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. 

My Magic Roller Coaster Ride

Down a little, up a little, down a little, up a little.

Sigh.

I have decided that I was entirely too rough on my poor womanly functions last time around. My weight loss has followed the exact same pattern this round, without a visit from AF.  So, maybe it wasn't my period's fault that my weight loss slowed down.

I'm forever preaching about reading Dr. S' book and following it to the letter. You'd think I'd have believed him when he said that the weight loss will slow down as you get closer to a healthy weight!

In any case, I'm still 20 pounds from where I started, and have decided that it's highly unlikely that I'll lose my last 10 pounds in the next 10 days, which is when my period is supposed to start back up. So I'm going to keep on keeping on, I think, and push right through that week.  We'll see how it goes.

I'll tell you what, it is HARD to stick to this diet when you're not losing a good amount a day. It's even HARDER when the scale creeps back up some. But, I still fully believe that it is totally worth it.  I mean, hello! I haven't been 145 pounds since after my little monster was born. I think. I don't even know for sure that I hit it then.

I am finding it harder to stick to protocol this round, but I think it's all mental. I KNOW it's all mental. I'm going to spend some time today in prayer and meditation and try to get my head on straight.  Other than that, it's all about swimming. You know, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." :-)

Oh! Look what I found! The HCG Diet Gourmet Cookbook: Over 200 "Low Calorie" Recipes for the "HCG Phase"  I'll be ordering that, and requesting super quick shipping, I think!  Also pulling some great recipes from The Liquid HCG Diet page. Just click on the HCG recipes tab at the top of the page.

Off to drink my second glass of water and get my poor dog fed. He's like, "Really, woman, I'M not on a diet!"

Smoochies and Huggles!

Round Two, and I'm coming out swinging!

Well, hello there! It's been about three weeks, and I've been busy. Also? There is just not too much to talk about in Phase 3. It's not like you're losing any weight, so my blogs would have looked like, "Well, I ate a bunch of cheese and some nuts before. And now I'm eating some chicken. I might have steak for dinner. Keep you posted." And that's just no fun to read.

On the other hand, Phase 2 is a great time to write, because WOOT for weight loss!

So, I'm here tonight to report that I ended my stint with Phase 3, and have happily jumped back into Phase 2 following two loading days.

I've been at it for about a week, and am down about 7 pounds. It would have been more, no doubt, but I had a weekend of birthday parties and one of them was my own daughter's. So stress eating abounded. I wasn't even hungry at Chuck E Cheese, but I ate a slice of that nasty pizza anyway. Because, you know, woohoo.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of recovering from my cheat-ie weekend (and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I really didn't cheat that much. You need to follow this diet to the LETTER, man), so didn't lose anything today. Hopefully being back on track today will get some pounds off by tomorrow. I'm only 12 pounds from my goal, so I wouldn't be surprised if I lose slower now, but I'd still like to be LOSING.

As we all know from my last round, being on HCG and NOT losing weight AT ALL really sucks monkey tush.

So, that's where I'm at, folks. Where are you at? Leave me some comment love so I know I'm not the only one reading this! ;-)

Stress Makes Me Want To Eat My Face Off

I promised a friend a blog about what I'm planning on doing over the holidays. I'll get to it. As Joey says "I never give up on my promises."  She lies by the way, she keeps promising to put her dirty socks in the hamper, but I keep finding them on her floor. Liar.

No, right now, I am blogging in an effort to murder the Munchster, who is picking away at my gut, at my brain, at my very soul.  Why is the Munchster so strong this morning? Well, this is the first day I've had lots of significant stress since I've gone on protocol.  And, as it says in the title, stress makes me want to eat my face off. Or your face off. Whichever is more convenient, really.

Oh, Great Sharini, what could possibly be bad enough to move you from your zen like diet state to this raging lunatic who just checked the garbage to make sure her kids really ate their poptarts this morning?

There was normal morning stress. "Joey stop swinging from the top bunk and get your clothes on." "Kimmie, don't chase the dog with the broom, it is NOT a brush!" "Has anyone seen mommy's keys?"

And then, backing out of the driveway this morning, my daughter screamed my name. Or, well, her name for me. "MOMMY!" Quick, and sharp and loud. I jumped ten feet through the sunroof and my hand slipped off the wheel, and I hit the telephone pole across the street.

I decided to check the bumper when I got back from dropping her off at school, and was more than relieved to see NO DAMAGE.  Until I walked over to the side of the bumper that actually made contact with the telephone pole. Yeah, that wasn't so pretty. Cracked the corner of my bumper.

Balls.

Then I get an email from my bank, to let me know that I"m below the balance threshold I indicated in my account. Huh. By how much, I wonder. Well, by almost $200, apparently!  My bank decided this would be a great month to begin charging me a $15 service fee with no warning. So, I bounced a grand total of five tiny transactions. At thirty five bucks a pop. Yeah. So, that song I downloaded from Amazon the other day? No longer $0.99. Now it's $35.99. (It was Joey McIntyre singing "The Way You Look Tonight."  I kind of think that one is worth every penny. Don't judge me.)  The $3 box of epsom salts I picked up at CVS? Right, $38.

When I called my husband to tell him about the car, I was kind of ready for a bit of a tirade.  Instead he said "Is everyone okay?" I was like, "Yeah, everyone's okay. I was backing out of the driveway, not doing 70 on 287." And he was all "Well, that's what matters. We can fix the car."

When I sent him a text message about the bank snafu, he didn't respond. He may have hit his limit of understanding. Even SuperHusband has a limit, I suppose.

In addition to this, my computer doesn't have MS Office. Which is an ongoing problem, but one that's caused me stress the past couple of days. (Santa? A Mac? Please?)

Also? My house is a disaster. The baby's nose is running away from her face, she's still in her footie pajamas (albeit with a hat and scarf on, left over from our mad dash to get Joey to school), there are toys everywhere and boxes and boxes of Christmas all over the kitchen and dining room. Because I haven't finished decorating yet.  Also? Unopened boxes from UPS on the front porch. They contain presents for my kids and my kids are ALWAYS RIGHT HERE, so I can't open them. Besides, I'm too busy digging through the garbage for poptarts.

Munchster, I hate you, and you cannot defeat me! Not even on Christmas! (I promise, that blog's next.)

Ten Pounds Released Forever!

TEN!! TEN!!! TEN!!!!

And I'm fitting into my size 12 jeans again!

That happened in less than a week. It's shocking. It's also shocking that, losing weight at the rate that I am, I am learning a HUGE amount of stuff about myself and my relationship with food.

For example, did you know, that I HATE going into a convenience store for a gallon of milk or deodorant or something and walking out without a "treat" (soda, candy bar, chips, etc.)? And guess what else? I figured out where that came from! Anytime I went to the store with my daddy when I was a kid, he'd always get me a "treat" (soda, candy bar, chips, etc.).

At the grocery store last night, with my onions, tomatoes, and apples on the belt, my husband gave me a really weird look when I lunged around the corner and grabbed a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. It was my treat. That was when I realized something was weird there.

Then, later, at CVS, to get the deodorant I had forgotten in ShopRite, I was lunging for the sugarless gum and stopped myself. "Do I really need gum?" the answer was no. In fact, I have a pack in my purse already. So, that was when I started thinking about where this compulsion to pick up a little something extra for me came from. And there it is.

Well, now that I know about it, I can see it for the silliness it is and knock it off.

Ten pounds since Saturday. Astonishing.

Questions I've heard lately:

Are you feeling okay? Or lightheaded, etc? I. Feel. Great. At bedtime, I'm tired and ready to sleep. But, that's fine. I mean, it's bedtime. LOL Throughout the day, I'm doing my normal stuff. Working with clients, chasing after Kimmie, walking Joey back and forth to school. And then, of course, there's laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc etc etc. I'm clearheaded (well, as clearheaded as I normally am), and I'm certainly not falling down exhausted.

Did you detox coming off sugar? Not much. The first day, I had a slight headache. I ended up killing it with a diet pepsi and an ibuprofen. It hasn't been back. I guess that's the extent of my sugar detox.

What are you craving? Nothing. There are a few foods that I miss, but nothing that I'm like, "OMG I NEED CHOCOLATE!" Chocolate is a food I miss. The other, of course, is cheese. But, here's the thing, I know I'll have them both again. Soon. This is a temporary parting. And with all the things I'm learning about myself here, in Phase II, I'll have a much healthier relationship with both of them, when I bring them back into my life.

Jitters? Nausea? Rapid heartbeat? This isn't a stimulant. It does nothing for your metabolism. It doesn't "speed" or "boost" anything. It just tells your body it's okay to burn your fat. So the short answer is no, to all three.

What other questions are running around out there? Post them in the comments and I'll address them in the next blog, or a future one.

There's More Than One Reason We Start With Loading!

Well, my loss has stalled. Temporarily. Thank you, Eve, for eating the apple and cursing the rest of us with monthly issues that cause us to soak up water like a sponge. The good news is, when this is over, I'll probably show a huge loss.

So, I wanted to talk about loading today. Because it sounds like it should be a big lot of fun, no? Eating whatever you want. Hey, eating MORE than whatever you want. I'm not kidding, I ate chips and dip with a spoon. And polished off almost an entire pumpkin pie on my own. My brother made the pumpkin pie, by the way. He is FULL of surprises.

I'll tell you what, the first day was awesome. It was Thanksgiving. I ate while I cooked. I ate while I watched the parade. Then we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house. They got a whole wheel of brie for me. Because I love cheese. Second only to my family. I ate almost the entire wheel myself. And of course, there was turkey, and green bean casserole, and stuffing and pies and tarts, and all kinds of yummy yummy fattening food.

Yeah, Thanksgiving was kind of awesome.

The day after Thanksgiving, I was still loading. It started to lose some of the luster. I was kind of sick of gorging myself. I felt bloated and fat, and uncomfortable. And my body was making unpleasant noises and smells. But, I set a goal for myself on Friday, to polish off anything in the house that would tempt me come Saturday. So, I downed half a case of cherry Coke, as well as a couple cans of ginger ale. I finished off the Thanksgiving leftovers. And hit those chips and dip. With a spoon.

Let me tell you my favorite part of loading. Giving myself permission to just eat whatever I wanted to. For years, I've been silently judging myself for every single bite that passed my lips. Not on those two days. I had permission to eat and eat and eat some more. And not just to eat, but to eat the absolute worst foods I could find. So, when I dug into that dip with that spoon, I wasn't feeling guilt, or anger, or shameful. I was feeling joyful and hopeful. I remember thinking to myself, "The fat in this dip is going to help fuel my body tomorrow." I wasn't just eating to eat. I was eating with purpose.

That was my introduction to eating with purpose. It was the first time I've ever done that. I mean, aside from purposefully drowning my feelings in a bag of Cheetos and a gallon of soda.

And the eating with a purpose continues. On the HCG Protocol, you can't mindlessly eat. I mean, you can, but you'll put weight on faster than you can say "Oh crap! I accidentally ate a box of chocolates!" You have to remember that the HCG is releasing the fat on your body, IF you need it to be released. If you don't? It'll hold on to it, as well as the food you overate. So, it's beyond important to stick to the diet in the protocol. This cannot be stressed enough.

I never realized how many mindless calories I dump in my mouth throughout the day until I started the protocol. When I cook dinner, I'm a taster. If I pass a box of chocolates in the pantry, I'll stop and grab one. I mean, what can one chocolate hurt? When my kids don't finish their dinner, I do it for them. Because, I mean, what am I supposed to do? Let it go to WASTE?

I'm more aware of my natural tendency to munch. And being aware of it is the first step to overcoming it. So, I am OVERCOMING my natural tendency to munch.

See, this is how this is working. Because I can't munch when the urge presents itself, I have to, instead, deal with whatever's going on that's causing the Munch-ster. (That's the Munch Monster. Just, shortened.) I have to identify my feeling, then identify what's causing the feeling, and deal with it.

Guess what? When I do that, the Munchster goes away.

When you're limited to 500 calories a day, you really start to pay attention to your body's cues. If I feel hungry, I check to see if I'm really hungry, or if my body is trying to deal with something that my mind should be dealing with.

The other day, I got into a, um, "disagreement" with my Joey. Poor Joey disagrees just like her mom. Loudly. So, yeah, we yelled at each other. For a while. She hates me, wants a new mommy, I'm mean, yadda yadda yadda. This stuff hurts me. She doesn't mean it, but oh my God, it hurts. Now, we've established in previous blogs that I'm an emotional eater. Although, I kind of recently figured that out myself. So, it still surprised me, when, after yelling at my daughter to "Stay on your bed until your father gets home!" (which was five hours away. I don't mean the crap I say when I'm mad, either.), I found myself standing in the middle of my kitchen, literally spinning around, trying to figure out what to do next.

I needed to calm down. I needed to calm down and go take my baby in my arms and love on her and apologize for losing my temper so we could begin to heal from this latest dent in our relationship. But, how could I calm down when I couldn't grab a soda from the fridge, or a chip (or 18), or a cookie (or 12)? I was at a loss. Spinning around in my kitchen, at a loss as to what to do next.

It suddenly hit me that I am an adult who has no control over my emotions, and it's kind of ridiculous to expect my daughters to be able to reign themselves in, when I can't do it without a popcorn covered brownie.

I wasn't hungry. But I wanted to eat. Because I was angry, and hurt, and upset. And I didn't know what else to do.

I did calm down, eventually. And that's kind of a dramatic example. But that type of thing happens all day every day for me. I'll suddenly want to eat and then need to step back and ask myself, "Wait, are you hungry? Or what else is going on?" I found myself reaching for Kimmie's baby carrots when a friend told me she had to cancel a trip we'd been planning together. I wasn't hungry. I was sad. I went for Joey's leftover oatmeal while I was hurrying around to get her out the door to school. I wasn't hungry. I was stressed.

These are things I'm learning to identify, that I've never been able to identify before. And these are the things that are going to help me keep the weight off once it's all gone.

The Backstory

I wish I'd thought to start this before. But, better late than never I suppose. Of course, now we have to play catch up, right? Well, here, then....

I was always a skinny kid, and then I grew into a slender woman. When my husband and I got married, I was 23 years old and had a nice 135 pounds on my 5'4" frame. And I wanted to lose five pounds.

After the wedding, well, that's when things went south, so to speak. The short story, without all the whining, is that I married the absolute definition of a workaholic. And he was not only working his full-time-plus job, he was also working on building his own business on the side. He was also not the least bit interested in giving up fishing trips, late nights out, or anything else that took him out of the house even more.

For a while, I was working in a doctor's office, with an hour commute each way, and that's when it started. I'd swing through the drive thru for dinner. I was going to be eating alone, anyway. Didn't want to cook for myself. It seemed too much effort. Also, you know, I was lonely. And food helped.

Then, I quit my job and started working with my husband on that business he was building. The office was in our basement and so I found myself home, all day, every day. The only time I got to go see another living human being was when I ran to Wendy's or McDonald's for lunch. And then when I went back for dinner. And in between, there were Doritos to keep me company. Who needs a husband, when you have Doritos? Or Chester Cheetah? And Coke. Mmmmm Coca-Cola. Sweet nectar of the gods....

Well, look at that, within a year, I was up twenty pounds. I was unhappy, but didn't realize I wasn't just unhappy about my weight. I was unhappy about a lot of things. My weight was an excuse. I found that out when I went to Weight Watchers, lost those twenty pounds, plus a few more, and was still sad, and the weight slowly came back.

Just as I was thinking it would never happen, I got pregnant. I was 152 pounds the day I found out. I know, because I weighed myself every morning. And then beat myself up for gaining another three ounces, or whatever it was that day.

Our first daughter, Joey, was born in June of 2005. I was very impressed with my body for only gaining about 19 pounds while I was pregnant. What helped that was being totally nauseous for three months. I could barely eat, and lost a bunch of weight in the first trimester. I wasn't worried for my baby, because I knew my body had plenty of fat stores to draw from to nourish her. And I was right, because she is just perfect.

After I had Joey, I quickly lost all the baby weight, and was down to one-forty-something. As anyone with a newborn can attest, daily weigh ins, or, hell, daily SHOWERS, are hard to work into your schedule! So, I lost track of my weight for a while, and I have no idea what I weighed when I got pregnant with our second daughter, Kimmie.

But, I can tell you, that, again, I was sick as a dog in the beginning, and that I did lose weight again during the first trimester, and that the baby was born happy, healthy, and totally mellow.

So, I know that my body knows how to use my fat for fuel. I just didn't know how to make it do that without being pregnant. And I am totally done being pregnant, my friends. Totally done.

Over the past couple years since Kimmie's been born (she's almost 3 at this writing), I have made several changes in my life that have improved my happiness level. Well, the first thing is, I stopped working with my husband. That's improved our relationship vastly. And given me time to build my own copywriting empire. (Almost there. I need some minions.) So, I'm doing what I love, and my darling husband is around more. Well, you know, he's closer to 40 than 20 these days. Can't handle those late nights as well as he used to.

Also? You know what? He's decided that he enjoys my company. I have always suspected that was why he married me. Finally the proof.

So. Hey! I'm HAPPY! But I'm overweight. That's the last thing that's bugging me. Well, that, and the fact that I have a kid who enjoys peeing down the heating vent in her bedroom. (And people tell me the teenage years are going to be WORSE than this?)

And so, I am losing weight. And here's the awesome thing, I don't have to get pregnant to do it. Thank sweet baby Jesus.