Stand Still, Move Forward

My weight has been pretty stable for the last week or so, hovering at the same weight within a .5 pound each way. We also introduced sugar back in, though I'm keeping it limited, so that probably has something to do with it. The side effect of me staying stationary with the weight loss has been that I'm starting to feel kinda... blimpy. Even at 20 pounds lighter than I was 2 months ago. And still at least 3 pounds from my current goal/benchmark.

It's kind of ridiculous, I can see when I look at that objectively. Hell, I can even look at myself in a mirror and see the difference. It doesn't make a difference in my feeling about my body from within my skin. I need to be at least 20 more pounds lighter by the end of the summer, I think. That's with the recognition that it's going to be a hell of a lot more work from here on out. And meaning I'll need a whole new wardrobe for winter.

I didn't get out at all on my bike last week though. I'm not kidding myself that that is disconnected from my current standstill on weight. But today was a gorgeous day and I had time from all the other productive things I've been doing with my time, so I went out alone for a ride, just down to 28th Ave and back along the creek.

Gorgeous day. The trees are blooming though, and pretty though it may be with the orchard like lining of the bike path for stretches, I can feel it in my lungs. 3.6 miles. And when I got back I was wheezing a little bit. Depressed myself with the walk up the hill back to the house again and just feeling exhausted. But then I looked at a time stamp of a Facebook status I made, and it said it had been 26 minutes since that post.

Well, knowing at what stage that I was at in getting out of the house for my ride at that point, I have to say I was out there for at *most* 20 minutes on that bikeride. Which is 10 minutes faster than I had ridden it the last time I did that. Well hell, no WONDER I was out of breath and exhausted when I got back. I sprinted instead of doing endurance biking. But still a good workout at that, and more than I had done before.

So faster, if not longer. I think I can take that as progress. I need to pace myself better during this week, and see if I can make myself go longer then. I want to try a 5.3 mile ride next weekend around Lake Nokomis, even if I have to stop for a while. But I need to see if I can push myself a little further if slower this week. It is supposed to be nice all week, so I have to insist on getting out in the afternoon when I get home. Weekend might not be nice until Sunday. But hopefully there is at least one nice weekend day for my expedition.

And maybe this time next week I can be down 2 pounds again, and closer to goal weight. Well, my current goal weight at least.

As for the elimination diet, I accidentally had HFCS on Friday. You see, I was certain that I knew what went into sushi. What I didn't count on was that the vinegar in the sushi from Macy's downtown had freakin' HFCS in it. I kinda shrugged my shoulders, and moved on, but later that day I started noticing the heart racing/anxiety reaction. I'm fairly certain that the HFCS is the culprit, because regular sugar, and even regular fructose didn't cause that. There was nothing else in the sushi that I hadn't had before.

So I will have to wait until we get to corn at the end of May to find out if it's corn that is the problem or HFCS in particular. All I know is that shit is EVIL.

Dissonance

Strawberries went well yesterday from what I could find, but it was an overall emotional day in other venues. I failed at eating lunch, for instances. So before dinner I had eaten a fruit smoothie and a bottle of apple juice. Dinner I ate limited amounts, and quickly, and not much else.

It meant I lost a pound between yesterday morning and this morning. This is not something I want to repeat though. I don't want to actually be starving myself. I hit a point of losing like 4 pounds in the last week today. That is seriously too fast and not okay. I will probably be up again tomorrow if I eat normal meals today.

Thing is, I'm at a point where while I know that I'm losing weight, I'm not *noticing*. I know it sounds weird. But there was a moment when I woke up one morning and said "I bet I feel like I'm a pound lighter". And I actually was. Now, even though I'm losing weight, I feel the same. I can't tell the results. I'm not seeing the change in the clothes.

It makes me wonder if I'm losing actual weight or messing with water at this point. Am I just dehydrated, etc.

I am at this moment less than I was when I met PiC though. Not to this month's goal weight, but I have 2 weeks to lose 2.5 pounds. Haven't biked yet this week. I think it has been about a week. I need to get out today. Still working on the motivation issues from before.

Is it Friday yet?

Today

I hit 20 pounds lost.

:) YAY!

Satisfied

There is something intensely satisfying with being exactly on the trend line for where I'm supposed to be weight wise towards my goal weight and date.

Intensely satisfying.

Towards the New Normal

There were intentions on biking today, but I think I might have slightly over did it yesterday. I mostly was kinda tired today until I hit the point where I was flat out exhausted and had to sleep. I think that's because I failed to eat lunch. Shouldn't do that again. But even having had a positively fabulous dinner, I haven't quite perked up and still feel kinda sluggish.

Even my mom, who I Skyped with this morning for Easter mentioned that I look like I've lost quite a bit of weight. Hit 17 pounds lost this morning with yet another pound gone and I am in awe.

Dinner though was I think one of the best things we've done since we started on this diet. And I mentioned that with the dinner we made, I feel like we're finally heading back into the realm of Normal with our food choices. Just healthier.

We had grilled chicken that was brushed with an olive oil/agave nectar/fresh poultry seasonings blend. And he grilled them to perfection, even the little bit of charring was *tasty*. Grilled asparagus too.

And then because we're testing the tree nuts at this point, I made a pilaf for the side. A pilaf is sorta like a risotto and sorta not. Whereas with a risotto you *must* stir it and you add the liquid a little at a time, a pilaf you *must not* stir it. But otherwise it is the same. You take the things that will be in the pilaf, you saute them up, you saute the rice in the oil with them, and then you add the liquid all at once and ignore it until the liquid is absorbed like a regular rice.

Our pilaf had onions, the rest of the poultry seasonings, whole skinned toasted hazelnuts, and chicken broth for the liquid for our medium grained brown rice. OMG it had been a long time since I'd done a pilaf and this was incredible. Maybe it's not as classic as some, but it certainly worked for our tastes.

I think one of the best things about this elimination diet is that it's forcing us to think of new ways to use our food as they are available. The nuts is what made me think pilaf, especially when I decided I didn't want the hassle of doing hazelnut encrusted chicken as had been my original thought for tonight. This seemed easier.

But also, tonight was the first time that I felt like we were back to "normal" food. I don't really know what it is that switched in my head with the nuts. I think in part because with each thing we add so many OPTIONS are coming up as possibilities. While there are certainly things that I miss, tonight, I didn't want for any of it.

And that feels really cool.

I'm Melting!

I knew the weight loss, it was coming. I am now .6 pounds below goal, and 4 days early.

So goal has been reset for next goal. I want to hit 10% weight loss by the time I reach my 2 year anniversary with PiC. Which is May 1. So I can be at or below what I was when I met him. I may not make it to 10%, but so long as I'm at what I was when I met him, I will feel a continued success at this. 10% can wait until Memorial Day if it has to.

We shall see if I can maintain a 2 lb per week weight loss as we add in refined sugar, caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol over the next month. Moderation, my dear Tegan. Moderation.

I think this afternoon is a bike ride.... *happy dance*

ETA: Yup. 3.5 miles. That means I have biked a full 7.3 miles this week. WOO!!

Not much new today

I haven't started on the bean additions yet. The plan is for a salad at lunch with chickpeas! I forgot to do my hummus, but I will be making some to share with friends tomorrow. I love me some hummus.

I did also do the measurements of myself instead of weighing myself this morning. There's something satisfying about seeing that in the last month, your hips have reduced by 3 inches, your waist by 1, your thighs by 1 each...

I can even feel the difference in my skin. And that's a good thing.

Tomorrow morning, some of the frozen fruits for a happy smoothie. Complete with soy protein.

Venturing into the land of Soy

Well, post lemons, we started with tamari. OMG that has completely opened up a whole realm of flavor. Like fried rice! I love tamari, more so than soy sauce. It is the liquid created from the fermentation that creates miso. So I get to enjoy the salty joy of it. No problems with that.

I sped ahead on half way through day 3 getting myself a soy protein shake thing to have at work when I need extra proteins. It's desperately gross. But helpful at least because it does fill me up. I don't think I'll be bothering much with it unless I'm making smoothies.

This morning I got to create a tofu scramble and "home fries" made out of sweet potato. Both tasty, though I think I need to practice the sweet potato one. The tofu scramble was yummy, but still kinda tofu-flavored. I think I need to be heavier on the spices for that one.

The weather had been great, but I had too much other stuff going on at home to be able to bike during the day after dinner. I can't wait for it to be light enough for that. And now it has gotten cold again. Tomorrow should be nice, so I should be able to bike tomorrow in the afternoon for a while. I miss the bike.

And in other fabulous news, I'm just about on goal for weight loss by my birthday. Well, I made my weight loss goal more in line with the rate that I'm actually losing now. And that's 5 pounds heavier than I wanted. But meh, 4 more pounds in 18 days, I think that's a reasonable goal to have by my birthday. And if I'm not quite there, well, I'm okay with that too. The point is that as the weight comes off, I feel better and more able to move, so it comes off more easily if I exercise. I haven't measured my body though. I should do that to check how that's changing. I bet it would be more satisfying than the typical ~2.0 pounds a week.

I do love how it is just melting off though. I really like that a lot. I have to remind myself, if I have a dramatic weight gain, it is likely due to something I added back. PiC has also dropped about 15 pounds himself, being a guy. OSO mentioned today what she was at too, and that was a good level though I'm not sure what volume of poundage that is. Though apparently her bras aren't fitting as well, poor thing. We're going to wait just a little bit and then go get her another one.

It is so much easier to lose weight when the whole house is eating healthier food.

I Less Than Three Lemons and Bikes

I believe that they are what has kept me from going insane now. My food had FLAVOR today. I went so far as last night I ate a whole cooked lemon slice I was so in love with the lemony goodness. No adverse reactions to them, though I'm have a weird fluttering on the right side of my waist. Not sure what that is all about.

I'm dropping about 2.5 pounds a week according to my FitDay tracker. A little higher than is healthy, but I also had the first jump start of water weight in that, so I think I'm still ok. I spent a good portion of today rearranging things in my room and the bathroom so that the apartment is a little cleaner. And we can get to the scale more reasonably.

It is the first gorgeous day out today. So it's the second day that we went out biking. The trails were dry, if gritty. But it was lovely out. And I was winded by the end of it.

Now this is where the critic in me starts going on about how I should have been able to go further. That I used to bike all the time as a kid and would go for miles, and this was a measly half hour of biking. Then PiC and OSO pointed out that we probably went a couple of miles. I was skeptical. But then I went and looked up how far it was that we biked. And yup, down to that intersection it's a mile, so we biked for two miles. It went so *quick*.

Ok, I'm not the most strenuous biker, and by the time we got back, PiC was asking if he could go out again, but it's time to start on dinner so we had to say no he couldn't go out for longer. But maybe we'll let him afterwards. :)

But 2 miles. 145 calories. That's as good as my time on the Wii some nights, so I'll take it. I may even try to go out on my own this week to try to build up my stamina so we can be out for longer as the season goes on. It would be super cool if we could bike to the falls, picnic, and come back.

But 2 miles. I biked 2 miles. And it was awesome.

Last day of nothingness

Tomorrow morning marks two weeks on this crazy elim diet thing. And the day that we start adding things back in. Starting with Lemons and Limes. I only failed twice. Once by accident when I put olives on my salad.

Once by completely just having a "fuckitall" moment when I put two splashes of vinegar on my salad because I just couldn't cope with the taste of dirt again. I tried to grab the thing that I thought would least mess with the detox and go for a minimal amount. But I would have completely broken down crying that day if I hadn't. No obvious adverse reactions to it though.

I feel like few people know what this has been like. I could be wrong, maybe far more people are used to diets like this and my priviledge is just showing through. I'm just excited that my food is going to have some Flavor again. Even on Weight Watchers I wasn't this obsessed with food.

The smell of pizza makes me want to weep.

That lemon and dill fish and lime vinegrette salad tomorrow is going to be the tastiest freakin' fish and salad I have ever eaten. Ever.

Weight loss has slowed significantly. I'm okay with that. It looks like it's about a pound a week now. It has rained pretty much every day since we biked last Sunday. I'm not as okay with that. I still feel like I kept to the spirit of things even if I failed at keeping to the exact letter. And I never ever ever have to be on this restrictive of a diet again.

Adjustment

I've stopped feeling like quite so much crap as the last few days. Actually this started some yesterday, though I think staying home from work was the right answer. I wasn't exhausted all day long as a result, and today I feel better enough that work isn't a problem, I think.

But I feel clear. Not quite as energetic as OSO is, but at least better. I am not fond of some of the digestive impacts of this diet. I am so very much looking forward to putting some things back in my diet so it is... more balanced feeling. And so that I don't feel like I have to constantly graze all day long because the moment I stop eating, I'm hungry 20 minutes later.

Being on essentially a vegan diet has also gotten me to the point where I have completely regressed in my emotional regulation to that which I had when I was 18. I'm sure some of that is blood sugar management. But my temper is flash point for sure at the moment and I really dislike that. I got angry/upset no less than 3 times yesterday. I don't want to believe that this is part of the detox. It isn't helping with my family that way. *sigh*

Really, the biggest benefit I have seen thus far is I've dropped 11.8 pounds in 4 days. Actually, I don't think that that's a good thing, that sort of rapid weight loss scares me. Most of it I'm sure is water weight. And I'm grateful that my clothes are fitting again where they weren't at the end of last week. I just... I don't trust it.

Also, I'm certain I won't have mung bean burgers again once I'm past this part of the diet. I'm glad that I've tried it, this is an interesting experiment, but dude.

One thing I'm stressed about: work lunches. As in we have a new hire that we're taking out to lunch on Monday. I'll be in week two of the cleanse part, and I don't want to miss out on the lunch, but I also don't want to screw up my diet. I have to figure out how I'm going to handle this. There's also another member of my team who has found another job and is leaving March 17th, so there might be one to say goodbye to her. I'm going to miss her a bunch and I want to be at the going away things.

One last thing, yesterday since I took off and started feeling better towards the end of the day, and PiC had also taken off, he took me to the bike shop and we found one that fit me really well. It's not pretty. But it fits my body pretty darned well. And I'll find a way to make it pretty. :) So I have a start on doing that as well. Well, at least I have the tools with which to do it. We'll see about getting started on the biking. I want the ice to go away first so I don't kill myself.