Quitting is off the table, perfection is not the goal

In 10 days I have lost 12 pounds! I want to see how different this round is when quitting is totally off the table.

And I feel so different.  Even though I have cheated far more than is probably safe, I keep trying to look at it from an intellectual place, analyse and learn from it.  This round feels different.  I think I feel more committed to long term: not just long term as in the next 30 days but long term as in the rest of my life.

Since I was 11 years old I have fought my weight, fought my body, and fought my feelings.  I feel like Weight Loss Apocolypse, along with my spiritual foundation as a Jehovah's Witness has changed me profoundly.  It has been 6 months since I discovered this method of body awareness and mind/body HCG and I can say definitively that this has stuck.

It has been 5 months since I have looked in the mirror and thought I hated my body.

It has been 5 months since I have pinched fat on myself.

It has been 5 months since I have thought of staying home because I hated how I looked in my clothes.

It has been 5 months since I tried to "punish" myself in some way or another because of a number I saw on the scale.

Now, if I can just finish a FULL 40 day round, I will be a brand new person!  Hey, I think I already am!  Thank you Robin Phipps Woodall.

Day 8! Feeling great!!

Wow, I need to learn to use this blogger app. I was just trying to edit an old post for punctuation. This is from months ago.

Tomorrow is the day I put the scale away.  I have resolved that I will only weight every other week.  This Saturday, I will take measurements, next Saturday, I weigh.

I cheated AGAIN due to stress but you know what? For this round it's all about the follow through. I will do the 40 days because that was my commitment. And I still am not going to weight myself. Worry doesn't go away but this is the time that I must learn to deal  with  it

Robin's words after my last cheat on the FB group:  " If you cheat, observe your justifications, judgments, and your guilt. Cheating opens your eyes to observe your thoughts and your resulting behavior. they can be essential steps towards changing your relationship with food and your body permanently."

So now I will use these words as a tool to analyse what happened today.  Today I broke protocol.  Again.  In one week.  But I know, I have to let go of the idea of perfection.  The goal is to slowly change how I look at food and how I look at myself.  So . . .

My justifications:

  1.) I was baking cookies for the Step Up seniors at Roosevelt and I wanted to see how they tasted (had to make some recipe modifications.
  2.) My husband and I had a huge blow out fight and I was frustrated.
  3.) The food was left out and it looked good.

My judgments/guilt:

  1.) Now I have ruined my diet and I will be fat forever.
  2.) I might as well give up.  I am going to suffer through this round and lose nothing.
  3.) I might as well give up.  I am going to keep cheating and gain back more than I was at first.
  4.) I can't do this for myself so I must hate myself.
  5.) I am never going to lose weight or meet my goal of not emotionally eating.  Ever.

Thoughts:

I notice that one thing I left out when I was so upset and food was so available was how my body felt in that emotional space.  In fact I don't remember one thought I had in that moment.  I just remember being mad and shovelling food into my face.  Last week my goal was to observe my bodies' reaction to my feelings, especially uncomfortable feelings without judgment.  Just to see what my body feels like when my mind is in an uncomfortable situation.  I ate much more normally when I did that.  So what I learned from today is that it is imperative that I give myself a time out when those emotions start to surface ESPECIALLY when food is around.

I can do this. Still.

Goodbye grads . . . happy thoughts and worried confessions

Today I had the immeasurable privilege of seeing 12 of the students I have worked with for at least one year, and some more extensively through this year GRADUATE.  What a feeling!  So much excitement and so much stress, writing all of my thoughts and wishes for each of them down.  

Food was present in my mind all day.  I noticed that I was also hungry more than usual.  True, I am dealing with TOM, but I am concerned that there was an element of stress eating.  Or celebration eating?  Whatevs. Emotional eating, not need based eating.  

I still struggle with stopping eating when I am no longer hungry.  I know if I am not satisfied, if I am still hungry I will go get more, or another food option.  But if I have scooped it out I will consume it.  :/

While I am confessing, I better put this out in the universe: I have been weighing myself.  A lot.  Like, the first two days, at least twice a day.  The past two days I have only been weighing daily.  I know I need to put the scale away!!  

What am I looking for the scale to tell me?  I guess that I am making progress?  I don't know!  I know the real progress is what is gong on inside, what the scale cannot measure.  I know that if I change PERMANENTLY my view of food that my weight, looks, outward will eventually match the changes I make inside.  

So why the scale?

I will set a date.  Saturday.  I will note my weight for the week and ask my husband to put the scale away until next week.

Also I am scared that since I have been weighing so frequently, and since my body asked for a little more then protocol today, that I will be upset/frustrated/discouraged by my weight tomorrow.  Which is, I realize, one of the biggest reasons that Mind/Body HCG protocol recommends not weighing.  I have been challenged by Robin on the Facebook support group to accept a protocol round that is not perfect.  I will take my weigh in tomorrow as a challenge to do just that.

VLCP, Day 3. It wasn't worth it . . .

Hey all.  So I did my load, and I remembered the ice cream (although I never got my buffalo wings) and began on Saturday.  Preload weight was 219 (WOW).  Guess what happened Sunday?

I cheated.

My mom had a friend over who is from Lousiana.  She makes a fabulous gumbo and an even better rice dressing (think stuffing, like in turkey, but with rice.  It is AMAZING).  She brought over some spaghetti, one of my favorite foods.  There were meatballs in it AND hot links.  Somehow, I ended up being the one putting everything away . . . and the rest is history.

As soon as I took the first bite I thought: "This is not as good as I thought it would be."  Then downed bites 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . it tasted like some straight up Chef Boy-ar-dee.  This was what I blew my protocol for ON THE SECOND DAY NO LESS.  I was furious.  I ran to the store to find some cookies to at least make the cheat worth it.  While I sat hiding on my mom's back porch eating the cookies, I thought about what I wanted the spaghetti to taste like.  I couldn't imagine.

In that moment, after I cheated on myself and my commitment I had made to changing myself and the way I viewed food, and even just my commitment to the idea of finishing what I promised myself, I couldn't imagine ONE THING that would have been so good it was worth letting myself down.  I need to remember this next time I want to cheat.  Nothing tastes good enough to break your trust with yourself, your COMMITMENT to yourself.

Back in the saddle . . . da da, dadadada . .

I have decided that the time for the HCG protocol redo is now. 

I originally stopped because of some crazy personal stuff that was going on, up to, but not only including the anniversary of one of my best friend's death, further revelations about why and how he died (like reliving it all), my current best friend moving to a place where she is almost inaccessible, and getting laid off.

Robin Phipps Woodall was the one that set me straight. 
 "A quick way to abruptly change direction is to stop telling yourself you'll fix the damages 

later."

Wow, Robin.  

I know that I have changed.  So much.  But honestly, friends, I was one step from 

crying over the scale . . . again.  Eating until I had acid reflux at every meal.  That ol' body

hatred cycle.  I was stuck and I couldn't figure out how to recapture my original enthusiasm 

but I knew I HAD to.

So I'm done.  I am not going to be that HCG bulimic that uses HCG instead of puking.  I want 

the me that I envisioned when I began that journey.  I need to go back and reread my own 

posts and reinspire myself.



I can't wait.