The Long Awaited Final Summation of the All You Can Eat Diet

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  If you've been following this blog for any small amount of time, you know just how much I suck at updating it.

It is amazing to me that I was once able to bang out, not one, but THREE columns a week, AND that I did one of those columns THREE TIMES per week.

I guess it's different when you're getting paid for it.

So, this time I actually have a pretty decent excuse, or set of excuses, if you will, for not updating.  But, before we get to the whining, let's talk about the All You Can Eat Diet.

When last we spoke, I was embarking on Fowl and Tomatoes Day. I did great on Fowl and Tomatoes Day. I could eat Fowl and Tomatoes for the rest of my life. With some cheese and chocolate thrown in every once in a while.

The day after that was Fowl and Veggies and this is where things start to get a little hinky.

See, F&V Day was also the day of the PTO's big major fundraiser at my daughter's school. I was on the planning committee for it this year, and was volunteering during the event as well.  What that translated to was some cold cut turkey and lettuce for dinner and a couple bites of cupcake.  And then, going out with the rest of the committee after the event for some food and some drinks.

The next day was supposed to be Miracle Soup Day, but I had forgotten to purchase the ingredients for the Miracle Soup, and you know what? I screwed it all up with French onion soup and chocolate cake shots the night before anyway. Whatevs.

So, all told, I lost seven pounds, without actually finishing the diet the right way.

My final word on this one? I think it's an awesome post-vacation diet. For example, "OMG I ate my face off last week in Vegas. Lemme do that All You Can Eat Diet to get myself back where I was."

I don't think it's something I'd like to do several times a year, but mostly because I am really not a fan of the whole yo-yo thing. I don't want to go up ten pounds, diet for a week and be back down ten pounds. I want to just stick to about the same weight.

When I figure out how to do that, I'll let y'all know.

In the meantime, now you get to hear all about my fabulous week. Strap yourself in.

The week started out great. The stress from the PTO fundraiser was behind me (mostly. I still have to go pull signs down from around town.), I had spent a couple hours out with the girls and was looking forward to fun goings on in the week ahead.

Wednesday was The Princess' birthday, and Friday was her birthday party. Saturday I was set to go to a bridal shower for a cousin, followed by cheese and chocolate fondue with one of my besties. It was supposed to be an awesome week.

But, on Wednesday, the Princess fell and broke her wrist at 7am.  I woke up with an itchy rash all over my face. By Thursday, my itchy rash had spread to include enough of my body that I went straight to the doctor after dropping the Princess off at school.

I had to get a shot. In my rear end. From the cute male nurse.

But, just in case that wasn't mortifying enough... On Friday night, at the birthday party, I was recreating those chocolate cake shots from last week. BAD MOVE.

The good news about that, though, is that I wasn't itchy, at least.

On Saturday, I had rashiness by my eye, so no contact lenses, and behind my ear, so no glasses. So I couldn't see to go to my cousin's shower.

AND the final insult. My husband ended up having work every night, which meant I had to cancel Fun with Fondue.  Curses.

So I'm sure you can imagine that the blog wasn't uppermost in my mind this week. Although, I did think of y'all when I was being injected with steroids and antihistamines. The thought was "Oh thank goodness I just lost some weight, before I had to drop trou in front of this guy.  Can't wait to blog about this one."

Now, friends and neighbors, I am off to the end of the year party at the Princess' first grade class.  I will try not to scratch myself to death, and I will endeavor to not eat an entire pizza pie on my own.

What's going on in  your world today?

Fowl tomatoes and house painting

Yesterday went well. It helped that I stayed INSANELY busy for most of the day.

Pee-pee yellow. See? I wasn't kidding.

My amazing parents came over to help me paint my house. I spent a good portion of my day power washing, moving things away from the house (like plants and mulch) and then painting.

We're going from pee-pee yellow to a gorgeous deep beige. I can't overstate the amazing difference a coat of paint has made.

Because of my level of busy, I was really grateful to not have to think about food all day. When I felt hungry, I snagged a banana. When I was thirsty, which was often, I grabbed some water or skim milk.

I've never been a milk drinker, but since I did Jenny Craig a couple years ago, and followed their recommendation to drink one glass of skim milk a day, I've found that I don't hate it as much as I thought.

Another discovery; if you put some chocolate flavored stevia in skim milk you have a wonderful approximation of chocolate milk. That's amazing, because I hate chocolate stevia in just about everything else.

This is something to stick under my hat for later. I try to avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners, so making good chocolate milk is a PITA most days. Unless I want to heat it and add cocoa powder, but, generally, when I want chocolate milk, it hits me, like, NOW.

So, on to today! It's "Fowl and Tomatoes" day. My husband saw that and said, "Oh, look! Tomorrow you get to eat fowl tomatoes!"

Yeah, he's a riot.

Chicken, turkey and six tomatoes. That's my diet today. And I am beyond excited for my chicken and turkey!  In fact, I had three turkey sausage links before I even had coffee this morning.

I eat a pretty high protein diet, under normal circumstances. So, cutting out meat for the past four days, and dairy for three of them, as well, really shocked my body. Shocked it into losing six pounds in four days, in fact.

I weighed myself this morning and that's where I'm at, with three days to go.

Of course, I've seen this number before. The last twenty seven times I dieted, in fact. The challenge, for me, is staying here (or lower than here) long enough to convince my body that this is better than 152 pounds.

For some reason, my body loves 152 pounds.  Maybe it's holding on to some extra fat in case there's a zombie apocalypse or something.  Pretty good forethought, but I'd rather be skinny enough to run away from them, than be able to live off my fat stores for a year or so.

After all, canned food and twinkies will survive anything.

I'm going to go eat a tomato and paint my house. What's going on in your world today?

Yes! We have no bananas!

The title is misleading. The fact is, all we have today are bananas.  Well, that and skim milk.

I woke up this morning and a thought struck me. I can drink coffee with a ridiculous amount of skim milk in it today.

It's coffee. Despite the proclaimed love of chocolate

The truth is, I've been having a cup of coffee in the morning, because caffeine dep is just too cruel to contemplate during this diet. This is far down from my usual coffee consumption. I figure even though coffee isn't on the diet, I'm still doing better than I normally do.

I usually take my coffee with a bit of cream or a bit more of half and half. Today, it's skim milk, in an effort to stick with this as closely as possible (without giving up my coffee).

Coffee with skim milk is just bleh.

Even with half a cup of skim milk.

Who in the world thinks skim milk is a good idea for anything? It's basically white water. With some other stuff. Not a lot of other stuff.

Anyway, all skim milk angst aside (at least it's got some protein in it. I'm dying for some protein), today will be a good day of not thinking about food at all.

When I did HCG, I loved to do an apple day once in a while, because it was so no pressure. I didn't have to figure out what was for lunch or dinner. Apples!

I have a similar feeling today. It's gonna go like this. "Hmmm, I'm hungry. Banana!"

I also snagged a couple yogurts at Wegman's last night. They didn't have the Weight Watchers ones, so I got Dannon Light and Fit. We'll see how that goes.

I was going to get all preachy about the evils of artificial sweeteners, and really, they are evil. But I have a feeling I'm going to want something besides 'nanas and milk at some point today, so I decided to have a back up plan.

Also? I have a diet Pepsi habit that I need to kick.

Hard to get on my soapbox about the artificial sweeteners in yogurt when I'm drinking the same crap in soda once a day or so.

Although I didn't enjoy my morning coffee, I did have the best banana I've ever eaten in my entire life mere moments ago.

I don't hate bananas, but they're far from my go to food. In fact, I often skip them in recipes for smoothies and such, if I'm not feeling the banana flavor.

Often, I'm just not feeling the banana flavor.

Today is not one of those days.

Also, I have an idea to blend up a banana with some ice and skim milk today and try to talk myself into believing it's a protein shake.

Or maybe skipping the ice and trying to convince myself it's pudding. That might be even better.

Fruit and vegetable day went alright. I wasn't starving, which was nice. And I wasn't even really tempted to raid the kid shelf in my pantry, which is a definite improvement over where I'd been the prior two days.

I didn't really feel it till I got home from work/errands last night around 9 and sat down to watch the rest of the Devil's game with my husband. Would have been a nice spot for a beer. Instead, I had some grilled pineapple slices.

Not. The. Same.

Anyway, come back tomorrow and I'll let you know how banana and milk day went!

Fruit Day Down. Veggie Day Down.

And I'm still alive.

That being said, I have cheated. Not massively, but yes, I admit it. I found it very difficult to stick to only fruits and then only vegetables.

On fruit day, I somehow found two of my kids' chicken nuggets in my mouth. And you know, once they were there....

Yesterday, I had the same thing happen with a couple pieces of chocolate.

I swear, they jumped in there of their own accord.

But, whatever, it's a new day! It's Fruit AND Veggie Day!

Does anyone else think I'm turning into that insane fad dieter?

"If I just put a little dirt on the tip of my tongue..."

(That's a line from a very old, very funny Sinbad stand up special.  It's on Netflix.)

When I started this diet, I figured, if I lose weight, woohoo. And if I don't, whatever. The idea is, if I blog about it, I'm essentially doing a review of this insane diet for YOU, my good reader.

So, see? I'm going through all this fruit and veggie nonsense for you.

I hope you appreciate me.

So far, I can tell you that fruit day was worse than veggie day. I think, and I'm no scientist here or anything, but I think that veggies have more fiber than fruit?  Maybe. So they made me feel fuller.

Not full enough to back away from the chocolate, but fuller.

I am looking forward to tomorrow, which consists of nothing but bananas and skim milk.  I have never, in my entire life, looked forward to drinking milk.  But my body is screaming for some protein.

Which brings me to a question I'm sure you're all wondering about.

Is this really a good idea? Is this really a healthy way to lose weight?

Well I'll give you my take on it.

Modern man (woman) has a huge variety of foods available all day every day. We can go to ShopRite and get any kind of produce, regardless of the season. We can even get things we have no hope of growing around our own homes, ever.

For example, pineapples don't grow in Jersey. But there's one on my counter, waiting for me to slice into it and grill it up later on with my dinner. And oh, boy, I am going to do just that.

We can get any type of meat our hearts desire, whenever we want to. Who here doesn't have some sort of meat at least once a day?  (Vegetarians, you do not count. Well, you count, but not for this random poll.)

But it wasn't always like this. Our earliest ancestors would go days, weeks, or however long they had to until they shot down their next wooly mammoth or snagged a fish, or whatever, so they could have some meat. They subsisted on what they could forage. Berries, greens, etc.

Our bodies are designed for this, really.

I recently read The Four Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Weight Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferris. There are lots of neat tips in there, including the "incredible sex" part. (This is not THAT kind of blog, though, so I'll move on.)

One of the things that I really enjoyed reading about was his eating style. He carefully follows what he terms a "slow carb" diet, all week long. Then, once a week, he totally gluts himself on everything he can get his hands on.

And I'm not talking "oooh let's drizzle some chocolate on our strawberries!" I'm talking bear claws and pizza. 

It kind of mimics our ancestors' diets, in that there were times of plenty and times of not so much. 

Check out the book, it's worth a glance through. Push past all the science stuff if you have to. I had to. He backs up everything with lots and lots (and lots and lots) of research.

The point I'm making is this: I do not think this diet is unhealthy, especially in the extremely short term. We're talking about a week, although I've read that some have done several weeks back to back.  I think that might be a bit much for me. 

A short term fast, detox, cleanse, what have you, is very rarely a bad idea. Unless you just finished a different one yesterday or something. OR unless you have been advised by your physician not to do such a thing. 

I think it goes without saying, ALWAYS CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR.  But just in case it doesn't go without saying, I'm saying it. 

Well, there, now that's out of the way. Let's move on with this diet. I'm going to stop typing and finish my grapefruit.  And then I'll probably finish the half of a peach one of my daughters left on the dining room table. And then I'll have that half of an apple the other one left in the living room.

Has anyone else done this diet and lived to tell the tale?  Are you thinking about doing it, but waiting to see how I do, first? (I don't blame you one bit.) Leave me a comment to let me know!

An All You Can Eat Diet? Sign me up!

I swear, you guys, these last ten pounds (or so) are gonna be the end of me.  I could do another round of HCG, but honestly? I am not in the right head space for that at all.

And three weeks sounds like a really long time when I'm staring down my daughter's seventh birthday, a PTO fundraiser and various barbeques and other summer stuff.

So, here's my plan of attack. I found a pin on Pinterest that sounding promising. It was an infographic for the "Eat Your Heart Out!" diet that claims I can lose 10+ pounds in 7 days.

I'm not shooting for all ten in a week, honestly. I'll just be happy if the scale budges. In the right direction (as opposed to what it did last week).

I followed the pin to the Justin, Ashley & The Sidekicks blog, where I read up on the diet (Ashley's got a great FAQ up) and read an uncountable number of comments about it, as well.

Ashley says that she was given this diet plan by a physician and that she does it several times a year.

This diet is strict, but not as strict as HCG, so if I can do that for three weeks, I figured I'll have this in the bag.

Basically, every day of the week is dedicated to a different food or pair of foods. Then you finish up on the last day with a day of nothing but Miracle Soup.

So today is day one, and that is Fruit Day. You'd think, since this is all you can eat, that I'd be feeling full to bursting by 4:30 in the afternoon.

I've hit on a very important truth, though. Fruit is not filling. Unless you dip it in chocolate. Which I cannot do.

Also? Lots of fruit = lots of gastrointestinal fun.

I will admit to a small cheat of coffee with a bit of milk this morning.

And I am having a diet soda, now, which I'm not 100% sure is verboten or not. It does have some sodium, so I probably should not be drinking it. But, really? After a day of strawberries and watermelon... well, it's helping with my hunger, anyway.

The true test will be this evening. Can I stick to this diet through a playoff hockey game? I'm thinking if I have a pint of blueberries to stress nosh on, I'll be okay.

So, stay tuned.  Tomorrow is veggie day. Unless I cave and eat an entire chicken for dinner. Which could actually happen.  No, for real. I'm hungry.

Wanna know what I'm wearing?

I'm wearing.....

.....drum roll, please......

MY SIZE SEVEN BLACK BONGO JEANS.

In case you don't remember, here's the original post about The Black Jeans.

My husband? Happy guy.

Happy guy who is down 30-something pounds. And whose best friend asked me where he can get his own HCG.

I'm pretty freaking happy too. In case anyone was wondering. :-)

Two weeks in; One week left

Good morning, ladies and gents!!!  Why am I so freaking chipper, you wonder? Because I am officially in the last week of Phase 2, AND because I currently weigh less than I have in a LONG TIME. Like, SIX YEARS.

The past week has been rough on both me and the Mister. We've both been leveling off in our numbers, and seeing very small losses, followed by small gains, followed by a stalled scale. It's frustrating when you're following protocol and aren't seeing these huge losses that you were seeing in the beginning.

You know what's more than frustrating? Going to the movies, sitting next to someone eating Twizzlers, who is sitting next to someone eating popcorn, eating the cut up apple you brought with you, and GAINING A POUND THE NEXT MORNING.

No shizz. It sucked.

The movie, however, was pretty excellent. If you're a fan of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, I recommend the movie version of One for the Money. And I'm hoping to heck that they start filming Two for the Dough soon.

Not just because I want to see Morelli get kicked out of a car naked, either.

Anyway, back to this diet stuff. We recently discovered that our last day of the drops is supposed to be SuperBowl Sunday. This thrills me not in the least. I was considering stopping a couple days early, so I can eat wings and Phase 3 pizza during the game, but I have a feeling my darling husband is not on board with that program.

He is Mr. HCG, folks. I haven't seen him snag one thing off protocol. (Whereas I typically grab a piece of chocolate once a day. Also, I did have a small glass of Bailey's one night last week, after speaking to an editor who no longer requires my services. It was a small glass. I swear.)  He doesn't forget his drops, he carefully measures his food.

Ironically, the one day he didn't really measure his food and just eyeballed it, is the day he broke a stall.  Sometimes our bodies need to be shaken up a bit.  The extra protein shook his up.  When I tried extra protein, I saw a gain. So that, obviously, doesn't work for everyone.

In fact, yesterday, I accidentally skipped lunch, and showed a great loss this morning. I'll be interested to see what happens tomorrow, after eating normal meals again.  I'll report back on that, but I can tell you I am RAVENOUS so far today.

So one more week and I can start eating cheese again. Look out, fresh mozerella. I'm coming for you.

Current Standings

At the end of our first week on Phase 2, I figured I'd do a little update blog to let you know where we're at.

First, I need to tell you that I have totally been doing a half-assed Phase 2 here. The numbers are going down, but not very quickly. Mostly due to those string cheese sticks in my fridge and the walnut delights that used to be on my counter. *burp*

On to the stats!

I have lost my loading weight.  That's about it. (My own fault, I'm fine with it. Pass the Dove sugar free caramels.)

Paul is down 9.2 pounds. NINE POINT TWO. IN SIX DAYS.

Good stuff going on over here. 

Now my Irish is up and the competition is on.  He's still going to kick my ass, but at least my ass will be skinnier when we're done. 

Okay, I lied...

I'm doing another round of HCG.

Wait, hear  me out!

My husband has decided to do a round, and I am being super-supportive, by doing it with him.  He'd like to lose about 20-30 pounds (which, I have no doubt, being a man, he can do in one stupid round. Grrrr). I'll be happy if I lose these last 10 stubborn pounds, but since this round wasn't exactly my idea, I'm not too married to that number.

That's got an up side and a down side. The good part is that I am totally non-stressed about the number on the scale. In fact, I didn't even weigh myself before or after I loaded. I weighed myself today, after my first day of VLCD and am up very slightly from where I was at the end of my last round. Probably still loading weight I'm taking off.

I might weigh tomorrow. I might not. Very freeing, all told.

The down side is that I'm having a hard time staying committed. I've been cheating little bits here and there. One of my friends calls it "Phase 2 plus cookies." I call it "Phase 2 plus walnut delights." (Thank you, dear MIL, for bringing them over this weekend. Now if I could just stop EATING them! LOL)

My husband is the picture of HCG Protocol. He isn't eating anything he's not supposed to, very carefully weighs out his meals, and doesn't seem to be hungry at all.

I am hungry.  No, that's not entirely true. I'm MUNCHY, but not always hungry.

Anyway, here we go again.  More to come. :-)