I'm closing out today with mixed results. I had both expected, and unexpected occurrences yesterday, and today was just a crap shoot; kind of a ridiculous way to usher in my final three days on drops.
Sunday - VLCD 18 - saw me up at 5am, and passing out on the couch at 10pm. I'm surprised I even lasted that long. Some shoots, I pass out around nine, and that's when I've been eating normally and have high levels of energy and everything. To make it to ten was a feat. I took my drops as close to normal schedule as possible: 630am, 1030am, 200pm, 500pm, and 930pm. There were some pretty large gaps in there, but I was allowing for meals (lunch was 12 to 1pm, dinner was around 730) and shooting times. It wasn't like I could stop a line of kids in the middle because my alarm went off, take a dropper full of a strange liquid, hold it for a minute, and then continue on. I'd get some pretty strange looks. That's not to say I didn't run into a fair share of them anyways.
In terms of energy level, I was feeling absolutely fine. My patience towards the end of the day was getting pretty thin, and all I could think about when I was packing up was getting home and hiding under some blankets to get warm, but I didn't experience any lightheadedness or weakness of any kind. I did get particularly hungry around 1030, but munching on an apple slice helped take care of that. Lunch was ok, I was able to rest up for about thirty minutes and eat my chicken with lettuce and red hot dressing. I know I struggled yesterday with water intake, I didn't get nearly as much in as I normally do. When I got home I had broth with beef and cabbage for dinner, which was nice and warming.
I completely spaced weighing myself yesterday morning, and today saw absolutely no movement on the scale from two days ago, so I don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing. I'm hoping tomorrow's weight will show some results. I was beyond surprised at the lack of hunger I felt at dinner time. Normally, I'm counting down the hours until I can eat; yesterday, I was trying to hold off eating until as late as possible because I just had no desire to consume anything. It figures that I'd pay for that today.
I took today off work for personal reasons, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out how today went so wrong in terms of schedule. The past couple weekends, I've been fine with the schedule. Drops, coffee, drops, water, eat, water, drops, water, drops, eat, water, drops, and more water. No issues. Today? Not so much. Started out with coffee, then morphed into errands and some water, with an apple, and my drops. There was absolutely no time to eat lunch, which most definitely had not been in the plan. Thankfully, the MHP FB comm confirmed that missing the meal wouldn't completely throw me off track, and I was able to eat a dinner high in calories to make up for some of the lost ones. I'm still no where near the required 500, but I'm feeling okay now, so hopefully I haven't done any real damage.
This morning I was pretty shaky and weak. Getting up from a sitting position was definitely an adventure, and the hunger set in much quicker than usual. The water went a long way towards helping assuage the pangs, but I was still pretty shaky. I've also been feeling some unusual cramping in my stomach area, which has caused me some concern. I'm extremely excited to be going off the drops on Wednesday, and I'd hate to have my cycle show up and extend me out for another ten days. I think I'd probably cry. To accompany the cramping has been bloating, which, in terms of physical manifestation, has been the hardest to deal with. I was feeling pretty happy with the weight loss, only to look in the mirror and feel like I'm back and square one. I realize, logically, that I'm nowhere near where I was, but emotionally, I'm back to feeling like a fat cow. Not fun. Trust me.
I'm choosing to be positive, and hope that my cycle doesn't show up until I'm well into the first week of Maintenance. As such, I've started preparing for the next phase. I went in search of some cookbooks today that specialized in olive oil as an ingredient, but discovered that an obscenely large majority of the recipes all called for a carb of some kind. I think, at least for the first phase of Maintenance, that I'll just have to do what I've been doing: work off the allowed foods list, get a little creative, and add olive oil in every place I can. Heh. I did pick up some fun cookbooks for when I transition into Life phase and begin working out, so I'm looking forward to those.
BF's also very excited for the Maintenance phases. With more freedom to eat things, we're able to go other places more often. While we were out today running errands he confessed that days like today were when he was having the hardest time with my restrictions. We're very social people, and like to go out to eat. Today would have found us stopping some place with a nice outside eating area, and enjoying a nice lunch together, something we rarely get the opportunity to do. I agree, wholeheartedly; I miss being able to go out and sit down at a restaurant, talk, eat, and enjoy a nice quiet night out. I'm almost there though, so we're doing okay.
Surprisingly, BF's been cooking his own meals a lot lately. He feels bad, asking me to make him something separate from my own meals. When it's something easy that he can do, he's definitely in the kitchen cooking instead of letting me do it. It's been extremely supportive, and I can't say enough how thankful I am for how understanding he's been. As an extra bit on the side, he's lost about five pounds due to all the eating in, and healthier meals he's been getting. Not a bad bonus :)
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