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.

After a Water Fasting - The good intentions

Today I was thinking that there's no better way to start a healthy lifestyle than having a clear list of all the good intentions once the Water Fast is completed (bear with me and my lists – I am a real example of a person with OCD).

So I came up with a list of things that I hope I will be able to avoid for good going forward, mostly because in the past they triggered my binge episodes and also – more importantly – because not in line with my idea of healthy Diet. In summary here's my food-to-avoid draft list:

• No coffee / caffeine
• No sugar (this is really tough but I have no choice)
• No sweeteners (maybe one or two drops of stevia once in a while)
• No processed food
• No alcohol (I don't really mind this one since I never been a drinker)
• No meat
• No animal derived food (another tough one especially when it comes to cheese and eggs, but I'll try my best)
• No nuts (extremely tough, I might allow myself to some raw nuts in rare occasions)
• Highly reduce root vegetables (I don't mind onions or garlic but carrots are rich of sugar and I should be careful with those – I don't care about potatoes really)
• No salt
• No oil (I might try to create my own recipe for dressing with raw apple cider vinegar)
• Highly reduce dry spices (they might help on developing dehydration in my body so better avoid them as much as I can)
• No supplements (I'm still debating on the MSN and the D+Calcium though)
• No drugs (unless really required – I never abused them but I will try to be more careful going forward, I believe those are toxics for my body, especially antibiotics)
• No gluten (this is another tough one and I might have some carbs inevitably here and there somehow)
• No fish or sea fruits (tough but doable)
• No breakfast (I want to try to maintain an Intermitting Fasting regiment IF, at least for a certain amount of months following my Water Fasting journey)

Ok, so reading at this list the first question that comes into my mind is: What else's is left really? But soon I'll post a list of what I will actually not deprive myself adopting my new healthy lifestyle. I do want to think that going forward, when my relationship with food is stable, as well as my weight; I will be able to allow myself anything I want, in moderation and just as exception.

Failing, Binging and Fasting

I'm here to report that in the past 2/3 days I had few binge episodes unfortunately, not sure how or when everything started, I think when I just allowed myself to go off the protocol for the first time in this Round #3, and then I was off the wagon. In the past days I had few white sugar food as well as bread, pizza and pasta dishes that I did not have since a while. This morning when I woke up and saw my face and my eyes – they were kind of swallowing; my face is still now bigger than usual, like I gained 5 pounds but only on my face! My eyes were tired and wrinkly – more than the usual at least. I think it was for the food but it was strange to see such a drastic change overnight, and the rest of my body is not affected in the same way, is not that I see such more fat all over me, mostly on my face. I feel warm only on my face, it's a strange feeling, so strange that I'm questioning if I got any allergic reaction from something that I ate. Like all the junk food maybe?

Anyhow, today – as any binge eater and her insane purging behaviour – I decided to do a 72 hours water fast. Mostly to get rid of the coffee and the Stevia taste, trying to get back into Ketosis for good. I hope I'll be able to make these 72 hours – let's face it, it's tough for anyone, for a binge eater even more.

Good news though is that so far I don't feel much hungry, it's 2pm and I didn't eat since yesterday evening, I had few glasses of water but not as much as I used to, in my defense is this new office that I'm not familiar yet, I don't have my bottle so I am always using a mug borrowed from the kitchen. Maybe next time I'll have my own bottle.

So far I hate this place, I don't have my desk – here is a first come first serve basis. But let me tell you: just BS! Because people end up sitting always in the same spot and if you (new person in the team), come along "stealing" desks well then people will start to complain. Another thing that I hate about this place is the fact that there's any allocated space where to keep my stuff! Where am I supposed to keep my shoes?! My bag with tooth brush and tooth paste? Just crazy for me, apparently there's a long waiting list to have a drawer. I hate this place so far, if I keep on bringing back and forth my laptop I will need a chiropractor by the end of the year.

HCG Diet - Avoiding fruit to remove sugar cravings

Last week one of my coworkers here in office brought me a little bag of apples that she got at the farmer's market during the weekend. Although I appreciated much the gesture those apples caused me lots of issues during the days I was eating them, so much that now I had to cut completely any type of fruit from my HCG Diet. The problem that I have with apples is common to many HCG-ers, and maybe other dieters I don't know. Apples are very sweet and high in carbs, even with just having one apple a day my cravings curbed uncontrollably; I started to crave sugar more and more, I had an ice-cream on Saturday, the coconut chocolate bar that was in my drawer on Friday, I had a chocolate protein bar on Sunday as well as tons of pecans and almonds mixed with cocoa and my Greek yogurt last night. I couldn't stand the urge of eating sugar, the more I was desiring the more Stevia I was drinking to cope with my cravings, it was terrible, and because of all these bad food choices I had over the weekend, I did not take HCG yesterday and also it's been now 2/3 days without me checking my weight. The psychological impact on seeing the scale going up would be devastating to me, so I'm holding for now and trying to get back into ketosis and strict HCG Diet, or as they call it: POP – Perfect On Protocol.

From now on - and most likely for the whole P2 phase - I will not have fruit, instead I'm adding plain 0% Greek yogurt, here and there, but just ¼ of a cup as breakfast snack and maybe late night treat. I'm not concerned much about the missing fruit really, because I know that without fruit and grissini or Melba toast, I can have an extra serving of vegetables without compromising my weight loss. This morning for breakfast I had half peeled cucumber, it was absolutely delicious, but of course when you're hungry everything taste good!

Right now is almost lunch time and I'm starving, not sure if it's a HCG dosage issue or just the recent changes I had in my diet, I'm trying to drink something without Stevia but really this coffee is absolutely disgusting, so much that my water in comparison never tasted so good instead. I know that takes time to get used to a new flavour, to trick your brain on what it is expecting to drink and what I am actually drinking, but maybe I should not start with coffee, maybe the various types of sweet teas could work better in this adaptation phase. Wish me luck!

HCG Diet - Is Stevia affecting your Ketosis?

It turned out that all the Stevia I was having was keeping me out of Ketosis, how I did not see this thing before I am still unsure. Today, of course, I have everything clear in my mind – the Stevia, the fruit, everything fits perfectly in my puzzle of missing weight losses.

Stevia is a strong sweetener and if you never had before, first impact is really powerful, after a while – as everything else – you can get used to it. I started using Stevia with my first Round of HCG and at that time I was having only a couple of drops. After using it for so many months the amount increased gradually, the taste became so familiar and so delicious that I was adding 10/15 big drops in anything I was drinking, this count for up to 15/20 times a day! You can imagine that having such a constant sweet taste on everything I was having couldn't possibly let me go into Ketosis, so in this round – despite avoiding altogether the grissini and the melba toast – I never been able to reach a good level of burning fat, this thing was somehow puzzling me since first VLCD days, but I thought it might due to the large amount of liquids or just the inaccuracy of the Ketostix.

Switching to 15/20 highly sweet drinks a day to basically zero is not an easy task to do, I had to mentally prepare myself for this change – I tend to do a mental preparation on lots of things I do anyway, it may work differently for other people. But what helped me in this hard task it's been a YouTube video that I watched the other night, a girl that was using Stevia since 9 years! She quit one day, not for ketogenic reasons but just for the realization that here, we're trying to avoid sweets and sugar and at the end we consume such a big amount of this sweetener that confuses and tricks our taste buds like regular sugar. This concept made so much sense to me! Am I avoiding sugar giving to my body lots of sweet things? How this thing actually can be logic? It wasn't and what made me understand what was the best way to get rid of the Stevia was something she said in the video. She admitted that, the first time she tasted something without Stevia, it didn't taste right at the first sip but on the second one she thought was better to focus on what she was drinking, rather than what was missing in it, so she started to discover new flavours, enjoying teas, coffees and everything else in their natural form, in their true flavour.  

So today is my first day Stevia free, everything tastes awful of course but I'm sure I'll get used to it, I want to enjoy a black coffee as it is, a green tea or a chamomile for what they are and not for what Stevia make them taste like. Another drinking option I am seriously thinking on having regularly is a warm broth, rich in protein and tasty. I hope this change will help me getting into Ketosis soon and maybe one day, during P4 I can start again on using some Stevia here and there.

HCG Diet - Loading Phase and my food list for it

The Loading Phase is an important step of the HCG Diet, if not done properly could compromise the whole round, because - let's face it - if you're starving how many chances on succeeding you have?

So here comes the gorge phase, where you take HCG injections that will help you saturate your blood with as much fat as you can, your reserves for when no fat at all will ever come, not even through your dry broken skin – since no creams with oil are allowed during the Diet.

When I started my HCG Journey with my first Round I made a list of food items I should buy to eat during the loading Phase. Here's my original list:

1. Walnuts (based on my researches the nuts with the highest amount of fat)

2. Eggs + Egg whites (I usually prepare some mini-frittata in the oven with it – lots of proteins and fats)

3. Various cured meats (pork mostly – high in fat)

4. Cheese (different types, mostly those high in fat)

5. Pancetta/bacon

6. Sour cream (the one high in fat % – I use it for the mini-frittata as dip)

7. Cottage cheese (the one high in fat %)

8. Chicken with skin

9. Quest Protein bars (the ones with Stevia – avoid aspartame/sucralose)

10. Cheese Sticks/Snacks

TO PREPARE FOR THE LOADING DAYS

1. Mini frittata (adding pancetta/bacon and cheese to it or any pork meat available, lots of olive oil to add – I cooked them in muffin-trays so they become almost bite-size)

2. Chicken with added fats (skin NOT removed, lots of olive oil to add)

3. Boiled Eggs for snacks

Those ingredients are very easy to cook; I mostly mix them and put in the oven with lots of oil and butter. I try to avoid having junk food or sugar; I don't even eat bread so I can get into Ketosis faster once on the VLCD. I have enough to eat in the Loading Days so my cravings are under control, my only indulgence is the Cottage Cheese that I eat with unsweetened cacao powder and a couple of drops of Stevia – that would be my "dessert" during the gorge days.

I read a lot of people eating just spaghetti, pasta, pizza, chocolate bars, chips, or all those candy bars that do not add anything good to a Loading Phase. Where is the high fat content? I don't think stuffing ourselves with sugar and grain is a wise idea, it defeats the purpose of the load!

Back in Ketosis

Here I am again, after almost 1 year since I started my Dr. Bernstein Diet Journey for the very first time. I guess it's not a surprise saying that I gained back all that I lost in my previous tentative with the Diet…..and some more!

Some updates: I joined a gym since December 2014, I'm trying to go regularly, but some weeks are better than others I would say, even though I always enjoy going and the after-feeling is rewarding every time.

I'm back on the strict since 2 weeks now; I did not lose much so far, maybe 3/4 pounds I guess. This time around I've lots of difficulties to give up my coffee addiction and all those cream, half and half, fat milk that go with it.

I learned that going on and off from the Diet makes you lose faith in the Diet itself, so I would not suggest doing that when possible. It's a strict and expensive Diet, it must to be taken seriously - otherwise it's just a waste of money, time and stress for the body.

I figured now how to be in ketosis easier, just removing completely the carbs from my daily food. No bread, no crackers….not that I ever had a lot anyway.

Being in Ketosis is a fundamental thing in this Diet; never ever underestimate the importance to be in Ketosis during this treatment.

If you follow the Diet, eating small amounts of food as prescribed, but you're not in Ketosis, sure as hell your metabolism is going to drop instantly – and there's nothing worse than a slow metabolism for whom is struggling to lose weight….or maintain it for that matter.

Being in a Ketogenic status means that your body is burning fat – which is what everyone wants – not only that, it guarantees you that your metabolism is running. In a very similar way, when you have lots of muscles your body burns fat even when you're sleeping, your metabolism is high and you don't gain weight.

A slow metabolism has opposite outcome…

It is for this reason that first thing in this Diet is: being in Ketosis. If you're not in Ketosis I would suggest you to try to remove all the carbs, change type of vegetables, don't eat sugar in any form (included fruits). This should not being seen as a punishment or anything – it is extremely important to guarantee that your body burns every day of your Diet, even if it's just a little.

This will be easier to understand when you will be off from the strict Diet and even an extra apple will make you gain weight. I had to pay (in many senses) this situation on my own skin, my metabolism is messed up and losing even 1 single pound is a struggle. Maintenance is a dream for now!