Day #17 – Back to Badness

This is how I felt and probably what I looked like when I got to the office this morning.

**sigh** I think the thing that makes weight loss programs the hardest is that they don’t occur in a vacuum.  You have to incorporate them into the life you have.  And when the life you have is already so busy that you hardly have time to speak to your spouse, adding the weight-loss program can be like adding the final straw to the camel’s back.  

And it’s not really just the weight loss program.  It’s all of the preparation and remembering you have to do just to be on the thing.  I made all of the food I would need for today in advance.  That was part of my working in the kitchen for an hour and a half last night to get everything ready for the stir-fry, etc… So I had all my stuff for today lovingly packed up and ready to go, then went over to the sink and the frickin’ water pressure was down to nothing.  I irrationally paniced and thought maybe I had neglected to pay the bill, so  went running around searching for the bill so I could call the city.  In the meantime, it was time to leave for work and I had to shake up a pudding for my breakfast because I was out of time to do anything else, and tonight is a school night.  I have to leave from the office at 4:00 p.m. and dont’ get home until 10:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays,  so having the food prepped is very important because dinner time occurs during my second class period.  Anyway, with all the flurry and the added jab of having to dig into the bill basket at the last minute, I forgot my dinner and left it sitting on the table.  When I realized it in the car, we were turning onto the freeway and it was too late.  So I don’t know what I’m going to do about food tonight.  I also had to cancel lunch out with my friends today because a lawyer in another  city called me up and said he needed a production to go out today.  Lovely.  Those things are all day suckers and I had other worked lined -up today as well.  So, no lunch out with friends, and I don’t have any dinner.  It’s going to be a long, long, long gray-ass day.  I only have time to write this post because I’m waiting for some files to ftp transfer so I can get on with the tasks at hand.

Suffice to say that on days like today, the absence of anything that even vaguely resembles comfort food, is keenly felt.

Day 16 – I Learn Somethin’ New Every Day

Too bad this is probably about 20 servings of this stuff! Either that or the dish is actually a ramikin with handles

Okay, for those of you reading this who are also ON the Ideal Protein Diet (and you’ll probably read what I’m about to write and say, “Of course!  I knew that!), here’s some info.  I did not know that you could only have the spaghetti and the “hearty stew” (“hearty” is a relative term) twice A WEEK!  I thought they were in the “once per day” category.  Apparently not.  But my coach set me straight on that today. 

So today has been a non-eventful kind of day.  I don’t feel hungry so there’s nothing to remark on.  I’m not tempted to rip the cabinet doors off, salt them and start chewing on them, so apparently everything is under control. 

Dinner tonight was stir-fried pork loin and vegetables, it was yummy.  Tomorrow is a lunch out – another challenge!  Woo hoo!  We’re going to a sort of Asian fusion place, so I think I’ll be able to get them to take care of my IP needs.  We’ll see!  Another day in the adventurous pursuit of optimum weight.  I also figured out today that if I continue the weight loss at the rate of the first week (and I realize that formulaically that can’t happen) that I will weigh less than I have since before my daughter was born by Christmas.  A wonderfully happy thought.  One that I hope will get me through all the goodies of Thanksgiving and my birthday with no cake.    Gotta prepare mentally y’know… Maybe lock myself up like a werewolf at full moon or something. 

So I’m having my green tea and working on my homework.  To all a good night.

Thanks WordPress!

Thanks for giving me back my blog, WordPress!  I freaked out this morning when you shut it down!  Let me just assure anyone reading this blog that this is not an advertisement or a commercial effort.  I really am a private individual embarking on a journey in search of optimum weight and health for myself and just decided to share it with a much larger community than my immediate circle of friends.  I provide the links in these posts strictly to allow readers who find the blog to know what I’m talking about as I lay it down.  I probably won’t be linking too many more instances of Ideal Protein as I think that was the problem and what got me shut down.  Anyway, back on now!  Thanks again WordPress mods.

Day 15 – 2nd Weigh-In a Success

I think I'm going to blow this up and put it on my study door

Hiiiii dee Ho!  Well, yesterday was my second official weigh-in at Osborne Chiropractic.  For any of you who are looking to start the Ideal Protein diet, I recommend that you find another vendor to get started with.    I’ve found out that Osborne is  higher on their starting cost by about $60 than at least one other local vendor, and higher on their boxes of food by at least $3 over a few others I’ve heard mentioned on the Internet – namely on the Three Fat Chicks weight loss support site, which I’m gonna stuff on my blogroll after this post.  It’s a great site chocked full of resources for helping you reach your weight loss goals.  Anyways, back to Osborne Chiropractic – they don’t pay for the Internet support for their dieters even though they are charging premium prices for the food, supplements and initial visit, so you won’t be able to use the Ideal Protein online tools like the Body Diary to track your progress.  So, although I think this diet is a great way to take off the pounds, don’t be like me, shop around a bit in your area and see who all is available to be a coach and mentor.  Do some price comparison shopping, and also find out how long your coach has been coaching on the program.  Mine is new and it shows.  Although, to be fair, she has answered my questions and found the answers to those she didn’t know and gotten back to me.  So I really have no complaints about her. 

But back to the main point of the post!  Weigh Day!  4.3 pounds in the past 7 days, bringing the program total to 13.3 pounds in two weeks. 

So I’m pretty happy with that, though I did learn yesterday that I am not supposed to be eating the sugar free jello because it has aspertame which is bad news.  So I do thank my IP coach, Sam, for telling me about the dangers of that stuff.  I’m going to get rid of all that I bought over the weekend.  I’m also going to make up my own mix using Knox Gelatine and unsweetened Kool-Aid and stevia packets and see how that works out.  No wonder I was feeling funny after two big servings of SF Jello over the weekend!  I don’t know why the friggin’ FDA allows the stuff to stay on the market if even half the stories about it are true. 

Well, have a great day everyone.  Wish me luck and I’ll be chattin’ atcha again soon.  I’ve made an IP recipe that I think might be useful for peeps, and I’m going to post it here and on the Three Fat Chicks site in the next couple of days.

Ideal Protein Diet Gone Six-Month Makeover

New Year's isn't the only time you can strap on some resolve

I think that since the projection of my completion of this program is approximately six months, I should make it a six-month makeover.  I’ve already begun a new skin-care regimen and I’m heading to the dentist tomorrow for a teeth-cleaning session.  Taking care of the body can be a full-time effort. 

So today is day 13 on the diet, and I’m pretty pleased with it thus far.  I made it through my husband’s birthday and made him his regular ‘death by chocolate’ birthday cake without sampling anything.  I made the chocolate pancake mix into six chocolate muffins and had one of them on his birthday for my “snack” with some sugar free jello, which worked out really good. 

Now the husband and I are off to a friend’s house for some Korean-style hot-pot dinner.  Hopefully, the meat will be fairly lean – it generally is and whatever fat there is gets boiled off in the cooking process, so I think I’ll be fine.  I have my gladware container of salad, so I am ready to roll.  We are taking the leftover birthday cake with us, so hopefully I will be bringing home an empty cake holder.  I haven’t really felt compelled to eat any of it anyway, so I guess it won’t much matter.  One thing I did do on my husband’s birthday was to slice off a really small piece of cake for myself to SMELL while I ate my IP chocolate muffin.  That was a pretty interesting experience which made the muffin taste a bunch better.  Hmmm…. since I have four of those little dudes left, perhaps I should save a tablespoon of that cake in a small container for using just that way again! 

Tomorrow is weigh-in day.  I’ve been very, very good with absolutely no cheating at ALL, so I’m hoping to pull a big number.  I know that I am wearing some jeans to our friends’ house tonight that I have not been comfortable in for quite some time.  They feel great now.  🙂

Day #11 . . . “Before” Pictures are a sobering motivator

So I decided that I needed to take some “before” pictures for my blog journey to thinness.  (I think I may have mentioned this in an earlier post.)  My coach took a couple snaps of me when I went for my one-week weight-in, but I wanted some in my one-piece swimsuit so I could show as much as possible, and also take after pics in the same thing each time.  I was too embarrassed to even have my husband take the pictures, so I took them myself using a tripod and a delay on a digital camera.  While I’m not in quite as bad a shape as my friend Violet here in the picutre, let me just say that they were quite sobering. 

Thankfully, this is NOT me. 🙂

There is a reason I avoid getting my photograph taken, and that is because my mental image of myself isn’t in line with what I see there.  I shot front, back, and both sides and let me tell you, it took me from denial to reality in about a minute – a hard minute that it took for me to examine these photos on my laptop.   I’m glad I at least lost 10 pounds before I took them.  But now they are a tool for me.  An inspiration to stick to my resolve to go all the way this time.  Now, mind you, I certainly won’t be displaying them until I have some good “after” shots to go alongside them.  I’m not that brave.  In fact, I think I’m doing pretty good just blogging about the food and the whole process of being on this Ideal Protein  program.   I’m not a public dieter – never have been.  I told talk about it, boast about it or even tell anyone about it.  I’m just not that person.  But, this time, I need support!  So in a couple of weeks, I’ll be sending the link to this blog around to everyone I know – a big deal for me.  Yup.  And right now, I’m planning on revealing the “before and after pics” the second week in December.  Just after my birthday, or maybe even on my birthday. 

Day #8 – Weigh-in yesterday; Feeling better about IP Decision

So this is what five pounds of fat looks like. Ick!

Well, hello there.   This is going to look like a post from my alter ego after Saturday’s entry. (Maybe it’s a Jeckyl and Hyde dieter thing…Buwahahahaha!) At any rate, in defense of the diet plan, I would like to explain that I had a sinus headache on Saturday that would not go away.  That, coupled with the general and overall feeling of hunger, made me believe it was the diet.  But even after eggs, and the somewhat tasty protein-laden cup of mushroom soup, and despite the fact that I felt full, I still had the headache.  So that’s when I reached into my bag for the Sudafed.  In about an hour, I felt great again and was even able to get through an entire evening of table games with friends without snacking.  So there….I have told you the rest of the story.  Now for the really big news….

Are you ready? Well make a drum roll……

9 pounds in a week! That's better than a tapeworm!

I had my 1-week weigh in yesterday and had lost 9 pounds.  NINE of those bastards!  I had been thinking the last several days that I could feel a difference in my clothes, but dismissed that as self induced head-games until I saw that lovely number yesterday.  Yay!  Nine pounds is four more than this hideous glob in the picture, which, by the way  is a physical depiction of five pounds of body fat rendered in some kind of rubbery acrylic gel stuff.

So I bought more space packets of food (which I will get some pics of the space food up soon, I promise) and was sent on my way feeling a bit of a rube for having just paid $125 for four small boxes of packets that would last for the next week, and $5 for a small sea salt. (that’s the part that really makes me gasp). But now I’m excited, people. I feel like doin’ the Snoopy dance over the results of the first week. I’m on my way to having this weight off that I’ve carried for nearly 21 years. Finally, finally… I cannot tell you all the things I am looking forward to, because honestly, it’s been so long I don’t remember all that I miss. One thing I can think of right off the top of my head is the joy of being able to shop in any clothing store I want to shop in. when I hit my target weight, I should be wearing a size 9, so that’s as average as it gets in this country. And not only that, but I will have fulfilled my goal for having this taken care of before I turn 50.

Day #5

Oh no you dit'nt

Anyone who says that they followed this diet to the letter the first week is a LIAR.  It’s that simple.  My head is pounding and I am still starving here at day #5.  Breakfast from the space pouches this morning was about a 1/2 cup of something that purported to be “maple nut oatmeal”.  Yeah.  Right.  It was like maple nut glue, and lasted about as long as you would expect a 1/2 cup of glue to last.  In two hours, my head was bangin’ and I felt like if I didn’t get something to eat pretty soon, I was gonna have to kill someone.  I read all of the helpful hints that they put into my diet packet about drinking more water to help with the headaches, and let me just assure you that if I drink any more water, I will float away. 

Last night I had stir-fry, which I made up from scratch using fresh vegetables and organic chicken.  It was great, and hit the spot.  But oh how long the Green Mile is….. (The Green Mile being the time between dinner, which was quite late last night because we had to go and buy all the ingredients first – and the time I went to bed which was uncharacteristically early for a Friday night at midnight).  But I made it and I ate the little packet of “jello” stuff that I had made in advance for the occassion the night before.

Day #3

Hi ya’ll!  Well, day 3 is definitely better than Day 1.  I am in evening classes here at the University of Washington, and on Tuesday night, I thought I was friggin’ gonna EXPIRE from hunger.  In order to avoid passing out and hitting the floor and leaving an over 200 pound woman for my classmates to revive, I got a package of peanuts out of the vending machine and felt terribly guilty for eating them.  They were not on the plan, I had just paid $400 for the plan, and I wanted to stick to the plan.  **sigh**

If only….

Day two was difficult, but not as difficult as Day 1, and 3 was better, so I have no reason to believe that 4 won’t be even better.  I occupy my thoughts with what I am trying to accomplish and try to not think about how long it is going to take.  With nearly 100 pounds to lose, this is going to take a while.  The coach told me that I could expect around four pounds a week in weight loss if I followed the plan.  I would really love that.  I would love five pounds a week more, but I am realistic.

So today I had a packet of “crunchy cereal” whcih consisted of some powdered milk-like stuff and some things that looked like rice crispies.  Lemme tell ya….I wont’ be buying anymore of those little doo-dads.  I was starving by 10 a.m., and had to run downstairs to one of the restaurants in our building and grab some chicken cubes and lettuce to tide me over until it was time for lunch and more chicken cubes and lettuce.  I was supposed to drink another shake, but I didn’t want to do that because I think the chicken and lettuce is a bit better for me.  I’m sure my coach will beg to differ (after all, I’m not giving them the money for the chicken cubes and lettuce, right). 

Day ONE!

Well, last night I decided to take the plunge and start this Ideal Protein diet.  I’ve been fighting my weight for a long, long time.  I made some progress in 2008 and 2009 until my psoriatic arthritis chewed through my left foot and I had to have a fusion surgery.  I had been walkign ont he treadmill for those 18 months and had very slowly lost 35 pounds.  Not that much, but it was progress and I was okay with it.  But after the surgery, I couldn’t do anything.  Four months of recovery and then some slow progress to just walking around to get places.  The pain was too much for me to return to the rubber road, so slowly and steadily I put back on 25 of the 35 pounds I lost and was nearly right back to where I started two years ago.  It’s very depressing.  I gave up wheat and dairy – no change.  I started eating all organic stuff and tossed out the artificial sweetner, and . . . no change.  Then one day I went out to lunch with a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in a pretty long time.  She’s a heavy gal and she’s two years older than I am.  I had watched her fight over the years with one diet and then another and never have any success in getting the weight off.  But this day, I was stunned.  She had taken off 45 pounds in the matter of 3 months and she looked and felt great.  I asked her how she did it, and she told me about the Ideal Protein diet.  It’s expensive as hell, and after learning about the food and how it’s done, all I have to say is if you can’t lose weight on this diet, there is something definitely wrong with you.