It’s FINALLY time for an update! Sorry ya’ll, got traumatized by work and life. The last time I weighed in at the actual center, I think I was 267. As of this morning, the scale said 258. That’s almost 3 weeks to loose 9 pounds, however, I was steadily loosing a pound a day until Sunday. Saturday I was 257, Sunday morning I was 263. And I’ve been steadily fighting it down since then. Most of this is due to PMS. Ya’ll ladies know what I’m talking about. You know it’s coming because you get bloated first. So I’m dealing with it, waiting for the main show to arrive (because it hasn’t yet which is worse), hoping once it does I suddenly drop 5 lbs in one day the same way I gained it overnight.
I’ve been on the 700 calorie diet for like 9 days now and it’s driving me crazy. But when I eventually get in there to do a weigh-in I’m sure it will be worth it. So I promised to explain the actual levels of the diet I’ve been through so far.
500 Calories
You start off here. You’re only supposed to be on this one long enough to get into a state call ketosis, wherein your body is basically tricked into eating fat instead of muscle for energy. You do this by cutting you carbs and increasing your protein intake by what most doctors consider dangerous percentages. Some of the side-effects of ketosis are severely low blood-sugar and kidney stones, which I’m prone to. You test your ketosis level using Ketone strips you can get at any drug store. I get 50 for $10 at Walgreens.
So here is a page out of my food diary while I was on the 500 calorie diet:
Water = 140 ounces
Fish Oil= 4 Capsules
Coffee with Splenda = 2
1 Orange flavored supplement (60 calories and tastes like Tang. I love it!)
1 boiled egg
1 slice of bread
1 cup lettuce
4 ounce of chicken
½ cup steamed spinach
1 cup lettuce
1 double chocolate pudding supplement (90 calories and also very yummy)
So I drink 20 ounces of water first thin when I wake up. By 7am, I have my first supplement. These are protein-rich supplements designed to keep you from being hungry. Three hours later I have the egg and use it to take my medicine, 2 of the fish oil capsules and the multivitamin and mineral pills they give you. By this time I’ve had 60 ounces of water. Three hours after that I have lunch, which is the slice of bread and the cup of lettuce and another 20 ounces of water. I can use that salad spritzer if I want, which is one calorie per spray, but after a while it gets old. Three hours later I have dinner, which is the chicken, the vegetable and the lettuce and 20 ounces of water. Three hours after that I have the other supplement and another 20 ounces of water or double that right before I go to bed.
The first time I did this, it took me 7 days to show as being in ketosis. Drove myself crazy every morning peeing on the strip and waiting 15 seconds before looking, only to see nothing…when I finally saw the strip turn the faintest pink color I was so happy!
From this point, you’re supposed to move up to the 600 calorie diet…provided you don’t cheat and knock yourself out of ketosis, which I did…often.
The 600 calorie diet isn’t much different. Just replace the food on the list above with other food Breakfast was ½ of a small orange and a slice of diet bread with diet spreadable cheese on it. Lunch was a egg and a cup of salad and dinner was 4 ounces of chicken, ½ cup of vegetable and a slice of diet bread.
The 700 calorie diet that I’m now on is ½ slice of bread and an egg for breakfast, 3 ounces of chicken, ½ an apple and a cup of lettuce for lunch and 4 ounces of chicken, ½ cup of vegetable and ½ slice of bread for dinner.
All in all, it’s boring stuff, but sticking to it is getting harder and harder. I’ve spoken to several different people who either have finished this diet or are in the maintenance phase of it after having lost the weigh they wanted to lose. Some cheated on a regular basis and some didn’t cheat at all. The one thing I have noticed is that each person had to find the thing that worked for them before actually being ok in the diet as a whole. One girl found that if she let herself cheat at all, she went on week-long binders eating everything in sight. Another found that if she just cheated for one meal once per week, it made being good the rest of the time possible. Personally, the second one seems to work for me. I let myself have one meal per week where I eat what I want. Not huge mountains of food. Just normal portion sizes, and I don’t order ANYTHING large-size except maybe my diet coke on occasion.
Speaking of “occasion”, I had the best laugh last week. I went to McD’s for Little Man on our way to…crap. Can’t even remember where we were going. But anyway…
We went and I was getting him a happy meal and just a large diet coke for myself, and we’re sitting in the drive-thru waiting to order and he looks out the window and yells, “Look mommy! Kitties!” He LOVES animals in general but cats seem to be his favorite so far. You know there are always strays living around the dumpsters at restaurants and at this particular location there’s a McD’s, Barnhill’s, Sonic, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut…you name it, it’s all in one spot. So these cats are living large. So he’s sitting there making goo-goo faces at the kitties and he stops and says, “Mommy how can you tell if it’s a boy kitty or a girl kitty?” By this time of day, I’m brain dead. I basically tend to just tune him out and reply to his queries on auto-pilot, but by some miracle that day I was half-way paying attention to him as he prattled away and actually managed to respond “By looking very closely honey, we can’t tell at this distance.” They were a good 50 feet away.
So I’m staring at the sign McD’s has showing the toys they’re currently giving out, wondering when beanie babies will die in general and he goes, “wait mommy, I zoomed in, it’s a girl.”
Now I have to explain. When people ask me questions, I have what basically amounts to a zillion pairs of eyes in my head that look up information so I can answer them fairly intelligently. When I give you a stupid answer, you can bet those eyes are not working for one reason or another. But occasionally, when someone says something that just totally stumps me, it’s like all those pairs of eyes get crossed at the same time and you get a system error…that’s what happened to me here. I was like, “WTF?” I knew there was no set of binoculars or anything in the car and as I’m turning my head to look at him I’m wondering how the hell he “zoomed” in…and then I see.
He wears glasses as most of you know. He had slid the glasses off his nose and was holding them about 2 inches in front of his eyes…that was his “zoom”! LOL! It was priceless! I tried SO HARD not to laugh I bit my tongue until it bled. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it was hilarious.
Anyway, that’s my diet update. Life in general has been hell on wheels lately. Work is aggressively seeking to thin out the ranks, so everyone is looking over everyone’s shoulders and the atmosphere is tense to say the least. Beyond that, I diet because that’s the only food I have in my house and in a time of turmoil having a routine is comforting. I cheat once a week Saturday nights with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s all to myself. My current fave flavor is Americone Dream. And looking forward to that all week every week helps keep me on track. I’ve stopped testing for ketosis because I was driving myself crazy checking several times a day to see if I was in or out of it and none of it really matters because I’m still loosing weight. Besides, know that I know ketosis can cause kidney stones, having actually had surgery in February to break some up so I could pass them, I really don’t want a daily reminder that if I’m in ketosis, which is good, it will cause kidney stones, which is bad. My psyche can’t take the pressure basically.
Other than that, I just function like a good little robot. I don’t see it in the picture, but maybe you can. Everyone keeps telling me I’m disappearing before their eyes. Of course they’re always looking at my chest when they say this so it tends to piss me off more than flatter me. But they mean well.
I’ve been on the 700 calorie diet for like 9 days now and it’s driving me crazy. But when I eventually get in there to do a weigh-in I’m sure it will be worth it. So I promised to explain the actual levels of the diet I’ve been through so far.
500 Calories
You start off here. You’re only supposed to be on this one long enough to get into a state call ketosis, wherein your body is basically tricked into eating fat instead of muscle for energy. You do this by cutting you carbs and increasing your protein intake by what most doctors consider dangerous percentages. Some of the side-effects of ketosis are severely low blood-sugar and kidney stones, which I’m prone to. You test your ketosis level using Ketone strips you can get at any drug store. I get 50 for $10 at Walgreens.
So here is a page out of my food diary while I was on the 500 calorie diet:
Water = 140 ounces
Fish Oil= 4 Capsules
Coffee with Splenda = 2
1 Orange flavored supplement (60 calories and tastes like Tang. I love it!)
1 boiled egg
1 slice of bread
1 cup lettuce
4 ounce of chicken
½ cup steamed spinach
1 cup lettuce
1 double chocolate pudding supplement (90 calories and also very yummy)
So I drink 20 ounces of water first thin when I wake up. By 7am, I have my first supplement. These are protein-rich supplements designed to keep you from being hungry. Three hours later I have the egg and use it to take my medicine, 2 of the fish oil capsules and the multivitamin and mineral pills they give you. By this time I’ve had 60 ounces of water. Three hours after that I have lunch, which is the slice of bread and the cup of lettuce and another 20 ounces of water. I can use that salad spritzer if I want, which is one calorie per spray, but after a while it gets old. Three hours later I have dinner, which is the chicken, the vegetable and the lettuce and 20 ounces of water. Three hours after that I have the other supplement and another 20 ounces of water or double that right before I go to bed.
The first time I did this, it took me 7 days to show as being in ketosis. Drove myself crazy every morning peeing on the strip and waiting 15 seconds before looking, only to see nothing…when I finally saw the strip turn the faintest pink color I was so happy!
From this point, you’re supposed to move up to the 600 calorie diet…provided you don’t cheat and knock yourself out of ketosis, which I did…often.
The 600 calorie diet isn’t much different. Just replace the food on the list above with other food Breakfast was ½ of a small orange and a slice of diet bread with diet spreadable cheese on it. Lunch was a egg and a cup of salad and dinner was 4 ounces of chicken, ½ cup of vegetable and a slice of diet bread.
The 700 calorie diet that I’m now on is ½ slice of bread and an egg for breakfast, 3 ounces of chicken, ½ an apple and a cup of lettuce for lunch and 4 ounces of chicken, ½ cup of vegetable and ½ slice of bread for dinner.
All in all, it’s boring stuff, but sticking to it is getting harder and harder. I’ve spoken to several different people who either have finished this diet or are in the maintenance phase of it after having lost the weigh they wanted to lose. Some cheated on a regular basis and some didn’t cheat at all. The one thing I have noticed is that each person had to find the thing that worked for them before actually being ok in the diet as a whole. One girl found that if she let herself cheat at all, she went on week-long binders eating everything in sight. Another found that if she just cheated for one meal once per week, it made being good the rest of the time possible. Personally, the second one seems to work for me. I let myself have one meal per week where I eat what I want. Not huge mountains of food. Just normal portion sizes, and I don’t order ANYTHING large-size except maybe my diet coke on occasion.
Speaking of “occasion”, I had the best laugh last week. I went to McD’s for Little Man on our way to…crap. Can’t even remember where we were going. But anyway…
We went and I was getting him a happy meal and just a large diet coke for myself, and we’re sitting in the drive-thru waiting to order and he looks out the window and yells, “Look mommy! Kitties!” He LOVES animals in general but cats seem to be his favorite so far. You know there are always strays living around the dumpsters at restaurants and at this particular location there’s a McD’s, Barnhill’s, Sonic, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut…you name it, it’s all in one spot. So these cats are living large. So he’s sitting there making goo-goo faces at the kitties and he stops and says, “Mommy how can you tell if it’s a boy kitty or a girl kitty?” By this time of day, I’m brain dead. I basically tend to just tune him out and reply to his queries on auto-pilot, but by some miracle that day I was half-way paying attention to him as he prattled away and actually managed to respond “By looking very closely honey, we can’t tell at this distance.” They were a good 50 feet away.
So I’m staring at the sign McD’s has showing the toys they’re currently giving out, wondering when beanie babies will die in general and he goes, “wait mommy, I zoomed in, it’s a girl.”
Now I have to explain. When people ask me questions, I have what basically amounts to a zillion pairs of eyes in my head that look up information so I can answer them fairly intelligently. When I give you a stupid answer, you can bet those eyes are not working for one reason or another. But occasionally, when someone says something that just totally stumps me, it’s like all those pairs of eyes get crossed at the same time and you get a system error…that’s what happened to me here. I was like, “WTF?” I knew there was no set of binoculars or anything in the car and as I’m turning my head to look at him I’m wondering how the hell he “zoomed” in…and then I see.
He wears glasses as most of you know. He had slid the glasses off his nose and was holding them about 2 inches in front of his eyes…that was his “zoom”! LOL! It was priceless! I tried SO HARD not to laugh I bit my tongue until it bled. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it was hilarious.
Anyway, that’s my diet update. Life in general has been hell on wheels lately. Work is aggressively seeking to thin out the ranks, so everyone is looking over everyone’s shoulders and the atmosphere is tense to say the least. Beyond that, I diet because that’s the only food I have in my house and in a time of turmoil having a routine is comforting. I cheat once a week Saturday nights with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s all to myself. My current fave flavor is Americone Dream. And looking forward to that all week every week helps keep me on track. I’ve stopped testing for ketosis because I was driving myself crazy checking several times a day to see if I was in or out of it and none of it really matters because I’m still loosing weight. Besides, know that I know ketosis can cause kidney stones, having actually had surgery in February to break some up so I could pass them, I really don’t want a daily reminder that if I’m in ketosis, which is good, it will cause kidney stones, which is bad. My psyche can’t take the pressure basically.
Other than that, I just function like a good little robot. I don’t see it in the picture, but maybe you can. Everyone keeps telling me I’m disappearing before their eyes. Of course they’re always looking at my chest when they say this so it tends to piss me off more than flatter me. But they mean well.
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