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