Maintenance Month 2

I'm back on my blog to tell more about my journey, after a terrible behaved Maintenance period.

After I finished my strict Diet I found myself literally obsessed with food. The only thing I could think of was eating, and having a "free eating day" was ending on eating till I was sick. Indeed the worst way to end a Diet.

I do still enjoy having my healthy food and hopefully this will never change. It is definitely changed the way I do my grocery shopping and the way I drink and consume calories.

I signed up at the gym about 10 days ago, hopefully this will help me to build some muscles and increase my metabolism. I don't feel weak anymore, sometime a bit dizzy but not comparable to the strict diet period. One thing that happened though is that it's been almost 3 months that I missed my period. They did all the tests at the clinic but all negative, so I'm not really sure what happened and why I'm missing it. Eventually I should go to a gynecologist to check if everything is ok.

I obviously gained 3Kg since I stopped my diet, but I've to say this weight is due to specific events. I went to the Apple Pie Trail for few days with my (now ex) boyfriend and we basically eat every moment something sweet apple based, I think I came back with 4Kg more only for that trip!

I also had few Holidays parties in the office and the food was always great, especially the sweets so I could not resist temptations.

Now Christmas is coming soon and the idea to be on a strict Diet is unrealistic so, I'm trying to contain myself on eating too much and still enjoying the holidays.

I've to say what I'm not missing are carbs, I usually have my regular serving portion per day, no more no less; but what's contributing to my weight gain is the amount of sugar – specifically chocolate  that I'm having lately.

Things are not going very well for me - which it might be only an excuse that's true – but my concentration and motivation is very low. I ended recently my relationship, at work things are moving slowly and not in the direction that I was hoping to. I tried to get a cat but – after the difficulties I had to adopt a pet from shelters – I'm having second thoughts and I put on hold this idea for now.

I'm seriously thinking to go back to the strict Diet in January, just the $600 are making me undecided about it! I want to go back to where I was when I started my maintenance and try again. I got obsessed at the end of my Diet and this did not help me to stay on track with my Maintenance, I did not realize that I need to live my food in a different way, my body is not ready to eat too much, a small amount of food more than the allowed one and I gain weight. My belly is growing again, and I hate it.

I don't feel motivated in the same way anymore, but I still want to believe in the Dr. Bernstein Diet because for me is the only one that works, the injections are miracles on my fat, the ketosis is a genius idea but everything belongs to a learning curve and I might need to do it again and again before I really learn what I'm doing with my Diet and with my life. 

Almost there with my weight goal

Another week passed for my Dr. Bernstein journey. So far so good, finally I found a Diet that really works, strict true but which Diet allows you to eat chocolate and cookies? If you find it, please let me know.

This week I didn't lose much but it's ok, the scale this morning was displaying 54.7Kg (123.2lb for the clinic) and I literally don't recall last time I saw the number 54 when weighting myself on a scale! It could be during my years in University. That's a great motivation, yesterday my sister in law told me that I look 20 again, it might be not true ok, but I'll take the compliment anyway.

I'm craving sweets lately, in particular chocolate, I knew since begin of the Diet that I cannot attune myself to a life without chocolate, I simply cannot. So I bought another package of the Dr. Bernstein Protein bars today at the clinic. I personally like the Chocolate Decadent ones, but apparently the most popular one is the Peanut Butter Bar, I might like that too but I found Peanut Butter strong as flavour and will go cover my desired chocolate taste too much. It could also be that I'm European so Peanut Butter is not really in my genes as flavour.

Today I had my injection – for the second time – on my hips, I hope to lose some fat in that area, as woman with a job that requires an 8-hours sitting effort, it's the darn place where the fat mostly accumulates.

Their goal it's for me to go down MAX to 120lb but mine is 116lb / 117lb which is around 53Kg. I am still burning some fat; obviously I don't have the same amount as before, but still traces of Ketosis every morning. This lower goal weight will help me during Maintenance to manage any additional pound that I could gain – due to the new food amount intake. Let's be honest, this strict Diet definitely slows down your metabolism, if I go back on a semi-normal eating habit without being in Ketosis, how can I possibly maintain the same weight? I already gain pounds from one day to another just because I had 50g more vegetables than the recommended amount! I can only imagine with an unlimited veggie allowance.  

My body will need some time to re-adjust its metabolism, but I'm ok with that, I'll have the supervision of the Dr. Bernstein program, not without sacrifices I'm sure, but I'm confident that I can do it.

If you're reading this blog maybe you're thinking to join the Program or already into it, my opinion is that it works. No doubts period. If you don't feel strong with food restrictions or sweets/junk food then this Program is NOT for you. It is a strict diet, you need commitment, you need to be focused on your goals every day, and you need to be patience, avoid temptations, and accept a new eating life style, totally healthy. Everything you do in this Diet will soon make sense, it could become an obsession at begin, since you feel in need of food constantly; but it gets better with the weeks.