Monday, March 28, 2011

Scale Day

23 pounds lost now -- 257 this morning.  I look at myself in the mirror, and I see the person I expect to see, the way I thought I looked when I weighted 280.  Hard to believe I could have carried another 23 pounds on this body just a few weeks ago!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Day 22 pic

Cleansing Days are the Pits

Ugh.

Headachy and irritable yesterday.  Leg muscles and hips achy.  Hungry.  So tired.

Then, to top it off, my afternoon green juice was nasty -- can't figure out why, it wasn't a new recipe or anything.  Forced myself to drink 2 cups, then threw out the last 3.  Had 3 cups of melon juice I was planning to drink after that, but I didn't.  Just went to bed as soon as the girls went down, 7:30pm.

Just in case I forget to mention this later, MOST days are NOT like this.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Still at it

Haven't posted anything at all for the longest time.  Juicing is tough these days -- food is such a temptation, and making 3 meals a day for the girls doesn't help.  Had another cleansing day yesterday -- irritable, hungry, sore muscles, tired.

260 pounds -- down 20.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Monday, March 14, 2011

Just checking in

263 this morning.  17 down now.

Muscles sore again today -- a bit tired all over.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Can't get no....satisfaction!

Juicing doesn't satisfy ANY mental or emotional dimension of hunger.  The only thing it does satisfy is the actual hunger pangs themselves.  On any other diet that I've been on, I have attempted to satisfy the cravings for one food with another food -- you want mashed potatoes thick with butter and gravy; you eat a steamed sweet potato instead.  You want ice cream; you eat a bowl of frozen berries instead.  The extent to which the healthy food satisfies the yearning for the craved food is the extent to which you feel satisfied after eating... and frankly, the success of the diet depends on this.  You go weeks and weeks without satisfying the cravings for certain foods, but the cravings are still there, and willpower wears thin.

This is totally different.  No matter how strong my desire for any food is, the ONLY thing I can do is simply deny it.  There is no substitution, no partial satisfaction.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Some juice recipes, mostly good

I've discovered a juice that I really enjoy drinking first thing in the morning.  It's 2 apples, half a lemon, and a very large handful of spinach.  It can be made the night before and stored in the fridge; I've had it the past 2 mornings and it just hits the spot.

Made a juice entirely of watermelon last night; it was good at first but didn't keep well, after an hour or so it seemed to... sour.  Also made a juice of 3 carrots and 2 oranges; I really loved that one, and so did Todd, which says something.

Monday, March 7, 2011

That was bizarre...

Feeling badly most of the day.  Hungry in the morning, and irritable.  Just...off.   Can't really put a finger on what exactly was off, though.  Muscles achy, and tired.  Emotionally, too.  Just want the day to end so I can sleep.  Haven't felt that way since, well, since this fast started.  Cold, and shaky.  Todd came home for a couple of hours this afternoon and asked me what I wanted most for him to do.  I said, "Watch the girls so I can take a nap."  Crawled into bed and shivered.  I think I finally slept, but it was a very, very light sleep, because I never lost that alert feeling.  When I tried to get up after an hour, it was like lifting a ton of bricks.  Moan.  Still shaky, still cold... Went downstairs and started making some juice.  Not hungry at all. 

Now, later in the evening, the symptoms have mostly worn off, but I have that quiet feeling your body gets after an illness.  Was that just a detox episode, or what?

Day 7

Hungry most of the day yesterday.  Went shopping -- my first attempt to buy enough fruits and veggies for one week!  The only thing that is really obscene is the number of apples I go through.  At the check-out counter, the couple behind me asked if I was buying for an organization.  "Nope,"  I said.  "Just myself."  I have to say, I did NOT enjoy shopping on an empty stomach.  I felt like a priest in a whorehouse.  And it didn't help that I had accidently left my thermos of juice in the car. 

Monday is going to be Scale Day for me.  271 pounds this morning.  9 down -- a whole hell of a lot still to go.  Even though I have lost more than a pound a day, I have to say I am a little disappointed.  I think I was expecting to lose more in the first week.  Ah well, weight loss is weight loss, and whether I lose 50 pounds on this fast or 100, I will still have a new body in June.

Friday, March 4, 2011

"Moar"

I want to write more, I really do.  But I get precious few moments during the day when I can actually sit down at the computer without tandem whining interupting my train of thought.

Tonight's green juice doesn't have any carrots -- not my favorite, but for variety's sake I need to mix it up.  So, 3 apples 1/2 a lime, a whole bunch of spinach, a very large chunk of red cabbage, about 1/2 a head of celery, 1 cucumber, 1 tomato, and a quarter of a red pepper.

I'm feeling great.  It's actually a bit disturbing how good I feel.  I think I expected more hunger, and I know I expected more of a... painful... cleansing process.  Like more headaches and headcolds, weakness, irritability, etc.  But then again, all that may be coming down the pike.

Tonight Todd made dinner for the girls while I ran to the store for more apples.  Yay!  Cooking is hard for me -- all those lovely smells, and a powerful urge to taste what I'm making.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

A better juicing schedule

So I figured something out.  That last juicing session of the day was really hard to fit in.  From the time I start making dinner for the girls (around 4:30pm) until Carly is tucked in at 7 or 7:15, I'm pretty much non-stop working:  cooking, feeding, washing up, straightening up the toys, putting girls into pajamas, etc.  And after I've gotten both girls into bed and actually have 45 minutes of "me time" before work, the last thing I want to do is go back DOWN to the kitchen and spend that time juicing and cleaning up after myself.  So today I made my last two juices at 3pm.  It means that last fruit juice won't be fresh, but if that's the price I have to pay for sanity, I'll pay it.

Humming along

That really sums up how I'm feeling today.  Without the highs and lows in blood sugar that I'm used to from eating a traditional American diet, my emotions and energy are on such an even keel.  It's really nice, actually.  Like switching from fighting through rush hour traffic to driving, alone, on a 4-lane highway, with cruise control.

I'm not yet juicing as much celery and leafy greens per day as Angela recommends.  In 3 days of juicing, I've gone through 2 heads of celery, 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 2 (small) heads of romaine, and nearly a head of red leaf.  However, I do feel that I am drinking very nearly as much leafy green juice as I can right now.  For example, I juiced a romaine heart this morning in my fruit juice, and it took an entire pineapple to mitigate the bitterness so that it was drinkable.  I think if I focused more on spinach and less on green leaf, I could get more down, but it still wouldn't be half of the 2lbs (yikes!) recommended.

Had another dizzy spell today, at the exact same time as yesterday's.  12:40pm.  Very strange.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Okay, by request...

Feeling pretty good, even though I'm technically not supposed to yet.

Had a dizzy spell after lunch today.  The girls' lunch, that is.  I, of course, had juice, but since I drink juice all day long, it can't techinically be called "lunch."  I was sitting at the computer and all of a sudden felt a buzzing, light-headedness and a strong urge to hold on to something as the room spun around.  It passed, though, and I've been fine since.

I absolutely hate the way my mouth feels.  There is a think starchy whiteness coating my tongue and the backs of my teeth.  It goes away after brushing, only to return shortly.  I'm not sure if it's caused by the juice itself or from an empty stomach or the cleansing process or what, but I have been forewarned, so it's not alarming.  Can't remember if it's supposed to last the whole fast, though, and I hope not!

Have decided I do not like the taste of green leaf lettuce or romaine in my juices.  Red leaf is okay, as is spinach.  I think I may have to limit myself to those two greens for the duration of the fast.

Orange "green" juice

Small variation in my standard V8 recipe -- big improvement.  More carrots, more apples, slightly less green pepper.  Much, much better.  Calling it "green juice" seems ridiculous, though, since it's bright orange in color.

Headache still hasn't gone away, but it's not debilitating.  I've had much worse.  I was expecting much worse, to be honest.

I feel.... empty.  It's not altogether unpleasant, but it's not comfortable either.

Day 2

Bit of a headache this morning.  To be expected.

I made a wonderful juice last night.  Half of a lemon, 2 oranges, 2 pears, and half of a pineapple.  Sunshine.  Yum.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Another juice, another trip to the bathroom

Getting a little tired of having to p** so often...

Made this one for lunch: 1/2 of a honeydew melon, 1 grapefruit, 1 cup green grapes, and another quarter head of green leaf lettuce.  It's not fantastic, but drinkable.  Green leaf is definately more bitter (bitterer?) than spinach, and the sour grapefruit does nothing to mitigate that.

Took a 12-minute walk around the neighborhood this morning.  It didn't take much to get me out of breath (oh, the shame!) but then again, walking on snow and ice is nearly as strenuous as walking on wet sand.

I'm not terribly hungry now, and I seem to have more energy than normal.  Perhaps I'm just so used to the heavy, wiped out feeling I normally get right about now (yesterday I was snoozing on the couch at this time) that anything else feels like the jitters!

Oh, and that Day 1 photo is dreadful.  I should look at that for a few minutes when I need more motivation!

Please excuse the mess


So, this is me, today... no make-up, and my hair is messy.  And there are toys on the floor, but hey, with two kids under 4, that's almost a constant state of affairs.

Day 1 -- or "Thoughts on Prison Food"

I've always wondered about that last meal they serve to death row prisoners before execution.  You know, where they let them order anything they want.  Why do they do that?  What's the point, exactly?  Is it to make them happy?  There are more meaningful ways to do that.  I wonder what the convict feels -- does he look forward to that last meal, knowing it's just that much closer to his death?  Does he enjoy eating it?  What does he feel when it's over -- knowing that he will never eat another bite of food in this life?

Morbidly enough, I thought about that last night when I was eating dinner with the girls.  We had hot dogs and tater tots, steamed carrots and home-made cookies with milk for dessert.  It was nice.  I did enjoy it, but it was weird thinking, "Well, that's the last food I'll eat until June."  It looks crazy typed out like that, and I wonder if I'm insane for considering it.  In truth I have no idea how hard it will be, and I've never been long on will-power.

I'm sure I will miss regular meals, but I won't miss the heart-burn I got last night before bed, and the hot-heavy feeling in my stomach after eating that saps my energy, makes it next to impossible to get anything productive done without dragging.

So here I am, the next morning, sipping my first-day green juice.  I made a V-8 concoction with 2 cucumbers, a quarter head of green leaf lettuce, half a green pepper, an eighth of a head of green cabbage, 4 carrots, 1 tomato, 3 apples, and  half of a lemon.  I was shooting for 4 cups, and made precisely 5.  It occurs to me that I could have put some celery in, but that would have made it "V-9."  Well, I'll make another green juice this afternoon.  Note to self:  don't forget the celery.  Lots of it.  The last thing I need today is sodium withdrawals.