I should change of this post to the Dash Diet Weekly, or even Monthly. I'd lose the alliteration but gain some honesty.
So, the bad news is that I stuck with the diet and didn't lose much weight. I'm not sure what changed this time. I suspect my exercise level. I've been so busy with writing that all my spare time is spent on my rump. The good news is that about 2 weeks ago I started an exercise program called "Couch to 5K." This is basically a plan for running intervals. Each week you add more run time. So far I've run 5 times, so two-thirds through week 2. I was nervous I'd have a tough time this morning. My legs and hips have been sore from overdoing it helping some friends paint their house. Luckily I found the run not only doable but not all that hard.
I'm a little freaked about week three. The guy, Josh, who got me started down this road, told me his wife bailed at week 3. I feel either worried or super motivated by that. I do have a competitive streak though usually I save it for competing with myself.
Oh, and I've also put myself back on Palleo. The bars aren't working and I feel kind of puffy so thinking all those grains may be triggering my food sensitivities. Going to try to eat clean, organic, grass fed, free range, super healthy for at least a couple weeks and see how I feel. Hoping a
10 days on the diet and I'm down 6 pounds! Not bad. Especially when you consider that during that 10 days I celebrated my husband and my birthdays and our anniversary! Jim surprised me with a trip to visit my daughter and granddaughter. There was cheating, but it was pretty minimal. I ate a couple of fudge brownies on my birthday and had a few spoons of very creamy soup at a Mexican restaurant on the way home. It was yummy but too much for my poorly trained stomach. Living on nutrition bars does change what a person finds edible. Anyway, I'm still far from the 13 pounds I lost first time I tried this particular diet, but I am going to remain patient and hope that the loss continues. Even if I lose 5 pounds a week I'm way ahead of the average. So I'll quit complaining. Well, probably not.
So far I've had little trouble sticking with the diet. 5 bars a day is 800 calories total and a healthy, balanced dinner followed by a 200 calorie desert is keeping me where I should be. The only component missing is exercise. Working on the house is just not the right kind of exercise. I think I need to start taking the dogs out for long walks again and get back into Tae Bo Basic. I actually moved to the advanced level but find the basic has more stretching and I feel better and more balanced when I do it. Plus it burns like 700,000 calories which is going to help. I'd like an active retirement and to do a lot of hiking and caving (and writing events and cons) so I'm really hoping I can stick with it. Three days off to celebrate the birthaversary (hubby and my birthdays and wedding anniversary). Maybe I can get out and do some walking with my daughter and grandaughter as we hope to get down there to visit.
3 pounds gone! You know, I could maybe stick with a diet where I lose more than a pound a day! Of course I know it's just an anomaly but it feels good. Maybe good enough to carry me over the weekend when I'm celebrating my anniversary and birthday by going to the coast. No clam chowder. No fish and chips. Well, at least not for lunch. Luckily dinner will be awesome as a crab fest happens on Saturday night. Here's hoping I survive (and hubby survives) the weekend!
Do overs! Or is that start overs? In any case I've failed miserably living up to my promise to blog daily, as well as to my promise to diet. After telling my friend, the author Lizzy Shannon, that her blogging was a miserable failure (which prompted her to blog frequently and eloquently) I find myself with that awkward sense that I can teach and preach but not learn. So, from the shame and guilt I have decided to give it another go. It took 8 tries to quit smoking for good so maybe this one will stick. Speaking of smoking, my daughter, Jeanne, who quit smoking 20 something days ago, says I need a calendar where I can mark off 28 days because it takes 28 days to break or build a habit. I was going to argue that I'd heard it was 21 days but...I did mention Jeanne just quit smoking, right? This is not the time to start any kind of argument. That said, I am counting today as day 1 of a 28 day countdown. DASH did not work for me. Trying to go back to Atkins didn't work. Too many choices and too much time in the kitchen. Oh, and we don't have a kitchen since we're in remodel hell. We've been living on fast food all week. I lost 5 pounds the weekend of Norwescon and regained it in three days of McDonalds and Wendys. Sigh. So, back to the diet that set off my gallbladder attack and ended with its removal. Back to the "poor person's Medifast." I lost 13 pounds in two weeks last time. It was easy because there were NO choices. I ate a healthy dinner every night and had desert. I can do this. In fact I've already done this. Had my Zone Perfect Strawberry Yogurt bar for breakfast. They smell wonderful. Just finished off my snack, a Slim Fast bar that tastes like a Butterfinger, and I'm not hungry. Looking forward to a Zone Perfect Fudge Graham bar for lunch and since I don't have to waste time I think I'll go for a walk or run some errands at lunch. I also packed some gum and three sugar free Werthers in case I just have to have something. Anyway, this feels good, easy, doable. Like I'm eating candy bars all day. I hope the countdown really works and I get to day 0 weighing less, but more important, feeling like I'm in control. Oh, and just for laughs. A friend shared that she had a dream about me last night. I was blacking out, then coming to, but finally slipped into a coma. She and my husband and then the EMT's worked to bring me back, and couldn't. Now I don't know if my friend is psychic. I sure hope she is not. But maybe this is a warning, one of many, and it's time to start paying attention. APPENDED: My darling daughter just sent me an article citing a study by the UK Health Behaviore Research Centre that found it took 66 days to form a habit. Well that explains a few things!
Okay so here's the skinny. That was funnier in my head. This Saturday, March 31, I had my first book reading at an event in Silverton. At the after party (drinking rum and coke at a wine bar is an after party, right?) I was saying to some friends that I'd just started a, supposedly daily, blog. It was supposed to hold me accountable but since I wasn't actively marketing it, and no one was reading it I didn't have to worry. Good thing too, because I'd blown the diet every day. That's when my "friend" tells me that HE'S reading it and in fact blogged about it on his blog. Dang writer friends and their compulsion to share!
So now I'm back and I'm here with some changes. First, I'm not going to change the name because I do dash around, and fitting a diet into that, well the name works. Second, the DASH diet did not work for me at all. I know from journals I kept while doing Palleo and Atkins, and from a report by a naturopath, that I really should avoid grains. They not only make me feel hungry and crave carbs, they also make my joints get inflamed and ache. Yesterday I logged in to fatsecret.com, which is one of the best online support groups I've found, and I joined a group of Atkins followers.
This morning I thought I'd stop and get a scone and coffee from the coffee shop in the building. Fast, easy and oh so deadly. The smell of fresh baked scones and cookies,and brewing coffee is the first thing that meets me when I get to work every day. But today I decided that I was tired of aching, feeling tired, being the fattest person in the group. I stopped on the way in and bought some sausage patties and a cup of coffee with Splenda. The only thing I grabbed at the coffee shop was a big glass of ice.
Day 7, feels a whole lot like Day 1.
Getting better! Yesterday had some good and bad moments. Took time to make a good, balanced breakfast sandwich with turkey bacon, two scrambled eggs, a thin slice of pepperjack cheese on an English muffin. Stayed full until about 1 when I had a French Dip from the deli and a large ice water. This kept me full until dinner and that's when the bad came in. Because the house is all torn apart during the remodel there was no way to cook. I ended up buying pizza and cheese bread at Little Caesars. The bread was part of the bad. The pizza wasn't actually that awful. My calories were 1,944. My goal is to eat 1,600 calories a day, work out 1 hour a day and drink at least 32 oz of water a day. Weight is down 1 pound but since I tend to fluctuate I'm not throwing any parties. However, a downward trend is not a bad thing so I'll take it and be happy.
Yesterday was not a real triumph. Here are the foods and numbers. Breakfast: Zone Bar 200 cals. Lunch: Soup and a handful of carrots and cucumbers slices 250 cals. The I'm starving meal purchased at Wendy's on the way home: 1 cod fillet sandwich followed by the jr. bacon cheeseburger my son didn't want. cals 850 Dinner: Turkey tacos (4) 600 cals Dessert: Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal with almond milk 200 cals. TOTAL = 2,100
What went wrong? Breakfast was too small and didn't contain enough protein. I know eating protein for breakfast keeps my full longer and I don't have the carb cravings. Same thing with lunch so that by 5 I was too hungry to care about making good choices.
Today I'll do better.
Yesterday I got an email from my doctor saying my A1C was 8.5 and that I needed to get in and see him. I knew I'd been ignoring my type II diabetes. Well, that's not entirely true. I'd decided, a few months ago, to do whatever it took to lose some weight. A friend had been very successful with Medifast. He told me about the diet bars and eating every 2 hours.
Well, I'm cheap. At least when it comes to my dieting. I think it's partly because I suspect I'll fail, so why lay out the big bucks? I blew money on a Curves membership not long ago. I can learn. So I decided to do my own version of Medifast. I bought Zone Perfect bars, 200 calories each for my breakfast and lunch. I also bought Slimfast snack bars, 100 calories each, for my every two hour snacks. I then planned what I call a "diet plate dinner." Simply the standard 1 half vegetable, 1 quarter starch, 1 quarter meat dinner that most diets advise. For dessert I allowed myself sugar free jello with whip or a small chocolate.
In two weeks I lost 13 pounds -- and my gallbladder. Apparently fast weight loss often triggers gallbladder attacks. I often comment on the irony of our universe, but come on, that was just plain mean!
So, after surgery, and the loss of the 2 oz. gallbladder I had affectionately named Gail, I spent about 2 months in recovery. And by recovery I mean testing just how much fat, sugar and chocolate I could stand. At the same time my third book was published, my husband and I were looking at buying a farm, which meant remodeling and selling our house, I had taken on a new client who had several books he wanted formatted, and oh yes, I do have a full time job.
Did that sound like a list of excuses? It was. I'm the excuse queen. "This donut? Oh, it's my last before I start the new diet. This pie? Oh, that's to celebrate . . . [insert event here]." Staring at the email from my doctor, seeing that 8.5, was an ugly view of a reality that I'd rather avoid, preferably while settled comfortably in a recliner, typing. Typing burns calories . . . right?
So today I started the DASH Diet. I tried Weight Watchers. Lost 5 pounds. Listened to people gripe about the last 7 ounces they had to lose. Dropped out. I tried Palleo. Lost 9 pounds, felt great, couldn't stick with it. Tried Atkins, lost 10 pounds, felt weird, then elated, then in control but, couldn't stick with it. Developed and tried the Poor Man's Medifast. Felt a little silly out to lunch with friends but otherwise easy, since I had no choices to make, lost 13 pounds and Gail the Gallbladder. Couldn't stick with it.
Everyone says DASH is the way to go. It lowers high blood pressure (I'm on 2 meds for that), and it helps keep blood sugar regulated (1 med for that but wait until I see the doctor). So, DASH it is and wish me luck because, as you can see, I have no will power and need all the help I can get.
So, what has today been like? This morning I grabbed a Zone Perfect bar and had it for breakfast with a cup of coffee with Splenda and half & half. For lunch I had a can of chicken noodle soup, a small slice of pepper jack cheese, and 2 cups of cucumbers and carrots. (Actually I plan to snack on the veggies this afternoon and only had a few slices with lunch). I also packed a couple mini tangerines. Tonight is turkey taco night and I plan to cut down on the tortillas and add more filler.
I weighed myself this morning but to save myself the humiliation, instead of listing my weight I will be listing pounds up or down.
Well, guess that's it for the First Day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!
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