Breaking 250

So I did a half apple day on friday, ate a dinner on the program, and then Saturday morning I woke up at 252.3. I took Aria to the roller rink for some special mother daughter time. When I was a little girl, my parents used to drop me and my sister off at the skating rink for hours. I mean, I think it was probably at least 4 hours or more. And I loved skating. I still do. And I’m silly enough to think that I could still skate. Having no fear, I rented my skates, put them on, rolled up my pants ala 1984, and stepped out. Believe it or not, I didn’t even fall.

For the first few times around the rink, it felt like my ankles were made of noodly bits. But then I gradually got the grove back, and remembered how to move. It’s not exactly like riding a bike, but it was really fun. The added bonus is that skating is an indoor thing with music, and mostly in semi-darkness. Therefore, if you fall or flail ( I did lots of flailing), there’s less chance that someone will see. And everyone else is pretty busy trying to skate or skating by you to make fun. I admit, at one point I realized that I was out there flying around the rink with my daughter and thought, “I must look like the hippos dancing in Fantasia,” but it didn’t matter. The funny thing is that I had no idea how much of a sweat I’d worked up until we stopped skating. When I met my husband for lunch, he said “WOW. Your face is all red,” to which I thought “Well, I’ve been moving for a solid 2 hours.

I attempted to eat sensibly saturday – salad and chicken with strawberries for lunch. I was STARVING. I think that this had to be due to the fact that I had worked out so hard by skating. Then for dinner, I ate a ground beef patty and cabbage. I did not, however, get my self required 2 liters of water in.

So I woke up sunday morning, thinking that I might not have lost because I didn’t drink my water. Lo and behold the scale said 249.0. I was floored. Not believing the scale, I stepped on it again. 249.0. I stood there thinking, “REALLY????” It was so odd that I actually weighed three times.

Now, today, I have blown it. I am off of the shots officially, and it has felt like celebration time. Not to mention a dear co-worker had a birthday today, and there was magnificent chocolate cake, and my boss was entirely too stressful. So I’m fully expecting that the weight I lost from the weekend (today I was at 249.5) may go up…but I have definitely found that exercise is an amazing tool that can give instant results!

 

Apple Day…sort of!

Yesterday was a VERY long day for me, and I really meant to do an apple day because I keep losing and gaining the same pound. For some reason, my body is just holding on to the pounds this past week. However, I decided that after 2 apples I was ready for a meal. I ate a grilled chicken salad from Zaxby’s – just to be clear here, no dressing, no cheese, no toast…just the greens and the chicken. I went home, added strawberries and my own dressing (Good Seasons garlic and herb). It was tasty.
Low and behold, I woke up this morning and I’d lost 2 pounds! FINALLY!

So I’ve not taken a shot today – the reasoning behind this is that I didn’t want my first few days off from the shots to be days when I was traveling, so it’s better to do it now while I feel more in control. I didn’t eat breakfast (I usually don’t when I’m on them, and for a few days after you stop shots you’re supposed to continue the diet), but instead, I took my oldest, Aria to go rollerskating. We skated for 2 hours, and after that, I was red in the face, hot, sweaty, and famished!

I ate a chargrilled chicken breast from Chick-fil-A and a salad, picking through the cheese in the pre-packaged container. It was so good, but I was incredibly hungry and felt like I could have eaten about four salads. The funny thing is that the salads appealed to me more than the chicken. Chicken I make at home has alot more savory taste, and doesn’t taste quite so processed to me. I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t eat fast food like you used to – you become “un-used” to it.

Food Diary so far today:

Lunch:

• grilled chicken breast
• 1 cup lettuce with melba toast and good seasons dressing

I will let you know how the rest of the day goes tomorrow! Coming off of HCG is hopefully going to be just as wonderful as being ON it!

 

Airline Travel: Needles on a Plane!

So, this would probably NEVER come up at any other time in my life, but I have made the decision to interrupt the HCG program during my upcoming trip to Chicago. The reason is simple: I don’t have an actual medical necessity for traveling with the needles, and I don’t feel it would be right to try to get through security with the needles. I could get Dr. Rogers to give me a note, but there are other factors as well…

1. I’m more likely to cheat since I don’t have a kitchen to cook in.

2. I’m much more likely to cheat because of the fact that I will be in a constant hurry with food provided by the conference – probably bagels (BOO!), and only a few healthy fruit options to get me through the conference. I could be wrong, but I don’t see raw tomatoes being a great staple of conference food.

3. I want to ENJOY my trip to Chicago. And while I plan on not going nuts, I also don’t want to have to be so restricted in my choices.

All of that being said, I am going to go off of the shots after the next three days, and then follow the diet for the next couple or three days to get the HCG out of my system. I will then go into transition.It’s scary to think of going on transition (especially early) but I feel pretty confident that I would fail at HCG given the above risk factors. So I’m accepting the path of least resistance and making plans to move forward on transition.

I will, of course, go back on after I get back.

Food Diary:

Lunch:

• 3 oz Rotissrie chicken
• 1 tomato
• 4 rounds melba toast

Dinner:

• ground beef (97/3) with taco seasoning
• a few pieces of tomato
• 2 cups romaine lettuce

Snack:

1 apple

calorie count: 510

Food Cost: $6.00

 

Eating Out – Why It’s Important to Arm Yourself with a Plan on HCG

I lost 3 pounds from doing an apple day – yay! And then today I lost another 1.2 pounds. However, today was a day where things were full of temptation, time constraints, and just wasn’t a great day for the HCG program. It’s days like these that really test my ability to not only say no, but to be able to stick to the program (as much as possible) is a true test of my ability to handle “real food” situations.

HCG is like the optimal performance food for your body. Everything on the list is good to eat. But eating out makes it much more difficult. I have learned to just ask for things “on the side”, as it tends to make things soooo much easier. For me, the following things are very difficult:

BREAD (WHY oh WHY do they put bread out…tons of it!) – the fact of the matter is this: if you milled your own bread and basically could tell where the grains were coming from, you could call it food. But for the most part, the “free for all” biscuits, bread, etc. is just flour paste. Say it with me – flour paste. I don’t know about you, but I have no inclination to eat flour paste, no matter if it’s glistening with buttery goodness and golden brown.

PORTION CONTROL – I cannot tell you how many times in my life I’ve seen the impressive plate cross me and thought “Wow, that’s a lot of food,” and then eaten every single bite. Olive Garden is incredibly bad about this: realistically, Italians don’t eat like that. They eat small amounts of pasta – very small. But we Americans take everything good and make more of it, thinking that more of a good thing is, well…better. And it isn’t. It’s just insanity in food. So splitting a meal with someone is a great idea if you must eat out on HCG. My dad and I went to Chop House, and split the 7 oz. sirloin. I got a salad, and he got a baked potato. It was a pretty close to perfectly proportioned meal. He and my mother are much better at the whole “splitting a meal” thing than my husband and I are. Chris and I are learning, however!

THE INCLINATION TO GO OFF THE PROGRAM “JUST BECAUSE” – Alright, I’m admitting it – I feel deprived if I have a plan for eating. I don’t know why. I’m still working on that issue. But it’s like even when I say “I’m going to eat a salad without cheese, crutons, and no dressing,” I end up eating a salad, with cheese and crutons, and blue cheese dressing. This is a dangerous slippery slope to be on, because if I cheat on one thing, I may certainly decide that those four extra bites of Tilapia can’t be a bad thing – fish is good for you, right? But HCG is a carefully balanced program, and eating anything off the program can tip the scale.

So if you’re going to go to a restaurant, here’s my advice: Don’t. There’s too many things that at this fragile stage in the weight loss game can go wrong. OR, if you must go…stick with the portions, ask for sliced tomatoes, and drink tons of water.

Today I have deprived myself of my fruits – because I ate out. I have no idea what this will do, but I worry that because I didn’t exactly control the calories, I might have overeaten my 500. So I’m skipping my night time snack, going to bed hungry, and hoping for weight loss.

Lunch:

• grilled hamburger patty (93/7)
• salad with Good Seasons Dressing

Dinner:

• Grilled Tilapia from Logan’s Roadhouse without any sauces, etc.
• Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

Food Cost: $14.50

 

More than one way to eat an apple – The Joy of Apple Days

I have a special strategy for “Apple Days” with the HCG program through Performance Medicine. I eat 2 for lunch, 2 for dinner, and then eat one at about 9PM as a snack. The first two I usually eat raw, but by dinner time I am usually starving – I’m still unclear whether this is psychological or not. So I eat the last one as 2 apples baked with cinnamon and stevia. It’s amazing how having a hot meal of apples makes the feeling of only eating apples seem so much more enjoyable to me. Add in the fact that cinnamon has long been known to suppress appetite and stabilize blood sugar – YAY cinnamon! So eating baked apples for dinner seems like a special treat and actually helps the end of the day hunger (again, probably psychological, but apple days are notoriously bad for me for feeling deprived). Any port in a storm – or rather, any food I can eat on a diet.

As for the reason that I’m having an apple day, would you believe that I GAINED 2.6 pounds?? I’m pretty much back where I was on Thursday, and that just…sucks. I feel like I’ve lost 4 days. I’m attributing this to (again) not drinking enough water soon enough yesterday, and also…apparently the fat free, all beef hotdogs were not a hit with my body. Hmmm…could be the processed foods, or maybe the salt content. I’m a bit discouraged today – another apple day and this is the 2nd one I’ve done for the same 3 pounds! It’s crazy

Food Diary:

5 apples – 500 calories. Cost: $7.50

 

Detoxing and HCG

So one of the things that I absolutely LOVE about doing the HCG plan with Performance Medicine is that I know that I’m basically resetting my hypothalamus and detoxing my body. It’s forty days of eating only things that are GREAT for you. Now, as someone who was borderline Type 2 Diabetes, someone who could eat a whole medium pizza by herself, being able to see the difference in foods that are good for you, foods that are FUEL for you, is an amazing thing. By the way, while yes I could eat the whole medium pizza, I would then have to go lay down and take a nap. My blood sugar would skyrocket and, like a heroine addict, I would be high on the refined carbs. And after that, I would come crashing down with a massive headache.

Now, after I eat, I feel energy. When I wake up in the morning, I don’t have swollen joints. I feel energy, more than I have in months. I’m able to begin to go out with the kids and exercise rather than sitting while they play. We dance in the living room to Shakira’s Waka Waka . I keep thinking that someday we need to record ourselves and upload to youtube, because it’s just too amusing. It’s also embarrassing! But having the energy to do these things means that I move more, and am able to enjoy life more.

A friend of mine on facebook posted this article about High Fructose Corn Syrup. It’s a fascinating article and an issue that I’ve been really curious about for some time. HFCS is in most fast food condiments and even some of the foods themselves (like Arby’s honey wheat bread), most processed foods…it’s pretty much everywhere. And it’s addictive, too, which I’ve heard for some time but haven’t been able to find a study that said it until now. Not only do they say it’s addictive, but it actually causes weight gain more than sugar or fat.

“These rats aren’t just getting fat; they’re demonstrating characteristics of obesity, including substantial increases in abdominal fat and circulating triglycerides,” said Princeton graduate student Miriam Bocarsly. “In humans, these same characteristics are known risk factors for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes.”

HFCS is the tobacco of our time. And if you’re a label reader, you know that it appears in things that don’t even make sense, like those 100 calorie snack packs that so many dieters use, yoplait yogurt (which my daughter LOVES), and lots and lots of salad dressings. Why put it into those things? It isn’t necessary. I could go on and on about research studies on HCFS. It’s not the main problem of our obesity in the United States, but it is a major contributing factor.

So as I remain on HCG for the 3rd week coming up, I’m reminded that not only am I slimming down, I’m cleaning out the toxic agents that have been keeping me from being able to make really good choices for my family.

Today’s Food Diary:

Lunch:

• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1 grilled chicken breast portion
• 4 large strawberries
• 2 pieces melba toast rounds

Dinner:

• 3 Hebrew National All Beet fat free hot dogs (I’m trying these out – they’re 40 calories a piece, fat free, and all beef, so it should be okay. I’ve got a cookout to go to later today and I wanted something that would make me feel like I really had something good to eat.)
• 2 tbsp mustard
• 2 tomatoes

Snack:

• 1 apple baked with cinnamon and stevia

Total calories: 479

Total food cost: $8.75

 

Post Apple Day update

The apple day worked! I lost 3.8 pounds on friday. Then today I woke up and had only lost .2 pounds. That was…depressing. As if my apple day hadn’t really done anything but gotten me right back where I was on Wednesday. When you get used to losing a pound or more a day, losing only .2 seems like a failure. But let me turn it around for a minute – if I were on a regular diet, I could expect to lose MAYBE 5 pounds a week with diet and exercise. And then I would still have plateaus. The weight I’m at now, (255) is a weight that I maintained for over 6 months past my last round of HCG. I’ve read that in some cases, if you were at a weight for a long time, it takes a while for the body to get over that hurdle. It must be like your body just stays at that weight regardless…but it cannot keep that forever.

With the added incentive of being able to fit comfortably on an airplane on June 23, and the HCG program, I’m going to begin exercising in full on Monday. Luckily, my office is right next door to our office gym, and I’m allowed to use it for 30 minutes during regular work hours, and any time after work hours. So I’m going to go in early on Monday and get to work on that treadmill and stairstepper. I’ve GOT to lose at least another 10 pounds before the 23. I have 10 days, and I’m thinking that with HCG I can do it. It would be a great thing to break 250 before then, and to continue down the path. My strategy is simple: follow HCG religiously, drink twice the amount of water I have been drinking (4 liters instead of 2), and hit the gym every day Monday-Friday. If I don’t see results from that, then it isn’t working. And I know it works…so it’s nice to pretty much have a sure thing.

One note about resolve. I know that I can follow any program if I need to. I once lost 87 pounds on a cabbage soup diet. Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about. I went from a size 22 to a size 12, and I only began exercise much later in that diet. And that took a little over 7 months. I remember that I went off of the diet at Thanksgiving, and when I tried to go back on it, I couldn’t stomach the soup any longer. I still don’t exactly know why, but my body had pretty much had enough.

So the resolve I have is something I’ve always had. As my mother says, “You can stand to have hot sand poured up your rear if you know there’s an end to it.” I’m not exactly sure where she got that imagery, but it stuck with me. This weekend has been particularly difficult for me because I have had an apple day, I’m down where I was previously for a long time, and it feels like success. And I’m BAD about resting on laurels. I’ve wanted to eat every cookie and any other thing that I’ve seen this weekend. I even justified a loading day in my mind, thinking that I could load today and then the weight I’d lose in the next few days would get me over this hump. I am SOoooo good at lying to myself. But I’ve resolved to stick it out and keep my eyes on the prize.

By the way, a big shout out to my sister, Amy, who has also now lost over 15 pounds on this HCG round. Congratulations!

And now, on to the food diary:

Lunch:

• egg white omelet with 1 Tablespoon salsa
• 1 tomato
• melba toast

Dinner:

• Grilled chicken salad with strawberries

Total Calories: 492

Total food cost: $6.50

 

Apple Days

So I woke up this morning and had gained 3 pounds. It’s not uncommon at this point in HCG to plateau. And My body has been through an amazing week. I’ve gone from an original weight of 262, gained up to 265.8, and as of yesterday I was at 255.9. But today I’m at 258.2 pounds. I attribute this to two things – 1) I didn’t drink nearly enough water yesterday 2) I stayed up way late and was pretty stressed out over a work project. It might also be those few extra cups of coffee that I had in place of water – I felt prettty puffy when I woke up this morning, and sure enough, the number on the scale confirmed my feelings when I woke up.

The great thing about gaining 2.5 pounds in one day on HCG is that usually it comes right back off. The human body is amazing. The other interesting thing is that because I now weigh every day, I’m able to see that 2.5 pounds is not something to be so fearful of that I don’t step back on the scale the next day. When you have the confidence that you can get it off immediately, it changes your whole outlook on weighing, losing weight, nutrition, and diet. Pretty much the whole kit and kaboodle.

So the solution, according to the Dr. Simeons protocol and Dr. Rogers’ Performance Medicine, is to have an “Apple Day”. This basically means that I’ve eaten only 3 apples all day long. I won’t eat but two more apples all day. I’ve also not had anything to drink but water – no tea, and only one cup of coffee (that might be cheating, but I can’t live without some form of hot beverage in the morning that has caffeine, whether it be tea or coffee).I’m at the point where having an “Apple Day” doesn’t immediately make me feel like I should be deprived. My weight loss has slowed over the past couple of days, signaling that I was hitting a plateau, and now I’m ready to drop some more. It’s just a means to an end. One day of my life not getting to eat omelets and tomatoes won’t kill me – and it probably WILL help me get down below where I was, plus some. By the way, I just weighed myself, and it says that I’m at 257.6 – so even in the afternoon, it appears that I’ve lost weight. Yay!

Food Diary:

5 apples

Calories: 500

Cost: $6.50

 

Does this seat make me look fat?

I just found out some wonderful news – I’m going to go to a conference at the end of this month in Chicago. It’s a conference I’ve wanted to go to for years, and I’m sure that I’ll have a blast and learn a lot. But one thing has me really worried – the size of the seat on the flight. After reading about Kevin Smith being kicked off of Southwest Airlines for allegedly being too “fat” (his word, not mine), I’ve been a little paranoid. I went so far as to research how large the seat is…it’s 18″ wide on most airlines. As we are speaking, my husband has a tape measure against my seated rear, and it measures…28.5″. Um…yikes.

In addition to airline seats, I’ve also researched that movie theater seats are now coming in larger sizes, with old seats measuring 20″ and new ones at 26″. Theaters that are older are slightly uncomfortable for me, but they aren’t impossible. I New seats are fine. I haven’t flown, however in over 10 years. The last time I flew I was a svelte size 10, and I fit just fine. I DID fly one time in high school as a larger teenager – and I fit then, also.

There are several issues at work here – my own inability to feel confident in flying, the airline’s response to a “passenger of size” (what a silly name), and also…the issue I’m finding more and more as I lose weight. I thought nothing about gaining the weight, but as I lose, I realize that my weight has affected my life, those around me, and all of those that are in contact with me.

The company I work for did not have to book an extra seat, which is a possible policy, but they could have been forced to by the airline. The company also will pay more because our insurance as Americans is based on a system of medical conditions – which means that a fatter America pays more for healthcare. I am hoping that I will be losing enough weight by the end of June that I will be much more comfortable. The day before I fly, June 22, I will post what my seating width is and see if it’s any better. I am confident in the HCG program that there will be results. To date, I have lost 10.5 pounds, and I feel great. It’s only been one week. Of course, the second week is typically a little slower, but I’m also going to begin exercising during my lunch to help my metabolism.

Today’s Food Diary:

Lunch:

• 1 ground beef patty (93/7)
• 1 tomato
• 4 large strawberries
• 4 rounds melba toast

Dinner:

• 1 baked chicken breast
• 8 asparagus spears

Snack:

• 1 apple

I have NOT drunk as much water as I needed to today; normally I’ve already drunk over 2 liters, but today was just a really busy day.

Total calories: 512

Total food cost: $9.50

 

Love…and Food.

One of the things I’ve begun to realize is that I have to pack my lunch, which means that I can’t carelessly not think about what I’m going to be eating the next day. I’m never hungry – or at least hardly ever – now. And with that non-hungry vibe comes the realization that food was something I was either very aware of (like parties and other social gatherings) or totally oblivious to (like when I didn’t think about what I’d eat for lunch, so I would then have to make a mad dash out to Wendy’s and grab a burger). And yet, I’m acutely aware of what my children eat. I have a 5 year old with SID (sensory integration disorder), and she is SO picky that I have to pack her lunch every day. And it’s usually one of three meals that she has already approved beforehand. She will not eat anything else other than a list of a few foods, and so I pack her lunch with as healthy a menu as I have available, given her preferences. I’m faithful in that loving, motherly act. And I know that many other mothers, whether their children have special circumstances or not, are the same.

When we become parents, particularly mothers, we give ourselves over to our children. We would do anything for their happiness and well-being. And yet, one of the things that we do is ignore our own needs. But by ignoring my needs, I have allowed my weight to balloon over the past 6 years. If I’m not fit, I cannot take care of her. And she and her sister, as well as my husband, will follow me down the path of obesity. I cook the meals. I am the gatekeeper for their health through food, and yet so often I’m only focused on the kids that I don’t take time to realize that this is not a scenario where our lives can be subdivided. My children will eventually eat what I eat. If I eat fruits and vegetables, then they will also.

One of the things I have noticed about being on HCG is that I can still cook for myself and my family while being on the program. We all have omelets if I choose to do omelets. Sure, they get cheese (have I mentioned that I REALLY miss cheese?), and I get tomatoes, but it’s basically the same dinner. My husband is drinking more water, and soda. My children are eating more vegetables and fruits because they’re in the house. We aren’t going out for dinner because I have difficulty eating what I need to eat when I go out, so we are saving money, eating better, and spending more time together as family. It’s a way of showing them that I love them, and of learning to love myself as well. It isn’t the infatuated love of food that comes from celebrating, where we Americans tend to overeat and really go for the gusto with all types of foods, but rather a common sense kind of approach to love where you set limits rules for yourself.

Because I haven’t done so yet, I’m posting pictures of me BEFORE the first round of HCG I ever did, and at what I think is a weight where I was near my largest weight ever (300). I think that I can see where I’ve lost quite a bit in the picture of me with glasses. Unfortunately, I didn’t allow alot of pictures of myself to be taken, so it’s hard to get an idea of what size I was then, but I think I’m wearing a size 24 pants in the one with my daughter. I’m wearing a size 18-20 in the one with glasses.

That being said, on to the food diary!

Lunch:

• chopped sirloin (93/7)
• 1 cup lettuce
• Good Seasons Dressing

Dinner:

• baked chicken breast tenderloin
• broiled tomatoes with Nature’s Seasoning (low sodium) = this sort of begins to taste like lasagna sauce to me…it was interesting, and felt more filling than a raw tomato
• baked apple with cinnamon and stevia

Total Calories: 429

Estimated Food cost for the day: I cheated on the chicken – after a long day at work I got a rotisserie chicken, portioned out about 2.7 oz and ate that instead of cooking one of the ones that I had to cook. But even including that that’s about 1/4 of a rotisserie chicken, my total for the day was still under $10.00