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?
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
On Intimacy and Trust (P2, D15)
Good loss yesterday, very small gain today, but it's all evening out to just over a pound per day, so it's okay. It's a little bit of a bummer that I lost almost 14 pounds in the first week and it's taken me another whole week to lose another 3.6, but it is what it is. I'll report my weight and weight loss today and then get on to what I'm thinking about today.
Today's topic: on sharing one's navelgazing with unsuspecting friends and family.
I have not shared this blog with many of my "in real life" friends or family. I have worked out a pretty good system in the last 10 or 15 years of life where I give the illusion of intimacy with friends by being willing and open to talk about the facts of my life without giving much away about what really moves me, for good or for bad. In high school, my friends called me the ice queen (I was actually very proud of that title; I thought it was bad ass) because I kept all my cards very close to the chest. I think I have remedied that, but not always in a truly meaningful way.
Having postpartum depression twice cured me of some of my hesitance to let people in. The first time, I was very isolated (geographically, and with a few exceptions, socially); the second time, I let people in and I let people take care of me, and it was a transformative experience. It was very scary to show people that dark, black side of me, but I did it. And not only did people not like me less, they seemed to like me more. Letting people help me through the postpartum period took several friendships to a whole new level.
But the food stuff, the binge eating, the overeating is all still a secret from almost everyone I know. It's funny, I always thought the thing I would want to keep secret is the fact that I'm doing this crazy fucking diet, but what I really want to keep secret is what got me here.
So here's what has me thinking about the subjects of intimacy and trust this week.
1. My best friend from middle school (commenting on this blog as Kristoise) is the scientist who helped me research this diet. She knows I've struggled with weight and self esteem my whole life. She knows what I look like. She knows I was considering this diet out of desperation. We have been friends for (OMG, I can't even believe it's been this long) almost TWENTY years. But I still didn't want her to read this blog because I didn't want her to know "my number" and I've never shared with her the true depths of misery this food/weight stuff has caused me in my life. She struggles with body image like just about every woman on the planet, so she gets it to some degree, but she doesn't get the shame part.
When I finally decided to share this blog with her and she read this post , she wrote to me "I never knew about any of the binge eating, and then I think what a horrible best friend I must have been to not have known." See, that's fucked up. It is ME that never shared this kind of thing with my oldest best friend who knows just about everything about me. If she doesn't know, that's on me, not on her. It is me that is the bad friend for not letting her in on this sooner, considering it is a major, major part of my life.
2. My friend Z is someone I adore and have been building a strong friendship with for some time. She is very sane and clear-headed . . . no drama. I have joked to her that I need some level of drama and revelation of inner turmoil to feel like I really "know" someone. I am only half kidding. I have been waiting for her to make some big reveal that will take the level of intimacy in our relationship to the next level. Then it occurred to me that I could provide it. I told her about this diet last week and gave her the tiniest insight into my historical struggles, but I did it in a way that felt very scary and vulnerable.
She doesn't think the diet is a great idea on it's surface and was honest about that, but as she has seen that I am still feeling strong and healthy and am not wasting away like a cancer patient, she has become more supportive of ME, if not more supportive of the diet. I told her, she (sort of) disapproved, and you know what? We are still friends. She still likes me, even knowing I am someone who has to resort to crazy diets to control crazy behavior. And I still like her, even though she was honest with me about not loving this plan. Our friendship survived some serious vulnerability and getting real.
3. My friend G was over at my house for lunch the other day, and noticed that I was eating plain chicken and spinach instead of the delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich (mmmm, so delicious) I had bought for her and our friend K to split. I really did not plan to tell G or K about this plan, but decided on a whim that I would open up about it to them, two tender, gentle, loving, and hilarious midwives in training who would surely not give me shit for doing what most people (including possibly me) consider to be a fad diet. But I definitely emphasized the detox/cleanse aspect of the diet rather than the weight loss aspect. It feels safe to say I want to detox and eat healthier, it feels scary to say I need to lose 60 pounds to two people who don't need to lose a single ounce.
We talked about it awhile, they shared some of their own stories, and G mentioned gently that she'd never seen me eat unhealthy or drink too much or overindulge in any way and she'd always seen me eat as healthy as I was that day (skinless, boneless chicken, raw spinach, and an orange). She talked about the difference in body type and metabolism as the reason, but the real reason is that I fucking eat like shit and can eat a whole sleeve of cookies at 10:00 at night without even thinking about it. Some days, I will go to 7-11 in the morning on the way home from preschool drop off and buy 4 candy bars and eat all 4 in one day.
G has never seen me do it (despite a fair amount of time spent together), and she doesn't know I do it, because I'm too ashamed and I keep it all a secret. But G is an awesome and amazing woman that I feel so, so drawn to. And while I'm sure she doesn't need or want an hourly report about how many candy bars I've eaten, it seems like if we are going to be really, really close friends, which I would like to be, she should know what my deepest, darkest struggles are.
4. I adore my mother-in-law. She is really an amazing woman. She is also a Weight Watchers leader and a big believer in the WW program--she lost something like 60 or 70 pounds on it more than 10 years ago and has kept it off. And this woman did not go from fat to normal. She went all the way to thin and fit and has stayed that way all these years. She's probably a 4-6 at age 58! She and I talked about the HCG diet last summer and agreed that it was a terrible idea--too low in calories, too low in nutrients, faddish in its "gimmick" for success, and guaranteed to cause a huge regain once the diet is over. I agreed with her. I was training for a triathlon at the time and felt like I had things under control, even if I wasn't anywhere near the weight I wanted to be.
But then I got hurt, fell into desperation about my weight for the 456th time in my life, changed my mind, and decided I had nothing to lose. But I haven't told her I actually started this diet we both agreed last summer is a terrible idea. I'm afraid she'll be mad, I'm afraid she'll disapprove, and I'm afraid she'll be disappointed in me for not being able to achieve long-term success on Weight Watchers which anyone in the world would agree is a healthier and superior way to lose weight than 500 calories a day combined with a homeopathic remedy. These fears are not based on her actions in any way, they are based on MY crazy brain. I love my MIL and want to really know her, and I want her to really know me. I guess that means I should send her this blog, right? The thought is terrifying.
5. Another dear friend of mine, M, has been confiding in me about her painful struggles with infertility. She and her husband have been trying for something like a year and a half to have their second child, and are just coming up against obstacle after obstacle. For a long time, she went through the pain and frustration without telling anyone. But I was one of the first people she talked to about it. Now she's opened up to a few more, but it is still very, very private for her and her husband, who I am also close to. M and I have been getting closer and closer, and it was such a huge honor to me that she is sharing this part of her life with me.
Last week, we were riding somewhere together, and she asked me what was new. I was thinking, "only that I'm on a crazy new diet and have lost 13 pounds and feel like my entire worldview is transforming!" What I actually said was "nothing."
M is very thin, very in touch with her body, and has a very healthy relationship with food. She doesn't even begin to understand the drive to binge eat, the way it feels to sit in a chair that is too narrow, or the way it feels to walk into a room when you're the biggest one there. But you know what she does understand? Feeling like there is something everyone else can do that you can't do. She understands feeling broken, she understands feeling jealous, she understands the feeling of having a problem that no one can fix, no matter what you try. She has bared her soul to me. She has cried to me and told me things no one else knows. Who the fuck am I to keep my stupid diet and weight problems a secret from her? It is almost an insult to her because it implies that my struggles are more secret, more painful, more damaging than hers, which is total horseshit.
So I told her. And I did it because I love her and she trusted me, and I owe her that trust and intimacy in return. Our friendship can only go so far without my willingness to share the scary, black shit in my head and heart with as much freedom and care as she shares hers.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. They all know about the diet except my MIL; the next logical step would be for me to share this blog with those people. My brain immediately starts to say "they aren't interested in this level of minutia, they'll think I'm a totally self-obsessed navel gazer, blah blah blah." But here's the truth. I may not be interested in alcoholism or spousal abuse or anorexia. But if I loved someone who was going through it, I would want to know, because I would need to know it to really understand them. So everytime I try to talk myself out of sharing this stuff using the excuse that no one cares about this but me, I have to kind of call bullshit on myself for that.
But, look, here's the truth of it. These are secrets I have kept from almost everyone MY WHOLE LIFE. It's feeling good and brave and safe to stretch and share with these people and a few others (my husband, my mom, my brother, another friend who really gets it, and a group of women in my hometown who are also doing this HCG thing under the same guidance as I am). I don't think they think less of me. I don't know they they all recognize what a big deal it is that I'm sharing it, but maybe it would help if I sent them an ecard that said "the fact that I share my dull, boring neuroses with you is a sign of how much I love you!"
Anyway, enough on this topic today. That's what I'm thinking about. Stay tuned to see if I can continue to stretch this "sharing" muscle or if it's done stretched as far as it goes. You will be able to tell if you ever see more than 3 people ever leaving comments. :)
You want to know what's really hilarious? I am so terrified at the idea of even contemplating the vulnerability involved in sending this link to anyone other than the 3 or 4 safe people who already have it, that I really want to go eat a huge ice cream sundae to calm myself down. Yeah, that would be productive.
| 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 | -4.0 | -4 |
| Day 3 | 11/3/2010 | 221.6 | -4.0 | -8 |
| Day 4 | 11/4/2010 | 218.6 | -3.0 | -11 |
| Day 5 | 11/5/2010 | 218.6 | 0.0 | -11 |
| Day 6 | 11/6/2010 | 216.4 | -2.2 | -13.2 |
| Day 7 | 11/7/2010 | 215.8 | -0.6 | -13.8 |
| Week 1 summary: down 13.8# | ||||
| Day 8 | 11/8/2010 | 214.8 | -1.0 | -14.8 |
| Day 9 | 11/9/2010 | 215.4 | 0.6 | -14.2 |
| Day 10 | 11/10/2010 | 213.8 | -1.6 | -15.8 |
| Day 11 | 11/11/2010 | 213.6 | -0.2 | -16 |
| Day 12 | 11/12/2010 | 215 | 1.4 | 14.6 |
| Day 13 | 11/13/2010 | 213 | -2.0 | -16.6 |
| Day 14 | 11/14/2010 | 212.2 | -0.8 | -17.4 |
| Week 2 summary: down 3.6 # this week; 17.4# total | ||||
Today's topic: on sharing one's navelgazing with unsuspecting friends and family.
I have not shared this blog with many of my "in real life" friends or family. I have worked out a pretty good system in the last 10 or 15 years of life where I give the illusion of intimacy with friends by being willing and open to talk about the facts of my life without giving much away about what really moves me, for good or for bad. In high school, my friends called me the ice queen (I was actually very proud of that title; I thought it was bad ass) because I kept all my cards very close to the chest. I think I have remedied that, but not always in a truly meaningful way.
Having postpartum depression twice cured me of some of my hesitance to let people in. The first time, I was very isolated (geographically, and with a few exceptions, socially); the second time, I let people in and I let people take care of me, and it was a transformative experience. It was very scary to show people that dark, black side of me, but I did it. And not only did people not like me less, they seemed to like me more. Letting people help me through the postpartum period took several friendships to a whole new level.
But the food stuff, the binge eating, the overeating is all still a secret from almost everyone I know. It's funny, I always thought the thing I would want to keep secret is the fact that I'm doing this crazy fucking diet, but what I really want to keep secret is what got me here.
So here's what has me thinking about the subjects of intimacy and trust this week.
1. My best friend from middle school (commenting on this blog as Kristoise) is the scientist who helped me research this diet. She knows I've struggled with weight and self esteem my whole life. She knows what I look like. She knows I was considering this diet out of desperation. We have been friends for (OMG, I can't even believe it's been this long) almost TWENTY years. But I still didn't want her to read this blog because I didn't want her to know "my number" and I've never shared with her the true depths of misery this food/weight stuff has caused me in my life. She struggles with body image like just about every woman on the planet, so she gets it to some degree, but she doesn't get the shame part.
When I finally decided to share this blog with her and she read this post , she wrote to me "I never knew about any of the binge eating, and then I think what a horrible best friend I must have been to not have known." See, that's fucked up. It is ME that never shared this kind of thing with my oldest best friend who knows just about everything about me. If she doesn't know, that's on me, not on her. It is me that is the bad friend for not letting her in on this sooner, considering it is a major, major part of my life.
2. My friend Z is someone I adore and have been building a strong friendship with for some time. She is very sane and clear-headed . . . no drama. I have joked to her that I need some level of drama and revelation of inner turmoil to feel like I really "know" someone. I am only half kidding. I have been waiting for her to make some big reveal that will take the level of intimacy in our relationship to the next level. Then it occurred to me that I could provide it. I told her about this diet last week and gave her the tiniest insight into my historical struggles, but I did it in a way that felt very scary and vulnerable.
She doesn't think the diet is a great idea on it's surface and was honest about that, but as she has seen that I am still feeling strong and healthy and am not wasting away like a cancer patient, she has become more supportive of ME, if not more supportive of the diet. I told her, she (sort of) disapproved, and you know what? We are still friends. She still likes me, even knowing I am someone who has to resort to crazy diets to control crazy behavior. And I still like her, even though she was honest with me about not loving this plan. Our friendship survived some serious vulnerability and getting real.
3. My friend G was over at my house for lunch the other day, and noticed that I was eating plain chicken and spinach instead of the delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich (mmmm, so delicious) I had bought for her and our friend K to split. I really did not plan to tell G or K about this plan, but decided on a whim that I would open up about it to them, two tender, gentle, loving, and hilarious midwives in training who would surely not give me shit for doing what most people (including possibly me) consider to be a fad diet. But I definitely emphasized the detox/cleanse aspect of the diet rather than the weight loss aspect. It feels safe to say I want to detox and eat healthier, it feels scary to say I need to lose 60 pounds to two people who don't need to lose a single ounce.
We talked about it awhile, they shared some of their own stories, and G mentioned gently that she'd never seen me eat unhealthy or drink too much or overindulge in any way and she'd always seen me eat as healthy as I was that day (skinless, boneless chicken, raw spinach, and an orange). She talked about the difference in body type and metabolism as the reason, but the real reason is that I fucking eat like shit and can eat a whole sleeve of cookies at 10:00 at night without even thinking about it. Some days, I will go to 7-11 in the morning on the way home from preschool drop off and buy 4 candy bars and eat all 4 in one day.
G has never seen me do it (despite a fair amount of time spent together), and she doesn't know I do it, because I'm too ashamed and I keep it all a secret. But G is an awesome and amazing woman that I feel so, so drawn to. And while I'm sure she doesn't need or want an hourly report about how many candy bars I've eaten, it seems like if we are going to be really, really close friends, which I would like to be, she should know what my deepest, darkest struggles are.
4. I adore my mother-in-law. She is really an amazing woman. She is also a Weight Watchers leader and a big believer in the WW program--she lost something like 60 or 70 pounds on it more than 10 years ago and has kept it off. And this woman did not go from fat to normal. She went all the way to thin and fit and has stayed that way all these years. She's probably a 4-6 at age 58! She and I talked about the HCG diet last summer and agreed that it was a terrible idea--too low in calories, too low in nutrients, faddish in its "gimmick" for success, and guaranteed to cause a huge regain once the diet is over. I agreed with her. I was training for a triathlon at the time and felt like I had things under control, even if I wasn't anywhere near the weight I wanted to be.
But then I got hurt, fell into desperation about my weight for the 456th time in my life, changed my mind, and decided I had nothing to lose. But I haven't told her I actually started this diet we both agreed last summer is a terrible idea. I'm afraid she'll be mad, I'm afraid she'll disapprove, and I'm afraid she'll be disappointed in me for not being able to achieve long-term success on Weight Watchers which anyone in the world would agree is a healthier and superior way to lose weight than 500 calories a day combined with a homeopathic remedy. These fears are not based on her actions in any way, they are based on MY crazy brain. I love my MIL and want to really know her, and I want her to really know me. I guess that means I should send her this blog, right? The thought is terrifying.
5. Another dear friend of mine, M, has been confiding in me about her painful struggles with infertility. She and her husband have been trying for something like a year and a half to have their second child, and are just coming up against obstacle after obstacle. For a long time, she went through the pain and frustration without telling anyone. But I was one of the first people she talked to about it. Now she's opened up to a few more, but it is still very, very private for her and her husband, who I am also close to. M and I have been getting closer and closer, and it was such a huge honor to me that she is sharing this part of her life with me.
Last week, we were riding somewhere together, and she asked me what was new. I was thinking, "only that I'm on a crazy new diet and have lost 13 pounds and feel like my entire worldview is transforming!" What I actually said was "nothing."
M is very thin, very in touch with her body, and has a very healthy relationship with food. She doesn't even begin to understand the drive to binge eat, the way it feels to sit in a chair that is too narrow, or the way it feels to walk into a room when you're the biggest one there. But you know what she does understand? Feeling like there is something everyone else can do that you can't do. She understands feeling broken, she understands feeling jealous, she understands the feeling of having a problem that no one can fix, no matter what you try. She has bared her soul to me. She has cried to me and told me things no one else knows. Who the fuck am I to keep my stupid diet and weight problems a secret from her? It is almost an insult to her because it implies that my struggles are more secret, more painful, more damaging than hers, which is total horseshit.
So I told her. And I did it because I love her and she trusted me, and I owe her that trust and intimacy in return. Our friendship can only go so far without my willingness to share the scary, black shit in my head and heart with as much freedom and care as she shares hers.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. They all know about the diet except my MIL; the next logical step would be for me to share this blog with those people. My brain immediately starts to say "they aren't interested in this level of minutia, they'll think I'm a totally self-obsessed navel gazer, blah blah blah." But here's the truth. I may not be interested in alcoholism or spousal abuse or anorexia. But if I loved someone who was going through it, I would want to know, because I would need to know it to really understand them. So everytime I try to talk myself out of sharing this stuff using the excuse that no one cares about this but me, I have to kind of call bullshit on myself for that.
But, look, here's the truth of it. These are secrets I have kept from almost everyone MY WHOLE LIFE. It's feeling good and brave and safe to stretch and share with these people and a few others (my husband, my mom, my brother, another friend who really gets it, and a group of women in my hometown who are also doing this HCG thing under the same guidance as I am). I don't think they think less of me. I don't know they they all recognize what a big deal it is that I'm sharing it, but maybe it would help if I sent them an ecard that said "the fact that I share my dull, boring neuroses with you is a sign of how much I love you!"
Anyway, enough on this topic today. That's what I'm thinking about. Stay tuned to see if I can continue to stretch this "sharing" muscle or if it's done stretched as far as it goes. You will be able to tell if you ever see more than 3 people ever leaving comments. :)
You want to know what's really hilarious? I am so terrified at the idea of even contemplating the vulnerability involved in sending this link to anyone other than the 3 or 4 safe people who already have it, that I really want to go eat a huge ice cream sundae to calm myself down. Yeah, that would be productive.
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!
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