Diet Diary: Week One

 

Like the multitude of ants I kill trying to infiltrate my house for sustenance, I find myself constantly trying to find a solution to my weight. Now knowing that I have hypothyroidism, I at least have a sense of peace as to why I gained so much weight so quickly. That does not mean I have to lie down and accept that my pant size has grown by three sizes. Oh hell no, I refuse to go down ( or up ) without a fight.

I've tried cutting calories. No go. I've tried a liquid diet. Nothing. I've tried intense workouts five times a week. While my stamina is much better and I can Zumba anyones pants off, my scale still laughs at me. Bastard. I've tried a bunch of things that haven't worked, even with my new thyroid medicine ( granted its still new and I'm sure will need adjusting at some level, but I'm an impatient bitch).

But recently I found something new that actually seems medically logical to work. I'm not here to advertise it, so if you want more info, you can email me. But the logic behind this plan seems, well, logical. It's a plan that combines a lot of things both J and I have heard over the years to help with healthy weight loss and a healthy lifestyle all wrapped into one.

Essentially, it states that most of the food we eat nowadays is filled with high fructose corn syrup, and other fatty things, that are hard for your liver and colon to digest. Because of this, over time, your body stores a lot of fat that it can't deal with, because the liver and colon start to get clogged and can't keep up. Or something like that. Bear with me, I'm working on the barest of caffeine here.

So in order to effectively lose weight and get healthy, you have to clean out your liver and colon first.  Once that is done, you then work on eating organic foods, or foods without the additives, with cheat days built in so you can still eat yummy, fat inducing foods once in awhile.

There are three phases: raw diet, cleanse, and undiet. Phase one takes two weeks. Phase two will take three days, and phase three is for six months, or however longer you wish to continue.


This is a seriously hardcore, life changing thing to try, so J was kind enough to do it with me. Without him, I probably would have fallen off the bandwagon after day one. It involves multiple trips to the health food stores, trying new things, and being mentally strong enough to not nibble at the boys hamburgers while we sit there and crunch on radishes.

I waited to blog about this until we had gotten halfway through Phase One to see if it was something we could stick with, and if it was even worth blogging about. We hit our halfway mark this morning with decent results ( and no cheating!!!) so here is what we've been doing.

Phase One is a vegan raw diet, only we can not have grains of any kind. All we are allowed to eat for two weeks are organic veggies, fruits, nuts, and cooked beans from scratch. No dairy, no grains, nothing cooked ( except our beans ). No coffee, no alcohol, no salad dressing, unless we concoct our own using the only two oils allowed, extra virgin olive, and coconut oil.

We can eat as much as we want of these things, while drinking water and herbal tea. It sounds simple.  It is simple. But after the excitement of trying something new wears off, roughly five hours and your stomach is yelling at you, it gets boring. REALLY boring. Despite the plethora of fruits and veggies out there, there is only so much you can do with them without using your stove. I love love love asparagus on a regular day, but I refuse to eat them raw. And broccoli without dressing dip? Thanks, but I'm all set. For the last few days I've been living off clementines, walnuts, spinach leaves, and beans. Breakfast? Usually a cup of beans with a touch of garlic powder and pepper, a water bottle of filtered water, nuts, and a teeny tiny clementine. You know, the ones you feed to dolls when you play house.  Lunch is a salad with homemade dressing. Dinner is a handful of apricots, maybe some beans thrown in if I'm starving.


It's not pretty folks.

It's a war tactic to force your body into shock, while at the same time trying to rewire your brain into the belief that 14 bean soup is as yummy as your chocolate stash when you have Aunt Flo coming to visit in the next day or two. Waterboarding has nothing on this diet in regards to torture.


The first four days were excruciating. All I fantasized about was fried chicken, and I dreamt of cheeseburgers floating into my mouth, while fries danced on the sidelines, whipping their starched hair in fountains of soda. The headaches from lack of caffeine were killer, as was my mood. I had zero tolerance for rough housing mornings without my cup of coffee. But the worst was when we went to a Trunk or Treat and our favorite, mouth watering butcher shop was there, offering freebies of the steak tips my whole family would kill over. Right off the fucking grill. It was devastating to watch the boys down their juicy tender hunks of perfectly grilled meat and we couldn't even have a nibble. It took all the will power we parental units had to not cheat and quietly scarf that last piece of perfect beef that Soren decided he didn't want to finish.

However, I knew I hit a mental mile mark the other day, as I was cooking up Hamburger Helper for the boys. As I started browning the meat, I noticed my nose wrinkling at the smell wafting towards me. By the time I was stirring the faux cheese and milk into noodles and burger, I was quite nauseous. I came to the conclusion, as I stood there, arms out as far as I could go and still stir the concoction, that I would probably never view Hamburger Helper the same way again, let alone eat it. The situation reminded me of when I was pregnant and couldn't deal with certain odors.

And the other bonus was that I got to measure myself last night, after a week of food hell, and lost both an inch in my waist and chest, but also five pounds. Not too shabby for only a week. It was at least enough incentive for me to continue on this journey.

I'll keep an update going on my progress. I've got one more week on this raw diet before I do the next phase: The Cleanse.


 Ooof.