Day Fourteen

Scale told me I was 152.2 pounds today which means I gained 1.6 pounds since yesterday.... so me and the scale are no longer on speaking terms! Ahh I was so frustrated I could have cried. I ate everything like I should have yesterday, but after thinking about it I realized that all of my protein had come out of cans... which probably means really high sodium...which means my body is doing a huge "HAHA fooled you now, didn't I?!" victory dance all over my motivation levels. Dieting really sucks sometimes.

To make things positive though, I know that this is primarily (if not entirely) water weight and it will go away as my body flushes it out. There is absolutely no way that I consumed over 5,000 calories yesterday to equal a legitimate 1.6lb gain. I know this because I DID resist the amazing-looking cookies, potato chips, and cinnamon rolls available after lunch yesterday... did I mention dieting sucks? Ah well, this plan is working, I just have to be able to see past the daily fluctuations and just watch for the downward trend rather than get so hung up on each daily weight.

In other news, my BFF wants to get together for lunch and a movie or something on Tuesday. Yikes. I've kind of be staying low-key for exactly this reason. I really don't want to have to deal with restaurants overly much or have to explain over and over to her why I won't eat what she's eating. I guess I'll just have to explain how I'm eating now and hope that she'll be accommodating as far as our restaurant choices and quit tempting me with food I can't have. I guess I really just don't want to have to explain it to her. As a vegan, she really detests meat and will give me that "and what planet did you come from" look when I tell her that this is practically all protein-based.  Plus I don't want to engage her competitive nature and make her feel like she needs to get back to losing weight in order to "beat" me. (I paint her out to be a horrible person it seems like, but she's really not. These are just a few of her quirks that bug me quite a bit).

Guess I'll figure out what to do about that tomorrow! I suppose come clean and let her know that I'm actually trying to lose some weight is a start.

<3

Day Thirteen

Yay for veggie days!! After a pure protein day yesterday I stepped onto the scale today for a 0.4 pound loss to place me right at 150.6 pounds. That makes an 8 pound loss exactly since the start of this thing! My loss is definitely slowing down with the addition of vegetables. This is somewhat frustrating but expected, I just know my weight is on the downward trend and as long as I keep doing the right things I will see it all come off eventually!

As a bonus I'm starting to see my clothes fitting looser and looser. I can't wait to get out of the current pair of larger jeans that I have and start fitting back into my cuter jeans that I was wearing the last time I had semi-success with a diet. If only I can break into the 140's!

<3

Day Twelve

Scale read 151.2 this morning for a gain of 0.4 pounds. I expected this and it really isn't  too bad or out of the norm for my body to fluctuate this much off and on. I had eaten a ton yesterday compared to normal, so I was almost expecting a bigger gain. Thankfully that didn't happen so hopefully it'll continue to go down! I would love to be in the lower 140's or upper 130's by the time my birthday rolls around on August 22nd. Wishful thinking? It's my 21st and I want to look great! Unfortunately I can't control the rate at which my body grudgingly relinquishes each and every pound, haha.

Today was very busy, I worked really hard with my family on our old house trying to get all of the junk in the storage closets/bathroom drawers/miscellaneous stuff that didn't make the cut during the initial move out in the open so that we can evaluate what we want to do with it. It's one big mess and doesn't even look like we got much done today, even though we all worked on it for a long time. Being at another location made it difficult to fit food in, but I had some low-sodium turkey lunch meat for lunch and a steak cooked without the sauces and butter at a restaurant afterwards. I was quite moody from being exhausted and hungry and only being able to have the meat while I watched everyone else enjoy huge platters of their various orders, but after eating I felt satisfied and not overly full which was nice. It kind of evened out my mood a little and allowed me to just sit and enjoy the company of the people I was with, rather than stare at their plates enviously. I always feel bad for the poor waiter/waitress though, they're always so confused when I even refuse vegetables! Unfortunately today was a protein only day. I really need to get to a restaurant when I can eat veggies too!

Completely off diet topic: another aspect affecting my mood is comparing myself to my brother I suppose. He has always been the "bright star" of the family and I grew up in his shadow. He is about 3 years older than me and because of that he has always been about a level ahead of me as far as where he's at in life. He always beats me to these big events  (High school graduation, college graduation, first big job, etc.) and then by the time I get around to them it's kind of like old news in my family. For example, he just graduated the same University I'm going to with two degrees: one in Electrical Engineering, and the other in Computer Science. I consider these pretty major and impressive degrees and he's very good at what he does. Anyway, he got this highly competitive six month internship at Intel and they liked him so much that they hired him full time and offered to pay his way through his Master's Degree. I'm extremely proud of him and think it's awesome that everything he does seems to go his way, I just wish I didn't feel like I can't compare to that. My grandparents were in town today to help out and all they were asking about is how he's doing, what his job is like, and how cool all of that stuff is instead of asking what I'm up to in my degree. All I can boast about is how I got A's last term.  Oh well, I'll catch up eventually. This pity party needs to be over!

Tomorrow is another day.

<3

Day Eleven--First PV Day

Today I weighed 150.8 pounds. Soooo close to the 140's! I'll be so happy once I get back into that range again. 149something pounds was my previous "high" for my weight and  I've felt absolutely depressed that I let myself get over that by almost ten pounds this time. It's nice to have that almost taken care of! My new scale is still acting funky though, so I think I'm going to have to take it back and try another one. The old scale I was using documented a 0.8 pounds loss while the new one said only 0.4. Doesn't make any sense to me!

Today was pretty uneventful except I got to have vegetables! That was awesome, I had mini-bell peppers at lunch and asparagus at dinner. I felt extremely full after dinner though because of the extra option and I'm hoping the scale isn't mean to me in the morning. =/

Well I have a long day tomorrow! Apparently my family is going to attempt to fully move out of our old house and make it ready for selling. Oh boy.

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Day Ten--Last day of Attack!

Weight this morning: 151.6 pounds. YES! Down a pound since yesterday, which makes a total weight loss of 7 pounds in the last nine days. (Since I weigh in the mornings I subtract a day). Although I did have some scale confusion. That new scale that I mentioned buying in my last post weighed me in at 149.8 pounds. Wow! I definitely like the lower number, but I'm confused which one is actually correct? I will continue to use the new one purely for the convenience of its location, but I think I will continue to count the pounds lost as 7 from today, and then work my way down by whatever the new one shows. Maybe I'll check in with the other one now and then to make sure I'm still on track. At any rate, I want to lose about 40 more pounds, so I'm in this for the long haul. Sigh. 

The title pretty much says it all, today was my last day of Attack before moving on to the Cruise phase. I can't believe how excited I am for vegetables, but I'm sad that this means it will slow down my weight loss. I have really been loving the dramatic results the Attack phase has been giving me, even if some days I was discouraged. This makes me even more apprehensive about the slower weight loss as I was impatient enough the last ten days, haha. I've read a lot of blogs that talk about the transition and some people hit a plateau for weeks at a time before beginning to lose again during Cruise. I seriously hope that doesn't happen with my body, I think I would go crazy with impatience. 

I'm already calculating little mini-goal dates for me to be down around landmark weights and am looking forward to them. Like now? I'm happy I broke into the 140's (at least according to the new scale!), then I will be ecstatic when I break into the 130's, then the 120's! Once I get into that range I'll be feeling really confident and happy with how I look and then it's just a matter of losing the last few in order to reach my goal weight.. Oh how I'm looking forward to it! I saw this pair of small shorts in the store last night and I randomly blurted out that another one of my goals is to look good in a pair of those. I generally avoid shorts at all costs-- have for years because I have always been insecure about how I look. But I'm thinking next summer I can definitely rock some if I stay true to this diet and accomplish all of my goals. The real trick will be dealing with this though my 21st birthday next month and when school starts back up again at my University in about two months. Ick. At least I'll have a great head start!

Exercise-wise I haven't been the best ever since that killer workout with my mentor. I literally could barely move for a couple days and I think today is the first day I've had with barely a twinge when I move. Because of this, I set out for a walk that lasted about a half hour and I felt good about that.

Ah well, enough of the worry wort tonight. Time for sleep! 

<3

Day Nine-- What happened?

So, after being elated yesterday after a 1.2 pound loss, today I was brought back to reality. A 0.4 pound gain stared me in the face this morning when I stepped on the scale. My first thought was "oh well of course, I experimented a little yesterday. I actually enjoyed my food so it must be bad for me.." but that really shouldn't be it. I'm staying well within Dukan guidelines so this must just be a water weight thing. I know this logically, but it's just frustrating when I feel like I should see a loss every day as a reward for being good the previous day. Instant gratification is something I've always struggled with, I guess that's why I've found it difficult to stick with any workout routine for very long. My mindset is always "I want results, and I want them yesterday."

On a better note, I tried the brownies again today only using the correct brand of tofu, silken, and pureed them instead of trying to use a mixer. This helped out a ton and made the consistency much better. I also lowered the cooking temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 420. The result was okay, but I wasn't completely impressed. I suppose I'll search around some other recipes for acceptable desserts!

Completely unrelated, I was out shopping with my mom today and we came across a very attractive guy who was helping us. I got completely flustered and didn't know what to do with myself as I haven't had to deal with something like this in a long time. I even full-fledged blushed for no reason! (There are not very many attractive guys at my University-- a science school is unfortunately not brimming with  very many "manly" men). This also kind of  gave me a kick in the seat for my motivation to lose weight. A thinner me will be getting a lot more attention like that ;)

So yeah, all in all a quiet day. I got a new scale though which also dictates your water weight, which I am excited to try out in the morning. Hoping for better results!

<3

Day Eight (Start of Week Two!)

Woo-hoo!! Stepped on the scale today for a 1.2pound loss, putting me at 152.2 pounds. I can't tell you how relieved I was about this, since I was kind of dreading weighing myself. I think I was psyching myself out that restaurants=failure when attempting to lose weight, no matter how good you are about what you order.

Today I tried my first Dukan recipe experiments! One worked great, while the other was a complete failure. I guess I should explain what happened. First of all, I've been craving chocolate like none other, (self-diagnosed chocoholic here!), and I found a recipe for dukan-friendly brownies. Yes! (This can be found on "The Dukaners Forum" online where I just joined!) Anyway, I went out and bought all of the necessary ingredients and started to make them as soon as I got home. I ran into issues though as I tried to mix them all together. It was so clumpy! I tried for a very long time to get the Tofu to blend into the other ingredients but I must have been doing it all wrong because it just wouldn't completely mix. In the end, I think I must have gotten the wrong type of tofu. I did a little more research online and they recommend pureeing SILKEN tofu for desserts and sauces. Good to know for next time... anyway, that wasn't the only issue. The recipe says that you should bake the finished product at 420 degrees Fahrenheit (does that seem a little hot to anyone else?) for 20 minutes. Being a faithful recipe follower, I did what they said and mine turned out almost burnt-tasting and an altogether failure. Bummer! I think I'm going to give this one another try, however I'm going to attempt the different type of tofu and a lower baking temp.

My next experiment was for dinner: meatballs. I also found this recipe on the forum referenced above and decided to give it a try. While I was at the store I had picked up some Walden Farms tomato sauce, so this was a perfect opportunity to test it out. I had to be a little bit creative with this one because I was missing some of the ingredients, but it all turned out okay. I used turkey bacon in place of ham and also (very conservatively) used some low fat parmasan cheese and beef broth base instead of bouillon cubes. They turned out amazingly and were very filling! The sauce turned out kind of a bright red which kind of threw me off, but the taste wasn't bad at all. Let's just hope this truly is Dukan friendly with the scale tomorrow morning! I tried not using any of their products yesterday and ended up with a pretty big loss today, so I suppose what shows up on the scale tomorrow morning will be a big indicator of whether or not these affect my weight loss after all.

Other than my culinary attempts, there wasn't much to report for today. I wasn't as good with my water as I should have been I think. Somehow got distracted with all of the cooking/baking chaos, I suppose. Also, I've decided not to try out that weight lifting class tomorrow with my mentor's buddies. I'm just now starting to have normal function of my body and I really just don't think I can do that to myself again so soon. I think I prefer a more gradual build-up of exercise, not a sink-or-swim type of approach that leaves me practically paralyzed for two days afterward.

Total loss of 6.4 pounds!!! I think I should pinch myself.

<3

Day Seven

Well this was the end of a week of the Attack Phase... three more days and I will get to have veggies! I'm so excited! Weighed myself this morning for a loss of 0.4 pounds, putting me firmly at 153.4 pounds total. This makes for a loss of 5.2 pounds so far! It's difficult for me to get excited about a marginal loss like that, but it's better than nothing. Is it sad that I've only been at this for a week but I'm anxious to get out of the 150's already? I should be happy with the amazing loss I've had!

Today was kind of a difficult day. I've had issues with my moods as well as having to deal with my first dining out experience since starting this whole thing. It was to celebrate my brother getting an exciting job, so my family and I went out to a nice restaurant. Since my Dad and I are on this together, we decided that we would get the same thing with the necessary modifications in order to make it easier on the waiter. I mentioned that we should ask them not to cook it in butter, but my brother barked at me not to make things complicated and stop being "one of those people". That was harsh, so I stayed quiet and I'm fairly sure my steak was cooked in butter after all. I'm very annoyed at this point and wish I had stood up for myself more. Next time I guess, I just hope it doesn't affect what the scale says in the morning! My motivation for this diet is definitely influenced by that number.

Other than that, nothing really to report! I'm missing vegetables like crazy, among everything else. I also didn't add any of the Walden Farms products to my meals today in order to test out the theory of them affecting my weight loss. I'm not sure what affect the butter will have on this, but I guess we will see. I drank a ton of water today so maybe that will help counteract it? I'm feeling better physicallyand my clothes I think are fitting a lot more easily, though that may just be wishful thinking. Another positive note is that my body soreness is slowly getting better.

Here's hoping the scale is kind to me in the morning!

<3

Day 6--Disappointments

Well today didn't start off that great. Weighed in this morning and didn't lose anything since yesterday--still a weight of 153.8 pounds. This isn't horrible by any means because at least I didn't gain anything! It was still disappointing though, since I was growing used to watching the scale steadily show my weight decreasing. It has become the mantra that I repeat over and over in my head throughout the day, "If I eat well now, it will show tomorrow!" I can't figure out if this is a result of the Walden Farms products that I'm using, or the fact that I had that intense workout yesterday so maybe my body is freaking out at all of the stress. At any rate, it is what it is and that's still a weight loss of 5 pounds since Monday. Incredible! 

Today was a fairly good eating day. I generally have 2-3 meals throughout the day and today I had shrimp with seasoning and steak strips for breakfast/lunch. For dinner I had two eggs with a lean piece of steak and imagined my "galette" to be a pancake. Breakfast for dinner? Not complaining! This doesn't seem like a ton of food written down, but portion sizes were larger than typical for me and I eat until I am full. I also drank a ton of water today in an attempt to flush the toxins that are causing my muscles to hurt post-workout. Let's hope that makes for a better tomorrow!

On that note, today I have been in the worst workout-related pain ever. My entire body is sore, with my legs having the worst of it. I've been kind of hobbling around the house and staying pretty low-key just because it's so painful to get around. Sitting down, standing up, stairs, even walking is some level of excruciating. I guess that's definitely a sign that strength training class has an impact on your fitness, even though this is a bit extreme in my opinion. Apparently my muscles highly disagreed with my activity yesterday and are now letting me know quite loudly. I'm not sure I have the will-power to ever do a class like that again, although my mentor is pushing for me to attend another one on Tuesday with her buddies. 

I hope the scale has better news for me tomorrow. I could use the extra encouragement and reinforcement of my motivation!

<3

Day Five (Halfway Through Attack Phase!)

Well I made it through the dreaded workout! Before I talk about that though, I want to get down to my weight today. 153.8 pounds. That makes a 0.8 pound loss from yesterday, for a total of 5 pounds lost in about four days! This is incredible. I think it is slowing down a little, since I have had a couple days of decimal weight loss rather than whole pounds dripping off, but hey I’ll take it! I know this pace won’t last for long, but I wish it could. I’d be down to my idea weight in no time! I have five more days left on the “Attack Phase” of this plan and then I can move onto the “Cruise Phase” which incorporates veggies every other day! Never thought I’d be so excited at the prospect of eating veggies again–hellloooooo variety!

Also, I discovered an amazing brand called “Walden Farms” today. They’re alternatives to typical high calorie/carb/fat staples in everyone’s diet (i.e. mayo, BBQ sauce, even pancake syrup!). From what I can tell, they contain trace amounts of calories just because you actually are eating something, but not enough to be put on the label. At any rate,  they’re advertised as “0″ in all the places it matters so I’m psyched to have some variety back at least when dealing with all of the meat! I tried their BBQ sauce tonight and it was very good. Definitely an acceptable substitute, although when I looked up the other products I was interested in online they got very mixed taste reviews. I got the feeling that it is a very much love-it or hate-it brand.

Anyway, about my workout… let’s just say it was intense. My mentor was super helpful in getting me started, even setting up my area before I got there… But this class was no joke. I lasted for the first 25 minutes or so and then had to take a break. This was more than slightly embarrassing because I was the only one to do so, but everyone was really encouraging and after the class a lot of people told me that they hadn’t even made it the first 10-15 minutes through the class! Well that made me feel better. I went back in and worked some more, had to take one more quick break, and then back in to finish up the class. I can already feel my muscles starting to freak out at the abuse I put it through and I’m sure the morning won’t be any better. Ouch. What’s worse, (or better? I’m not sure), my mentor has introduced me to some of her SET/”Body Pump” buddies and they’re expecting me to keep going next week so that they can cheer me on! Ack! What did I get myself into? At least they’re all so nice about it…

<3