Mentally this is killing me.  I feel like I’ve wasted almost a whole month just because of my big binge weekend, and to be honest, that’s exactly what it was.  If I had just cheated that weekend, I’d probably be back on track, but I let it continue off and on over the next couple of weeks.  It’s like I lost my determination or something.  I don’t know.

Anyhow, I have been doing better, and I have at least two weeks with no foreseeable eating “complications,” so my plan is to stay OP for at least two weeks.  If I can just start gaining some ground, I know that will make me feel better.  I have less than 35 lbs. to go.  If all goes well, by September I’ll have less than 30 to go.  That just blows my mind.  I feel like I’ve just begun, and already I’m so close to my goal.  Last time I lost over 70, so 30 lbs. really does feel like a drop in the bucket.

On the brighter side, my husband mentioned that he can really tell a difference.  He said he didn’t notice much until he was clearing off SD cards from our camera and saw pictures of me a few months ago.  He was very sweet and said that at the time he didn’t even think I was overweight then but that he could definitely tell I was losing weight.  I checked out the pictures, and it is quite obvious.  I’m getting there.  I just have to keep it up and stop cheating.

I had hoped that this time I’d have self-control.  This time, I wouldn’t go crazy just because I was technically “off” my diet.  Well, I failed on all fronts and ate myself literally sick.  I don’t often have problems with binge behavior.  I do/did eat until I was full (not just satisfied, but full) at meals, but I hardly ever eat until I feel bad, but I was literally nauseous for most of the weekend.

We stayed at an inn that put out a dessert buffet from 3 pm until 10 pm and rotated out the desserts, so we made two trips per day.  In fairness to myself, my husband did worse than even I did, and he was pretty sick the whole weekend, too.  He doesn’t even have food issues.  Anyhow, we would eat breakfast there (I did well here), then lunch out, then dessert snacks, then dinner, then dessert again.  Basically, that meant that I was never really hungry for dinner but ate to get something other than sweets in me so I wouldn’t feel so sick.

It took me a full day at home to recover.  I couldn’t sleep the first night home because my stomach hurt so much.  Granted, some of this may also be because my body was used to a pretty clean, whole foods diet before this, so maybe it affected me more adversely than it otherwise would have, but there is just no excuse for eating past the point of fullness to the point of illness.

The truly sad part– it was SO not worth it.  Desserts were good, but they were nothing earth shattering.  They were homemade, but most of them were just “good,” not my favorites or anything.  For this, I gained 7 lbs. back.  Most of it is water or literal undigested food weight, and I lost 2.5 overnight after my first day back OP.

I’m doing metaquick (bar for breakfast, shake for lunch, normal dinner) for a few days to get back on track.  Although I’m hungrier than I would be eating normally, I do think it will help me drop it faster, which will be good for me mentally.

I’m actually more upset about the eating to the point of illness than I am about the weight gain.  It won’t take me long to lose this weight again, but the embarrassment and disappointment of my binge will last longer.  If there’s one positive thing to be gained, it’s that I think it will be a long time before I do something like that again.  I’ve never done it quite that badly before, and I don’t want to repeat the experience.  I will, of course go off plan at some point again, and I know I will– but I doubt I’ll go that far again, especially for more than one meal.

Several factors contributed:

1. All or nothing mentality– this one is hard for me to kick.
2. I “kept up” with my husband.  When I see him eat so much, I think it’s okay for me, too, and that’s just totally not true.
3. Snacks were out all the time- just too much opportunity to eat, and I never got “un-full.”
4. The celebration mentality– thinking I had to go off to celebrate our anniversary.

The crazy thing was, when I left on Friday, I had no cravings and didn’t even want to cheat, but I did, and then it was hard to stop.  Now I’m dealing with some cravings again.  I know these will dissipate after the carbs work their way out of my system, but I just set myself back so much and got so little in return.

At this point, I feel like I’m in slow motion until I get back to where I was before I left.  I know I’ll get back there and that it probably won’t take that long, but until I do, it’s hard to let this go.  I have definitely learned a lot from this, though, and hopefully it won’t ever be repeated.

On my current diet plan, I’m not supposed to drink diet soda with caffeine, but  for the most part, I’ve been abstaining completely anyhow, simply because with all the water I’m supposed to drink, who wants to drink something else?

I’ve noticed multiple benefits of not having soda– better looking skin, better hydration, feeling better in general (granted a lot of this is probably because I’ve replaced it with plain water).  In the past, however, I was a 32-64 oz. of diet coke/day girl.  I didn’t think it was bothering me at all and certainly not contributing to any weight gain (0 calories–how could it?), but now I’m not so sure.

First, I drink much less water when I drink diet soda.  Simply for health reasons aside from weight loss, that’s not good.  Second, it might possibly have been triggering cravings/hunger.  I’m not certain of this, but I’m concerned enough to pay attention from here on out.  I do still have the occasional diet coke, so I’m just going to pay attention to hunger patterns when I drink it.

This has caused me to rethink my plans for after the diet has worked its magic.  I had planned to go right back to my diet coke, but I dont’ think I will anymore.  I don’t miss it much when it’s gone.  When I have it on a regular basis, though, I HAVE to have it.  I also don’t dislike plain water.  Some people really struggle with that, but for me it’s not an issue.  It’s just that once I stop making a conscious effort to drink so much water, I almost cut it out completely.  I don’t even know why I do this.  The look of my skin alone is enough motivation to continue the water drinking.

So, I think once I’m in maintenance, I’ll continue avoiding sugar substitues as much as possible.  I’ll have the occasional diet coke like I do now, and I’m not going to avoid Splenda like the plague, but I don’t think it would be a bad thing to consciously limit my intake, and I certainly won’t nurture a Crystal Light habit.

On another note– I’m down another lb. today, making it a 2 lb. loss for the week.  I was hoping for better, but I’ll take it.  I’m still on the precipice of the 170s, so hopefully it will happen for me by next WI.

Those are really minor issues, though, and I don’t think they’ll have much of an effect on my weight loss.  On Tuesday, at WI, I had lost another 2.5 lbs., bringing me to 3.5 for the week– quite respectable, I think.  I doubt I’ll make my initial goal of 10 lbs. in three weeks.  I had hoped to be at 175 before I left for the anniversary weekend trip, but I doubt I’ll make it.  Now my goal is to at least reach the 170s, and I think I’ll make it.  My real goal should be to still be in the 170s when I get back, but I doubt that will be the case, either.  I do plan to go off when I’m there, but it’s only for two days.  I’m going to try to do it in moderation, too, so hopefully I’ll gain some water weight, which I should be able to lose again in about three days.

I’m hoping to do well with the moderation thing while on vacation.  Last time I cheated (Cheesecake Factory), I did VERY well.  I still ate off plan foods, but I ate much much less than I used to.  I was full afterward (though not sick like I normally am), and I felt perfectly satisfied and just good in general.  I’m starting to internalize the fact that there will have to be a different kind of “normal” after I get off this diet.  I’ve always realized that intellectually, but it’s different when attempting to put it into practice.  I had some practice with that while pregnant, but since I was gaining weight from the baby anyhow, I lost sight of things and went back to the old normal within a few months.

Anyway, that’s a battle for later in maintenance.  For now, I’m just proud of myself for sticking with it so well for two weeks and for doing what I said I would.  I plan to do this next week close to perfectly as well.  I weigh in tomorrow.  I’m not expecting a fabulous loss because the scale at home is either not moving or only going down .2 lbs. per day.  Hopefully a loss will show tomorrow since I’m only .5 lbs. away from 15 lbs. total, and I’m 2 lbs. away from the 170s.  Here’s to a new middle digit!

Other than that, there have been no off plan foods for me for a whole week.  I’ve also maintained a good attitude, until tonight with the veggie mishap.  I’m going to the store tomorrow, though, so that situation will be remedied.

As for the best news– I fought pizza, and I WON!  My parents came to visit on Saturday, and I ended up making pizza.  I LOVE my homemade pizza– it’s kind of one of my specialties.  I make the dough, use a stone preheated in a 550* oven, etc…I’ve been a little obsessive about finding the exact recipe for dough…you get the idea.  Well, my parents love my pizza, so they asked me to make it.  Instead of eating it, however, I ate a bar.  I sat at the table with them and everything, and to tell the truth, it wasn’t all that hard.  Luckily, I just wasn’t having a craving at that time.

Truthfully, I have noticed that I don’t get “cravings” for stuff until I get to a point that’s way past hungry.  If I go over 5-6 hours without eating, EVERYTHING sounds good to me.  At other points in the day, I can be around pizza or even baked goods (I even baked banana muffins for my husband’s lunchbox the other day and didn’t touch so much as a crumb) without having self-control issues.  If I’m hungry, though, it won’t be pretty.  This is one of the first times I’ve recognized that, though, and I’ve been using it to my advantage.

For example, there was a wedding in our neighbors’ backyard, and I started thinking that I really wanted some cake– sure enough, it had been 6 hours since my last meal.  So, I ate.  I was fine after that.  I’m not saying that I will never cave to a temptation because I’m sure I will– and probably sooner rather than later– but every little bit that I learn about my eating habits or motivations for eating helps me be more successful in the future.

Enter, snow peas.  I happened to spot a bag of them at Walmart today, so I decided to give them a try.  They were $2.50 for a bag, which comes out to 2 servings since the veggie portions on this diet are so large.  So, they’re quite expensive, which might prevent me from eating them too often.  I bought fresh ones in a steamer bag, though, so perhaps frozen ones are cheaper.

The results– I liked them.  They’re not something I’m just wild about, but there are few veggies that I’m wild about (hence the need to lose weight).  I put a little spray butter, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and I was quite happy with them.  I didn’t have to choke them down even.

I’ve been subsisting on fresh green beans from my garden for the veggie portion of my diet.  Fresh green beans are probably the only veggie (well, aside from corn and potatoes) that I absolutely love.  I can honestly eat them like candy.  I don’t feel the same way about canned green beans, unfortunately, so in the winter I’m out of luck.  However, I’ve planted a TON of green beans, so I should be good until the fall.  As it happens, though, I’m in the middle of harvests and have run out.  I bought some fresh ones at Walmart (much cheaper than the snow peas), so that should get me through until my next round is ready to pick.

All in all, I’m glad I gave snow peas a shot.  They weren’t bad for a vegetable.

WI is tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to it.  Ever since Sunday, I’ve been 100% OP, and my scale at home is showing a downward trend.  I’m hoping to get past 185 because my “reward” is an under-cabinet CD player.  My old one died on me, and I NEED it to work in the kitchen, lol.  It’s killing me not to have something in there.  The dishes are piling up, too.

weight at home: 184.6 (this is up from yesterday, but it could be the sodium in the frozen spinach from last night)

My short term goal is to lose ten lbs. before my 5th anniversary weekend trip where I know I’ll go off for two days.  It’s three weeks away, and if I don’t cheat, I know I can lose those ten pounds.  That should put me in a size 10.  I’m at the point now where about every ten pounds equals another size in clothing.  How exciting!

The first time around with MRC I lost almost 70 lbs.  I was 15 lbs. away from my goal when I got pregnant and stopped dieting.  I gained almost 70 back during the pregnancy.  The day before I delivered, I was 1 lb. under my starting weight.  Talk about depressing.  I easily lost 20 of those pounds after the birth and then started Weight Watchers online.  I didn’t do too well with that and began calorie counting on my own.  This worked better, and I lost another ten over the course of a few months.  I got caught in a yoyo pattern of losing and gaining the same 5 lbs.  I finally decided I’d had enough, and I went back to MRC because it’s a more drastic approach.

I tend to do better with strict approaches.  While I realize that in maintenance I’ll have to learn to eat “normal foods” again.  However, I’m not so sure that maintenance will be much more difficult if I lose the weight this way than with WW, for example.  It will still be an adjustment.  With MRC, I will go in once a week to once a month and weigh for a year.  This should give me a good start on maintenance, but I’m not borrowing trouble– my main concern now is just losing the weight.  I know MRC works, and I know I can do it.  Although the food isn’t terribly pleasant (it’s a diet, right?), it is healthy, and I know this is something I can do at least somewhat long-term.

My goal is to lose weight, but I am concerned with speed of weight loss.  I would like to have another child sooner rather than later, but I do not want to add weight on top of what I gained with the first one.  If possible, I want to be at my goal weight first.  It may seem silly to lose weight just to get pregnant and gain some back again, but I really feel it’s the healthiest way to go about it, and I’m very committed to making it happen.  MRC is definitely more efficient than WW, and even though it’s tougher, I can take it!

For the month of September, I’m going to give it my best effort, and then I will reevaluate.  For me, I think it will be easier to commit to just one month than to focus on the whole amount I want to lose.  This is what I’ll do differently from this past month:

• I will not bake unnecessary desserts.  My husband most likely won’t be a fan of this resolution, but he can live with it for a month.  I simply don’t have much self control.  I can’t just eat one piece of something.  Even if I “make it for my husband’s lunch,” If it’s in the house for a couple of days, I inevitably end up eating 3/4 of it.  So, I will not bake unless I’m taking something (and have to take it whole) to someone.
• I will not make needlessly high-point main courses.  There are several low calorie main dishes that I like, and my husband has no problem eating what I eat, so there is no reason for me to make high calorie foods like lasagna, etc.  I tend to do that since I have a high points allowance and say I’ll only eat a small serving, but that never actually happens.
• We will not go out to eat for a month unless we are traveling and are forced to do so.  We’ve been following this somewhat anyhow to save some extra money.  It’s really not as hard as I thought, and dinners out are always high calorie.
• I will eat at least two servings of fresh fruit or veggies per day as a snack.  This one is tough because I just don’t like veggies, and fruit, although I like it, is not something I reach for.  So, I need to just retrain my snacking habits.
• I will drink at least 8 glasses of water per day.  I was really good at this when I began nursing, but I’ve really slacked off.  I think sometimes I eat when I am really just thirsty.

Hopefully these new guidelines will prevent me from going over my points values each day/week, which I know is the real reason that I’m not losing any weight.  I will follow this plan for one month and then reevaluate which areas are working or not.

As far as a numbers goal, which I know can’t be helped provided I’m eating as I should, is ten pounds by the end of September.  This seems doable for me because I lose (and gain) quickly.  I’m not going to worry about exercise yet.  Weigh-ins will be on Wednesdays, and that’s when my points will restart for the next week.