VCLP DAY 1

One thing I notice that I do on any eating protocol, including hcg, or even when I was sick and unable to easy because of issues with Crohns is still being obsessed with food. When it was my Crohns that looked like obsessively watching cooking shows and reading cooking magazines. What it looks like on hcg is me on pinterest looking at recipes, planning and counting days and making lists. I remember someone saying that their favorite thing about Mind:Body HCG was being able to just be, to let go of dieting and food obsession and tape into a creative side. I realize that I am not allowing myself the space from food to do that. So for the rest of this round I want to challenge myself in that way. I know that I am feeling discomfort emotionally in sine way and that's why I am looking for this distraction. But the point of this protocol is to isolate the discomfort, not to find new distractions. Obviously before I did not complete my round. I have continued to go to counseling, and I have observed that my binge eating has decreased, and my overall feelings about my body have improved. But that wasn't enough to keep my weight from skyrocketing to 235. That's right, that is my post load weight. I really feel that the key to me losing and maintaining is Robin's HCG method and the hunger scale. And I know as long as I haven't quit the journey continues.

Restricting maybe??

I just don't know if I am doing this like I am supposed to.

I keep having sweet cravings and honestly I am not always eating wih hunger. But what I am not sure of is whether or not I am still putting value to food, labelling food as good and bad and if this is causing a rebound effect of cravings. I tend to minch after the gym and at night, like always.

What am I hungry for?

Being normal

So for the past few wewks I have been trying to just be, without diet and weight goals, and without obsessing over an ideal weight. I have discovered a few things: 1) I don't want to be as skinny as I used to. I don't think it's my biggest goal to look like a war crime. 2) I like lifting weights, but I don't know what it is to lift or to design a program without an aesthetic goal. 3) I really do want to teach zumba 4) I cannot just let go without CONSCIENTIOUSLY trying to eat to hunger. So I am devoting a few days of blogging to food logs. Sorry if this bores my *only* follower.

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.