Well, it's been interesting, I guess, what I've been doing. Last Monday, 1/12, I officially started the South Beach Diet, which to me at the time was an arbitrary choice of a way of eating that I'd never tried, and I'd figured I needed to do something new. I had encouragement and a good spokesperson for this particular diet (Hi Cindy), but it's still just something that I figured "Sure, what the hell -- I gotta try something." I've read every annual research piece on which diets are best, and the consensus is, most often, "any relatively healthy diet is fine, as long as you stick to it." Now, the researchers are smart enough to include the level of reality of a human being actually sustaining that eating practice, and so things that are too hard to stick to are graded poorly. Interestingly, the highest rated one that I found was the DASH diet, which is Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. I bought a couple books on that one, and it seems good enough, but I couldn't follow it to a T at this point in my life. It's backwards from anything I've known, and it includes LOTS of (healthy) carbs and LITTLE protein. What the heck, right? I have a feeling I'll go back to it sometime though, just to see. I have to teach myself to like fish first. But this time, on South Beach, I have been sticking to it as closely as I have found possible, and today is day 9. I have 6 more days of Phase 1.
The books say you can lose something like 8 to 14 pounds on Phase 1 of this diet. To that, I say, not me. I haven't lost that or nearly that. Neither has my husband, who always drops weight with rocket speed (ugh!). We still have six days left and everything, so we'll see. I think there are a few reasons for our sluggish pace out the gate. One of the biggest reasons that I can think of is that while we officially started on Jan. 12, I had actually been doing it for almost two weeks prior to that. I had lost all my water weight already, and almost all bad carbs were already more or less out of my system. I still crave them something awful, but I think it's less frequent and less intense. Maybe instead of "crave them," I should say "remember them with wistful nostalgia and extreme fondness." They are like the first boy I ever loved, or a dear relative who has died.
So I can't say that it's been a huge shake-up to my system to eat this way. The first two or three days, sure. I was very much like, "WHERE IS MY FOOD!!!" But after that, it evened out, and I think I actually started eating a little bit more because I was learning the ropes a little better. Reflecting on that now, I have some anxiety about having increased my snacks here and there, and I feel the urge to start tracking my food again -- something I think I just need to do for a while. Free for alls never work for me, or at least, not until I know what a PERFECTLY good day looks like. That's what slows me down. Freedom. Do not want.
So I'm impatient with the scale, as always, which is 100% human of me. HOWEVER, when I chart out my weigh-ins, since December 26, I've lost over 15 pounds. That puts me at a 5 pound per week average. Uhhh, that's fast. That's like lose-your-hair fast. So it's not like I think that's going to be my rate, God no. I had lots of idiotic Christmas junk to rid my system of, and like I said, the water weight, it is big. But on paper it looks pretty great to me. Aaaand I hate obsessing over numbers like this, and relying on the movement of my scale, but geez, metrics, people!
It was funny that my husband told me that soon I'll be able to wear smaller sizes. I got mad at him. I said it takes me at least 30 pounds to change a size. He didn't believe me. I said "I KNOW MYSELF! THIS IS NOT MY FIRST TIME DOING THIS! RAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!" and he backed off. Now that I think about it, right now I'm about 30 pounds heavier than I was in college, and I was wearing an 18 then too. That's basically my pants size now. So to me, that sucks, and it's not fair. My top half shrinks. I can wear a smaller shirt size when I lose. But never my pants. I hate you, butt and thighs. I shouldn't say those things. I wouldn't talk to a stranger like that. I should spin it differently. I have overweight girlfriends who tell me they are envious of my "little waist." My autoresponse to that inside my head is always "UGH, but I have this stomach, still, and I can NEVER wear shorts with these legs, and I am grossly disproportionate to my hips!" but instead I should try thinking, yeah, I look pretty good. You know. God gave me this weird super suuuuper pear shape. I should try to rock it as best as I can. And, like, it's vain. But I am thankful for my boobs. There.
I like things that are pear shaped, you know? Pears. Teardrops. Hot air balloons.
Why am I saying all this weird stuff???
Stream of consciousness. The coffee hasn't kicked in.
Today after work is my second session with my new personal trainer. To my husband, I refer to her as my Special Trainer. It's funny because she's a friend of ours. He and I both used to work with her when I worked at his office. She was the exec assistant to an evil, evil, evil man. Then she quit to do what she actually wanted, and I think she's happy helping people like me get stronger and see themselves differently. She is so sweet. She is the anti Jillian Michaels. She is quiet and has little to say, but she has a sensitive and forgiving spirit and she is patient. She is the Nicest Trainer In The World. And she is tons of fun to do karaoke with. Little and pretty and always sings "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I went to Costco yesterday and bought all the things. My cart was the healthiest looking cart on the planet. It contained Costco-sized packages of:
red bell peppers
mushrooms
spinach
cauliflower
broccoli
snap peas
green beans
celery
cocktail tomatoes
sweet onions
fresh salsa
feta cheese
pork loin
organic boneless chicken breasts (I just started buying these and I'm trying to taste a difference)
egg whites
fat free plain Greek yogurt
balsamic vinegar
fish oil supplements
and that's for my family of two. We already have a fridge full of assorted lettuces, Laughing Cow Light, 2% string cheese, Babybel Light (love those waxy cheesepods), hummus, guacamole, lowfat cottage cheese and fat free milk.
My breakfasts are 2 egg white muffin cups made with lots of spinach, bell peppers, onions and garlic and some feta. I make these all on Sunday for both me and my husband, let them cool and then put them 2 per baggie in a container in the fridge.
My lunches are a salad with chickpeas, light deli turkey and a sprinkle of feta with balsamic and olive oil OR frozen veggies with baked chicken breast. Salads take a good long time to prep. I usually make 6 at a time to get us through 3 days. I put in about 3 oz of chicken, if it's chicken and veggies. I measure about 1/3 cup of chickpeas, if it's salads. I need to measure my olive oil better.
My dinners are pork loin or tenderloin or chicken breast or a ground turkey/veggie meatloaf, or once I made ground turkey chili, and I have a bunch of steamed, roasted or sauteed vegetables on the side. On occasion I have some lowfat shredded cheese on top. I stress out about dinner because I'm afraid of running out of ways to prepare pork, chicken and turkey. We will add lean sirloin steak, which we enjoy, and I'll probably start putting shrimp in my snacks or salads, but we're not big fish eaters. I'll venture out soon.
We eat much more than the recommended 3 oz. of protein for dinner. I don't even put less than 5 oz. on our plates. 3 oz. is a tease. I am used to way way waayyy more than that. But I'm slowly taking less. I don't weigh or measure our veggies.
My snacks are (unmeasured) veggies dipped in (measured) hummus, guac or laughing cow, and I have also made deviled eggs with some of the yolks replaced with guacamole as well as lettuce wraps with light deli meat and lowfat cheese and arugula. I cut up bell peppers and celery and bag them up, and cauliflower, broccoli and the occasional carrots come pre-cleaned and cut, which makes this convenient. Our guacamole is pre-portioned, and we put hummus 2 Tbsp. at a time into little tupperware containers.
I also always have about 1/2 cup of skim milk in my a.m. coffee, and I still use a Splenda packet or a couple squirts of Splenda-sweetened vanilla syrup in my coffee or espresso every morning.
If I'm starbing, I eat 7 or 14 raw almonds at my desk and it gets me through.
I drink at least 10 cups of water a day, every day, and usually a little more than that. We don't really drink diet pop anymore (for him, that's a big deal).
And that's it. Oh, and my husband makes sugar free Jello which we laugh when we eat it, because it tastes good and it's like a special treat, until we start thinking "Yeah, we could eat this if we were prepping for a colonoscopy tomorrow," or "Hmm, what's Jello actually made of?"
And I did buy frozen 40-calorie sugar free fudge pops and 20-calorie sugar free popsicles so I have something to do while I watch TV at night. Old habits die hard.
But I do feel like I'm moving. Even though it's been a week or two, I feel a little bit like a new person? I am terrified that this momentum will cease, but I have to let that go and live minute to minute. I bought two boxes of Girl Scout cookies in flavors I don't like, which I'm going to donate to the office coffee area and not touch. I've skipped coworker birthday cake that looked freakin' awesome. I'm just tunnel-visioned toward being better. That part, I like.
One more thing worth mentioning: I stopped biting my nails. Oh, they were awful. I was completely out of control. But now they are growing. And when Round 3 of my 6-month DietBet is over (this one is super challenging for me to win, because I have to make up for effing up Round 2), I'm going to get them done pretty. It's like a load of shame lifted, to have control over these ten tiny parts of my life.
I always feel like crying, when I stop and think about how I am actually practicing, instead of thinking about, actions 100% for myself, to better myself. It's not a sad or shameful or guilty cry, it's more of a cry of disbelief and, oddly, release. It's catharsis. I know I deserve it. Why don't I do this all the time?