Yo-yo no more

2.8 pound loss this week!!!!  That means in the past 10 days of detox I’ve lost 6 pounds!  Now, I will admit that I wasn’t all that excited to “only” see a 2.8 pound loss this morning . HOWEVER, I’ve come to realize that that’s 2.8 pounds closer to my goal.  Not only that - but that already puts me at my mini-goal of where I wanted to be on August 26!! That means I get to already make a new mini-goal!  THAT is exciting to me.  It also means that I’m only 4 pounds away from already losing 10 pounds.  And you know what they say…I can’t lose 100 pounds, but I can lose 10 pounds 10 times.   By the time I’m at my goal weight, I will have (hopefully) lost 112 pounds!!  That’s 10 pounds 11 times.  I’ve already lost 10 pounds 6.5 times.  I’m way more than halfway there.  So, this doesn’t deter me or make me want to gorge myself.  I’m doing great and plan to keep it up!

Into the double digits now with my days.  That’s pretty amazing! That’s 10 days with no junk food…none…zero…zilch….nada!  No chips, no cookies, no funyuns, no root beer, no indian food.  My diet for the past 10 days has consisted of lean meats, complex carbs and loads of fruits & vegetables.

And tomorrow is weigh in day! *eek*  I keep trying to not get my hopes high.  A loss is a loss, it’s just that with such regimented eating - obviously I’m hoping for more than a pound.

Since tomorrow is weigh-in day, it was certainly easier to eat really good today.  OH, my lunch!  I had a pita pizza (using the homemade pizza sauce).  I made it with some left over tomato & basil chicken, and grilled onions, grilled mushrooms & roasted garlic.  Oh my heavens it was out of this world!!!!

My main squeeze (who lives out of town) and two super-duper close friends are coming into town on the 12th (one week from tomorrow).  I know that I can keep up the completely clean eating until then.  I also know that while they’re here I will allow myself some what of a splurge - but certainly nothing overboard.

So my detox will go until the 12th.  And probably re-commence after they leave.

Wow.  Just when I thought that things were getting easier with the cravings…

I had a big family crisis invade my life and it came to a huge climax around 2:45 this morning.  All day today I have just wanted to bury myself in a vat of Chicken Tikka Masala and send myself into an orange chocolate coma.  I had to go to the grocery store and it seems like everywhere I turned there was M&M’s, Orange Chocolate, Mashed potatoes, brownies, cookies, York peppermint patties, Snicker’s Bars.  And holy moly, have the Funyun bags always been that noticeable?!?!

It was definitely a trying day.  I’ve made it to the end of day 9 with my dignity and my detox still in tact - but it has been absolutely (almost) the roughest day yet.

I’m hoping that I can get a good nights rest tonight and wake up tomorrow feeling better emotionally (which will in turn help me with my eating).

And then……..in 2 days is the big weigh-in!  I’ve been a good girl and haven’t even looked at the scales!

Day 8.  Things seem to be easier.  By things I mean shoving aside cravings.  Well, whenever I HAVE an unhealthy craving that is.  I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve been eating.  I bought some of the best grapes I have ever had in my life!  I was craving grapes tonight.  But I was all out.  So I had to settle for a banana.

I have a new-found love for Mrs. Dash seasonings.  They are so easy and make my chicken or fish taste so great! And those pita pizzas…I’m obsessed with them. I need to try to branch out and try new flavors. I think that will be one thing that could possibly be a hang up is running out of food ideas.  Other than that…I’m enjoying how I’ve been eating.

My next weigh-in is 3 days away.  I’m trying to mentally prepare myself.  I’m trying to be realistic and realize that I may have only lost a pound this past week.  Or, maybe lost nothing at all while my body adjusts.  But it’s also easy to daydream about stepping on the scale to a 3-4 pound loss.  It’s made it really tempting to step on the scale and get a sneak peek of my weight.  However, I have been completely good and haven’t weighed myself since Friday.  So, we shall see!

Sound the alarms, throw the confetti, and break out the…uh….fresh fruit!

This girl has made it an entire week on no crap/no junk/detox-ish thing.

Let’s run through a short list of the tiny amount of symptoms I have experienced this past week:
headaches
hot flashes (kind of…more or less the claminess)
jitteriness
oil seeping out of my skin

the good parts -
I have been sleeping all through the night all this week!
energy is definitely up
cravings are a little easier to put aside

Today I ate
egg/egg whites
whole grain toast
pita pizza in yesterday’s post (my bff mentioned adding various veggies…why I never thought of that I have not a clue - but I added mushrooms  & onion to mine…YUM!)
grapes
chicken
sweet potato
fresh green beans (one of my fav)

I’ll most definitely keep this up until my next weigh in.  From there I’ll decide how to proceed….

Day 6, another HUGE victory for me today…

It has been a while since my kids have had pizza.  Yesterday was a busy day of running around doing errands, cleaning, laundry, etc.  I decided I wanted to treat my kids by ordering pizza.

Now, I have a special weakness for pizza.  I will eat pretty much any pizza from any restaurant with nearly any toppings on it and love it!  The words “let’s order a pizza” flew out of my mouth before I could even THINK to make a good decision.  I opted for carry out (mainly because this gave me the opportunity to fix my own food at home).  I knew, however, that the smell of that pizza lingering in the car on the drive home would be enough to make me want to pounce on it.

I was right!

The kids just wanted a cheese pizza.  I ordered a medium knowing that would feed them but not leave hardly any left over for me.  The smell of that pizza in the car.  My mouth watered and I swear I could taste it. I thought about how it would feel to bite into it.  And I could feel that warm, comforting sensation.

But then I started to think about how it would feel after I had a piece of pizza.  After having 5 extremely successful days under my belt - how would it feel knowing I gave in to a craving on day 6.

I did what I knew needed to be done.  We got in the house.  I gave my kids their pizza.  I immediately got out my turkey pepperoni and nibbled on a handful of slices while I made my own dinner of sundried tomato & basil tilapia and zuccini & mushrooms sauteed in onions, garic & extra virgin olive oil.  And it tasted phenomenal!  It wasn’t long before the craving for that pizza subsided.  It was really hard to fight off that craving.  But I did it!!!! I didn’t have a single morsel of that pizza, not even a crumb.  AND that feeling of fighting off the urge pared with the success of following through with it….that felt so much better than the 5 minutes of making out with it would have felt.

So…tomorrow is day 7.

DAY 7!!!!!

ONE WEEK!!!!!

One entire week that I have managed to show my body that it is ME who is in control of what goes in it and that I can’t be swayed by what it is telling me to crave!

Ohhhhhhhhh

speaking of pizza.  I did have a pizza for lunch yesterday. I enjoyed it so much I got more stuff to make it again today….it tastes a LOT like bruschetta…with turkey pepperoni…

Remember the famous italian-esque tomatoes I told you about…(last paragraph HERE) I have made 2 batches of them so far.

Anyway, if you cut those up super tiny (or I’m sure you can use a food processor) it makes an amazing “base” for the pizza (where you’d usually use pizza sauce)

So, oven preheated at 450
1 whole wheat pita (I brushed olive oil around the edges) topped with:
italian tomatoes
1/4 cut fat free mozzarella cheese
5-6 turkey pepperoni
sprinkle of Italian spices (basil, oregano, etc)

Bake until the cheese melts then turn on the broiler to make it kind of bubble on top.

This will probably be my lunch again today, that’s how much I love it!

And, I bought grapes last night - something I’ve actually been….craving!

Here’s to day 7!

I had, what I consider to be, my most victorious day yet!!!

I’m making this short because I need to get some sleep, waking up early tomorrow.

Anyway - I’m a wedding photographer.  I had a wedding to shoot today/tonight.  We all know what wedding’s have; food and CAKE!

So, they had be booked for 7 hours.  I knew I’d have to eat at the reception.  So, I made the decision to make healthy choices from whatever they had and that I would NOT touch the cake!

I ate some kind of beef (it was the kind that the guy was standing there slicing to put on our plates), green beans/broccoli, and salad.  Drank water.  Annnnnnnd I did not touch a single bit of cake.  No sugar passed my lips.  This was HUGE to me!  I was sure to take some of my sugar free gum with me.  So after dinner, I popped a piece of gum and that really helped me to stay away from the cake.

One small step for man, one giant leap towards getting me healthy!

So, I had weigh in this morning.  I was way happy with it.  My goal is to not weigh again until next Friday morning (I may have to have someone hide my scales). I find that if I weigh daily it ends up being a huge factor in how my eating for the day goes.  If my weight doesn’t go down or if it *gasp* goes up any - then I feel like a failure and pretty much use that as an excuse to not be as conscious  about what I’m eating.  So, I’m needing to ONLY weigh on my weigh-in days.  This in itself is going to be hard for me as I’m a compulsive weigher…like it’s become a habit.

Today went rather well.  I had my usual breakfast (egg, egg whites & toast).  Lunch was sun-dried tomato turkey on a whole wheat pita pocket with some of those amazing italian tomatoes (that I told you about in my post from…Tuesday) I also had a peach.  Dinner was my favorite; corn on the cob, asparagus and rosemary tilapia.  I had another peach after dinner.  I had some turkey pepperoni for a snack tonight.

Tonight, however, I have had to pray a couple of times.  I keep having cravings, big time!!! It’s almost like I can taste the popcorn! Praying is working though.  Thank you, Lord!

Possibly another detox symptom - for the past couple of days at various times during the day I’ll feel clammy.  It goes away…but who knows.  No headache today.  Skin is still gross-oily!  And this morning I felt that near-lightheadedness again.  Not too bad though.

Overall - day 4 was a success!

3 more days of this and I will have been doing this for a week!  Someone asked me how long I was going to do the “detox”.  I haven’t really decided.  At this point I’m scared to put anything back into my diet, I’m afraid that one little taste will send me into a tizzy.  So I think I’m just taking it day by day.  When I feel like I have better control over my eating - then I’ll start re-introducing stuff.

I do have a wedding I’m shooting tomorrow.  It’s 7 hours.  I may have to end up eating something at their reception so as to avoid a headache or getting sick.  But we’ll see.  Definitely NO on the cake!

Yep. 3 days ago I weighed 202.  Today I weigh 198.8.

Now. I will stop here and say that I have made drastic changes in how I eat simply in shocking my body and for me to gain some kind of self control over my cravings for the immediate and long-term future.  I haven’t been starving myself or going on a fad diet with smoothies and vinegar water (I’m not sure that that is one, but it sounded good…ha!).  I have been eating a ton of fruits, veggies, lean meats and a serving or 2 of complex carbs a day. With this I also realize that once I start re-introducing “bad” stuff into my diet that my weight may very well go up a little.  (whoa there.  yes, I said “re-introducing bad stuff”.  I don’t mean that I’m going back to how I was eating before. At all.  But the idea of my “detox” is to get a handle on my eating.  Get my body to where it craves the good stuff.  Then if I do have a Birthday Party or a Girls Night Out, I will be at a place where I can enjoy myself and make good decisions with my eating without going overboard.

SOOOOO…while losing 3.2 pounds in 3 days seems FABULOUS, I do realize that it’s because of the detox.  Doesn’t mean I don’t like it, it made me SMILE this morning.  But I also want to be realistic that this isn’t to be expected.  SO, my mini-goal of being at 196 by August 26 will still stand.  Now, if it gets to be mid-August and I’m already at 189…(one can wish)…then I’ll probably re-adjust.  But I don’t want to set myself up for failure when I’m just now starting out on this.

OH and can I just mention here that a wonderful side effect of the detox is that I have had the best night’s sleep the past 2 nights in a row. I haven’t slept this well in probably a year or so.  God is good!

And to let you, the reader, know that this isn’t my first go-round with weight-loss, I’m posting the following weight-loss ticker at the end of my weigh in blogs to show how far I really have come since 2006…(and my long-term goal.  Which, is to be somewhere AROUND 150…but I haven’t decided on a final “goal weight”)

Day 3.  And I have made it through another entire day with SUCCESS!!  No junk.  No crap.  No trash food.

Today, I never experienced a headache.  BUT, my skin on my face is SOOOOO oily!   I’ve seriously never noticed it being this oily before.  I have read that this can be a symptom of “detox”.  I don’t know.  I still feel like “detox” is such a radical word for what I’m doing - but it’s the only thing that I feel like fits. Nevertheless something is making my face a grease pit and I just feel better if I think that it’s the unhealthy gross junk coming out of my pores….yum!

Anyway

Headaches, oily skin, fighting cravings - this is all stuff that I WANTED to have happen merely because it means that I’m doing something right; that my body is responding. So, I’ll wash my face and it’ll be okay.

Cravings today were no different than normal.  Tempting to go for the sugar cereal or the Ramen noodles.  But, the successful days I’ve been having feel SO much better than the momentary gratification I’d get from those other things.

Tomorrow is a weigh-in day!  I know I haven’t been on this a week - but since I’m wanting Friday’s to be my “official” weigh in day, I’ll weigh in and post my weight tomorrow.  I’m trying to not be in the habit of weighing everyday.  I think that this is a big contributor in my bad choices with eating.  It’s so easy to step on the scale every morning and if that number isn’t any lower or if it’s gotten (gasp) any higher - feel defeated!  So…..my goal once I weigh in tomorrow is to not weigh in again until the following Friday.  We’ll see how that goes.

Today I consumed:

1 egg / 3 tbsp of egg whites
1 slice whole grain bread
fat free butter
cracked pepper turkey
spinach
tomatoes
blueberries
peaches
chicken (with a wee too much Mrs Dash salt free seasoning in Southwest Chipoltle - my mouth was on FIRE)
bell peppers of all variety
onion