think over the course of the day, I had 15 cookies). And tomorrow is Halloween, so I'll get to raid my kids' candy one last time before going on the straight and narrow.
So I dunno . . . all this freedom to gorge on whatever I want, and I can't think of anything I'm absolutely dying to have. Maybe it's cleaning up after two sick kids who have issues going on at both ends . . . that is enough to take away anyone's appetite.
I don't think I ate as much today as I should have, but I think I have PLENTY of fat to tide me over when I start the 500 calories on Monday.
Let's get this started already!
My kids are both sick, which meant I was tied to the house a lot of the day and my plans for complicated, delicious, fattening meals were out the door. I did manage to get out to get my favorite sub for lunch (lots of meat, cheese, and mayo) and had real Fritos and a non-diet soda, which I never do. For dinner, I had McDonalds, not because I love it so much, but just because I can. Considering the range of high-fat and delicious foods out there and available for my consumption, I think this gorge day was a failure. Oddly enough, I don't care that much about what I'm missing. I'm just eager to get started.
I did eat a ton of cookies yesterday (you think I'm exaggerating, but I think over the course of the day, I had 15 cookies). And tomorrow is Halloween, so I'll get to raid my kids' candy one last time before going on the straight and narrow.
So I dunno . . . all this freedom to gorge on whatever I want, and I can't think of anything I'm absolutely dying to have. Maybe it's cleaning up after two sick kids who have issues going on at both ends . . . that is enough to take away anyone's appetite.
I don't think I ate as much today as I should have, but I think I have PLENTY of fat to tide me over when I start the 500 calories on Monday.
Let's get this started already!
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