You Can Only Choose One: Strength of Comfort Food

For me comfort food is not just a slice of pie, its half a pie. Its not cinnamon on black coffee with stevia drops; its a rich, creamy white mocha with TONS of whipped cream.  These past few days have been difficult for me to keep to my diet. Last time I did this diet I started to like salad without dressing. This time around my taste buds are like "spit this bitter crap out!" I have been diligent in keeping my eyes on the prize. I did have one "off" day so far, but after 10 days I am down 5 pounds (5 of those days were stalling, grrrr @ plateaus).

My prize is strength, flexibility, a body temple I can curl up in at night and not feel my stomach strangling my organs if I decide to lay on my back. When I picked up a 25 pound of sugar the other day (to make cotton candy for my mother's business,NOT TO EAT), I realized I was carrying this much around me all the time. I remember being 145 and feeling soooo light and strong and I had energy for days! Now, I am not going to live in LaLa Land in my head. I know I was 5 years younger then and without children.

 However I know that strength is inside me, always holding these 25 pounds. My heels have finally begun to break their promise  to be true. They crack, hurt, as I walk on my floating floor above a cement slab. (Someone said get a heel stick which I am totally going to do!) I am routinely picking up and carrying very heavy children to get them to stop what they are doing, redirect their waste orifices or put them to sleep. The stress of it all lends me to head toward the cupboard or fridge aiming for a snack, some sugary thing to help numb my hunger for strength.

 Do I have to choose? I know I LOVE food and I am always sabotaging myself because I LOVE to cook. I am always the person who chooses something in the middle. It can't be black or white! But right now that is where I am at. I am in a black or white zone, hovering around the middle of the road, feeling comfortable but not feeling successful. I will always feel like I didn't make it if I don't keep trying. I will keep logging in and I won't give up.

This journey isn't a hill that goes up and curves back down in the middle. I really like those kind of hills! No, it goes up sharper after the midway point. It is demanding, treacherous, but rewarding. I thought when I started this diet that I had all the strength I needed to finish, but now I realize I only had the strength to start. It will take more and more of that to keep going for the results I desire. For now I choose strength. When I know I am strong enough to only have one slice of pie or get a small nonfat latte I will be back to those comfort foods.
One promise I already made to myself: candy is for kids, not adults. That was one of my big triggers and I am glad I can finally say I will no longer be eating candy and I don't need to. I hope others out there find the strength they need to do this! We can find comfort in our strength as richly and rewarding as that sugary snack or starchy bowl of pasta. 

My Fitness Pal Blocks and Deletes 500 calorie HCG diet plans

They purport that the diet is unhealthy and they do not want to recommend any extremely low calorie diet, or starvation methods.

I found myself searching and searching for info on the community posts and there was nothing that hadn't been locked that was discussing the 500 cal diet with drops as an option! I never thought I'd find myself on the other end of free speech restriction but I certainly am now!

Why wouldn't they let people at least discuss it freely?? There would undoubtedly be controversy and people who talk about how it is unsafe and unwise. I welcome those responses because I know that the lack of nutrition is what makes that so and with supplementation you will greatly decrease that risk.

That being said they also don't let people discuss bulimia or other eating disorders.

The action against commenting about these subjects is removal from the site! I am in shock!

I am looking for more support and was surprised that my methods were not welcomed there. I guess its on to the HCG forums

Plateau Breaker Attempt 2

Yesterday I found myself staring at a bag of beef jerky and jumping in, lol... so I had about 3oz. yesterday total and definitely did not stick to the plateau breaking. I am going to the store this evening to get apples so I can do this thing for real!

As for now I will cut out all the grains for one day and see if that helps me along. I certainly hope so! I am going to have salad 3 x today and I think that will help. I have been having soup a lot and sometimes it has rice and I'll just eat that instead of having any grains.

Plateau Breaking Day @ 160lb., 5 down, day 6

So after a nice 5 pound loss I stepped on the scale today and saw the same numbers. Time to cut through it!

I was feeling very tired last night before bed and I think I had too much beef jerky over the course of the day because in the morning I was all dry mouthy, yuck! Dehydration is still possible when drinking loads of water I guess. It is the coffee that was working against me!

I went for a rather vigorous walk while holding 25 pound Willow in a front baby carrier yesterday morning and I wasn't hungry at all then it hit me like a wave of sleepiness at 3pm.

After the drops before 3pm I had a rush of energy and I had been very productive: clearing out my closet, organizing drawers, etc. Not eating gives you a lot of free time and I was on my feet all day doing things when usually I would have tried to relax and find something to watch on the Roku. Something to slow down.

Those B vitamins certainly do their thing! I was on the go but after I had lunch I realized I needed to eat more. I wasn't hungry, but I was feeling the effects of fatigue: blurred vision, slurred and disorganized speech (I was trying to talk to my mom and found myself using the wrong words over and over like a drunk person).

So when it was time for bed I knew I couldn't wait another 12 hours before food and I had a remaining 300 cals to eat after my walk to keep in line with my 700 cal diet (I earned around 200cals from walking), so I had ... a "bad" thing (non ASAP approved that is,). haha... split pea soup with bacon. I had 3/4 of the can and it helped me sleep and this morning I wasn't hungry until now, almost 1pm!

I know that the soup probably is what made me plateau since it was undoubtedly in my stomach still after I awoke, but I still feel like I wanted to make sure I maintain my 1lb/day average so today I am doing a modified plateau breaker day.


Right now I am eating an apple (I only have 3 left so I will have to modify the 6 apple/steak breaker). I guess it will be 4 clementines, 3 apples!  (the clementines are reallly small so I will have 4). I hope to come back tomorrow with a successful loss!

Vanity Weigh Loss vs. Lifestyle Change

So I've been very susceptible lately to dieting ads since I am in the middle of a very strict diet. Last night Tony Horton was on Dr. Oz stating that vanity dieting, or dieting for an event or specific time will not provide lasting results because the behaviour that caused the weight to go up will inevitably return without a lifestyle change.  This is really resonating with me.

I guess you could call some of my goals vain because I do want to look good for a specific event, Hoopcamp. And I will be making a promo video which will, ideally, be on the internet forever and I will be unable to ask him/her to delete it because I feel bad about the way I look.

But I also want a smaller body to do things I never could before, like pull ups or climb a tree. I don't just want to be smaller, I want to be a powerhouse, a source of strong inner light. I can already feel myself getting out of my shell as the pounds melt away. On Day 5 and down 5 pounds!

I was only concerned with getting rid of my baby weight before, not with having lasting results. I didn't regain all my weight from last time. I  fell 5 lb. shy of a total regain, so I guess there was some lasting effects. But I did not weigh myself everyday looking to see if I gained a pound. I did not want to do that! I didn't want my girls to see me standing on the scale everyday because I don't want it to be a big deal for them. They are at a very impressionable age!

I am just going to tell them from now on that Mommy can't eat that because I only eat really healthy food. Zora opted out of the peach cobbler I made for daddy and the girls to have my steamed apple with cinnamon. She claimed it tasted better but I know she really just wants to eat what I eat.

So now today when I go shopping I will only be buying the whole foods. I am craving steak so tonight I'll have myself a nice 3 oz. serving with a spinach salad. I like making foods that we all can eat rather than making food for them that I won't eat because then Zora won't eat it either. I want to make a meal plan too, like a plan for the following week before it gets here!

I'm looking forward to another 5 lost by Tuesday, let's see if I can do it!

Want to lose 30 pounds by October 1st, 49 days away

And here is what some dandy calculator online told me:

Weight Loss Calculator

Goal date too aggressive. Your goal date has been modified to allow you to lose a maximum of 2 pounds per week.

Results

You should consume about 1,200 calories a day to reach your goal weight of 135 lbs by December 19, 2013.

Experts recommend weight loss at the rate of 0.5-2 lbs/week. Remember that this estimate is based on your body weight, height, age, gender, and activity level. It may vary slightly depending on other factors.

Generally, women should not consume any less than 1,200 calories per day, and men should not consume less than 1,500 calories per day.

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DECEMBER?!?!!? NO WAY! I love a challenge. ;P

I also like this website more since it gives amount of weight needed to lose each day rather than "DO NOT EAT UNDER 1200!!!"

http://www.whenmybaby.com/weightlosscalculator.php

Day 2, round 2! Eating less FOREVER

So I have been in the kitchen canning some asparagus for later-date snacks and found myself getting quite hungry. I recognize this feeling from before, it is my tummy pulling, crunching, AND SHRINKING! HIP HIP HOOOORAY!

The hardest part of starting any low calorie diet is turning off that switch that says eat eat eat. I seriously turn off that switch in my body and find that meal time is a chore, not a relished part of my day that I overindulge.

My remedy to stop the pangs? BTT of course! I put a scoop in 3 cups of water with some plant derived minerals and I'm 1 cup down and feeling fine.

I was typing it up on an ASAP review and stated something that is reverberating with me now. I was saying that ASAP is only a 3 week program with 3 weeks maintenance or 6 weeks with 3 weeks maintenance, but it really is much longer than that. You have to be committed to surviving off less calories. My body will be maintaining its weight on around 1600 cals, so I cannot "eat whatever I want, whenever I want" after the diet is over. It is a life change. I will have to exercise about an hour everyday to eat how I was eating before.


Currently my body is supposedly consuming 1900 calories a day plus the breast feeding is another 500 cals so 2400. That's about how much I was eating and I was gaining, so I know that the breastfeeding (1-2 a day for 10 minutes) is not going to be draining me of 500 cals. Probably around 100, 200 during teething periods (more nursing).

So if I do the math hrmmm, eating 800 cals a day would leave me around -1000, or over a 7 day period, 7k cals and that's about 2 lb. in a week. Now this is far less than the results I get on this product! I will look into the process of ketosis more because I am super-intrigued by it!