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Workouts, Deer, and “Hunger”

By on June 16, 2010 in emotional stuff, food, hunger, R1P2, training, working out

Morning!  I can’t believe I cracked my eyes open (for reals!) at 5:30 a.m.!  Those of you who’ve known me for a little while know that I am not an early-to-rise kind of gal!  But it’s senseless to fight it when my husband is getting up and making noise that early, so I just gave in today.  BTW, I am wearing a full-on business suit.  That’s right, heels, hose, skirt, AND jacket!  This chica gets to go to court this morning – wish me luck!

Workouts

So in keeping with updating y’all on my workouts with the HCG, and to keep a record for myself, I’m reporting in on my personal training session from yesterday.  I met my trainer at 4pm at the studio and she proceeded to kick my ass for the next hour, putting me through all sorts of torture designed to look like exercises.  I made it through about 40 minutes of the session and started to feel a little light-headed.  I stopped long enough to catch my breath, paced myself a little better, and made it through the rest of the hour unscathed.  (Unless you count the excruciating pain in my glutes and hammies which is going to make every time I sit down into a special kind of torture.)

So, for a super high intensity workout (my heart rate was hovering around 170-180 for most of the session!), I can see that the HCG probably had an effect.  Instead of doing one hour of high intensity circuit training, from now on my trainer and I are going to do 30 minutes of that and 30 minutes of yoga.  Based on yesterday’s session, I don’t think doing hot yoga right now is a very good idea, so I’ll be revising my revised June training schedule yet again, to be posted later this week.

Deer

Yes this is a weight loss blog and no I did not eat any deer.  I did, however, almost hit one on my way to work this morning.  In the city.  On a busy main street from my neighborhood to the freeway.  WTF?!  It was the strangest thing (and not because I’m not used to deer, I grew up on a teeny tiny island with lots of deer and not hitting them was actually a part of our driver’s ed course) and the adrenaline surge was better than a cup of coffee to jump start my focus for the day.  Which is good because I’m going to court (did I mention that?).  Not so good for the deer, who I’m sure was more scared than I was!

“Hunger”

My post yesterday about confusing food with pleasure has been the topic of conversation with my husband and with my girlfriends that I went hot-tubbing with last night.  It seems that confusing food and pleasure, or feeling like you can’t experience the latter without the former, is a pretty common thing.  I’m sure I’ll do more posts about this in the future, but I wanted to answer Runnergirl’s question today.  Part of her comment said:

That is exactly how I have always left. Like if I couldn’t enjoy a social occasion properly, I feel left out. At the weekend when I was making sure that I had healthier food, I did feel deprived, because I wanted the taste of bacon and sausage; and instead I made myself do with porridge.

What I don’t get, and that you seem to, so I want to know your secret – is how do you separate the two? Is it just a matter of going along to social occasions and talking to yourself to make sure you don’t feel left out or deprived? Cos, usually when I try and do that it has the opposite effect.

I don’t know if I really have an answer to this, so much as just some thoughts that might help. I’ll start by pointing out something you said: Like if I couldn’t enjoy a social occasion properly… I think it’s important to examine that statement closely.  Why can’t you enjoy a social occasion properly without using food to do so?  Are you going to events you don’t really want to attend and the food is the only thing you enjoy about it?  Can you train yourself, over time, to refocus on the people you’re with, your surroundings, how it feels to be out and about with your husband, etc.?  Realizing that you are telling yourself that you can’t properly enjoy the experience without food is an important step.

Here are my other thoughts:

First, I enjoy being with my family and friends pretty much no matter what we are doing.  We occasionally do non-food-related activities together, and those are just as much fun as anything else!  So I think part of why Sunday was so much fun is that there was a gaggle of people, the kids were adorable, the weather was beautiful, and it was the kind of day that you can’t not enjoy!  The food was a big part of it for everyone else, but not partaking of the food didn’t remove a crucial element of the day for me since the rest of it was so much fun.  Truthfully, I rarely attend events that I won’t enjoy apart from the food, because life is too short.  And if I’m at a party, for example, and not having fun?  I’ll just leave early.  I haven’t been using food to enjoy events I would otherwise hate.  And now, I’m learning how to not make food the center of my enjoyment in life, period.

Even more importantly, I am on a strict protocol and I am seeing results.  I know that if I go off the protocol, I will not see results.  The HCG protocol has to be followed pretty precisely otherwise you’re injecting yourself and spending money and spinning your wheels for nothing, and that’s just a drag.  I’ve spent wayyyy too many years spinning my wheels, working hard a lot of the time, and not seeing results.  I don’t want to jeopardize the results I’m seeing now, so there’s pretty much no food in the world that’s worth it to me to go off-protocol.

Third, I am only going to be on the protocol for a short period of time.  It’s not the rest of my life.  If I want hot dogs and birthday cake, I can have them in moderation when I’m done with the protocol.  There will always be more hot dogs and cake and pizza and ice cream; it’s not like the world is in short supply.  So no matter how badly I might want something now, I am not saying “no” forever; just “no” for now.  I’m choosing to delay gratification in favor of a bigger, more important goal.  (And, in truth, the hot dogs and cake on Sunday would not have been that appealing to me had I been off-protocol, but I would have eaten them anyway.  Out of habit, out of solidarity with everyone else there, whatever.)

So those are some of my thoughts.  There’s no secret.  I do think that being on HCG is unique in that it removes hunger from the equation AND it removes most of your choices about food as well.  What I have been left with is my urges to eat, which I know are not about hunger right now, but other things.  And that’s what’s allowed me the clarity and insight to start working through some of this stuff.

HCG Update

HCG Start Date: 6/1/10
Starting Weight: 252.5
VLCD  Starting Weight: 255
R1P2 VLCD Day 13: 237.6
Total Weight Lost: 14.9 pounds

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What I’m Learning

By on June 15, 2010 in eating, emotional stuff, family, food, hcg, R1P2

I know I promised this blog wouldn’t turn into all HCG all the time, but I might have to rescind that promise.  I am learning so much about myself because of being on this protocol, and I can’t (and won’t) not process through that here (and, as a result, share it with you all).

I am learning something really big right now that I’m not sure what to do with.  I’m realizing that not partaking of the food part of a family gathering doesn’t make it any less fun for me.  I don’t feel deprived…but I really expect and almost…want to feel deprived, which is really effing confusing!

My niece turned 5 on Sunday (sidebar: how in the world did that happen? where does the time go? and does the fact that I just said those two things make me old?!?!).  We had a big family party for her; the kids were in bathing suits playing in the kiddie pool and on the slip and side; we made hot dogs and had munchies (including lots of fruits and veggies, hooray), opened presents, applied temporary tattoos (princess tats FTW!) on the kiddies, had cake and ice cream, and generally it was an all-around good time.

Sundays are my non-injection days, so I was feeling a tiny bit hungry by the afternoon, which made not eating a little hard.  But overall, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  I still had fun, talking with friends and family, holding babies, serving cake and ice cream (do you know how hard it is to do that without licking your fingers?!), doing dishes, keeping children from killing themselves and each other, and snatching brief moments to bask in the sunshine.

Out of habit, I tried to tell myself that not eating was hard.  That it was making me unhappy.  That it was keeping me from enjoying the gathering.  But when I really examined my feelings and enjoyment level, I realized that wasn’t true.  I’m so “habit-ed” into thinking that food is crucial to enjoyment and pleasure, that I almost believed that was true yesterday.

Let me repeat that: I have conditioned myself to think that I can’t enjoy myself without food. Food has been a source of PLEASURE for so long in my life, and sometimes the ONLY source of that pleasure, that I have food and pleasure all mixed up in my head.  Like, in the can’t-tell-them-apart kind of way.

I know it’s a good and healthy thing to enjoy food, and to take pleasure in it.  It’s one of the best things about being human, in my opinion.  It makes me think that God is a genius, actually.  Just think – every bodily function could be mundane and boring and a chore.  But they’re not.  We get to enjoy eating and sex and, yes, I’ll say it, taking a pee.  I’m sorry, but don’t tell me you haven’t had that kind of pee, the one that feels like physical relief almost bordering on pleasure when you finally get to go!  Sorry if that’s TMI.  And maybe that makes me weird.  But these things?  They’re part of why I’m a fan of God.  (Spiders?  Not so much.)  But I digress.

There’s a difference between appropriately enjoying eating and elevating it to god-like status in my mind.  And that’s what I have done for so many years.  Eating wasn’t just to nourish my body; it was to provide pleasure, companionship, company, love, and acceptance.  And eating can’t really do those things, so I had to royally twist stuff up in my head in order to feel like I was getting those things from food.

So that’s what I’m realizing – I’m a little twisted up in the head.  Food is not the only source of pleasure in my life.  I can have tons of fun without one bite of food.  And not eating at a family gathering, even if I’m hungry?  Not the end of the world.  Seriously, I’m blowing my own mind here.

So I’m formulating some goals to correspond with that learning: I want to learn how to put food and eating in their proper place in my life.  How to enjoy food without letting that enjoyment become all-consuming.  How to let go of the twisted-up-in-the-head-ness that I’ve lived with for so long.  I’m not sure how I’m going to accomplish all of that, but I kind of think this is the first step.

HCG Update

HCG Start Date: 6/1/10
Starting Weight: 252.5
VLCD  Starting Weight: 255
R1P2 VLCD Day 11: 238.2
Total Weight Lost: 14.3 pounds

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My Baggage Ain’t Your Baggage

By on May 31, 2010 in emotional stuff, weekend

Happy Memorial Day, all!  I’m not taking today off (I’m currently blogging from work) but I want to start by saying that I am so thankful for all of those who have served in our armed forces, and for their families who have made that sacrifice with them.  Those who have served over the history of our country have made it possible for us to live in a country where we can say what we think without fear of losing our freedoms, and that is a gift.

Weekend in Review

I had a pretty good weekend except for a faceplant into some chocolate chip cookies I made for a party.  Bad news: I ate 8 cookies for breakfast.  Good news: I felt physically sick for about half the day afterward – bloated and just plain gross.  Why is that good news?  Two reasons that I can think of right now: (1) my body is getting used to avoiding sugar or only consuming it in small amounts, and (2) next time I’m tempted to overeat something sugary like that, I’ll have a memory I can point to as a very good reason to stick to TWO cookies and not EIGHT.  Blech.

I made up for it by eating super healthy the rest of the day, even at the BBQ last night, where I had a burger with a bottom bun and lettuce for the “top bun,” 1 tsp mayo, lots of veggies, and a yummy side of fruit salad.  I was babysitting my sister’s FOUR kids last night, and boy if that’s not like herding cats I don’t know what is.  I’ve said before how much more energy I burn when I’m with them (my average calorie burn without a workout is 2,800/day – when I have her kids, it’s over 4K per day with no workout!) but man, they are just a hoot!  I had a great time, got home at just shy of 5am (!), and slept until 11am before heading here to work.

I’m in my running clothes (love working on a holiday!) and will hit either the gym or a trail on my way home, depending on the weather.

Baggage Epiphany

I don’t know if I can really call this an epiphany, but I realized something really obvious that all you smarter people probably knew a really long time ago.  That is, that my baggage around weight is totally different and unique from each other person’s baggage around weight.  (Yes, I know, “duh” – shoot me, I’m slow sometimes!)

I was talking yesterday with a friend of mine who struggled with her weight on a smaller scale for years before she finally, over the course of about 3 years, lost 40 pounds and largely maintained that loss until she had kids.  I remembered yesterday that her then-boyfriend (now-husband) actually told her once that he didn’t think she had the self-discipline to lose the weight.  I asked her yesterday how she dealt with that.  Her response?  “Any time someone tells me I can’t do something, my reaction is to do it just to prove to myself that I can, and to prove them wrong.”

My reaction to my husband saying essentially the same thing has been to get all hurt and mopey and emotional about it; to be offended that he doesn’t believe in me.  And I realized that, as I have shared previously, the reason for that is that I sometimes doubt myself, and hearing him articulate the thing I’m most afraid of – that I can’t do it – really scares me!

Talking with my friend and her husband yesterday reinforced to me a number of things.  First, our baggage is all different.  Second, though – even though my knee-jerk reaction might be one thing, I get to choose how I behave in response to a challenge like this.

So, today I’m choosing

to get over being hurt
to realize that I’m scared
not to punish my husband for my fear
not to punish my husband for my baggage
to start learning to drop my baggage, once piece at a time
to prove to myself that I can do this

What are you choosing today?

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