Two Weeks Down

Second week done. This is hard.

I did lose but not as much as I know I could have, I’ve really got to double down. I have been having success by tracking my calorie intake with MyFitnessPal and limiting intake to around 1000 cal. I have been doing well with the calorie count but the food I’m eating isn’t as good as I want it to be. My family knows that I am doing this but the family gatherings are still centered on food and I simply don’t know how to deal with that; its the way its always been.

The potato only thing simply didn’t work. My intake of fruits and vegetables has been incredibly increased while I have cut meat and cheese severely. I just haven’t been able to go full vegan and I just don’t know if I will ever be able to. That being said, I can tell that I have made progress. At lunch today I thought I would be okay to have some chicken tenders from the cafeteria at work ( I haven’t totally conqured my will power yet). Bad Idea! I may not have turned my life completely around but it has been two weeks since I had some deep fried crap and my body utterly rejected the tenders. Though emesis usually has a negative thoughts associated with it, not this time. I am kind of proud that my body has made a change in such a short time.

Food was my old standby friend when I needed something and I know what led me back to that point. I was dissappointed in myself over something that happened at work. I try to be a good example and hold myself to a high standard in my job but I made a stupid mistake and I have been very pensieve about the event ever since I was talked to about it. I don’t know if you are reading this but you know what I am talking about and I am sorry. I don’t know how it happened and I swear to you that it was not a puroseful act. I am making an attempt to be one of the best in our lab and I fall short sometimes. It hurt me more that you were put into the place you were because of my actions.

With my options opening as I open my mind to new foods that I’ve never eaten before or thought I didn’t like, I am finding foods that I acutally enjoy or at least don’t hate as much as I thought I did. For breakfast I am having about a cup of yogurt and an apple or a banana or some other fruit, or maybe a green smoothie. A great meal I discovered, at Panera Bread, Co., the Vegetarian Black Bean Soup with a piece of baguette is delicious and rings in at about 350 calories. Dinner is really my downfall. I’ve been cutting my portions to an actual portion size and making some better choices but I am having a hard time cutting out everything.

Overall I think I am headed in the right direction and try to embody the blue lanters and their light of the emotional spectrum, HOPE. If you are challenging yourself too, keep going and know…

~~~~~~~~~~THE NUMBERS~~~~~~~~~~

 I’m down another 5 pounds, a running total of 10.3 pounds in 14 days.

One Week Down

I was worried about cutting calories and food groups. I was worried about cravings and hunger pains. I was worried about support from family. I haven’t had much of any of these. Seven days down and I’ve got to tell you that I feel great. I have been amazed at how not hungry I have felt over this past week. I am oddly pleased with myself.

It’s is a strange sensation that I’ve gone a long time without feeling; pride. I am proud that I have done it and kept up with it. I have had some off diet eats but they have been very much fewer than pre-change. I feel no guilt about the meal I ate out with my wife and two daughters, nor the single bite of my daughters breakfast biscuit one morning. I haven’t been 100% potatoes. I’ll be straight up about that. They are hard to eat for EVERY MEAL, I think I made it three days though I continue to make them a large portion of my diet due to their low calorie and high satiety. Satiety was a word that I’m sure I knew before all of this but now I actually understand it.

Weeks ago, after I would eat I would either have eaten until I was sick and hated myself or I ate what I had and then still felt hungry. I simply haven’t done either of those two things in the last week and I am amazed and happy.

I am using the app MyFitnessPal to log my meals and keep track of calories. I haven’t used the sister app MapMyWalk yet but do plan to when I get into more exercise. I have the C25K app (Couch to 5K) to help with some cardio. I’ve used it before and like how it plays my music, or podcasts, and then it tells you when to walk/run/rest without stopping the audio.

Ray Cronise uses the saying “rare and appropriate” and a reddit user I spoke with said the change needs to be “manageable and sustainable”. Both of these statements are extremely useful when I am shaping the change to my lifestyle so that it isn’t just a short term change.

~~~~~~~~~~CONTENT WARNING~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted this blog to be an open and honest spot for me to share. I want to give information to anyone following behind my lead and advise about what I went through so they know what to expect. If you don’t want some gross information you may want to skip down the picture below.

So, the potato experiment may or may not have had a side effect that I had no clue about. Diarrhea. The thing is, it isn’t anything like the intestinal distress most of us associate with diarrhea. It wasn’t acid coming out of my butt hole. It wasn’t painful, it was just soft/liquid. I assume it was simply because of the water content of the potatoes, but may well be due to the extreme change in diet.

I had thought about needing to start a multivitamin with this diet, but some knowledge was given to me…

I can only imagine how deficient I was in everything on my old diet…

That really spoke to me and enlightened me. Why would I need a supplement when I am going to be eating much better for me, fresher, more natural foods than I was before? That has got to show the mindset I was in. I had normalized the shit I was eating so much so that I thought I would need to supplement  when eating better food. I’m ashamed of that but proud that I am beyond it.

~~~~~~~~~~THE NUMBERS~~~~~~~~~~

It is now 147 days until my birthday. I am down 5.3 pounds in just one week. I really am amazed at that number. I have lost that much weight in a short time before, it’s just something that happens when you weigh as much as I do, but I have a much better feeling about this loss. I am doing it a much better way that I ever have before and I’m pretty sure it’s not just water weight. Also, I am proud that I didn’t celebrate the achievement by turning to food! I decided instead to write this post and share my accomplishment with you fine people.

I’m not going to commit to a daily post or anything because I just don’t think I can keep up with that. My life isn’t that interesting. Find me on Twitter or Facebook if you want more info that isn’t just about the diet.

I’m sure you can tell but I’m not the best writer. These posts are for me to get stuff out of my head, sorry if it messes with yours to read it.