Just Do It. Never Quit.

I was reading back through this blog and it is amazing to me how many times I have attempted and how many times I have not completed my goal for a protocol. I have gained a bit of weight and I am above when I first started this. My highest recent weight is 240.

Sounds like all failure, right? Not at all! I have not binged in months. I enjoy getting dressed and even though I still have fat thoughts, they don't plague me like they used to. Although I haven't been eating the most nutritionally, I have been able to eat with less judgment. I feel like this progress equals more than a hundred pounds in terms of my mental health.

In other news, I am on day 5 of another round one. My main goal is a successful phase three. I want to lose at least 50 pounds, but my plan is to keep going until I am losing 3 pounds or less a week and then transitioning to phase 3. I want to do phase 3 with some of the leptin reset principles. And then take a break from dieting and try living before another round.

VCLP day 6. Setbacks and Improvements

So the bad first. I weighed today. I felt really bad because I had decided to not weigh at least until Monday. I feel like I let myself down because that was the commitment I made for myself. I am so tired of this life; of binging and relying on fluid as an emotional crutch. I told a friend today that I would rather lose this dependence to dieting and emotional eating than I would to lose weight. So I have to keep that focus in front of me. I can succeed with that as a goal. I can succeed a lot quicker than I can lose 100 pounds. So I need to make sure at all times that is where my focus is staying.
I did lose 10 pounds.
Successes! I just ate half of my chicken, realized I was full and stepped away. I don't know when I've been able to do that. Let's see If I can do that with every meal?

I just got this quote from a friend of a friend on Facebook and I had to add it here.  Because there are mashed potatoes in the refrigerator calling my name.

Ádìsá Ájámú

It is a horrible thing to feel stuck, to feel as though the life you desire is right within our grasps, close enough for us to see it, brush up against it, feel it but not be able to grasp it. If we understand that much of our lives are the result of choices we've made--good and bad. Then it helps us understand that wekeep getting the lack of results we've gotten thus far in life because we keep doing what we've doing. Different life results require a different life actions. It's that simple—and that hard. Life is about choices and chances, the ones we make and take, and the ones we don't. The life you desire is waiting patiently for you to change. Go get your bliss.

- Ádìsá

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.

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.

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.

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.

Like Learning To Ride a Bike . . .

Today was a huge day for me. I learned how to ride a bike for the first time today! I learned in a public park with people around and I just focused on what I had to do. It was hard and the thought crossed my mind that maybe I just COULDN'T do it. But this was my time! It took two hours and paying a pro 75 smackers for two hours. And yes, I stumbled, I felt awkward and uncomfortable. I had to learn to do things differently. But eventually O was able to trust the body mechanics and the physics that cause that effortless forward motion. At 33, I finally am a bike rider.

I have tried to find a natural way to eat and live for years. Now is my time. My days as an emotionally driven self condemning, controlling, losing control, excuse making dieter are already fading  into my history. Yes, I will stumble. I might feel awkward or unnatural. But I know I will be able to trust my body soon. To let go and let my body care for itself in a way I never have. The same effortless forward motion towards freedom from diets and harmful body image thoughts. I will get there.

Today I was so hungry all day. I still ate to hunger, all protein (not by choice). I will be honest, I'm feeling a little freaked. But weight loss or not, I was successful because I can say I ate to hunger. No no complaints!

I WILL GET THERE!!!


The hunger is so hard to name right now . . . I feel like it's emotional maybe.  I have this sense that a binge is just looming over me . . . Watching Robin right now.  I got this y'all.

This is my goal, people.  To be the girl on this video:

Not Robin :)  The one she is talking to.  I know I will get there.  I know I will be able to trust this process.  Today I had a great day eating to hunger, but I find that all morning I am drinking coffee.  I also worry that I am leaning too hard on coconut oil.  I actually want to weigh myself tomorrow (I'm sorry!) just to confirm that I am doing okay even with the coconut oil.  If I am still going down, then I will give my scale to my mom and I will fall into trust . . . eyes closed, mind open . . .

I want to be able to see myself accomplishing SOLID GOALS.  I am fitting into older clothes, but nothing shocking to me.  But I am wary of making my motivation body size related.  I cannot say that right now I love my body, but I don't hate it, and I feel like I am able to coexist with it in friendship for the first time ever.  I mean, I am not putting down parts of my body or punishing it with too much food.  I am just listening.

It feels good.

Done With Week 1!!

I really still want to weigh myself.  I keep thinking about how much I can lose and how many rounds I can do and . . . I am trying to keep myself from spiraling into this "dieting" mentality.

So I am going to celebrate my success, and hope that this energy generates more success.

I only weighed myself once!  For me, that is a huge success.  I have been known to weigh at least twice a day when I am actively trying to lose weight.  

I feel like I really do know when I am hungry.  The past two days I feel like I have felt hunger.  I feel like for the first time in my life I am feeling hungry and eating and stopping when I am not hungry.  That is my goal, and I have begun to reach it.

Now is the practice.  I need to finish this protocol so that I can be used to eating when hungry and stopping when I am satisfied (or before).  I know this is going to be tough but I have to let this become a HABIT.  I have to watch Robin's videos and I have to remember my goals.

YAY ME!!