Body changes

Before I started this diet, and several years early, I had lordosis. Basically that means my back dent was really deep and my spine was kind of J shaped.  My tailbone was always in need of cracking and it was awful.

I've lost enough weight now that my back dent is almost gone. I guess the diagnosis would be gone too!  And I've been cracking my back a LOT more. In fact, I can now crack my tailbone while sitting on the toilet, which is just about the most awesome thing ever. It's the little things, right?

Google says that back pain is a common symptom of losing weight quickly.  I'm right there in the normal camp with that. My back is constantly in pain all the way from my hips and butt to my shoulders.  Supposedly your body gets "comfortable" being fat and when you change it your body has to compensate. But that's ok! I'll deal with pain for a bit.

I had another food dream last night. It was pretty fabulous! We were at a parade in Chinatown and it was awesome and huge. But it was kind of like mardi gras. Instead of throwing beads, they were throwing wontons and egg rolls. I was jumping around and catching them in my mouth! It was amazing :D

I would most definitely like to have that dream again. Maybe nightly. 

20 lbs gone!

It's official! I've lost over 20 lbs! My morning weigh in was .3 lbs less than my start weight :) And it's day 11 of the diet part of the diet.  This is amazing to me. I doubt the next 11 days will lose as much, which makes me sad. And today I lost less than I had been losing. But I forgot to drink enough water. I'm shooting for at least 96 oz a day.  Bare minimum is 64.  I figure 96 is a nice half way between the minimum and a gallon.  In MD, the bathroom is upstairs so going potty a million times a day is a work out ;) 

Yesterday I tried to spice things up too. I used coconut pam spray (which my doctor said is fine) and "fried" some sea bass. It had an herb crust and tasted too good to be allowed on the plan. Oh my, that was frickin amazing!

I also broke out my ginger and garlic and "fried" it up with some weird greens I found at the Chinese grocery store. They were green and purple and called red something. I mixed those up with some shrimp and it was wonderful!

Yesterday was also the first day that I really didn't feel hungry. We were running around shopping. Thrift store (on 50% off day! Yay!!!), Target, and grocery stores. Run run run!  Which is probably why I forgot to drink enough. 

Also my scale is acting weird. Hubs said if this works for me, He'll do it with me in January. So I'm thinking we need better scales if he's going to do it too. We got the cheapy Walmart scales for like $17 and got 2 of them.  This morning I weighed myself 7 times. Twice I got a .6 loss, twice I got a .2 gain, and three times I got a 1 lb loss. I figured I'd take the number I got the most.

Does anyone have a scale they recommend?

First measurements!

The results are in! It's been a full week and I'm down 15.2 lbs!

Arms are 1/4 inch smaller, thighs are 1 1/4 inch smaller, hips are 1/4 inch smaller, waist is 2 inches smaller, and I messed up chest measurements. From now on I'm going to measure under the boobs instead of on them. I think that's more accurate. 

There's quite a lot of room for error because I don't have a measuring tape in this house. So I used a ribbon and a tape measure. I got all MacGyver on it!

I still can't see results. I think I'd have to look at pictures side by side. And my clothes don't really fit differently because all my clothes are lazy clothes. And I hate clothes that touch me. So the shirts are all lose and the pants are all elastic. I guess we'll continue to see!

The fat just walks away....

This is going on every night....the fat just walks away.

I'm finding more and more that everything can be likened to a Doctor Who analogy.  Especially this journey.

So yesterday was really hard. I was REALLY craving pasta and bread.  Especially since I tried a new recipe on the fam that was pretty amazing smelling.

Today I'm having a little "bake-down" my husband calls it.

I've noticed that I weigh about 3-5 lbs more at night. And then in the morning, I lose like 1-3 lbs. That seems to be the trend. I don't know what else it could be. It doesn't make sense.

Since we've been back in PA, the weight loss has been slowing. Today I lost a little less than a lb. And had a bad nightmare about being fat. I'll go into details about that in a min.  So hubby thinks that the water is to blame. In MD, we've been getting super filtered magical water from Mom's Organic Market.  And the weight loss there was like 3-4 lbs. Now granted, that was only 3 weigh ins before we drove back to PA, but still. That's a pretty big minus.  So here, we just have fridge filtered water. And hubs thinks it's not good enough. I've been having poopie problems since we've gotten back, which could be water related because lord knows I'm not eating enough to have issues. And the weight loss has slowed to less than 2 lbs. It could be that my body is adjusting to steady weight loss, but he thinks it's the water causing issues.  He said it's not filtered as nicely as the fancy water so I'm getting stupid chemicals. I guess we'll wait until I'm back in MD to test his theory. What do you guys think?

Now, back to the dream. I dreamed that I was a girl in school named Carrie (no, not like the horror film) but it was first person. Like I wasn't Carrie, but I was Carrie. And everyone was awful to me and kept taking all my clothes. So I had to sit in a corner and cry with my back pack and a hand towel.  All the nice girls who offered me their spare clothes to wear were much smaller than me so I couldn't fit into any of them. I/Carrie was too fat to fit into any of the clothes. So I had to wear the male gym teacher's spare gym stuff and I ran home crying because I was so sad. And then at home, I had a major binge fest on fresh grapes and bananas. Crazy right? So what am I doing today? I'm baking like crazy. Totally sensible.  In my head.

Am I going crazy?

I'm a fat girl at heart.  I love food. I have amazing dreams about food. I had a dream about a dessert buffet! One of my most favorite dreams ever! Can someone please make that a reality in the DC area? PLEASE!?

Anyway, so I eat a lot. And I LOVE eating. When the doctor told me this diet was only 500 calories a day, I thought he was crazy and I'd be famished constantly. I certainly thought that the last few days.

The food I've been eating is delicious! It's simple wholesome foods.  I don't mind what I'm allowed to have. It's not much, but it's yummy and I'm happy with it. There's no depressed "go eat your salad and be miserable" thing going on here.

Here's an example of my food for the day:
Breakfast - an apple
Lunch - 4 oz of shrimp and a cucumber
Snack - an orange
Dinner - 4 oz of boneless skinless chicken with broccoli

See? Yummy! And today I did some batch cooking. I portioned out bags of fresh green beans for dinner/lunches and cooked beef and flounder! Then put 4 oz of each in a container and they're all in the fridge. Hubs says that if I can stick with this positively, he'll do it in early 2015.  I'm thinking I'll probably do another round because I've got a ridiculous amount to lose.

So today I was hungry at breakfast. When I ate my apple, I was fine. I wasn't hungry all day! It's great! It really made me realize how much we eat because we're bored or it's time.  And it's not bored like "nothing to do"  It's more bored like "well, I'm done the work, may as well eat now. And later. And in between."

The biggest thing though, where I think I'm going crazy, is that I had a TON of energy! My head is tired but my body was going and going and going.  I cleaned out the pantry and reorganized it, grocery shopping, batch cooked, cooked breakfast burritos for hubby, and cleaned like crazy.  I just couldn't stop because I had so much energy! My legs are hurting because I couldn't stop!

So this is crazy!!!  Tons of energy, not hungry, who is this???  :D

When we were in MD, I got 2 of the same scales for this house and the other house. The one in MD worked great.  But then I got here and weighed myself 8 times and got 8 different weights.  I'm all wondering if elevation would mess with my weight, but the scale was insane! So I returned it to the store and got another one. I weighed myself 3 times with that one and got 2 different weights.  I think I'm going to just have to go with the first weight and hope for the best.  It's not ideal but I don't know what else to do.  I can't afford to plunk down $40 or more on a scale when I need 2 of them! Though it's looking like I might have to just suck it up and do that. I'll post tomorrow and let you know what the new scale says :)

Crazy dreams takin' over me!

So first things first, I weighed myself this morning after day 1 of the diet. 4 lbs gone! Woosh! Crazy! I don't feel any different but wow! Today was easier with the hunger and Dr Google says it'll be no thang by day 3-6.  Here's hoping!

Something you should know about me is that I dream in technicolor and surround sound on a 3d imax screen. My dreams are INSANE and vivid. But the dream I had last night went beyond typical for me.

So in the dream there was this blonde male fugitive. He was on the run from the government for a crime he didn't commit and was completely innocent. Hubs and I KNEW we HAD to protect him because we were totally compelled by it being the right thing to do.  We dropped off the kids at my in laws and went on the run with the fugitive. 

The first place we stayed was an old hunting cabin in the middle of the woods. We were hiding out there and I tried to get water to drink but the water from the tap was rusty.  And I kept running it but the rust wouldn't go away. So we decided to walk/drive/teleport (not sure of this one....) to a grocery store that was like Super Walmart style. We were in the parking lot and this guy in a club wagon (like the 15 seater van) noticed the fugitive and said "Hey get in, I'll drive you out of here so we can stay on the run."  We didn't trust him, but we felt like we had to go with him because otherwise he'd turn in the fugitive for the one million dollar bounty.

We drove for a while and ended up in some tiny hillbilly town in Appalachia PA.  We told the driver to go to the ghetto hotel and we'd stay there for the night.  (my  brain has a "stock image" hotel parking lot that is kind of winding and makes no sense at all. This was the same stock image)  We went there and Hubs checked in using his credit card. Meanwhile I was looking at the gift shop and seeing toys and feeling sad that I might never see the kids again but completely at peace that I was doing the right thing.

After hubs paid with a credit card, the driver went off to get some food. Then Hubs, me, and the fugitive ran across town to the other hotel (thankfully a nice one because you KNOW I'm not staying in no dumpy hotel).  Hubby paid in cash with a false ID at that one because we were going to throw the fbi off the trail by using the credit card at the first hotel.  So we'd ditched the driver. Then I pulled hair dye out of my purse and we dyed the fugitive's hair brown and made him wear a surgical face mask with the excuse that "his immune system is compromised" so he wouldn't get recognized.

After that, I woke up. So that dream was like a whole movie! I don't know what the ending was. I hope dream me got back with the kids and that the fugitive got pardoned! 

First day and thoughts

First day just about done. I can not wait for bed. I'm weak and FAMISHED.   I drank near 100 oz of water and tea. 

For breakfast I had an apple. 

Lunch was 4 oz of chicken and a big cucumber. 

Snack was an orange 

Dinner was 4 oz of shrimp and a big handful of broccoli. 

For a fat girl like me, that's painfully nothing. I'm really really tired and really really really hungry. 

Hopefully tomorrow is easier. The whole day was basically killing time until I could eat again. If it doesn't get easier, I'm not sure this is going to work....

Gorge days

The gorge days have been fun! Buffet yesterday and I may have ate my weight in clams. They have happy memories!

Today I ate my weight in pizza. I don't mind the no bread bit, but no cheese is going to hurt where it counts.... Hopefully it'll be worth it! 

I took some before pictures but I'm embarrassed to share them now. I've seen lots of them online and you have to look very serious in them or they're not legit. So I tried to look all hard and serious. It's not a good look for me. The after pictures are more fun because you get to look happy. I'll post them both in about 80 days! Maybe some during pictures too. The only full length mirror is in the Baltimore house. 

I've had to do the shots 2 days now. I don't handle needles well when someone else does it. So me doing it to myself? Not great. Hubs made me sit down after the first one because I was hyperventilating and he was afraid I was going to faint. Hopefully that gets easier....38 days of that left. Z said that I could use her princess band-aids. That might be inspiration for me!

Thankfully my thyroid is finally starting to be on the mend. I'm on the minimum "therapeutic dose" and I'm starting to see positive changes. I'm feeling less moody and feeling a lot more everything (which is bad too because I'm prone to random crying jags). I have slightly more energy and a bit more patience.  

We all went to Sunday school at the church today. Kids liked it, I got to spend time with C. It was good. Then services started and, as usual, my anxiety attacks started. I felt like I couldn't breathe and nauseous and dizzy. So the baby and I left. I don't know why I can't handle any religious services without massive anxiety. I'm sure a therapist could poke at it and find out by I don't really want to be poked at. Instead I went to visit my cousin, L. It was great to see her and I'm not going to let so long pass in between visits! 

Anyway, I'm going to go downstairs and eat more pizza before tomorrow makes my food centric self sad