Still going down

Been a few days since I've posted. I didn't get a chance to weigh at all over the weekend as I made a last minute trip down to Phoenix on Friday to see my parents for a little bit and flew back Sunday morning. We went for a hike on Saturday and walked around a lot a majority of the day, so I got in some exercise that way. I do like Arizona and keep muttering to myself that I could live there some day, if I had to. Though I know I'd miss having the Pacific and the sound right at my doorstep.

Anyway, this morning's weight:
4/25 - 217.3

I'm actually surprised that it was that. On Friday I came in at 219.9 which was fine. Just a half pound from the day prior. Saturday night I ended up eating a bag of Swedish Fish mostly in my sleep. I was half awake and I kept reaching for them and eating them. I hadn't eaten nearly enough on Friday or Saturday, so I was just flat out hungry. Then yesterday, I went with a couple friends to help out at a local men's shelter, and I ended up eating a few bites of croissant, cupcake, danish, and monkey bread. I know I'm pretty dehydrated from being in Phoenix, so I've been spending today rehydrating and hopefully everything will work out in a couple days. I'm really hoping I don't have a gain tomorrow, but I am peeing enough to make it balance out. And I've eaten 100% on target today. I might end up low on my calories again, though. I'm working late and won't get home until about 10 pm, and I don't know what my motivation to cook will be. I need to cook the steaks that are still in my fridge, but again... 10 pm, and I have to be at work at 7 am the next day, I just don't think it will happen. But, we'll see. I am going to stop at the grocery store on my way home from work and get some tomatoes and maybe grab some deli meat so that I have something to eat tomorrow. I dunno. We'll see.

My clothes fit so loose now, too. It's awesome. I'm excited to see how they're going to fit when I hit 210. I keep wanting to post something on Facebook because I've now hit the 40 lb mark of how much weight I've lost since my known peak (I think it was a few pounds higher, but I refused to step on a scale for a few days when I ballooned up and out of control), but I still kind of want to hold off just a little bit longer. Either the 50 lb loss mark or when I get under 200. I can't believe that's only 17 pounds away, finally. I hate that I'm relying on this program for quick and easy weight loss, but it seriously works. And it's easy to keep the weight off. It's just... amazing. And I love it. And I hope that nothing happens any time soon to suddenly make it unavailable for people to get access to. Perhaps I should order some extra just in case something does happen...

But then, that's the easy way out instead of just being more active. Plus, I need to get going on marathon training and that $800 bicycle that's just chilling in my living room waiting to be used. Heh...

Still on a strong streak

I seriously cannot believe how well this is going this time!!

4/20 - 221.3
4/21 - 220.3 (debatable cause I stepped of the scale and back on and got 219.9)

When I did that second weight, I was like like...zomg. I haven't seen a 1 in the second digit in... I have no idea how long. I have no idea what's making everything really, really work this time, either. But it is. And I'm elated!!

I can also fit into my old 38D bras now, too. My breasts are a big too big for them, but that's okay. It's inevitable (hopefully) that they'll shrink some day. Though from 40 lbs ago at my peak weight, they're still the same size. Cup size goes up when the band size goes down if the breasts don't shrink. But I still don't really care that much. Cause like... all these clothes I've had around and been saying "Oh, one day..." and never getting rid of them are slowly but surely starting to be worn.

Really, it looks like my goal might just be reachable by my birthday. I've got two and a half more weeks. And that's if I can keep up this 1+ lb per day loss. I'm not convinced it'll continue all the way through and at some point things will slow down, but for now... I don't challenge that. As long as I'm drinking tons of fluids (in excess of 100oz per day) I seem to get those larger numbers.

Still haven't really exercised except for brief walks here and there. I'm not quite as dizzy as I was the first round either. I had a little dizziness yesterday afternoon, but that was about it.

Going the right way

I'm absolutely floored with how well this round is going. MUCH better results than the first time. And despite still attacking the hell out of chocolate each day, I'm losing at a considerable amount. With as much chocolate I kept shoving in my mouth yesterday, I was not expecting much of a loss, if any at all. So I stepped up on the scale, and before me flashed:

3/19 - 222.8 (Core Day 5)

Uh, yeah. So now I'm at a lower weight than when I was on the drops the first time; or the same weight if you consider the loss I had after the most painful poop of my life. And I still have at least another two or three weeks to go. It almost looks like I might actually be able to achieve being 200 (or damn well close) by my birthday. The amount of excitement pumping through my veins cannot be expressed through words. Hell, to see my weight be in the 210s is going to be a super happy day. I haven't seen anything below 220 since I was 20 or 21. I got sick a couple years ago and saw something like 220.2 because I hadn't eaten or drank anything for two days when my weight was stable at 225.

Whatever I'm doing this time is definitely something right. I had cabbage last night with dinner, so I know that's a safe vegetable. This round has been my attempt to experiment with more than the handful of veggies that are allowed based on the original protocol. The zucchini and cabbage are clearly proving to not be a problem.

I'm really excited. This is just... a much more awesome experience despite the increase in cravings from last time.

Better the second time around

It seems like things are going much faster this time around. Although yesterday and this morning, I was dealing with one hell of a headache. It's finally subsided after copious amounts of ibuprofen (which wasn't working) and Aleve. I suspect it was more of a caffeine withdrawal more than anything. After I had two or three cups of black tea that steeped for a very long time, it's gone away.

Weight loss progress:
4/17 - 225.3
4/18 - 224.4

I could/should have been down more this morning, but I was attacking chocolate once I got home yesterday and had probably 8 or 9 Cadbury Mini-eggs and half a stick of a Kit-Kat. Though I'm not complaining about 7 pounds since Friday. :)

I've also been eating steak as the protein this time. Last time I thought it had hindered me a bit, but I've found lean cuts of meat and have clearly been having a success at that. I'm just not up for the chicken quite yet. Dry chicken. At least I can cook the steak in a pan, and then throw in some water to help deglaze the pan and keep the steak moist.

Temptation hit me kind of hard yesterday when Isaac and I went to a restaurant and he ordered some calamari. I picked at two pieces and took off the breading that was on it while he devoured the whole thing. There were some things I would have loved to have ordered, but hey... I didn't spend any money eating out!! There's a good way to think about it, eh?

Phase 1 to Phase 2 transition

I was carrying some serious water weight thanks to my period just before starting this round again. Totally crazy.

So I started loading on Wednesday, Friday (yesterday) was my first core day. Weight recap is going to look like this:
4/13 - 228.1 (load day 1)
4/14 - 229.7 (load day 2)
4/15 - 231.6 (core day 1)
4/16 - 228.8 (core day 2)

And example of the water weight that a menstrual cycle will make you hold? I weighed in on 4/15 at the 231.6 at 6 am. By the time I got home around 5 pm, and drank over 120 oz of water through the course of the day, and I was 230.7.

This morning I had a weird, almost thermogenic response. A friend came over to borrow my camera body and flash for a couple shoots he's doing today, and my place was absolutely trashed. He saw that, and after he left, I went into massive, massive cleaning mode. Now all the laundry is put away, my curtains have been hung back up, boxes broken down and things put in plastic totes I bought months ago to put things away. It's almost like I'm settling in or something. Anyway, doesn't matter. My place is mostly clean. Things have been hung back up that fell down ages ago. It feels better overall.

And with three pounds off overnight, it's really helping the motivation to keep up with this this time for another three weeks. It will go by before I know it and I'll be able to incorporate real foods again. :)

Round 2 is a go!!

So I'm starting the second round early. I'm really frustrated and really determined to hit my goal of 200 by my birthday. I didn't want to wait the full 6 weeks before starting again, and I've been finding conflicting information about the homeopathic drops versus the injections. It seems that the injections require a break, but the HHCG you can try cycling between P2 and P3.

Yesterday I weighed in at 228.1 - which yes, it is up 5 lbs however, that's including my early birthday dinner I had a couple nights earlier that still needed to be worked through my body. (It was really, really good... omg.) This time, I'll also be more prepared for the side effects like having baby oil on hand to keep skin moisturized and some cortisone cream for the itchy elbows, if they happen again. I'm also going to go for walks and bike rides to keep myself active and a little bit of resistance training to help keep my muscles from being too weak. I haven't been able to get going on the training yet, so I figured I can sacrifice another three weeks to getting down to a more acceptable weight; to me, at least.

These loading days suck, though. I'm up a pound and a half, but I did have a bottle of wine last night with my sleeping pills. I slept sooooo good finally. It was a nice break from not being able to sleep with my sleeping pills... I'm also a few days away from my period, so I'm bloated a little. Hopefully it shows up in a couple days. As well as pooping out all this food I've eaten.

Stabilizing and maintaining

The last week has actually gone very well. This morning I weighed in at 224.7 and this evening, about half an hour ago, I already weighed in at 224.2. So I'll be in the 223's at least by the time I get up.

Being able to eat real food again has been a blessing. I've been having a lemon soy yogurt with a hemp and flax granola for lunch every day. My calories the last couple of days have been below 1000, but I'm just not hungry. So it's okay. I'm trying to find the balance between what I can eat and what my body will allow me to eat without much consequence. Yesterday, I also had a ginormous 12 oz steak and a tomato (the recommended protocol if you've seen an increase of weight of more than 2 lbs since stopping the drops) and it definitely worked. Although, I had a horrible, violent reaction to something last night that caused my intestines to clear out. It felt like it was going to be food poisoning (you know, where it's coming out both ends at the same time?) but luckily after a half hour of switching from sitting on the pot because I felt like I was going to have an ass-plosion and laying on the floor because I was near fainting and didn't want to hit my head on anything if I did (my blood pressure had to be through the roof), it subsided and I was able to crawl back in bed without incident. So that all happened around 11:45 pm. I was awake until well after 2 am trying to fall back asleep. My insomnia gets the best of me sometimes. It's a real pain. Just like now, it's 11 pm and I'm pretty alert and awake.

Isaac is ahead of me on the weight loss. I was about 5 lbs ahead of him the whole time, but now he's dropped down to 216 after four days of plateauing. He decided to prep his food different and use different vegetables, and it seemed to get him going again on the weight loss. So that's good for him. His belly is definitely going away. I wish mine would. *sigh*

Next week (or this weekend) I'm going to be starting my marathon training. I want to give myself about a year, but I think I have to pick a marathon to do so that I can go backwards in the training schedule and see when I should start the increase in miles. It starts off at 15 miles per week and gradually increases to where your one long run of the week is 18 miles for two weeks before backing off the two weeks prior to the marathon. So that's where the back peddling comes in.

Anyway, I'm going to go curl up on the couch and try to get tired. One thing that has been a tremendous help the last couple days is the little arm BioMedia Fit thingie that I bought a few months ago. While it doesn't track your heart rate, it does calculate your perceived exertion by measuring your body temp and moisture from the skin. Plus it has an accelerometer to measure movement and how many steps you're taking, blah blah blah. It's the same thing that they use on The Biggest Loser (the BodyBugg), just called something different. Same manufacture, I found out. Just 24-Hour Fitness seems to have it's claim on the BodyBugg (and a huge price increase because of the branding) and BodyMedia is much cheaper and there's a steep discount on Costco to buy the unit and you get 12 months of the subscription service included for like $160. The price seems to fluctuate throughout the month, but I highly recommend it. I'll write more about it in my next posting because there are some cautions I'd advise if you do purchase one.