Do I Look Fat In This?

I can honestly say that as difficult as this journey is – and it is such a challenge sometimes – I really do love the experience.  It is teaching me so much, not just about nutrition, diet, exercise and will power, but also about myself, my body and my own strengths and weaknesses.  I keep wanting to approach this in different ways, but always with the same result/outcome in mind of getting through it and being done with anything but maintenance.  Maintenance is something I don’t worry much about because I have done it before very successfully and things only began to get out of hand when I was enormously unhappy, distracted and rendered into a complete state of zero self esteem.  I don’t see that happening (knock on wood) for a long, long time if at all, so that part just really doesn’t concern me.   It’s the now part of getting to the maintenance process that is so daunting.

I do try a lot of different tactics and tools on this journey, partly because I get very bored with using the same things over and over and also to learn what works and what doesn’t.  Of course, anything that gets you moving and helps you eat less works.  Anything that makes you feel terrible and is more challenging than what you are willing to invest doesn’t.  I was speaking with Carolyn today about thermogenic supplements – those that work by speeding up your metabolism so that you burn fat faster and better.  They do work; really great for some people even.  For me, they give me palpitations and make me feel all shaky and weird and spun out.  Some, like Slim Quick, make me really, really angry all of the time.  I’m not talking about irritable.  I’m talking ragey.  

As I’ve mentioned in my other journal, I am a downer girl and anything that is a stimulant I have to be very careful about.  Even caffeine will make me feel very uncomfortable if I don’t have it in moderation.  If I drink a Coke after 3pm or so, I won’t normally sleep well, even if I got to sleep at 9-10pm.  

The Mila still works great for me, so that is one supplement I try to take every single day.  By around 1-2pm, I can really start to feel the lack if I didn’t take it that morning.  I don’t feel as though my body is working as well as it normally does and my insides feel kind of polluted and contaminated.  I also start to have sugar cravings.  

I have not given the Mila its due lately.  I have to work hard to eat more than I should when I am taking it, but I do manage to do so, just for the comfort of the food.  This has been a very trying time with Eric out of work and me starting work and all of the changes that are going on, plus trying to keep up with the necessary bills and expenses.  I realized that I had put on 5 pounds or so of the 30 I lost in the spring and early summer and I flew into a panic.  I sat down and did an analysis of what had caused it.  

Surprise!  It was from eating more than I should and from not exercising.  I knew I had to take immediate action and I knew that this set back was a sign that it was time for me to let go of the break I had given myself from hard core work on the weight loss and to get back into action again.  I appreciate the break I had, but now I have to get back on the ball again.

Starting on Saturday, I tackled the diet in a very extreme way, at least for me.  It was the worst possible day to start because I was only a couple of days away from my period beginning, which is always when I want to eat the whole world with sugar on top and a side of corn chips.  Also, Josh was visiting with Valerie and the grandkids and so we were cooking all kinds of great food.  I made mashed golden potatoes and loaded potato skins, a giant salad, cut up watermelon and cantaloupe and Eric grilled thick hamburgers and big ham steaks.  The night before, I made lasagna with meat sauce and homemade white bread.  

I started the process a bit on Friday night by having  just a half of a piece of white bread with a little butter, a large salad (no dressing) and one small square of lasagna for dinner.  I was still hungry, but I thought, “Nope.  You get to wear that hunger a bit to see how it feels.” 

Starting Saturday, I put myself on an extremely low calorie, but balanced, diet, especially for a person of my size.  Of all of that wonderful food, I had another half piece of homemade bread with a tiny bit of butter, a quarter cup of mashed potatoes and a 2 oz portion of lean, grilled ham, plus a good bit of salad and melon through the day.  

Each day, I log in every morsel that I eat at www.fitday.com (I actually have the downloadable version from years and years ago) and absolutely refuse to allow myself to go over 1000 calories a day.  I can have no sweets at all.  The closest I get is a small glass of grape juice at night.  I eat teeny, tiny portions.  I scatter my intake of food throughout the day, just tiny bits here and there, always going into the food log and never, ever, ever cheating.

I limit myself to no more than one diet soda a day – very early in the morning – and the rest of the day, I drink water, very lightly steeped iced tea or that valued glass of grape juice in the evening (4-6 oz).  I have a 4 oz glass of chocolate milk with my Mila.  

I sometimes will add a second scoop of Mila with my lunch if I am feeling particularly challenged.  That has only had to happen once, on Monday.  Certainly, I am hungry and I can feel my stomach contracting and reacting and complaining about the lack of continuous feeding.  Although I still was keeping my calories at 1500-1800 a day, that was sufficient for me to begin gaining a half pound here and there and it adds up.

Everything I have read about healthy dieting warns against a calorie restriction that is this low and I do acknowledge and agree with this to a certain extent.  The primary purpose of this is to hit my reset button and shake up my metabolism a bit.  It is also to prove to myself that I am able to control my comfort eating and work past some unhealthy indulgences to get to a good place again in regard to my eating.  The Mila is also a very profoundly healthy supplement with loads of vitamins and fiber, so that offsets a good bit of the reduced food intake.

I do not expect to stay at this level of nutritional restriction for a very long time.  My thought on the matter is that there is a school of thought that actually recommends fasting to kick start a diet – not for any length of time, but just to clean out the system and, as I said, reboot your body’s metabolism computer.  

It also dawned on me that this is very similar to what a person who has gastric bypass surgery goes through.  They first follow a diet of 1300 calories or so a day for a few months, then have the surgery and are suddenly reduced down to 1000 calories or less in a day, simply because they are unable to eat large amounts or, for the first few weeks, particular food groups.

I can’t afford to have the surgery.  I am at a point that I believe I would if I could.  I can, however, mimic the effects with the exception of the reduced amount of stomach lining to absorb the food.  

Today is Day #5 of eating this way.  I can honestly say that I can see how people become anorexic or bulemic because the feeling of control is very appreciable.  I am not even close to falling into that pit (Mama does love her food way too much), but I can recognize the allure.  I have lost 3 of the 5 pounds I gained, but I also did start my period and had a good bit of water weight. 

I have walked 3 days of those 5.  It hasn’t been anything impressive, just a mile or so.

My dress is looser than before.  That is enough to make me happy for now.

So that’s where I am at the moment and I am going to see where it leads me as the next step in the process.

Thank you for being there and for walking the path with me for these few minutes.