The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[nickieluv]

Well, today I'm sick. I suppose it's a coincidence that after one day on plan I get a sore throat. And it could have been a carry over from all the sugar I was shoving down my throat the few days prior to that. I couldn't even talk when I woke up to get the baby in the middle of the night. It's a little better now, but I'm on vocal rest as much as possible because I'm supposed to lead caroling downtown this afternoon. Down almost 6 pounds this morning (I know, I was only going to weigh in once a week, but who am I kidding with that? If I can cut down to once a day that would be a miracle!). Off I go - will check in later I'm sure.

[nickieluv]

Ugh. I hurt. Well, my throat hurts. Caroling in the freezing cold killed it. And I have a terrible headache. I never get headaches. And I feel really tired.

How lovely to have sickness symptoms along with the crap you get in the early days of MF.

I'm doing great with my eating, though. I think doing the 6 and 0 makes me feel like I have a little more freedom. I know that I'm on a really low calorie version of the plan, so I don't feel guilty if I have a snack (the allowed kind) each day. And also, I've had one bite of my husband's dinner (just the meat) each evening, and really savored that one little taste, and not wanted to gorge myself. I'm kind of working up to having a L&G of my own. I won't be 6 and 0 forever - but as long as it's working for my brain to do this, I'll keep doing it.

Well, I have a little bit of cleaning left to do in the kitchen, one more meal to eat, and then I'm going to bed. Hopefully some of the symptoms I'm having will be better, or totally gone, by the morning.

[DutchChoc]

Interesting catching up in nickeluv's journal since I was here Wednesday or Thursday! I particularly enjoyed the thoughts about the fear of being thin - which I share in ways, but different ways. I "fear" being the same bore I feel I am now in a better-looking body - how cool is it to look good but be a bore, hehe? That's how it works for me - STILL have a hard time on those grounds, with more people interested in interacting with me - so it becomes an undue hardship almost.

I'm glad you decided not to wait until after Christmas, etc, glad you found a reward system that will work for you, and all that! Hope you're having a good day and will be properly rewarded.

[nickieluv]

Ahh, comfort food. Invented for sick days. My problem is that I used to eat comfort food for every meal of every day, sick or not. 1/4 pounder I could have resisted - but did she have fries? McD's fries I cannot resist. Well, OK, I can, but it's hard.

I feel cruddy still. My throat feels like there are razor blades in there every time I swallow. So of course being on a liquid diet and drinking 3L of water a day is a real picnic. It's probably good for me, though. That's what I'll say. I guess I'll try some pain reliever - maybe that will help the throat, maybe not, but it might help the headache at the very least. And my husband is sweetly allowing me to take it easy today - I'll be headed upstairs for a nap in a few minutes. That will be lovely.

On the 6/0 - I have felt more in control in the first three days doing it this way. I don't know if the sickness is part of it - hard to crave bad foods when swallowing hurts. Except ice cream, I guess. But I'm having soothing meals like cocoa, stew, chocolate shakes - that's kind of like comfort food in it's own way, too.

So I've tried the new bars. The first chocolate mint I had, I didn't like, but then a couple days later I had another one and it was good. I think when you're expecting the texture of the old chocolate mint bar, that throws off your tastes. I'm saving the peanut butter bars for last, because I think those are my new favorites - and I don't care for the caramel ones. So I'm glad I didn't buy a case or anything! They are different from the old bars - more of a granola bar type thing - but it's not bad at all.

Well, I'm off for the day. Not sure if I'll be back on - hard to say, depends on how out of it I am after my nap. Oh, and I've lost 9.4 pounds in my first two days - which has me very optimistic that a lot of the weight gain in the last several weeks was just bloating or water retention. I did not expect to lose so much so fast. Although from others in their first week, that probably means I'll stop losing the rest of the week. But I'll still take almost 10 pounds in the first week!

[DutchChoc]

Yes, I found it quite useful yesterday early afternoon to take a nap rather than to have another shake when I was "hunrgy". I was in no worse shape when I woke up, hunger-wise, of course, and I'm really trying to convince myself that some of this adjustment has to include not always being able to address hunger. Darn, hate that! Take care nickieluv! You're going at an amazing speed.

[nickieluv]

I want to eat tonight. My schedule got thrown off by the disastrous nap - it took 2 hours before I could even fall asleep because of the kids - older one running around and not napping, younger one in a talkative mood today (read - shouting happily over and over again). I did finally get some sleep but not as much as I would have liked. So I'm still tired and not feeling well.

I have to eat two more times tonight, and I'm going to have a L&G just in case my body needs some more energy to get me through this sickness. I'm planning to finish the day with a cocoa. I'm doing well on my water, two more glasses to have tonight. I hope that the L&G doesn't cause problems tomorrow. I'm sure I'll be fine tonight, since I'll be going to bed not long after.

I did take some medicine after my nap - it took a half hour to kick in, finally my throat was not hurting, but now only two hours after taking it the effect is wearing off. I can't take it again until 9, and I probably won't be awake then. Woe is me, right? Well, time will pass and I'll feel better eventually. Good night for now.

[nickieluv]

BTW, sorry to be so self-absorbed lately. I promise I'll be less whiny and more supportive here when I'm feeling better.

[DutchChoc]

Not a problem! I took my nap again and when I woke up, I decided I would eat again today - which turned into a legal L&G, maybe not enough protein, but at least about half a cucumber, some tomato slices, a green onion, small piece of hard cheese, and 1 T blue cheese dressing. Did not have any lettuce in the house. Anyhow, it tasted great - that, and some vegetarian bouillion. I do feel much better having something (and I'm not sick).

BTW, I think I figured out that if I let my shake get gloggy, I hate the thought of having the next one, so that's something to avoid.

Hope you feel better tomorrow.

[katieb920]

BTW, sorry to be so self-absorbed lately. I promise I'll be less whiny and more supportive here when I'm feeling better.

Girl this is your JOURNAl. Be whiney.

[DogMa]

That's what I was going to say, too. It's your journal. You can be as self-absorbed as you WANT here. I kinda see mine as a diary, but one that other people sometimes comment on. But it's all about mememe.

[nickieluv]

Thanks ladies. I always feel guilty when I'm more of a giver than a taker, that's all. That's across the board in my life, not just here. Even tonight, I'm just typing here - I read all the other posts, but I didn't feel like typing in responses so I'm not. And I feel bad about it.

I had one MF meal today and then - yep. I didn't feel driven to do it or anything, though - it was an experiment. I didn't eat anything else all day. Now, is this healthy? No way, obviously. And I was thinking about it and saying to myself that I don't know why I keep doing this - but then it hit me. I know exactly why I keep doing it.

I am trying to prove that I am in control, that I am the exception to the rule, and that when I am at goal I can continue to eat like a pig and maintain my new weight.

So the experiment goes like this - I had a great 3 days, lost over 10 pounds, so what harm will it do if I go off plan today for just one meal, in a controlled way, and don't eat anything the rest of the day but max out my water intake? I might be up a bit tomorrow, but then I can get right back on plan and it will all be gone in a day or two. (Never mind that I'm now behind three or four days, because of the uptick on the scale.) And if this works, then I think to myself, I will have proven that I can eat out once a week when I'm at goal and eat whatever I want in that meal, not eat the rest of the day, and eat healthfully the rest of the week and be fine.

I felt fine after the L&G yesterday - not ravenous, not out of control - the only thing was I felt like my body temperature went way up for a couple of hours after eating. I went from freezing to toasty warm.

So if I were someone else reading this, I'd probably want to shoot a big hole in my head right now. As it is I'm just kind of rolling my eyes at myself and consigning myself to another three-day stint.

Why is it so important to me that I don't have to say goodbye to food forever? That's at the heart of all these things - that I don't want to stop eating, I don't want to give up junk food forever, or that I don't seem willing to embrace weight loss and maintenance if it means giving up everything I think I want. NONE of it ever tastes really good. It tastes cheap. Fast and easy. I suppose it would make more sense if I went off plan for fabulous gourmet meals and decadent French desserts or something. But I don't. And the meals we make at home frankly taste much better than anything we get elsewhere. It is totally convenience food. But that doesn't mean it's good food. That money could have been spent on - I don't know - a bag of fruit and some great cheese, or something.

It does make me wonder why I'm so eager to keep putting that crap in my body, when I freely admit that it's pretty awful when you stop to focus on the taste. Maybe that's a step in the right direction - stopping to even notice how this stuff tastes. It's downright gross if you really try to savor it - there's nothing to savor. MF tastes better, actually - I've had some bad MF, true, but now that I'm just eating what I like, the MF beats out the other tastes just about 100% of the time.

Well, I have myself convinced that 'this time will be different' and I'll be right back on plan tomorrow. I threw out all the leftovers of the junk today, so there's nothing to tempt me tomorrow - not that it should tempt me anyway, we've established it's garbage. This all must go along with my other vices - the overspending, staying up late - they are all symptoms of me being dissatisfied with something. And with all of them, I have this idea that I'll make up for it later - sleep in on the weekends, pay off all the bills as soon as I'm back at work, diet for the next five or six days and undo the damage of the food. But something always happens and the payoffs don't happen later, either. At this point I'm trying to figure out how to make it through the remaining 9 months of my leave from work without getting behind on any bills, and who knows, when I start teaching again maybe there will be some emergency that requires all our money and we'll never get out of this debt I've been running up under the guise of Christmas shopping and vacation planning. That's usually what happens.

I'll figure it out. I will. Part of it would entail coming clean to my husband, though, and that petrifies me. So I'm trying to just make it through until I can pay things off and he'll never have to know. That never works, either. I hate to disappoint him but it's like the second something is taken away from me, I can't control it. We lost my income, and I lost control with money. The same exact thing happened on my last maternity leave. Dieting is like losing food, and I lose control with it. There's a definite pattern here, and I suppose it's time to stop fighting it and discuss this with someone impartial. I guess I'll ask my husband to make the call. But even that means admitting something is wrong, and that's hard to do. It was one thing when he knew I was struggling with my diet - but he doesn't know about today, and thinks I'm finally doing well.

I guess this is a diary, huh?

[nickieluv]

Had a good day today. Found out we are not completely out of the running for a refinance - just waiting on one more piece of paperwork. Also found out that the credit crunch - we'll survive it, one way or another, and granted we'll have a lot to pay off in the first few months I'm back to work but it's all within the amount I was expecting. Now whenever I feel the urge to spend money I'm going to look at my daughters and ask myself if any material possession is worth having to go back to work early and miss out on time with them. That put it in perspective right there. How sad it would be if I spent myself right out of a month or two of time at home - it would be disgusting.

I'm a little hungry today but keeping busy and doing fine. Perhaps the cheating is out of my system, perhaps not, but for now I am just telling myself 'not today' like Biki used to suggest and it's working fine. I've had some food fantasies but I just put them off to another day and when that day comes I'll deal with it again. I know my body doesn't look any different after three or four days but my mind is different - I feel like a lot of bloat is gone, and when I look in the mirror I see the same old body but I see also the potential it has if I keep making good choices, instead of seeing just lumps of fat and grossness. Even if I don't truly believe I deserve to reach my goal, my babies (present and future) certainly deserve it.

So that's me today - in a better mood, and could it be a coincidence that a lighter mood happens when I'm on plan and the gloom and doom mood happens when I eat substandard food? Maybe, maybe not. But, I have to go now, no time to philosophize at the moment. (And no, I haven't had a big talk with my husband - not sure if I will, either, to be honest. I don't want to come clean and face the consequences. I prefer to come clean after I've fixed the mess. I know that's cowardly but I'm being honest.)

I hope everybody else is doing well - recovering, plugging along - and I am poised and ready to respond to the next set of posts here when I log on again and start giving back.

[DutchChoc]

Glad to hear the determination in your voice - so very true, no need to cheat or galliantly screw up "today". I share your experience of the falling-sky syndrome when I feel out of control with myself and desperately unhappy with aspects of life, which it can be easy to blame on food or fatness or brokeness or any number of things.

You might have heard of it but Geneen Roth has written some good articles and even done some audio on "When Food Is Love". Quite a few years ago I felt that helped me - and then, you know, I guess help wasn't what I wanted so I went back about my (bad) food business.

Anyway, keep it up. The food we think we want isn't in short supply and yes, there's great promise for all of us in whatever bodies we live in to make them better. Going to watch some of BL now and see who's there and how theyre doing. Stay strong!

[nickieluv]

Thanks, Dutch. I actually read all of Geneen's books. It was tough to read, too, because her way of desensitizing herself to food by really allowing herself to eat whatever she wanted in whatever quantities, literally, was ssssssooooooo tempting since I was on MF while reading them. I thought about going off it to try her system, but I was too afraid of gaining a ton of weight when I was already so huge. I might try it sometime after I get to goal - just giving yourself mental permission to eat whatever you want makes sense to me. Eating without judging. To some extent I had that experience with my pregnancies. The first one, I only gained 15 pounds, and the second I gained over 45 - but I was just coming off the diet then, with no transition before the blessed event began. But it is such a freeing attitude - not worrying what people think when they see you eat, not judging yourself even a little bit as long as you aren't eating gobs of junk food. Maybe then you start to realize that food does not give you what you want, and you can start looking in the right places. To some extent, I feel like that is happening a little bit with me right now. I am realizing that the foods I think I want are not really satisfying at all. And in the same way with the spending - I get a lot of 'stuff' and it doesn't fill the bill, either. The things I want are probably more inside myself. A long journey.

Learning to say no to myself is not a bad thing, either. Geneen's way was to say yes to herself without exception, no matter what happened. Perhaps she just got lucky and wound up finding her way. It's a dangerous game to play, though, precisely because it is so tempting I bet. I think it's far safer to find a plan you can stick with and make the most progress that you can.

So anyway, I might not do this perfectly, but I will do this, and only time will tell if in the end I keep the weight off or not. I think it will depend in part on the journey. I feel like I need to do the work as I go, even if it makes for a slower trip down the scale. Certainly things are changing, the scale is moving, and my mind is shaping up day by day as well.

I will admit that I am munchy today, though. Almost all bars today, and a couple of extra nibbles. Literally nibbles, though - smallest piece ever and then walk away. I'm one glass short on the water, too, which probably doesn't help any. But I'm not loving water today.

Tomorrow I will keep fighting the good fight and I will prevail in the end! I know I will - I want it - I have to learn how to let myself have it.

[DogMa]

Wow. I would be way too afraid of that. The few times I've even tried to just let myself eat "normally" and not worry about it, I've eaten far too much and far too many unhealthy foods. Aside from all the emotional issues, I just LIKE those foods.

My strategy most of the time is what you mentioned earlier. I DO have permission to eat anything I want - just not right now. I still haven't found when that time will come, though. Maybe when I'm 80. For now, sure, I can eat all the cookies I want. Just not today.