A little more encouraged

So I'm another 2.5 lbs lighter today. That's 7.5 in total. Yay! Yesterday was really hard, however, and I'm really praying that today is the day this gets easier.

Sunday was the massive migraine day..and yesterday was "I feel like a starving person who hasn't eaten in months" day. It's kind of hard to describe the feeling really. I felt like I had to force myself to finish my dinner because it really is a lot of veggies and it's filling. BUT! I still felt like I was starving afterward. Does that even make sense? Starving but can't eat anymore? It's a horrible feeling and I really want that day to come when I feel full.

Maeli gave me some appetite suppressants yesterday, ironically, that really didn't seem to help at all. I found it kind of depressing that I actually felt the complete opposite. Maybe they just take time to work like everything else. I'm trying to be patient. Hopefully today will be a bit easier. The 2.5 lb. loss definitely perks my mood for the day and helps with everything else.

The other thing that's making this harder is that I keep feeling a tickle in my throat that's threatening to explode into something worse. I keep thinking it's gone away and feel fine and then last night it was cough-up-a-lung city around here. Nathan was very sweet and went to buy me some sugar free cough drops at like 11pm last night but for now I'm just keeping them on hand and refuse to use anything that could throw off this diet. They still have sugar alcohols in them, which are known to be hcg diet stallers and in this first round it's the most important time NOT to stray from the diet. Yes I know, I need to take care of myself and if this does turn into a full blown illness I'll have no choice. But I'm hoping and praying that it goes away instead.

Speaking of praying. I hadn't in a long time. My faith is something that I've been confused about for a long time...but I've finally found this will power in me that I didn't even know I had and I want this so badly...that I actually prayed last night. Does that make me greedy? To pray after so long because of how badly I want this...want to improve my health and essentially save my own life? I felt guilty doing it, but I had to. I'm crying just typing this, that's how emotional a deal this is for me. I don't just "want" to lose weight. I need to. I have to. And I am GOING TO. But I can't do this alone and I can't do it sick. So I prayed to my heavenly father for some help. I asked him to keep me healthy and to help me keep this desire I have so that I can make it through the hard days. And what started out as a prayer about me...turned into long long talk with someone I haven't talked to in a long time. Who knows. Maybe this diet will save me in more ways than I thought.

Now where did I put that blasted water bottle.

Ugh...

I stuck to my diet yesterday just as strictly as the first day. 6 oz. of strawberries for my mid-morning snack. 3 oz. broiled chicken in a bowl of lettuce with Walden Farms dressing for lunch. An orange for my afternoon snack and the same dinner as the night before. 3 oz. of steak and a whole ton of squash. I stepped on the scale this morning....

...and only lost ONE pound. I knew the weight loss would taper off but I didn't think it would be that quickly. I wanted to cry. Yeah..I know on any normal diet, losing 1 pound in a day is a huge deal, but on this one...and after losing 4 the day before..I just feel like I did something wrong.

The only thing that changed yesterday is that I had the mother of all migraines. So I took quite a bit of excedrine/excedrine PM over the course of the day. I think at one point Nathan gave me 2 ibuprofen as well. Maeli had told me that headache medicines were okay to take, but now I'm wondering if maybe they are the reason. What else could it be?

The headache seems to be gone this morning...fingers crossed. It was the worst one I'd had in ages and I'd rather not have a repeat today.

Yesterday I found myself feeling pretty hungry most of the day. I tried keeping my mind off food and ate slowly when it was time to do so. I suppose it didn't help that while I was taking a nap, Nathan made some blt's for the kids and the smell woke me up. He was so sweet, trying to make them while I was sleeping so that the bacon smell wouldn't bother me. But bacon lingers. I am thus banning it until my cycle is over haha. They can go without bacon for 3 weeks. It also didn't help that my children were gloating about their dessert last night and making "mmmm sounds". Silly monkeys. Nathan explained to them about mommy's diet and that it's not nice to make me feel that I'm missing out. So my sweet little Gregory takes another bite of his pie and says "It really wasn't very good mom". At least now all the thanksgiving desserts are out of my house.

Another stress relief is that today, after being off track for a whole month, my kids head back to school. Given..it's only a couple weeks before they're off again for Christmas break. It's been a mad house around here lately with all 3 of them home and the weather too cold for them to play outside for long. Also with Nathan working so much lately and never being home it's all just been a bit overwhelming. So today, I plan to enjoy the quiet!

Although...the quiet may make me just think more about food.

HOLY CRAP!!!

I know in most diets they tell you, "don't weigh yourself every day", but in the hcg diet you have to. Your progress is so fast and you need to keep track of it as well as what foods cause you to stall, should that happen. So I stepped on the scale this morning after my first 500 calorie day/night...and I lost....

.....wait for it......
.....FOUR POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!

Holy crap! I mean seriously. I was so shocked I weighed myself twice to be sure. 326.5 baby!! I was so pumped up I couldn't go back to sleep haha. Too much adrenaline. My friend Jen was right....I want to marry my scale today. Man, that feels so good. The question is though..is every day going to be like this or was the first one just a fluke to get me hyped up? Who cares, I lost four pounds!

The Christmas party last night was SO HARD..but I survived it! Everyone brought these homemade soups and chili that smelled SO GOOD I thought it was going to kill me! I mean c'mon...who doesn't like a hot bowl of chili with cheese and sour cream on top? *drools* And then...they had a dessert table. I stayed away from it until Emma needed help getting her cupcake but then I saw it...the pies..the chocolate peanut butter brownies. I wanted to cry. But somehow I managed to stay strong. Even when I got butter on my finger from buttering my daughter's roll, I wiped it back on her roll and didn't lick my finger! I'm a whole different person and it's kinda scary!

My mother-in-law saw me doing a word finder puzzle that they'd set out for all the kids to play and asked why I wasn't eating. So I got to explain the whole diet to her. She asked why in the world I'd start it that day of all days. I said well..I want to finish this cycle before Christmas and Thanksgiving was a perfect loading day! She felt bad eating in front of me. But I told her it was okay...I had steak at home waiting for me! I had decided to wait to eat dinner until after the party because we had to leave so early. I didn't want to come home and starve the rest of the night. Glad I did. Broiled steak and yellow summer squash....ohhhh man it was so good. Worth missing all the soups.

Luckily I don't feel like I'm starving, but I do feel hungry. I'm going to just deal with it though and trust that within a few days it will get to that point everyone tells me about where I'm having to force those 500 calories down my throat. The only thing I'm having trouble with is my water intake. Maeli told me to drink half my weight in ounces. That's 150 oz! I only got up to 80 oz. yesterday and I was still peeing constantly!!! It drove me crazy! Oh well, maybe today I can manage another 20 on top of that.

At this point, I feel like I can do anything. And I'm SO excited to see where this takes me. Now if only I could celebrate with a giant Milky Way bar......

Bye bye nummy foods!

I feel...so gross. I ate SO MUCH yesterday that I literally feel like I'm going to explode today. Our turkey dinner was so nummy and normally on Thanksgiving I can clean my plate with the best of them but I got full halfway through! I had to force myself to finish it off and then waited a while before savoring my very last piece of pie for the year. Oh it was so good. Chocolate...my friend..I shall miss you the most haha. So overall, I think my loading days went really well. I kept a food log and counted my calories to make sure that I was over the normal daily calorie amounts and I ate like a champ. My food log was telling me I was eating too much and was going to gain weight. I had to laugh at it. "Yes, I know you stupid thing. And tomorrow you'll tell me I need to eat more!"

So today starts my 500 calorie a day journey. I bought me a little food scale to weigh all my food and today I plan on cooking out lots of chicken and steak to use throughout the week so that I don't have to do it daily. My menu will be pretty boring for the next 3 weeks. Here's how it basically works:

NO BREAKFAST
Mid-morning fruit - 1 apple/orange or handful of strawberries (or grapefruit but grapefruit tastes like rubber bands so no thank you! haha)

Lunch - 3 oz. cooked chicken/steak/fish (i hate seafood so no) & 1 type of vegetable. Not all kinds are allowed. No carrots, corn, etc. I stocked up on broccoli, celery, squash, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes as well as some Walden Farms ranch dressing (it's the only kind I'm allowed..no fat no sugar, etc)

Mid-afternoon fruit - Same as before but it has to be a different one than was had in the morning.

Dinner - Same as lunch but it has to be a different meat and a different veggie than before.

Any remaining calories must be finished off with veggies. I also have to drink about 150 oz. of water a day. And that's it! That's all I get!

Of course it figures that on my very first day of doing this...we're going to a Tracy family Christmas party and we have to bring a big pot of soup and a big dessert..none of which I can partake in. So I'm going to eat before we go and then sit FAR AWAY from the food haha.

Unfortunately I gained back the pound I lost on my first day of loading. I knew I had though after all that I ate last night. But I know that tomorrow when I wake up it will go back down..and I'll never come near the 330 mark again. I can't even begin to express how excited and how serious I am about this. I AM GOING TO BREAK 300 BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!

Time for my mid-morning fruit!!

Ugh, I have to load...again?

After I forced lunch down my throat yesterday I thought to myself, "I cannot possibly get enough calories today...I'm so freaking full!" I don't normally eat breakfast anyway (which yes, I know is bad...and I'm trying to retrain my body) so after I'd had a full breakfast, the idea of eating a ham sandwich, a handful of grapes, a handful of cheetos and a glass of milk made me want to vomit. But I managed it. Even after all of that I was still only halfway through the calories I'm supposed to be consuming on my loading days. So I went all out for dinner. Made my mom's Venetian Noodles recipe with TONS of cheese (since I'll be missing that for the next 21 days) and made a chocolate cake for dessert. Oh how I will miss chocolate.

Another important thing on this diet is fluid intake. Not only does it help keep you full but it cleans out your system. Maeli told me, "You're going to hate me when you're getting up to pee every 2 hours at night but drink LOTS of water!! When you start to say "I hate Maeli for this!" remember...you're peeing fat! So...you can go to the bathroom and then say "YAY! I just lost another pound!" hahaha. I really like Maeli, she cracks me up.

So today is our Thanksgiving dinner (since Nathan had to work all day yesterday). Hopefully loading will be easier today because I know all that good Turkey and potatoes will have plenty of calories. Loaded with gravy of course. I'm getting nervous about tomorrow though. I have to go out (on black friday of all days) and get me a food scale today so that I can measure all my food from now on. Portion size is critical during phase 2 (the 21 day 500 calorie part). I'll get more into that tomorrow when I start it.

So this morning I stepped on my scale expecting to have gained a pound or two after all that I ate yesterday and I was still down a pound! As nervous as I am about the drop in calories tomorrow, it makes me SO excited to see how many pounds start to come off and how quickly. I am determined to get below 300 lbs before I fly to Florida on Christmas night to see my family. Of course, while I'm there I'll probably eat terribly with all that yummy Christmas fudge and toffee my mother is famous for but hopefully by then I will have learned some restraint haha.

I want to thank my friend, Christina, for telling me all about hcg back when she started it. I wish I could have gotten into it sooner but I'm excited to finally start. You're an inspiration to me girly and I'm so proud of you! I hope to have as much success as you.

Well, I've downed my huge bowl of raisin bran and peach yogurt..now I've gotta go find me some more almonds to shove down my throat. I never thought being forced to eat this much would be so hard! Wish me luck!

The beginning of the end...I hope.

I've always watched my friends and family try out this blog thing...I've seen it on movies...and always said, "That's something I could never do." Even sitting here at my computer typing, I'm wondering if this is such a great idea. But I think the reason this will work is that this time I'm doing it for me. If no one else reads it that's fine, but I need to be held accountable to myself at the very least.

"Accountable for what?" you ask. Well..today is officially day 1 of my hcg diet. Basically what hcg does is reset the way you've trained your mind to work over the course of your life. You've taught it your eating habits and patterns and it can make it difficult to lose weight. When hcg is in your system, it causes the fat cells to open and release the contained fat..forcing your body to burn up that stored fat for energy instead of whatever it is you're eating. So on a restricted calorie diet, you end up burning 1-2 lbs of fat A DAY! Obviously this isn't something that you can do every day for the rest of your life. It's done in cycles. So here's what I'm about to embark on!

I started taking the hcg drops (15 drops under the tongue 4 times a day...as opposed to getting daily injections) last night before bed. Today (Thanksgiving) and tomorrow are what are called my "loading days". Basically they're conditioning days to prepare my body for the drop in calories and to let the hcg adjust and begin working within my body. Loading is exactly what it sounds like. I get to eat....a lot. My nutritionist, Maeli, who will be walking me through this whole process...says that if I really want to, I can eat burgers and fries for two days. But...for the next few days when I've dropped to 500 calories and the hcg is working in high gear..I'm going to FEEL like burgers..and fries haha. So I have to eat a lot, but I'm trying not to make it all junk food. But hey, a girls got to have a little fun. It is Thanksgiving afterall.

We're actually having our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow (friday), so I'll load up plenty on turkey and stuffing and potatoes...all the good stuff. Loading is harder than I thought. Already I'm feeling like I'm not very hungry and I'm having to force things down my throat. For breakfast I fried 2 eggs and sprinkled a little cheddar cheese on them. Had two pieces of whole wheat toast with "I can't believe it's not butter" and some strawberry jelly. A big glass of milk and a handful of almonds. I'm supposed to eat all day long and I don't want to anymore haha.

The 500 calorie-a-day cycle lasts 21 days. So for 21 days I can't have ANY sugar, fats, carbs...basically anything really nummy haha. But I can do anything for 21 days. I can. Especially if it means when it's over with I will have lost around 30 lbs. I'll have to do a lot of cycles, but it will be worth it. After the 21 days of hcg, I go into a maintenance period where I slowly work foods back into my diet and go off the hcg. At this point my body has basically reset it's way of thinking and I can re-train it with a healthier diet and not gain back anything I lost. Then after a few weeks of maintenance I can go for cycle 2. The other downside to all this is the cost. It ain't cheap. I'm blessed to have a supportive family to help me manage it.

So why did I name my blog what I did? Well...I've tried everything when it comes to dieting. And frankly, I'm sick of dieting. I'm like my mother. If I don't see results quickly I get frustrated and lose hope and give up. I realize that doing this diet will still require a lifestyle change but it will allow me to see results quickly and to realize that yes...I CAN lose weight and I don't have to be afraid of doing so. This time, I mean business! I've done Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers and eat right and exercise. I've tried slim fast and all those diet pills out there. I even did the Richard Simmons diet once. I've done the gym membership/personal trainer thing and even have an elliptical machine in my own home now, which actually has helped me to lose some weight already. But I'm tired of being fat. Yes..I said fat. I am 5'10" and weigh 330 lbs. Any dr. will tell you that is in the "dangerously obese" zone.

I haven't always been this big, but I have always been biggER. My whole life I've been "the chubby girl" in my family. No, they never called me that nor did they ever make me feel like I was any less loved or special. That is, however, how I felt on the inside. I have 3 younger sisters..all who are tall, skinny and gorgeous. Most of their lives (I know they workout more now) they lived off fast metabolism and could eat what they wanted and not gain a pound. Tiffany used to go to Wendy's daily and it never touched her. Can we say unfair!! Now I know they're human and they all have their own self image issues but I've always been the only one in my family who was ever fat. I weighed about 180 lbs. through high school and then once I had kids..I blew up. In pictures, I'm the fat one...on airplanes, I'm the one no one wants to sit next to...I can't even think about taking my kids on amusement park rides and on the beach or at the pool in the summer I'm always the one who wore t-shirts or wraps around my swim suits. I'M TIRED OF BEING THAT PERSON!!!

So this time...I mean freaking business. (In my head that f word was more vulgar but I'll try to keep this blog tame so I don't get yelled at haha!) I am ready to be skinny. I am ready to look like I belong in family pictures and I'm ready to play with my kids and not get worn out within 5 minutes. I'm ready to buy a whole new wardrobe of outfits that I LIKE! I'm ready to get a social life and stop hiding inside my house because then no one has to look at me or feel uncomfortable around me. I'm ready to shed this outter ickiness and find the Jill that's hiding inside just aching to get out. I want to thank my mother for trying this diet herself and helping me to get started on it myself. I feel very blessed to have parents and sisters who support and encourage me. I'm also grateful for my wonderful hubby (soon-to-be-again?) Nathan for putting up with years of dieting nonsense. I promise you, things are about to change.

So today...is the beginning of the end. I hope. Wish me luck!