1 week

This has been such a mental battle.  Yesterday I texted Julie: "I feel like a drug addict who needs a fix".  This is how much I have allowed food to control me.  This has been the hardest thing I've done and I have a feeling that even though week 1 was hard.  It will get even harder to stay on track.  Only 2 weeks and 3 more days to get through and then I will be done with the first round.  It doesn't sound like that long right?  Most days I'm just waiting for the clock to tick down just so I can check off another day till I can eat normally again.  The past couple of days I have been wondering if this suffering will really be worth it in the end?  I must push through to find out.

224.4 lbs

FAIL!

Yesterday was super rough.  I was completely ready to call it quits.  Not only was I still so hungry, for the second day in a row I cried at work for really stupid things.  I felt weak and irritable.  Luckily, my cousin Julie was able to talk me out of it.  I always get super dramatic and feel as if I'm a big failure.  Food has been my cure for so many things.  Being overweight is something I've convinced myself for so long that I cannot overcome that it is easy to talk myself out of the newest goals to overcome it.  Julie is on the same program but is 2 days ahead of me so gave me hope that it gets better.  So instead of quitting altogether I decided to cheat for one night.  Grilled cheese, 2 frozen burritos and 2 1/2 cupcakes.  So delicious!  Maybe it will take a day or two to show up because the scale told me I lost one pound.  I had to re-weigh myself just to make sure it was correct.  It was totally worth it to gain a little sanity for today.  I'm still hungry but not in an uncontrollable way.  Maybe it will get better!

Found some asparagus for $1.99 lb today so I bought 3 bunches.  Also got Stevia (herbal sweetener) and grapefruit plus some herbal tea that has cinnamon and carob in it (tastes amazing!).  There are so many herbal tea options that I didn't know were out there.  Planning on halibut with lemon and asparagus for dinner.  Good thing I love seafood!

227.2 lbs

starvation mode day 1 & 2

I can truly say I've never felt real hunger before. Until now.  It is so hard to control myself from just indulging in what I know will make me feel better.  I hate that having a full stomach really makes me feel better!  How naive I was to think that drinking a bottle of water would make the hunger subside!  I think I will do better today but yesterday I was a complete wreck.  I was doing okay but by the end I started to get really cranky with everything everyone did.  To add to the stress of it all, I'm coming down with a cold and I was really tired.  When I finally broke, I cried in front of my boss and I felt so weak!  Luckily I had the cold/tired excuse so I didn't have to tell anyone that I was starving!  When I finally got to go home, I went straight to bed to get a nap and that definitely helped.  I took a couple of doses of hoodia throughout the day and that seemed to help a little bit but it didn't take the hunger away completely.  I'm going to look for another appetite suppressant to see if it works better.

I got some of that calorie free dressing.  Nasty.  I'm going to use it as a marinade for my chicken so hopefully it won't taste too bad.  I will need to pick up more veggies though because I mostly got lettuce and cabbage.  I made a delicious chicken soup last night and have a chicken salad for today.  I'm so glad that I can still use salt! I got a sea salt that is supposedly better anyway. 

228.4 lbs

Day one of 500 Calories

This picture was taken this morning. I figure that you're not supposed to smile in the before picture. You're also supposed to wear ugly baggy clothes but I felt like I'd see my progress better if I wore more form fitted clothes.

The 2 gorge days are easy. The first night I made fettuccini alfredo (delish!) and had leftovers for lunch the next day. Last night I ate at Chinese Buffet with my cousin Kevin. Unfortunately, I could only finish 2 plates. I'd gotten to the point last week where I felt like I had to eat all my favorites one last time but each time it would just give me a tummy ache to the point where I never wanted to eat something so fatty again. I had to press on for the sake of science though and later Kevin and I went out for ice cream. I made a pretty good attempt and ate about half of it but anyone who has been to Leatherby's knows their servings are enormous! It was a good way to end my binge day though because it was the last thing I got to eat "one last time".

Today I woke up not feeling too bad aside from the fact that I woke up with a sore throat. My main plan is when I feel I'm too hungry, I drink at least 12 oz of water. I also have hoodia which is an appetite suppressant to be used if I just can't take the hunger pains anymore. I've never tried it before so we'll see if it actually works for me. I decided to purchase fun foods so I'm going to grill up a lean steak for lunch. I also got some halibut and then of course there is always the chicken breast standby. I have tons of salad greens that I'm going to make up so I can just grab a handful for when I run to work.

I'm looking into using a specific dressing that my sister Alisa used while on her HCG diet. It's from a company called Walden farms. It looks like they have all sorts of products like syrups, jams and salad dressings. Their tag line: "No calories, fat, carbs, gluten or sugars of any kind!" What I really would like to do is look at the ingredient list which they don't seem to have online so I will have to take a field trip to the store later today to see if all the ingredients are approved. It will be nice to have something to flavor my salads. I'm not a huge salad eater to begin with so this will definitely help.

234.2 lbs

Say goodbye to the old me once and for all!

As you know my plan has not been going as planned. Here it is over a year and a half after I set my original weight loss goals and I'm only down 30 pounds from my all time high weight. Go me for maintaining it (mostly) for almost a year but I'm still obese. There is a new popular diet going around called the HCG diet. I know you're probably thinking the same things I did when I first heard about it. ("500 calories a day! That's insane! Of course you're going to lose weight with only 500 calories a day!) My sister went on the diet and lost almost 60 lbs. She hadn't been able to get pregnant after 10 years of marriage. Almost as soon as the weight came off she became pregnant. I then did some research.

This diet has been around for over 50 years. A British man named Dr. Simeon came to be known as the one to do the initial research. He was working in India and became curious when though poor thus underfed, pregnant women were still able to deliver relatively healthy babies. He discovered that a certain hormone in their body was being produced which "unlock" the fat stores in the woman's body to help nourish the fetus. He had been trying to figure out a better option for those going on a restricted diet to be able to lose the bad fat and keep the good fat. The good fat is what helps our organs and muscles to function properly and this is usually what is lost first when a person tries to eat an extremely restricted diet and over exercise. He decided to see what this hormone could do with a non-pregnant person. Long story short it has many benefits which I'm looking forward to.

1.)This hormone allows you to consume only 500 calories at day though your body is burning more like 3500 calories. This is why (so I've read) you don't get too hungry. We shall see about that. I bought an appetite suppressant just in case. I also hear the first week is the hardest

2.)For an obese person like me, I get discouraged very easily and cannot maintain self control for a long enough period of time to get down to a healthy weight. This diet offers immediate results. 1 pound a day?! I can handle that.

3.)It is a strict diet as far as what you can or cannot eat but I kinda like the fact that it tells you exactly what to eat. This is relatively simple and there's not a lot of guess work.

4.)Treats are not allowed. Now you may be thinking this can't be a benefit but somehow in my brain it seems like it will be easier to not have any at all rather than just "a little bite" because that little bite soon becomes a huge bite and then 2 or 3 more servings.

5.)I will save so much money because I won't be eating out hardly at all.

6.)The strict eating only lasts for a few weeks and then you go back to eating a regular healthy diet to allow your body to adjust till you go back to 500 calories a day again.

7.)Most of all it gives me so much hope that I can actually look like an average to (dare I say this!) skinny person. People will always judge but at least they won't judge me as that fat person that I don't feel like inside. Of course I still may be judged as 'the person who used to be fat' but losing that much weight generally (from what I've seen) gets people to notice for the better.

8.)I won't have to shop for clothes in the fat old lady section! Goodbye Lame Bryant! That has me more excited than ever! I'm going to save all the money that I used to use for food and purchase all new clothes when I reach my goal weight. I must remember this on the hard days when I want to cheat. I will finally once and for all be able to wear clothes that I've always wanted so I can show my personality. Don't worry nothing too extreme but definitely not ugly T-shirts and jeans anymore!

So many more to look forward to but I will blog more later about this when I'm actually experiencing it. I'm going to print out a picture of myself to remind me when I need to stay focused. It is time to take my life back!

Weight week 1: 232.6
Goal weight: 132 lbs!