As of today, I am officially 9 days away from Maintenance. Nine days. Hot damn.
I remember, when I started this thing, thinking that I could hack a month's worth of drops and diet and restriction, no problem. It'd be a piece of cake, and I'd breeze through the days like they were hours instead of days. The food, once I'd read the portion sizes and actually started measuring them out, seemed like a ton, and cooking was a breeze once you had all the prep work done.
Half way through the protocol, I got bogged down. Exhaustion from life set in, and trying to find both the energy and creativity needed to feed both myself and BF was difficult. I grew frustrated (clearly) with the restrictions, and while the food portion sizes hadn't changed, my perception of their flexibility had. I was no longer confident in the protocol, or my ability to complete it.
Today, I find myself in a curious blend of the two extremes. I'm neither deliriously happy with the program, nor extremely distrustful and dissatisfied with it. I'm...comfortable with it. Yes, you have to go on a restrictive diet for a few weeks. Yes, it makes having a life outside of the living room and your laptop awkward. Yes, it's more than a month long commitment to better health.
Yes, the food is sufficient to feel full. Yes, there is variety in what you eat, how you eat, when you eat. Yes, you can make it through a 26 day program and survive, lol. Yes, you do have much more freedom on the Maintenance phases than you did in the VLCD phase. And YES, you do lose weight. I woke up this morning, to a 0.8 lb loss. After yesterday's gain, that really only means a 0.2lb loss, but it's a loss all the same.
Life, in general, is a constant learning curve of what and how we react to the stimuli we run across in our constant bid for learning, aspiring, growing as human beings. If I'm comfortable being a size 12-14, then I should have just stayed where I was at. If I'm comfortable being a size 6-8, then I need to make the sacrifices to get back to that weight, and then make the proper choices to maintain that life style. It can't be all about indulgence, all the damn time. Sadly :(
I'm finding that as I creep closer to my LDW - Last Drop Weight - that I'm getting hungrier and hungrier throughout the day. I'm hoping it's a sign that I'm getting close to the weight I was two years ago, which is when I gained the most. I'm pretty certain that's one of my plateau weights. I'll be prepping over the next week for Maintenance, and I'm looking forward to working out now that I've already begun the process of getting back to those size 6-8 jeans.
If there's one thing I could stress to a new protocol member, it'd be this: Be prepared. The food guide can be a bit overwhelming when you first look at it, and you start planning meals and buying food based off what sounds good, instead of what's good by the numbers. Pick three (minimum) from each food group, so that they fall into the following categories:
Low Calorie
Medium Calorie
High Calorie
Why, you ask, is this a good idea? Your body's going to crave different types of protein on different days. Let's say you go with ground beef, cabbage, apple, and melba for lunch. That's 301 calories in that one meal. In order to stay under the 500 calorie mark, you've got to eat a protein, veggie, and fruit that are extremely low in calories. My go to meal for this instance would be chicken, lettuce, and half a grapefruit: 179 calories. All combined, I'm looking at 480 calories. There's room to move now, with a piece of melba later if I get snackish. Problem solved.
So, definitely, keep a variety of the groups on hand, and make sure you shop for at least one in each of the low, medium, and high calorie sets. It'll make cooking much easier. I ended up relying on ground beef, chicken, and shrimp, for the protein; lettuce, cabbage, asparagus for the veggie, with some fennel, onion, and spinach thrown in for a change; and apples, oranges, and grapefruit for the fruit. I added beef broth for a little comfort when necessary, and tons of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, mustard, and black pepper. It got repetitive, but at least it tasted good ^_^
I'm still a week away from finishing the drops, so I'm sure I'll have more up and down days between now and then. For now, though, I'm pretty content. I'm almost done, I'm down 15 lbs, I have a desire and drive to work out to lose the rest, and I'm working on the mental changes required to keep going at it. Not bad, for 17 days.
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
VLCD 13 & 14 - Rough Patches
Yesterday was pretty rough, I've gotta say. I felt sick and weak all day, with insane hunger that had me munching on my melba toast at 7 in the morning. Most days, I can go without the melba until dinner, which is at 7pm. That's a pretty drastic change.
I was exhausted much earlier than I normally am, and had absolutely no motivation to cook or make any kind of meal for myself or BF. Yesterday would have been the kind of day that saw us in the car, headed to the pho restaurant for some yummy soup. Instead, I had to settle for shrimp soup with onions. Tasted good, but wasn't nearly as satisfying.
I had another challenge yesterday, in the form of lunch. I went to get my boss lunch, and he ordered food from one of my favorite restaurants: Jimmy Dean's. They have AMAZING burgers and fries. It killed me having the bag of food sitting in my car, and I ended up rolling all the windows down on the ride back to the office just so I wouldn't get smothered in the smell of the food. Dinner last night was supposed to be tuna sandwiches for BF and beef for me, but I couldn't handle the idea of making him tuna (one of my favorites) and watching him eat bread and chips and all the good stuff. It would have broke me.
My tolerance level for this protocol is getting lower and lower the longer I get into this. It makes me all the more amazed and worshipful of the people who commit to the 43 or 60 day plan, and manage to make all their own lunches and dinners for so many days. I truly don't think I could hack it that long.
I woke up this morning to a 0.6 lb gain on the scale, but I kinda saw it coming. After feeling like crap yesterday, and not being overly careful with my food measurements and not drinking enough water, I was prepared - although not happy about it - for a gain this morning. 0.6 lb is pretty good, all things considered, I guess. All that being said, I'm down almost 15 lbs, which is great.
This brings up a new revelation. Well, a couple of them. I keep looking at my body in the mirror, trying to see the changes, and while I can tell my clothes fit better - I fit into a shirt I haven't worn in six months!!!!! - I still don't think my body's changed any. I'm still fat in all the places I don't want to be, and I'm still nowhere near my goal weight. Somehow, during all the prep work for this protocol, I think I'd managed to convince myself that if I did one round, I'd magically be back to a weight I was happy with three years ago. Instead, I still look somewhat the same, albeit 15 lbs lighter, and I'm still not happy. My expectations were too high, I think.
The other revelation I had is that I'm slowly counting down the days until I can get back eating what I once did. I realize this sounds kind of stupid, but hear me out. This whole time, I've been viewing what I've been eating as a restriction, a specific set of guidelines that will only last for a temporary, specified set of time. Once I get through the maintenance phases, I'll magically be able to go back to eating what I did before, and it'll be fine. The thing is, that's not true. My eating habits in the past are part of what got me here. When I finish Maintenance, I'll still be on some sort of restriction, because I don't want to gain all the weight I've just lost, right back. I can't go back to eating out every other day and having huge portion sizes and gorging on sweets. I have to scale it all back, and eat smartly, and wisely.
I'm pretty positive this isn't the first time I've said this, but I love food. I don't live to eat, but I do enjoy the food I eat. I like all different kinds of food, a wide variety that covers all kinds of unhealthy entrees. I keep thinking about all the things I'll be able to have again when I'm finally done with this program, and that's the kind of thinking that's going to land me in dangerous waters. I have to change the way I view my meals, so I can maintain, and then lose, all this weight. If I want to get back into my old clothes, I've got to make the smart decisions to get there, and then stay there.
I'm feeling much better today, and I'm back to being fine until around 10am, when I have my fruit. I'll drink the proper amount of water today, along with a little bit extra, and hopefully I'll see a loss on the scale tomorrow. I'm exactly a week away from being done with the drops as of today, which is a pretty exciting fact. In less than two weeks I'll be able to eat more foods, and a greater variety, so that should be exciting. There's also a possibility I'll get rained out this weekend for my shoot, and while I'd normally hate that, I'm kind of hoping for it, just this once. I really don't want to go on the road with this diet. I'm doing tons of reading in preparation for Maintenance, and I'll probably track down a cookbook revolving around olive oil, so I can get in a nice variety of meals. I'm counting down the days, and hopefully, the pounds!
I was exhausted much earlier than I normally am, and had absolutely no motivation to cook or make any kind of meal for myself or BF. Yesterday would have been the kind of day that saw us in the car, headed to the pho restaurant for some yummy soup. Instead, I had to settle for shrimp soup with onions. Tasted good, but wasn't nearly as satisfying.
I had another challenge yesterday, in the form of lunch. I went to get my boss lunch, and he ordered food from one of my favorite restaurants: Jimmy Dean's. They have AMAZING burgers and fries. It killed me having the bag of food sitting in my car, and I ended up rolling all the windows down on the ride back to the office just so I wouldn't get smothered in the smell of the food. Dinner last night was supposed to be tuna sandwiches for BF and beef for me, but I couldn't handle the idea of making him tuna (one of my favorites) and watching him eat bread and chips and all the good stuff. It would have broke me.
My tolerance level for this protocol is getting lower and lower the longer I get into this. It makes me all the more amazed and worshipful of the people who commit to the 43 or 60 day plan, and manage to make all their own lunches and dinners for so many days. I truly don't think I could hack it that long.
I woke up this morning to a 0.6 lb gain on the scale, but I kinda saw it coming. After feeling like crap yesterday, and not being overly careful with my food measurements and not drinking enough water, I was prepared - although not happy about it - for a gain this morning. 0.6 lb is pretty good, all things considered, I guess. All that being said, I'm down almost 15 lbs, which is great.
This brings up a new revelation. Well, a couple of them. I keep looking at my body in the mirror, trying to see the changes, and while I can tell my clothes fit better - I fit into a shirt I haven't worn in six months!!!!! - I still don't think my body's changed any. I'm still fat in all the places I don't want to be, and I'm still nowhere near my goal weight. Somehow, during all the prep work for this protocol, I think I'd managed to convince myself that if I did one round, I'd magically be back to a weight I was happy with three years ago. Instead, I still look somewhat the same, albeit 15 lbs lighter, and I'm still not happy. My expectations were too high, I think.
The other revelation I had is that I'm slowly counting down the days until I can get back eating what I once did. I realize this sounds kind of stupid, but hear me out. This whole time, I've been viewing what I've been eating as a restriction, a specific set of guidelines that will only last for a temporary, specified set of time. Once I get through the maintenance phases, I'll magically be able to go back to eating what I did before, and it'll be fine. The thing is, that's not true. My eating habits in the past are part of what got me here. When I finish Maintenance, I'll still be on some sort of restriction, because I don't want to gain all the weight I've just lost, right back. I can't go back to eating out every other day and having huge portion sizes and gorging on sweets. I have to scale it all back, and eat smartly, and wisely.
I'm pretty positive this isn't the first time I've said this, but I love food. I don't live to eat, but I do enjoy the food I eat. I like all different kinds of food, a wide variety that covers all kinds of unhealthy entrees. I keep thinking about all the things I'll be able to have again when I'm finally done with this program, and that's the kind of thinking that's going to land me in dangerous waters. I have to change the way I view my meals, so I can maintain, and then lose, all this weight. If I want to get back into my old clothes, I've got to make the smart decisions to get there, and then stay there.
I'm feeling much better today, and I'm back to being fine until around 10am, when I have my fruit. I'll drink the proper amount of water today, along with a little bit extra, and hopefully I'll see a loss on the scale tomorrow. I'm exactly a week away from being done with the drops as of today, which is a pretty exciting fact. In less than two weeks I'll be able to eat more foods, and a greater variety, so that should be exciting. There's also a possibility I'll get rained out this weekend for my shoot, and while I'd normally hate that, I'm kind of hoping for it, just this once. I really don't want to go on the road with this diet. I'm doing tons of reading in preparation for Maintenance, and I'll probably track down a cookbook revolving around olive oil, so I can get in a nice variety of meals. I'm counting down the days, and hopefully, the pounds!
Monday, February 21, 2011
VLCD 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12 - When The Doubt Settles In
Five days, including today, since my last update. Five. Days. My only excuse?
Doubt.
Fair warning, this is gonna be a long entry, seeing as how it covers five days ^_^
I've been battling the desire to quit since Thursday (day 8), and I can't say that it's been any easier as the days go on. I've been trading emails with a pretty amazing cust serv rep at MHP over the weekend, and while she's done leaps and bounds towards easing my doubts, I'm still struggling with the restrictions and unanswered questions behind the protocol. Among other things.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning. When you first research the program, it's generally billed in installment periods of the drops themselves: 26, 43, or 60 day programs. What they don't tell you, is realistically, it's however many days you're on the drops, plus a minimum of six weeks of Maintenance, provided you manage to stabilize your weight every week. In the guides, they even tell you that more than half of the people who do this diet fail to stabilize their weight in the first three weeks. That would have been a nice piece of information to have before I started this thing.
I'm on the 26 day plan. 23 days of drops, the first two being load days, and then three days of VLCD diet with no drops so the HCG can work it's way out of my system. That's just shy of three weeks. Once the main portion of the protocol is done, it's another six weeks, minimum, of Maintenance, where I'm still limited on what I can and can't eat, just on a grander scale. That means, all told, that I'm looking at at least two and a half months on this thing.
Read it people: 2 1/2 months.
You might ask, why, if I've been reading the guides and logging the data, I didn't realize this before now. And why does it all of a sudden matter?
Life.
When I first started the diet, I'd planned out my schedule for the 26 days so I'd be free and clear of them in time for some social events happening in March. What I'd forgotten to plan for was my photography job. My first shoot is this weekend, and it's an overnight shoot. Kinda hard to make my own lunch and dinner if I won't have access to a kitchen. I shoot straight through on the weekends until the end of March, with one more overnight shoot scheduled so far. With my job though, things can change in a heartbeat, so I can't even bank on that.
Thankfully I'll be on my last week of the drops by this weekend, and next weekend will by my first week of M1, so that one shouldn't be too bad. It just threw all my plans for a loop though, and got me thinking about the commitment I'd unwittingly made when I started this protocol.
Friday - Day 9 - saw me sending in an email asking what the consequences of quitting the drops would be. Saturday - Day 10 - saw me venting all my frustrations with the program, from the commitment to the lack of recipes to the holes in the guides. Sunday, I received the amazing email from the amazing MHP rep, and today, I'm contemplating my options.
To date, I've lost 13.4 pounds. I still don't fit into any of my old clothes, but I have to look at the big picture. The clothes I wore a month ago, fit better today, and in another month, they'll probably fit even more better. I'm handling the hunger pangs with little to no fuss or side effects beyond the occasional feeling of weakness and shakiness. I've saved money, by shopping for less food, and I've spent more quality time at home in the last two weeks than the last two months, probably. There hasn't been much in development aside from the doubt over the past five days, and there hasn't been much in physical representation of the diet other than the weight loss (which, really, is how it's supposed to be, right???).
All things considered, I'll stay on the protocol and finish it out, more so because I'm almost done (it would be kind of stupid to quit this far in) and because I don't really have any other choice other than to watch as the pounds pile back on. That being said, if I'd paid better attention to the honest time line, and just what it would entail real world wise, I don't know that I would have embarked on this journey.
As I've always said, the best laid plans of mice and men...
Doubt.
Fair warning, this is gonna be a long entry, seeing as how it covers five days ^_^
I've been battling the desire to quit since Thursday (day 8), and I can't say that it's been any easier as the days go on. I've been trading emails with a pretty amazing cust serv rep at MHP over the weekend, and while she's done leaps and bounds towards easing my doubts, I'm still struggling with the restrictions and unanswered questions behind the protocol. Among other things.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning. When you first research the program, it's generally billed in installment periods of the drops themselves: 26, 43, or 60 day programs. What they don't tell you, is realistically, it's however many days you're on the drops, plus a minimum of six weeks of Maintenance, provided you manage to stabilize your weight every week. In the guides, they even tell you that more than half of the people who do this diet fail to stabilize their weight in the first three weeks. That would have been a nice piece of information to have before I started this thing.
I'm on the 26 day plan. 23 days of drops, the first two being load days, and then three days of VLCD diet with no drops so the HCG can work it's way out of my system. That's just shy of three weeks. Once the main portion of the protocol is done, it's another six weeks, minimum, of Maintenance, where I'm still limited on what I can and can't eat, just on a grander scale. That means, all told, that I'm looking at at least two and a half months on this thing.
Read it people: 2 1/2 months.
You might ask, why, if I've been reading the guides and logging the data, I didn't realize this before now. And why does it all of a sudden matter?
Life.
When I first started the diet, I'd planned out my schedule for the 26 days so I'd be free and clear of them in time for some social events happening in March. What I'd forgotten to plan for was my photography job. My first shoot is this weekend, and it's an overnight shoot. Kinda hard to make my own lunch and dinner if I won't have access to a kitchen. I shoot straight through on the weekends until the end of March, with one more overnight shoot scheduled so far. With my job though, things can change in a heartbeat, so I can't even bank on that.
Thankfully I'll be on my last week of the drops by this weekend, and next weekend will by my first week of M1, so that one shouldn't be too bad. It just threw all my plans for a loop though, and got me thinking about the commitment I'd unwittingly made when I started this protocol.
Friday - Day 9 - saw me sending in an email asking what the consequences of quitting the drops would be. Saturday - Day 10 - saw me venting all my frustrations with the program, from the commitment to the lack of recipes to the holes in the guides. Sunday, I received the amazing email from the amazing MHP rep, and today, I'm contemplating my options.
To date, I've lost 13.4 pounds. I still don't fit into any of my old clothes, but I have to look at the big picture. The clothes I wore a month ago, fit better today, and in another month, they'll probably fit even more better. I'm handling the hunger pangs with little to no fuss or side effects beyond the occasional feeling of weakness and shakiness. I've saved money, by shopping for less food, and I've spent more quality time at home in the last two weeks than the last two months, probably. There hasn't been much in development aside from the doubt over the past five days, and there hasn't been much in physical representation of the diet other than the weight loss (which, really, is how it's supposed to be, right???).
All things considered, I'll stay on the protocol and finish it out, more so because I'm almost done (it would be kind of stupid to quit this far in) and because I don't really have any other choice other than to watch as the pounds pile back on. That being said, if I'd paid better attention to the honest time line, and just what it would entail real world wise, I don't know that I would have embarked on this journey.
As I've always said, the best laid plans of mice and men...
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