I failed again!

I might sound like a broken clock by now but, here I am again, telling about another failure of post-fast maintenance.
In defense of what happened though I can say that, every fast experience, teaches me something about my body and how things work for me and my weight management.
What I realized is that after a prolonged fast my body goes into a famine-mode for about 3 weeks, after that food does not have the same appeal as the first three weeks. I guess it’s just a normal reaction after so many days abstaining from food. Makes sense though.
In 30 days of combined Dry and Water Fast I did not lose much, in terms of weight, but I was definitely feeling better than when I started. Chances were that when October started my mind just got hit with the fact that my parents were leaving the country to go back to Italy, leaving me here alone again. I didn’t handle the reality very well, I must admit; so I recall spending 3 days in bed crying and eating junk food. They say food is comfort but I wasn’t feeling better though….quite the opposite; my shrunk stomach was hurting me so much when I was eating those huge meals, and the excessive amount of sugar. In any case I kept on eating, and crying, and eating, till my stomach was not shrunk anymore and started to dilating… disproportionately!
To add more reasons to me giving up on controlling the amount of food eating, was an awful experience I went through during a long-weekend trip with a….ex-friend. Well we went out of town and let’s just say I came back home taking a coach-bus, what a jerk – you never know people till you travel together; that’s why I love solo-vacation! Anyhow, the whole situation really impacted my feelings, I felt hurt by his rude manners and words, and although he was clearly a moron, I could not deny myself of more food-comfort to relief some of the stress caused by this negative experience. And my weight and inches skyrocketed!
These past couple of months were not great for me, lots of stress combined with my ex breaking up with me, my parents moving out, their trip, long weekend nightmares, boring working days, lack of money, loneliness; well this combined to my famine-state after Fast made me gain back and more whatever I lost during the 30 days of my combined Dry/Water Fast.
What can I do? I tried to do a self-analysis of what happened, but does it really matter? Will I learn from my mistakes and don’t do it again? Most probably not….so I gave up on this too.
I do have the intention on starting soon a new Combined Dry / Water Fast, I’m aiming for tomorrow, which is November 1^st, 2017 – I got some chocolates today since is Halloween.
I have to say that lately I’m not craving food much as my usual, I think the past 30-Day Water Fast was great in terms of healing. The first 3 weeks after breaking a Fast are very critical, the body really craves for food like crazy, so imposing an extremely rigid maintenance protocol is crucial in those days, after 3 weeks or so, things get better….well at least this is what I experienced.
One thing I’m looking forward from the Fast is, not only my general well-being and the weight loss, but the reduced amount of sleep hours needed. I know that it was a concern for me initially, but now I’m enjoying watching TV in bed and working on my loom, so I usually fall asleep at midnight and in the morning I have hard time to wake up; I know it does sound as a contradiction but it is not!
Keeping a journal while fasting is very important, either on an online blog, YouTube videos, on paper, whatever works for you is ok, but those words will help you in the future; share your motivations, your feelings, how you reached your goal, how you felt when the Ketosis was fading away all the food cravings, leaving only the so desired mental clarity; all those words would help you in the future if you ever need it again. They did for me.

My daily struggles - #2

Something changed in my life in the previous weeks that affected the way I was feeling and also eating. I broke up with my boyfriend after almost 9 months dating, I had many episodes in the past when I wasn’t sure about our relationship (see this past post), but he was a great man and I thought, with the time, we could fall in love for each other. Oh well it didn’t happen, he gave up on us and – easily – said that there was no connection between us and no reason to keep on seeing each other. Although everything makes sense, it was no easy for me to accept the separation, without any tangible issue between us – we’ve been spending amazing time together – but I guess we were just good friends with no deep feelings.
I started to cry basically every day after we broke up and the food was my only consolation to this situation. I missed him and I still do. I felt sugar was hard to give up in those days, so I kept on eating so much junk food that my weight sky-rocket up to almost 70 Kg – not really sure the exact number since I’m always afraid to look at the scale when I see myself so fat, I'm like the Ostriches that bury their heads in the sand, I know.
It’s unfortunate how negative feelings can affect so much our perception of life, of health or caring about ourselves; but this is the reality for a lot of women, and I would like to think that I learnt something from this negative experience, but I’m sure I didn’t since I would do the same mistakes with the next guy, as I did in the past.
Today I find myself super overweight, as I never been before, single again in a city where it’s extremely tough meeting people, even tougher meeting a good guy. It sucks but I have to move on, I have to be stronger as much as I can and hope that this new fast is a way to heal from my heartbroken too and detoxify from all the lies I’ve been told in the past months.

A day for my Raw Vegan Diet

I didn't fast during this past weekend, mostly because my weight really didn't change much, well apart from today that I registered a 1.2Kg in gain! But I know why, that's due to the fact that I had my dinner at 10:30pm last night, eating 4 bananas, insane I know but I'm definitely weak when dealing with banana and peanut butter! But I promised myself to stick to my healthy habits today, lots of greens and water. Nothing sweet for dinner tonight, only vegetables, since I already had my portion of fruits in my breakfast and lunch, I should be ok to stick to the plan….hopefully.

Yesterday I prepared for the first time Raw Vegan Tahini, with a very simple recipe, well I improvised really. I don't have yet a Vitamix so I used my grinder to chop a bit the sesame seeds, then I passed them into the blender, but it was really not working very well without liquids, the blades were running without doing much, so I added enough water to let them spin a bit and work on the consistency of the Tahini, I also added few organic sundried tomatoes, parsley, a couple of celery leafs and a half tsp of nutritional yeast, but don't ask why because I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish, I never used before this nutritional yeast blend. In any case the Tahini came out better than my expectations, it was a lot and I was really pleased of the outcome; I used in my zucchini noodles for dinner adding some greens and diced tomatoes, I was in heaven!

My personal opinion of the vegetable noodles that I made with the spiralizer is that zucchini are the perfect choice for it, cucumbers not so much, they lose lots of water and really cucumbers are so much better when diced, well or at least I prefer them in small cubes rather than a spaghetti shape. From now on I don't think I will use the spiralizer for cucumbers, but I will look around looking for different vegetables maybe, something that can go nicely with the cucumbers, in case I want to mix them. 

HCG Diet - A farewell lunch that compromises my VLCD!

This morning I checked back again my weight and my ketosis, and obviously I registered 1Kg gain since last time. I didn't have doubts really, I had a terrible weekend in terms of food and I can always feel on my clothes if I'm gaining and not losing anything, and that's was the case.

Today I had a farewell lunch with my team, since on Monday I'll be starting with a different group. I had a huge Cobb salad, with chicken breast and salty bacon; I wasn't worried about neither the vegetables nor the meat but rather the dressing that I didn't feel asking to remove - me and my uncontrollable binge eating disorder. Sometime I look at people that leave half food in their plate, saying: I'm full, and I envy them, I recall almost like a dream the times when I was having only a small slice of pizza and feeling full. My cravings for sugar are still so strong, I even had a coffee with Stevia today; after knowing that I didn't get the job after all interviews I had in the past weeks - I felt depressed and disappointed, I know it can be just an excuse but all these things happening together and my boring days at work are giving me hard time to be disciplined. The coffee didn't taste the same though, this can be a good sign that getting rid of Stevia is possible for me, and I just need to stick to the plan and not having it for just few days, same thing with sugar and carbohydrates. Willpower this unknown…

At the Healthy Store downstairs my office, I also bought some capsules of Ginseng, without the coffee I felt really sleepy and slow this morning, and through the day as well, knowing that I have my Kung-Fu class this afternoon I felt I needed an extra boost of energy or I won't be able to do much. Of course this is not a guarantee that I will succeed anyway! I still suck but in my defense can be easily related to my lack of exercise.

Today I had a quick chat with one of my coworkers here, during my farewell lunch and I was asking her about the possibility to switch my career as an independent contractor; my work is 80% of my daily life, I don't have anything else really, my family is all in Italy and I'm here by myself with no even a pet anymore. Being obsessed with food or work is a natural human behaviour, trying to escape from boring routine and trying to improve with perfection details these aspects of my life – whatever is possible.

I often thought how food could be my comfort, my missing love, my soulmate, since I think about it all the times. And it might be true on some extends, I am not interested in building a romantic relationship right now and all my attentions go to food and work. I don't know why I'm isolating myself from the rest of the world, although some people might see it as depression, I don't feel depressed, sure I have anxiety when I eat badly or I don't feel motivated with my diet but I'm strong, I still want to go places, go shopping, watch funny movies, I still have strong career goals that I want to fulfill, I don't give up and I know I can lose all my weight with HCG so I don't want to give up, I still believe in this diet, I'm just trying to find my balance on everything around me that will allow me to find all the strengths I need to be skinny again.

R3P2 -VLCD #31 a new HCG Vial and my weight gain

It's been already 31 days on this 3^rd Round of HCG, time flies but my extra pounds not so much. Today I started a new vial of HCG, I felt the other solution, after a month of use, lost its potency. I cannot get anymore into Ketosis, I am hungry sometimes, my cravings are way more than usual, my mood is not great either and my weight seems stall since days now. It's frustrating.

This morning the scale reported a weight gain of 700gr! 700! Unbelievable! It's more than 1.5lb! How could that be possible with such a tiny amount of calories?! All right, in my partial-defense I should say that my stomach is acting weirdly lately, I tried to take so many probiotic, laxative teas, dulcolax, coffee – but nothing worked so far, at least not relevantly. It never happened to me before; really the probiotic and the smooth move teas are usually extremely effective, sometime even too much! Not this time though, just wondering if it's a reaction of my body for not releasing too much fat. I hope with this new HCG solution things will go better. I cannot keep on drinking caffeinated coffee, I start to bite my lips and the headaches for the withdrawal are always terrible.

Regardless of tomorrow outcome – weight or stomach department issues – on Saturday I will do an apple day. I will buy 6 big apples and cut all of them to eat it during the day, without much of water intake as well. I hope it will work, apples for me are a comfort food and I noticed that my body likes them very much, so much that I usually gain weight instead of losing it. I will give my hope on the new HCG vial potency to help me out on that. I should be fine in terms of temptations since Saturday I'm going on a short trip to St. Jacob's country, so I'll be on the bus all day, from 7:30 AM till late evening.

A while ago I estimated I would be in the 5X-fifties by now, it didn't happen; I'm re-estimating this target weight a couple of times already. I really want to leave this 6X-sixties number for good, my dresses are still not fitting and with this bowel movement's issues I feel like a balloon!

Wish me luck, I will update soon with my Apple Day results!

A bad day during Maintenance

Today is a bad day for me and my weight; I'm eating as I didn't have food from the past 2 weeks! I had a normal breakfast this morning, actually way more than the recommended amount. I had 500g of boiled broccoli with 1/3 cup of shredded non-fat cheese on it. The broccoli felt like nothing in my stomach, I had to eat something else later on because starving, so I went downstairs and I bought a Spinach & Feta Croissant, it was delicious! Knowing I had 500g of broccoli only for a meal made me think that my whole allowed amount for a day – during the strict diet – was only 460g of vegetables, barely nothing.

I brought my lunch in the office today, thinking that I should better save some money and prepare my own healthy food so I cooked a zucchini omelet yesterday and I had it with half whole wheat tortilla. Although I had the omelet, I felt still hungry after; water did not help, herbal teas did not help, decaf coffee did not help…not even the 2 Jell-Os helped! So I went again downstairs to buy another croissant and a pecan tart, my favourite. Needless to say that I don't feel right today, I usually cheat on my healthy diet with a protein bar or simply with bigger portions of my allowed food - but not recently, I'm off in motivation, I miss my ex-boyfriend, I'm looking at the holidays and at the snow storm outside and I feel sad. Food is my only comfort at the moment. Most likely I'll spend Christmas days by myself, as well as New Year's Day so I'm not in a general great mood lately.

I say: everything is an excuse though; I should be more focused in any case. I already attuned myself that first thing I want to do in January is going back to the strict Diet, it's expensive true but for me it was worth it, I was always starving, always weak but the scale was always rewarding, almost every morning! I want to learn again how to manage my weight before I gain everything back and I'm overweight at the point where I started.

Some days I really don't care about my extra pounds, some days I'm depressed for it. I think dieting is a very psychological stressing thing to do. You're against yourself, by yourself. Motivation has to come only from within or you won't stick to it. Most probably part of my motivation in the past months was my ex-boyfriend. Now he is not in my life anymore and I'm missing the boost portion that he was giving me every day struggling with my starvation. My period missing is oddly not alarming me much, it should though, and it's been almost 3 months now that I didn't have it. I should see a doctor and I'm not doing anything for it. With Christmas approaching the idea of say no to sweets is killing me so I won't pretend to myself that I'm that strong and I'll just try to resist as much as I can to the…extra not allowed!

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.