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 HCG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HCG. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Starting Week Five (P2, D29)
Very small loss this morning (-0.4) but I woke up really excited and hopeful about starting a new week. I have two weeks left, and I realize I'm getting obsessive, anxious, and really focused on numbers and what maintenance will bring. I keep looking at the last 10 days or so as a mini-plateau, but two Mondays ago I was 212.4 and two weeks later, I am 203. That's actually really awesome, and I don't know why I need to undermine my success. It's my perfectionist-yet-underachiever thing at work, I think.
So today, I'm resolving just to work the plan the best I can, mix it up a bit where it makes sense, and just let go of the obsessive focus I've had the last week, which did not do me a bit of good.
I need to bring calm focus to all areas of my life including my job, my marriage, my weight loss protocol, my relationship with my children, and the fucking holidays. I think "calm focus" can be best summed up by the Serenity Prayer, which has always spoken to me (even when I was a child), even though I have not, until very recently, identified as an addict. I am just a puppet master who likes to be the boss of everything.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
So I woke up this morning with a spring in my step. I had grapefruit for breakfast instead of waiting until lunch to eat anything. Did a work conference call, then felt scattered, so instead of fucking around on Facebook, I took a very brisk 45 minute walk. I did a lot of thinking on that walk that I think was very helpful to me. I don't spend very much time alone with my thoughts (I prefer to be busy and distracted), and whenever I do it, I can usually uncover something valuable. Plus, I got to listen to really good music.
I did that on Saturday, too. R and I got in a fight and I took a walk (instead of eating, crying, fuming, shopping, or any of the other coping techniques I might usually employ). Wow, this looks remarkably like sanity!
When I returned from my walk this morning, I straightened my office (sometimes I think I need an organized environment in order to have an organized head). Then I began work in earnest around 11 a.m. I worked two solid hours before losing my focus again. So here I am.
Anyway, the point is that I am renewing my commitment to this diet for the last two weeks. It never really waned, and I think I've been doing everything right, but I'm going to try some new tactics this week and see what happens:
Onward, ho!
So today, I'm resolving just to work the plan the best I can, mix it up a bit where it makes sense, and just let go of the obsessive focus I've had the last week, which did not do me a bit of good.
I need to bring calm focus to all areas of my life including my job, my marriage, my weight loss protocol, my relationship with my children, and the fucking holidays. I think "calm focus" can be best summed up by the Serenity Prayer, which has always spoken to me (even when I was a child), even though I have not, until very recently, identified as an addict. I am just a puppet master who likes to be the boss of everything.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
So I woke up this morning with a spring in my step. I had grapefruit for breakfast instead of waiting until lunch to eat anything. Did a work conference call, then felt scattered, so instead of fucking around on Facebook, I took a very brisk 45 minute walk. I did a lot of thinking on that walk that I think was very helpful to me. I don't spend very much time alone with my thoughts (I prefer to be busy and distracted), and whenever I do it, I can usually uncover something valuable. Plus, I got to listen to really good music.
I did that on Saturday, too. R and I got in a fight and I took a walk (instead of eating, crying, fuming, shopping, or any of the other coping techniques I might usually employ). Wow, this looks remarkably like sanity!
When I returned from my walk this morning, I straightened my office (sometimes I think I need an organized environment in order to have an organized head). Then I began work in earnest around 11 a.m. I worked two solid hours before losing my focus again. So here I am.
Anyway, the point is that I am renewing my commitment to this diet for the last two weeks. It never really waned, and I think I've been doing everything right, but I'm going to try some new tactics this week and see what happens:
- mix it up with eating times. I have gotten in the habit of having only coffee for breakfast and not eating food until lunch. I'm going to play around with eating a fruit for breakfast or maybe even trying a double protein lunch and no dinner.
- I'm going back to eating only chicken and grass-fed beef. I've been adding some shrimp, tuna, white fish and other meats for variety, but my weight loss has also slowed down. Who knows if that is why.
- exercise every day, even if only briefly. I had so much time off last week with the kids and holiday schedules that I missed a lot of days.
- water: I've been getting lazy about water since it's gotten really cold here. I've definitely been getting 64 oz, but some days not more than that, and I am recommitting to drink at least 100 oz a day (48 oz so far today at 2:00 EST)
- stop stressing about the numbers on the scale. They are what they are, and what I lose in 40 days is what I lose in 40 days.
- stop stressing about maintenance, which isn't happening for 2 more weeks anyway.
Onward, ho!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Slow Week (P2, D28)
So I had a pretty slow week, though I am still very pleased with my overall progress.
It could be my period, it could be that I exercised less this week than I have been, it could be that I ate turkey, it could be that I've been drinking less water since it's gotten really cold here. Or it could be my metabolism slowing down. Or it could be an off week. Or it could be all those things. It'll be interesting to see what happens next week, but I hope it picks up some.
I am starting to get really terrified of maintenance. This diet is working for me because it's so structured that I have no room to fuck it up, like I fuck up every other diet in the world.
My son's third birthday party was tonight (his family party; he actually turns three on Wednesday and has a preschool party next weekend) and he'd requested breakfast for dinner--pancakes with syrup, shirred eggs, bacon, hash browns, and ice cream birthday cake from Baskin Robbins for dessert. This meal was harder for me to resist than Thanksgiving was. But if I know I cannot have even one lick of ice cream, it's easier to say no. What happens when the rules are gone?
I've gotten into the show Intervention lately, which is available for streaming on Netflix. It's super depressing. But it always shocks me how much I relate to drug addicts, since I've never been addicted to any substance other than nicotine. I have hidden my eating habits, I have buried candy wrappers in the trash can so R wouldn't know I was binging, I have stolen and snuck food, I have eaten huge quantities of food in secret, I have bought junk at 7-11 and smuggled it in the house in my purse.
I think I have a food addiction or even an eating disorder. That feels hard to say, and overly dramatic. But no one will ever intervene on my ass because I don't hurt other people to feed my habits in the same way that coke heads and tweakers do. My addiction/disorder hurts only me.
I'm hoping that all this rapid weight loss will inspire me to be rational about food when I'm done, born of the desire not to fuck it up, gain it all back, and prove everyone who thinks this diet is crazy right. And hopefully all this navel gazing has been working on my mind while the diet has been working on my body.
But what I can't figure out is whether, like an addict, I should just stay away from danger foods all together or whether I should try to eat them in moderation once I'm done with maintenance. For example, I know at Christmas, there will be our family's world-famous chocolate chip cookies. I can put away a LOT of these cookies, and they are one of my favorite things. So do I have one or two and then just insist to myself that I stop (and savor every bite) or do I recognize that I have a fucked up reaction to sugar and just totally stay away from them all together? Everyone says that deprivation just leads to binging and that you should allow yourself to have small amounts of food that you really love or you're sure to fail. But no one says that to a cocaine addict or to someone quitting smoking or gambling or just about any other addiction in the world. No one says, "honey, just try doing one line a day!" or "of COURSE you can have a few glasses of wine at your daughter's wedding."
Sugar is my problem. I'm don't NEED to binge on french fries or steak or potato chips or cheese. I certainly can and have, but I don't feel like it would be hard to set reasonable limits on those foods. Tonight at dinner, I could have had reasonable portions of the shirred eggs, bacon, and hash browns. I could even pass on the bacon and hash browns all together and never miss them. But the pancakes with syrup and the ice cream cake? I can eat those until I'm overly full and stuffed.
If I never ate sugar again, I have no doubt I could keep this weight off. But some of my favorite foods are sweet, and it sounds horrible to never have them again. Life without Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream is not a life worth living--I'm only 20% kidding. This, by the way, is exactly what all the meth-head tweakers and heroin addicts and alcoholics say on Intervention.
Now with drinking? Whatever. I could totally take it or leave it. If there was a worldwide alcohol shortage and I could never drink again, I would be fine. I can totally pass on alcohol easily when I'm watching calories and never miss it. R is the opposite. We sometimes get in patterns where we retreat to our corners in the evenings, him with beer or wine and me with ice cream or candy, each with our drug of choice. He doesn't drink every day or even every week, but when it's in the house, he has a hard time leaving it alone until its gone, which is the same way I am with sweets. So it's interesting. I know why people have a hard time understanding this--because they don't get it just like I don't get alcohol addiction.
I wonder if I should try and find a therapist around here who is familiar with eating disorders. I've been in therapy a couple of times, and none of the therapists were ever able to help me in the slightest with what I now consider an eating disorder. There's got to be someone out there with experience in this area. I sort of dread the time and expense and drone of getting to know another therapist, but if I really do have an eating disorder, a 40 day partial fast isn't going to fix it, you know?
I am constantly torn between just wanting to be like a normal person about food (eat when you're hungry, eat reasonable amounts of healthy foods, have occasional treat foods and relish them) and thinking I am NOT a normal person about food and never will be. Sometimes I think I will struggle with this my whole life, and all I can do is be better today than I was last year. After all, on my WORST binging day now, it is nowhere close to college. My worst days now are not even as bad as 1998/1999, my first year out of college, living with R for the first time, eating ice cream for breakfast and cookies for lunch. So maybe all I can do is hope that a year from now, I will still have bad eating days, but they will be fewer and father between, and they won't be as bad as they were the last few months.
There are many advantages to quick weight loss, which I would like to enumerate in a later post. But one of the disadvantages is that this doesn't seem real. I don't see a thinner me when I look in the mirror. I can't get rid of my old fat clothes yet, because I think I'll need them again soon. I haven't even really started "dressing thin" yet because I sort of can't wrap my mind around it. It seems like a dream or some kind of temporary state that will come to an end soon one way or another. I mean, I truly can't believe it is working this well and is this easy--there has to be some catch.
I was looking back at my old Weight Watchers booklets--I must have 10 or 12 spanning about nine years. The first time I ever went to Weight Watchers in 1999, I started at 231. It took me 8 months to get from 231 to 203, which is where I am now, having started at 228. And I got here in less than one calendar month. It's truly incredible, to the point of seeming impossible. And it really hasn't been hard.
Well, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to go dream about Baskin Robbins cake...
| Day 22 | 11/22/2010 | 206.6 | -1.0 | -23 |
| Day 23 | 11/23/2010 | 207 | 0.4 | -22.6 |
| Day 24 | 11/24/2010 | 206.6 | -0.4 | -23 |
| Day 25 | 11/25/2010 | 205 | -1.6 | -24.6 |
| Day 26 | 11/26/2010 | 204.6 | -0.4 | -25 |
| Day 27 | 11/27/2010 | 204.6 | 0.0 | -25 |
| Day 28 | 11/28/2010 | 203.6 | -1.0 | -26 |
| Week 4 summary: down 3# this week; 25 total | ||||
It could be my period, it could be that I exercised less this week than I have been, it could be that I ate turkey, it could be that I've been drinking less water since it's gotten really cold here. Or it could be my metabolism slowing down. Or it could be an off week. Or it could be all those things. It'll be interesting to see what happens next week, but I hope it picks up some.
I am starting to get really terrified of maintenance. This diet is working for me because it's so structured that I have no room to fuck it up, like I fuck up every other diet in the world.
My son's third birthday party was tonight (his family party; he actually turns three on Wednesday and has a preschool party next weekend) and he'd requested breakfast for dinner--pancakes with syrup, shirred eggs, bacon, hash browns, and ice cream birthday cake from Baskin Robbins for dessert. This meal was harder for me to resist than Thanksgiving was. But if I know I cannot have even one lick of ice cream, it's easier to say no. What happens when the rules are gone?
I've gotten into the show Intervention lately, which is available for streaming on Netflix. It's super depressing. But it always shocks me how much I relate to drug addicts, since I've never been addicted to any substance other than nicotine. I have hidden my eating habits, I have buried candy wrappers in the trash can so R wouldn't know I was binging, I have stolen and snuck food, I have eaten huge quantities of food in secret, I have bought junk at 7-11 and smuggled it in the house in my purse.
I think I have a food addiction or even an eating disorder. That feels hard to say, and overly dramatic. But no one will ever intervene on my ass because I don't hurt other people to feed my habits in the same way that coke heads and tweakers do. My addiction/disorder hurts only me.
I'm hoping that all this rapid weight loss will inspire me to be rational about food when I'm done, born of the desire not to fuck it up, gain it all back, and prove everyone who thinks this diet is crazy right. And hopefully all this navel gazing has been working on my mind while the diet has been working on my body.
But what I can't figure out is whether, like an addict, I should just stay away from danger foods all together or whether I should try to eat them in moderation once I'm done with maintenance. For example, I know at Christmas, there will be our family's world-famous chocolate chip cookies. I can put away a LOT of these cookies, and they are one of my favorite things. So do I have one or two and then just insist to myself that I stop (and savor every bite) or do I recognize that I have a fucked up reaction to sugar and just totally stay away from them all together? Everyone says that deprivation just leads to binging and that you should allow yourself to have small amounts of food that you really love or you're sure to fail. But no one says that to a cocaine addict or to someone quitting smoking or gambling or just about any other addiction in the world. No one says, "honey, just try doing one line a day!" or "of COURSE you can have a few glasses of wine at your daughter's wedding."
Sugar is my problem. I'm don't NEED to binge on french fries or steak or potato chips or cheese. I certainly can and have, but I don't feel like it would be hard to set reasonable limits on those foods. Tonight at dinner, I could have had reasonable portions of the shirred eggs, bacon, and hash browns. I could even pass on the bacon and hash browns all together and never miss them. But the pancakes with syrup and the ice cream cake? I can eat those until I'm overly full and stuffed.
If I never ate sugar again, I have no doubt I could keep this weight off. But some of my favorite foods are sweet, and it sounds horrible to never have them again. Life without Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream is not a life worth living--I'm only 20% kidding. This, by the way, is exactly what all the meth-head tweakers and heroin addicts and alcoholics say on Intervention.
Now with drinking? Whatever. I could totally take it or leave it. If there was a worldwide alcohol shortage and I could never drink again, I would be fine. I can totally pass on alcohol easily when I'm watching calories and never miss it. R is the opposite. We sometimes get in patterns where we retreat to our corners in the evenings, him with beer or wine and me with ice cream or candy, each with our drug of choice. He doesn't drink every day or even every week, but when it's in the house, he has a hard time leaving it alone until its gone, which is the same way I am with sweets. So it's interesting. I know why people have a hard time understanding this--because they don't get it just like I don't get alcohol addiction.
I wonder if I should try and find a therapist around here who is familiar with eating disorders. I've been in therapy a couple of times, and none of the therapists were ever able to help me in the slightest with what I now consider an eating disorder. There's got to be someone out there with experience in this area. I sort of dread the time and expense and drone of getting to know another therapist, but if I really do have an eating disorder, a 40 day partial fast isn't going to fix it, you know?
I am constantly torn between just wanting to be like a normal person about food (eat when you're hungry, eat reasonable amounts of healthy foods, have occasional treat foods and relish them) and thinking I am NOT a normal person about food and never will be. Sometimes I think I will struggle with this my whole life, and all I can do is be better today than I was last year. After all, on my WORST binging day now, it is nowhere close to college. My worst days now are not even as bad as 1998/1999, my first year out of college, living with R for the first time, eating ice cream for breakfast and cookies for lunch. So maybe all I can do is hope that a year from now, I will still have bad eating days, but they will be fewer and father between, and they won't be as bad as they were the last few months.
There are many advantages to quick weight loss, which I would like to enumerate in a later post. But one of the disadvantages is that this doesn't seem real. I don't see a thinner me when I look in the mirror. I can't get rid of my old fat clothes yet, because I think I'll need them again soon. I haven't even really started "dressing thin" yet because I sort of can't wrap my mind around it. It seems like a dream or some kind of temporary state that will come to an end soon one way or another. I mean, I truly can't believe it is working this well and is this easy--there has to be some catch.
I was looking back at my old Weight Watchers booklets--I must have 10 or 12 spanning about nine years. The first time I ever went to Weight Watchers in 1999, I started at 231. It took me 8 months to get from 231 to 203, which is where I am now, having started at 228. And I got here in less than one calendar month. It's truly incredible, to the point of seeming impossible. And it really hasn't been hard.
Well, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to go dream about Baskin Robbins cake...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Breakthrough Day (P2, D20)
By breakthrough day, I don't mean in weight. I mean in self discovery, aka navel-gazing voodoo. But first to the weight, which is my custom. Down 0.8 pounds for a total of 4.4 this week and 21.8 total. Working the plan, working the plan.
I have written before on this blog about how I have taken some shit for this diet. My friends Z and her husband B have been particularly skeptical. B is one of my favorite men in the world. He's just very kind and dear and genuine, and a wee bit affably dorky. He's also seriously left-brained and scientific, and when I ran into him yesterday at the gym, he said, "so am I allowed to make jokes about this ridiculous diet?" Gentle teasing and sarcasm is sort of the way Z&B and R and I relate to each other. I said, "Actually, NO." He made a half-hearted attempt at a joke anyway, and I froze him out. I was actually really pissed about it.
We were all invited to dinner at a third couple's house that night. I dutifully made and brought my own food. B wouldn't talk to me or make eye contact with me the whole night. Several upsetting things have been building for me over the last week, and I've been getting increasingly touchy and depressed. When I got home last night, I had a complete breakdown because I thought B didn't have any respect for me anymore, which opened up a whole can of worms about my fears that R doesn't have any respect for me anymore. It's like if you have a friend who you think is this totally normal, sane, logical, intelligent person and they convert to Mormonism or Scientology or something. Wouldn't it call your whole relationship with that person into question? It's not that you can't come back from it (and no offense to the Mormon or Scientologist HCGers who may be reading this blog), but it would throw you for a loop. I was crying and crying (for the first time in a very long time) and just feeling totally alone, like the people I know in town who are on this diet can't make room for my skepticism and the people who aren't just think I am batshit crazy.
My little breakdown led to a really sweet conversation with R, who was more than a little tipsy from all the fine Italian wine served at dinner. He conceded that the real reason he was against this diet is that he thought it was unhealthy and that I would be miserable and anxious and bitchy and depressed (what he actually said was that he thought it would be a repeat of the postpartum phase, which was a bear both times). R said that I was the same as ever. There was minimal impact on him, and that he wants me to be successful and wants to support me. It was really lovely and sweet and supportive and nice.
So there was that.
I saw B at a birthday party today where we were both dropping off our kids. Again, he wouldn't talk to me or make eye contact with me and was just very weird. So I asked him if he thought I was crazy now and if he didn't like me anymore. He stammered, he murmured, but he wouldn't come out and say, "no! What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong!" And clearly there was. I finally said, "I know you don't understand this and you don't think it's smart or logical, but just give me a chance to show you that I'm not any different, that I'm not any less smart or logical about everything else."
B hesitated, chewed his lip and then said, "the truth is, you said I can't make jokes about it, and that's how I relate to people, and I'm afraid that I'm going to screw up and say the wrong thing, and I'm afraid that you are going to lose your sense of humor." So I told him it wasn't that he couldn't EVER make jokes about it, he just couldn't right now, and that he could still make jokes about LOTS of things and that I promised I wouldn't lose my sense of humor and I promised that we would eventually make jokes about it together. I am actually quite good at self-deprecating humor.
We got distracted by kid stuff at that point, but I felt settled and calmed. A few minutes later, he was leaving the party and ran over and whispered into my ear, "I think you're smart and funny and beautiful and don't worry about it." And he kissed my cheek. And I actually got tears in my eyes about what a dear, sweet man he is.
So that was another thing.
At this same kid's birthday party, I also cleared up another problem/misunderstanding with another friend that had been weighing on me for a few days. I told her calmly and fairly that something she said upset me without making it a bigger deal than it was but also without playing down how much it bothered me. And she explained her true meaning, and we talked about it, and it was all cleared up. And I still like her, and she still likes me, and the world did not come to a screeching halt because I was honest about my feelings in a way that might hurt someone else's feelings.
It's hard to describe why, but this just feels like a MAJOR breakthrough on all my worries about what other people think.
I woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat and a stiff and achy body. R let me stay in bed all morning because we both thought I was sick. But I think I was just having some kind of psychic illness and all these events are rolling up together to finally break me out of my basically week-long funk. Fucking finally!
My friend H told me at the very beginning of this diet process that I needed to stop listening to what everyone else thought I should do and what everyone else wanted me to do. On one side I have my HCG coach and other local friends doing HCG who say "Don't listen to the skeptics. Listen to us. Do everything just like we say and don't listen to everyone else or anyone else. Have faith. Don't deviate at all and don't experiment." On the other side, I have my husband and a few skeptical friends and family members who say, "don't listen to the people who say this diet works. Listen to us. Listen to rationality and science. Listen to years of research that say that the way to lose weight is reasonable diet and exercise." And then of course there are also a few lovely people who know about this blog who are not doing either of those things, who simply support me and take interest in me and trust me to make my own decisions. And more and more people from the skeptic group are moving into the support group (R, Z) which is wonderful.
But it shouldn't really matter. I am not doing something dangerous or unhealthy. I am not giving myself shit and calling it shineola. I am doing an unconventional diet with promising but not guaranteed long-term result. I am a grown-ass woman, and you know what? I am fucking smart. And so if I think this is what I need to be doing now, I need to trust myself and, as H said, STOP LISTENING TO EVERYONE ELSE. Truthfully, it is flattering that I have so many people who care enough about me to give a shit about this. There are not many people I care enough about that I would feel compelled to get involved in their personal relationship with food and their body in any role other than a supportive one. So I tell myself that I am lucky that people give a shit how I am taking care of my body, even if it doesn't always feel welcome.
So, yeah. It feels like I have had a small and hopefully somewhat permanent breakthrough on the narrowly-defined topic of WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF KAT'S DIET. Now let's talk about the upcoming royal wedding.
| Day 15 | 11/15/2010 | 212.4 | 0.2 | -17.2 |
| Day 16 | 11/16/2010 | 210 | -2.4 | -19.6 |
| Day 17 | 11/17/2010 | 210.2 | 0.2 | 19.4 |
| Day 18 | 11/18/2010 | 209.4 | 0.8 | 20.2 |
| Day 19 | 11/19/2010 | 208.6 | 0.8 | 21 |
| Day 20 | 11/20/2010 | 208 | 0.8 | 21.8 |
I have written before on this blog about how I have taken some shit for this diet. My friends Z and her husband B have been particularly skeptical. B is one of my favorite men in the world. He's just very kind and dear and genuine, and a wee bit affably dorky. He's also seriously left-brained and scientific, and when I ran into him yesterday at the gym, he said, "so am I allowed to make jokes about this ridiculous diet?" Gentle teasing and sarcasm is sort of the way Z&B and R and I relate to each other. I said, "Actually, NO." He made a half-hearted attempt at a joke anyway, and I froze him out. I was actually really pissed about it.
We were all invited to dinner at a third couple's house that night. I dutifully made and brought my own food. B wouldn't talk to me or make eye contact with me the whole night. Several upsetting things have been building for me over the last week, and I've been getting increasingly touchy and depressed. When I got home last night, I had a complete breakdown because I thought B didn't have any respect for me anymore, which opened up a whole can of worms about my fears that R doesn't have any respect for me anymore. It's like if you have a friend who you think is this totally normal, sane, logical, intelligent person and they convert to Mormonism or Scientology or something. Wouldn't it call your whole relationship with that person into question? It's not that you can't come back from it (and no offense to the Mormon or Scientologist HCGers who may be reading this blog), but it would throw you for a loop. I was crying and crying (for the first time in a very long time) and just feeling totally alone, like the people I know in town who are on this diet can't make room for my skepticism and the people who aren't just think I am batshit crazy.
My little breakdown led to a really sweet conversation with R, who was more than a little tipsy from all the fine Italian wine served at dinner. He conceded that the real reason he was against this diet is that he thought it was unhealthy and that I would be miserable and anxious and bitchy and depressed (what he actually said was that he thought it would be a repeat of the postpartum phase, which was a bear both times). R said that I was the same as ever. There was minimal impact on him, and that he wants me to be successful and wants to support me. It was really lovely and sweet and supportive and nice.
So there was that.
I saw B at a birthday party today where we were both dropping off our kids. Again, he wouldn't talk to me or make eye contact with me and was just very weird. So I asked him if he thought I was crazy now and if he didn't like me anymore. He stammered, he murmured, but he wouldn't come out and say, "no! What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong!" And clearly there was. I finally said, "I know you don't understand this and you don't think it's smart or logical, but just give me a chance to show you that I'm not any different, that I'm not any less smart or logical about everything else."
B hesitated, chewed his lip and then said, "the truth is, you said I can't make jokes about it, and that's how I relate to people, and I'm afraid that I'm going to screw up and say the wrong thing, and I'm afraid that you are going to lose your sense of humor." So I told him it wasn't that he couldn't EVER make jokes about it, he just couldn't right now, and that he could still make jokes about LOTS of things and that I promised I wouldn't lose my sense of humor and I promised that we would eventually make jokes about it together. I am actually quite good at self-deprecating humor.
We got distracted by kid stuff at that point, but I felt settled and calmed. A few minutes later, he was leaving the party and ran over and whispered into my ear, "I think you're smart and funny and beautiful and don't worry about it." And he kissed my cheek. And I actually got tears in my eyes about what a dear, sweet man he is.
So that was another thing.
At this same kid's birthday party, I also cleared up another problem/misunderstanding with another friend that had been weighing on me for a few days. I told her calmly and fairly that something she said upset me without making it a bigger deal than it was but also without playing down how much it bothered me. And she explained her true meaning, and we talked about it, and it was all cleared up. And I still like her, and she still likes me, and the world did not come to a screeching halt because I was honest about my feelings in a way that might hurt someone else's feelings.
It's hard to describe why, but this just feels like a MAJOR breakthrough on all my worries about what other people think.
I woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat and a stiff and achy body. R let me stay in bed all morning because we both thought I was sick. But I think I was just having some kind of psychic illness and all these events are rolling up together to finally break me out of my basically week-long funk. Fucking finally!
My friend H told me at the very beginning of this diet process that I needed to stop listening to what everyone else thought I should do and what everyone else wanted me to do. On one side I have my HCG coach and other local friends doing HCG who say "Don't listen to the skeptics. Listen to us. Do everything just like we say and don't listen to everyone else or anyone else. Have faith. Don't deviate at all and don't experiment." On the other side, I have my husband and a few skeptical friends and family members who say, "don't listen to the people who say this diet works. Listen to us. Listen to rationality and science. Listen to years of research that say that the way to lose weight is reasonable diet and exercise." And then of course there are also a few lovely people who know about this blog who are not doing either of those things, who simply support me and take interest in me and trust me to make my own decisions. And more and more people from the skeptic group are moving into the support group (R, Z) which is wonderful.
But it shouldn't really matter. I am not doing something dangerous or unhealthy. I am not giving myself shit and calling it shineola. I am doing an unconventional diet with promising but not guaranteed long-term result. I am a grown-ass woman, and you know what? I am fucking smart. And so if I think this is what I need to be doing now, I need to trust myself and, as H said, STOP LISTENING TO EVERYONE ELSE. Truthfully, it is flattering that I have so many people who care enough about me to give a shit about this. There are not many people I care enough about that I would feel compelled to get involved in their personal relationship with food and their body in any role other than a supportive one. So I tell myself that I am lucky that people give a shit how I am taking care of my body, even if it doesn't always feel welcome.
So, yeah. It feels like I have had a small and hopefully somewhat permanent breakthrough on the narrowly-defined topic of WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF KAT'S DIET. Now let's talk about the upcoming royal wedding.
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.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Roller Coasters (P2, D9)
I knew there would be ups and downs on this diet, and I've had my first up. I gained 0.6 today, but there's no real reason for it, so I'm hoping it's a fluke. I didn't do or eat anything weird yesterday. I'm not having my period (I refuse on principal to call it Aunt Flo just like I refuse to call R my "hubby.") I didn't use any funny creams. I did miss one dose of the drops the day before yesterday when my kid was in the ER, but I don't really think that's it. I think it's probably either normal water fluctuations or the aforementioned scale, which is not as precise as it could be.
Speaking of scales, my friend T sent me her fancy, schmancy body fat monitor. She got fed up with it because she didn't think it was accurate, but it does measure body fat and muscle, and I was curious to see if it was at least directionally accurate. One of my big fears on this diet is that the weight will be lost from muscle instead of fat, so I'm hoping this scale can help me track that a little. So far, my muscle has stayed the same while my body fat continues to decrease slowly.
Another kind of rollercoaster: emotional. I would say that 75% of the day, I am feeling good about this diet and confident that I can make it work. But I also feel a little schizo about it and have a constant narrative running in my head. Y'all, I am in my head SO MUCH. It is exhausting. This is not the diet, it is me. The few of you reading this that actually know me know that I am like this about everything, not just this diet.
A typical day:
6:30 a.m. Hmmm, I'm not as hungry today. That's awesome. This is going to be a good day.
6:40: Another pound lost! I am awesome! I am the awesomest person who ever did this diet. I bet I can lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks.
7:00: There is NO WAY I can lose 20 pounds in two weeks. This weight loss will slow down soon, or I'll stop losing all together because my metabolism is fried. I'll be lucky to lose 20 pounds in the whole 40 days.
7:15: Look at me! I'm making lunches for the kids, watching them eat their breakfast, and I'm feeling strong. No desire to dip into the animal crackers or peanuts. No temptation to sneak a bite of oatmeal with brown sugar or mushroom and cheese omelet. I am a rock. I am the strongest person ever! I am changing my eating behaviors from the ground up! I will never eat emotionally again!!
9:00: I think my jeans are looser! Oh, holy day, my body is going to be TRANSFORMED! I am going to look so hot and amazing! I wonder how many inches I've already lost!? I bet it's A LOT of inches!
9:01: The only thing is that I'm probably going to get all this loose, sagging skin if I lose this much weight so quickly. I can't even imagine what my boobs are going to look like after nursing two babies and then a rapid weight loss. Oy. Maybe it's better to be fat and have tight skin than to be skinny and saggy everywhere.
9:02: No, it is better NOT to be fat, regardless of sagging skin. I will still feel better and healthier, and I'll be able to hit the gym hard and tone up to tighten up. It will all be ok.
9:03: What if I look all shrunken and deflated? What if I look awesome? What if I look terrible? What if I can't lose all the weight I want to lose? What if I can lose even more than I want to lose? What if I lose it all really fast, what if I lose it slow? ARGGGHHHH!
10:00: I feel good. I feel mentally sharp. I am able to stay on task. I don't feel overly grumpy or impatient or tired. I think this diet is just what I need. It may actually be improving my mental acuity, maybe because I'm not eating so much brain-fogging sugar and chemicals.
12:15 p.m.: You know, this plain chicken with plain spinach actually tastes really good to me. I think this diet is resetting my taste buds. I am noticing flavor so much more! This is awesome. I could go my whole life without ever eating another disgusting, fatty, salty cheeseburger.
12:18: I just want a cheeseburger. Mmmmm, a cheeseburger.
2:00: Look at me doing yoga! Not only am I dieting, but I am trying to keep my muscles strong! I am awesome! I could write the book on this diet, that's how awesome I am.
2:10: I wonder if I'd be able to hold that pose if I were getting more than 500 calories a day. Probably so, considering I am basically STARVING myself. I wonder how much people in refugee camps get to eat in a day? I wonder if it is more than 500 calories. I should Google it.
3:00: You know, I'm really not that hungry. I think I could eat like this basically forever.
4:00: I AM STARVING! I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS!
5:00: Time to take the drops. These drops are not doing anything. It is working only because of the placebo effect. There is no way that something diluted 60x could make any difference in my metabolism. This could be plain spring water and I would be none the wiser. I can't believe I'm falling for this bullshit diet.
5:30: But obviously the drops are working, because I'm losing more fat than muscle. Obviously this diet is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, and everyone should know about it! I want to shout it from the rooftops: I AM ON THE HCG DIET!
6:00: I will never tell anyone I am doing this. They will laugh at me for falling for something that is about as scientifically rigorous as the spam for "enlarge your penis" homeopathic remedies we all spam emails that we all get in our inboxes. I will never tell anyone what I'm doing.
6:30: I think my face is thinner. And it's evening, and I still have energy. This dinner is so healthy! Organic, grass-fed beef, organic vegetables, organic fruit. My body is doing a long-overdue detox from all the shit I've been feeding it for years. This is the best diet ever. I will never say another bad word about it. I FEEL AWESOME!
7:30: I definitely cannot do this for 40 days. Maybe I'll just stop after 25 days.
7:32: Why would I ever stop? Maybe I'll do it for 60 days and just lose all my weight! Maybe I'll do it for 100 days! Maybe I'll do it for a year! There is no down side to this diet other than a little hunger, which has been totally manageable so far. I AM TRIUMPHANT AND UNSTOPPABLE!
8:30: I am hungry. Maybe I should just go to bed.
10:00 p.m.: I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and see how much more I've lost. I love this diet. This is the best thing that ever happened to me.
And.....scene.
| 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 |
| Day 6 | 11/6/2010 | 216.4 | -2.2 | -13.2 |
| Day 7 | 11/7/2010 | 215.8 | -0.6 | -13.8 |
| Day 8 | 11/8/2010 | 214.8 | -1 | -14.8 |
| Day 9 | 11/9/2010 | 215.8 | 0.6 | -13.8 |
Speaking of scales, my friend T sent me her fancy, schmancy body fat monitor. She got fed up with it because she didn't think it was accurate, but it does measure body fat and muscle, and I was curious to see if it was at least directionally accurate. One of my big fears on this diet is that the weight will be lost from muscle instead of fat, so I'm hoping this scale can help me track that a little. So far, my muscle has stayed the same while my body fat continues to decrease slowly.
Another kind of rollercoaster: emotional. I would say that 75% of the day, I am feeling good about this diet and confident that I can make it work. But I also feel a little schizo about it and have a constant narrative running in my head. Y'all, I am in my head SO MUCH. It is exhausting. This is not the diet, it is me. The few of you reading this that actually know me know that I am like this about everything, not just this diet.
A typical day:
6:30 a.m. Hmmm, I'm not as hungry today. That's awesome. This is going to be a good day.
6:40: Another pound lost! I am awesome! I am the awesomest person who ever did this diet. I bet I can lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks.
7:00: There is NO WAY I can lose 20 pounds in two weeks. This weight loss will slow down soon, or I'll stop losing all together because my metabolism is fried. I'll be lucky to lose 20 pounds in the whole 40 days.
7:15: Look at me! I'm making lunches for the kids, watching them eat their breakfast, and I'm feeling strong. No desire to dip into the animal crackers or peanuts. No temptation to sneak a bite of oatmeal with brown sugar or mushroom and cheese omelet. I am a rock. I am the strongest person ever! I am changing my eating behaviors from the ground up! I will never eat emotionally again!!
9:00: I think my jeans are looser! Oh, holy day, my body is going to be TRANSFORMED! I am going to look so hot and amazing! I wonder how many inches I've already lost!? I bet it's A LOT of inches!
9:01: The only thing is that I'm probably going to get all this loose, sagging skin if I lose this much weight so quickly. I can't even imagine what my boobs are going to look like after nursing two babies and then a rapid weight loss. Oy. Maybe it's better to be fat and have tight skin than to be skinny and saggy everywhere.
9:02: No, it is better NOT to be fat, regardless of sagging skin. I will still feel better and healthier, and I'll be able to hit the gym hard and tone up to tighten up. It will all be ok.
9:03: What if I look all shrunken and deflated? What if I look awesome? What if I look terrible? What if I can't lose all the weight I want to lose? What if I can lose even more than I want to lose? What if I lose it all really fast, what if I lose it slow? ARGGGHHHH!
10:00: I feel good. I feel mentally sharp. I am able to stay on task. I don't feel overly grumpy or impatient or tired. I think this diet is just what I need. It may actually be improving my mental acuity, maybe because I'm not eating so much brain-fogging sugar and chemicals.
12:15 p.m.: You know, this plain chicken with plain spinach actually tastes really good to me. I think this diet is resetting my taste buds. I am noticing flavor so much more! This is awesome. I could go my whole life without ever eating another disgusting, fatty, salty cheeseburger.
12:18: I just want a cheeseburger. Mmmmm, a cheeseburger.
2:00: Look at me doing yoga! Not only am I dieting, but I am trying to keep my muscles strong! I am awesome! I could write the book on this diet, that's how awesome I am.
2:10: I wonder if I'd be able to hold that pose if I were getting more than 500 calories a day. Probably so, considering I am basically STARVING myself. I wonder how much people in refugee camps get to eat in a day? I wonder if it is more than 500 calories. I should Google it.
3:00: You know, I'm really not that hungry. I think I could eat like this basically forever.
4:00: I AM STARVING! I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS!
5:00: Time to take the drops. These drops are not doing anything. It is working only because of the placebo effect. There is no way that something diluted 60x could make any difference in my metabolism. This could be plain spring water and I would be none the wiser. I can't believe I'm falling for this bullshit diet.
5:30: But obviously the drops are working, because I'm losing more fat than muscle. Obviously this diet is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, and everyone should know about it! I want to shout it from the rooftops: I AM ON THE HCG DIET!
6:00: I will never tell anyone I am doing this. They will laugh at me for falling for something that is about as scientifically rigorous as the spam for "enlarge your penis" homeopathic remedies we all spam emails that we all get in our inboxes. I will never tell anyone what I'm doing.
6:30: I think my face is thinner. And it's evening, and I still have energy. This dinner is so healthy! Organic, grass-fed beef, organic vegetables, organic fruit. My body is doing a long-overdue detox from all the shit I've been feeding it for years. This is the best diet ever. I will never say another bad word about it. I FEEL AWESOME!
7:30: I definitely cannot do this for 40 days. Maybe I'll just stop after 25 days.
7:32: Why would I ever stop? Maybe I'll do it for 60 days and just lose all my weight! Maybe I'll do it for 100 days! Maybe I'll do it for a year! There is no down side to this diet other than a little hunger, which has been totally manageable so far. I AM TRIUMPHANT AND UNSTOPPABLE!
8:30: I am hungry. Maybe I should just go to bed.
10:00 p.m.: I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and see how much more I've lost. I love this diet. This is the best thing that ever happened to me.
And.....scene.
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