It's a wrap

Not sad to see the year go. It was better than the last, but not spectacularly so. In fact, tonight I'm feeling a bit lonesome and pensive. Mark's at the store, of course... Missing friends and family tonight, knowing nobody will call.

Moodiness aside, I've lost 82# this year. Not too shabby. Let's do it again (OK, maybe not that much, but I'd not refuse it if offered)! Let's hope the doc can figure out my gaining problem and then onward and upward.

Maybe this time next year I'll be closing out the year's blog with great reports of health, health, and more health!

I wish that for you.

Close call

Since my weight was firmly in the NuZone, this morning was a little rough. I really really really wanted a piece of cornbread with breakfast.

Then when we were doing errands, we were finishing at around lunch time, and Mark and Anna wanted to go out. To fast food ("Get behind me, Satan!")

I resisted both, though, and went home and had a salad for lunch, albeit somewhat glumly.

Whee!

Actually down! Maybe that's the secret--buy a steak in preparation for a steak day.

By the way

My face is on fire. I had peanut butter yesterday. I have had rosacea issues for a couple of years now, and I also now have facial breakouts when eating certain foods (berries and nuts). This never happened before hcg.

I'm starting to think this 80 pound weight loss comes at a very high cost.

I'm also thinking all my facial skin troubles are karmic retribution for having perfectly clear skin as a teenager.

Today

Weight unchanged from yesterday. I'm not all that excited, given as I starved myself! But, at least it's something.

Four days 'til I see the doctor. Please, let him find something workable!

Today

A full pound up, Pal.

I have nothing new to say about it.

Again...

Up a half a pound. I figure generally every day I have NO simple carbs, I gain half a pound. Every day I do, I gain way more than that.

This is not a normal situation.

Today I have some abnormal dental work, which will not only hurt, but necessitate the consumption of only soft foods for a few days. This won't be that great for my diet, methinks. Such as it is.

Ok, well I had a small piece of pie

Too bad it will make me gain 196 pounds for tomorrow.

Grrrrrr.

Back in the zone (for the moment)

Lame, lame, lame.

Stabilization, where art thou?

Steak days suck cow hooves

I'm just saying.

I know it sounds great. But it's not that one eats steak all day. One eats nothing all day (which isn't great if the one happens to have hypoglycemic tendencies), until dinner. Then one eats a steak and an apple.

Then nothing 'til the next day. And you'd think you'd not be hungry the rest of the day, but it doesn't work out.

Fuzzy math.

4.2

That is the difference in my weight on Christmas Eve and this morning. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Especially given I didn't eat much.

Yep, this sucks on toast.

So, no toast today--another steak day. I'm starving and weak. Lousy feeling. Exacerbated by the necessity of leaving my couch today. My back isn't happy, either. Ow. But, I'm home now, sacked out on the couch with a cup of tea while Anna paints. :)

When will my weight stabilliizzzzeeee (inject heavy whining)???

A friend posted a current picture

Of course I think I look like a firetruck in the middle left, but...? These images were taken about a year and a half apart. For some reason unknown to me but understood by computer scientists, the "before" pic is the last one. The first one in the "middle" one. The middle placed one is the current. Got it?

I forgot

How good cookies taste. I feel ok about taking tonight and tomorrow off. Yeah, it's a drag my body will likely react in an insane fashion. But it does anyway.

Glad I did the steak day, though. It opened a weight line of credit.

I hope the next cycle is more stable. Might be my last. Having the stabilization be effective would be way better than the alternative.

Merry Christmas, pal. Thanks for reading.

Steak day results

Down 3#. Don't get too excited 'cause that happens every time. Then each time within 3 days all the weight is back (and maybe more).

But maybe, just maybe it will stay down this time. Why not?

In any case, starting tonight I'm giving myself a furlough from dieting through Christmas Day. Then the 26th, back to business.

Merry Christmas!

steak day

Starving.

A little repieve

Down .6. Yay! I'm still way over where I should be, but the fact it went down makes me feel quite elated. So, for a moment I thought, Oh, thank goodness, I can skip the steak day today. But then I thought better of it. It's far better to get some breathing room for the next few days. A pasta Christmas Eve dinner, all day Christmas, and on the 27th, we're going to Seattle. So, starvation and weakness it is.

No way this is happening

Another full pound up. So, it's essentially a pound a day up, every day. Even if I were going wild--which I'm emphatically not--I could not be eating an extra 5,000 calories per day than my body can burn.

I'm doing everything right, so why is it all wrong?

Ok

After feeling really, really badly this morning, and going through the usual range of emotions when I get bad health news (Why doesn't my body work right? Why does this always happen to me? Why does God hate me?), I came to a conclusion.

All I can do is what I've been doing, wait to see the doctor (hope he can come up with something on Jan. 3), and hope my weight stabilizes--soon.

Am I missing anything?

Like...

...it's bound to stop soon. Right?

Gain is loss

Up another full pound. I'm now up 5# above my LIW.

All the people who keep telling me how proud they are of me, won't be anymore. And nobody will believe this really isn't my fault.

I hate this.

Big day tomorrow

Let us see if the weight has stabilized. Fingers crossed! I had no simple carbs today, though it was tough with the remaining party food in the house. I had a bad moment when Mark and Anna were chomping on fudge, but I decided against it. Tomorrow lunch will have carbs, and I can have a piece of fudge or three then.

One would think with such monastic discipline I'd be thin.

Should weigh...

but we had a party yesterday afternoon and some carbs were consumed. I'm going to hope/pray/try to stabilize at the 4# higher level. Sucks, but it is what it is. I need to remind myself that of course my metabolism is doing bad things, that's what got me into this mess to begin with! Sandra Normal is a whole other category. I'm off the map.

And that's just the way it is.

I'll weigh tomorrow.

The suggestion

I heard back again from the hcg consultant. She suggested I either keep going on the bi-weekly steak days to try and force a stabilization (feh), OR make a big move and declare today's weight my LIW, try and stabilize there and see how it works.

She said this situation isn't unheard of, that it does happen sometimes. And in the grand scheme of such a project, it's ok.

I guess (sniff sniff). But the question is, will it stabilize here, or in five minutes will all 85# be back? That's my fear.

A Big, Fat Problem

Again, all the weight I lost on the steak day is back, plus more.

This blows.

Not going to weigh today

I don't have the heart.

I remember now

Popcorn tastes really, really good.

This sucks

A pound back already. So I'm but .02 below the top of the zone. And about half an inch from hysteria.

Today is my first day of maintenance. Sadly, it's not a day of celebration for me.

I don't know what to do or why this is happening.

Inconceivable!

I may have detected a reason for my weight gain. My "allowed" foods list includes spices, specifically vanilla. So lately I've been adding vanilla extract to my yogurt. Tonight, on a whim, I picked up my bottle of "Pure Vanilla Extract."

Vanilla, Alcohol, Sugar.

(&&^&*^&*^))_)))

Back in the zone

Again. Now...STAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No weight yet

But no matter what, I'm happy no steak day today! Can't do two in a row. Yesterday was difficult--trying to run a few errands en route to the chiropractor, being hungry and wan.

Tomorrow we're taking Anna to her first "movie theatre movie." She does not know. She's only been to the drive-in. Once a year or so I deign to bring the dreaded beach chair. Thankfully, the huge theatre in my original hometown is set up for such things. I can sit in the back, top row, on the edge, and I'm scarcely noticed. I do feel like I'm eating hot coals until it gets dark though (self conscious).

My dad can even go, so it'll be fun. Tomorrow is my first maintenance day. I'm a little nervous, due to my body's behavior in not settling into the stabilization phase. Regardless, I'm going to try some popcorn tomorrow. I'm a little nervous. But crikey, people...POPCORN! I haven't had anything like that since early October.

Ok, one more thing

Hello Brazil and Malaysia! Thanks for reading. Drop by anytime.

Made it through

...another steak day. Golly, I loathe them. Let's hope this does whatever it's supposed to do, and does it properly this time.

Two different people today described me as heroic and inspirational, respectively, due to my health problems and "what I've accomplished" in spite of it. Wow. If they only knew what I could accomplish were I not hampered by constant, unrelenting pain (with a generous side order of insidious fatigue).

Ok, that, or their standards are really low.

Wish I'd thought of that

I just heard back! The rx: do another steak day (and call me in the morning?).

Steak day revisited

I loathe these. I'm sooooo hungry already. I'm most concerned today about running errands late in the day (culminating in a much needed chiropractor appointment).

I left a message for the office, but I'm not counting on a reply.

:(

Worried and Unhappy

Every ounce I lost on the steak day is back. Heck, it's almost a pound up from yesterday.

I've not eaten a bite out of line. I neither understand why this is happening, nor know what I can do about it.

My doctor's office is closed for the holidays. Oh--the holidays! I've been planning on having a few meals "off" (completely legal, by the way), but now...?!

This sucks.

Again

All the weight I lost on the dreaded steak day is back. So I'm 1.5# above the zone again. Why? I have no idea.

But I'm worried. If I'm gaining weight on stabilization, without any carb whatsoever...?

Oops

I didn't write down my weight yesterday. And now I'm worried it wasn't in the zone! But I can't remember.

Drat this darned Joslyn pre-senility gene!

Why is this so hard?

All XLs are not created equal

I received my super cool, super sale long sleeved t-shirt from Lands' End today. I thought, since I have a couple of items that are standard XL (not Plus 1x), I'd order it, figuring if it's tight, that's ok, as I'll be back in the saddle in seven weeks anyhow.

Hoo boy, it's tight. My top half looks like a cartoon drawing of a woman. I thought it was comical; Mark thought I should wear it all the time.

Letch.

Grrr

Up .6, though still in the zone. It's annoying 'cause yesterday I didn't eat much.

Sigh.

Steak day results

HELLO, ZONE!

And, hello breakfast. :)

steak days suck

I'm hoping to see a zone number tomorrow. Hear me, body? Body, can I have a word in the kitchen?

It's not even noon yet

...and the steak day is not going so well. I'm weak-hungry, feel a little dizzy and headachy. :( The worst of it is, I have to go run around for a long while.

Sigh.

Weight again the same

Urgh. I was hoping for a gallows reprieve from today's steak day. But I'm not in the zone, and the zone beckons me.

Too bad low blood sugar, headaches and fatigue embrace me when I don't eat. Something else to blame my parents for: hypoglycemia. :-}

Whoa!

It's not all that long 'til I'm back in the saddle again. Kinda scary, really. It's mid-December, basically. And, as the calendar flies, I'm back on the misery train first week of February.

I'm of two minds, really. On one hand, I'm not even to maintenance yet (one more week, come on, pizza!), and I still feel painfully fatigued. And yet, one more big push to get me to my tentative goal...seems doable.

Not that I'm convinced ridding myself of the bulk of my bulk is a cure for anything these days. Back pain=unchanged. Fatigue issues=unchanged.

Nevertheless, I feel it's something I am to do. Maybe I could save time and money and just repeatedly staple my eye with a staple gun. It would feel as good.

Steak day tomorrow?!

I forgot! Ack! Must I? Yeah, probably so. :-(

I'm still hoping the scale reads lower tomorrow regardless. That'd be good.

Today somebody asked me how much weight I've lost. "About 85 pounds." (I hate saying this because it's embarrassing to have lost that much and still look like Albert from Hitch but without the dance moves). She said, "WHAT?!" For a moment she looked disoriented as her eyes cast wildly about my person. Embarrassed, I muttered, "I know...it's embarrassing...still fat..." She said, "No, you're not" in a matter-of-fact way. She said she didn't think I had that much to lose to begin with and that she's always so wrapped up with herself she hadn't really noticed. Lol!

Interesting.

Yay!

.8 down. Good deal. Still hovering above the zone, but the dreaded Steak Day should repair it.

Too tired to be coherent (but when has that stopped me?)

I'm not giving up on my weight.

If my weight isn't down tomorrow

I'm going to add the cream back in my tea. I'm just saying.

So I'm thinking about branching out and doing another blog, one on chronic pain/illness.

Thoughts?

Today's weight

Same as yesterday.

Bollucks!

The weight was not good. I suppose I'll just skip my ranting and raving about how unfair it is. Just assume it's here: ()*^^^%&^$%*^%_(*)(*()_))_(

Ok, that's done. So I'm 2# over the top of the zone. Wait....(&^&*%&^&^^&^. Ok, I'm back.

So, Thursday will be a steak day. I cannot manage it today or tomorrow. I'm having enough fatigue and pain issues without that. Thursday is the best day to suffer extra.

In the meantime, I'm cutting back calories and increasing water and hoping it takes care of itself. Still planning on a steak day, though. For once, can't I be at the low end of the zone?

Nearly half way...

...through stabilization. Whee! I'm going to weigh Monday. First time since going on stabilization. Please say a prayer for me! I'm hoping all's well, but being a realist, and having my complete library as reference....

We shall see!

I'm getting slightly bored with the limited variety, but it's still better than before! :)

Kinda cool to think about the results of going on the program again this winter. Hate the program and no mistake, Mr. Frodo, but the results cannot be mocked.

To think...in all likelihood, in a few more months I'll be back to my "wedding weight." What a trip.

It's easier, but I wish it were different

Went to my friends' house last night for a dinner meeting. My friend is an AWESOME cook, but as usual, I didn't get to eat any of it. It sincerely bothers me *less* than it used to (probably being on stabilization and not being ravenously hungry right now helps). And I can joke about it and mean it, but still, it's tiresome.

What's also tiresome is the reality that I'll have to monitor what I eat very carefully the rest of my life. While most can have carb with every meal (even a modest amount), I can't. Even under the best circumstances, I can only have a little, a time or two a week. It takes a lot of planning, which is fine, I guess (that's how I roll), but still....

I guess I've never grown out of the thinking life ought to be fair and easy and good for everybody all the time.

Two weeks 'til pizza!

Soon we shall see

My happy fun time has arrived. So, in a few days, I'll have to face the music and see if the stabilization program has been doing as it ought. I sure hope so!

Yesterday in Sequim was tough. Muchus nummus was on hand at Costco. They pulled out the big guns for the samples. And I was in pain, hungry, thirsty and very tired. But I held the line.