Day 30: 30 days of hunger and headaches

[TriciaB57]

I'm on Day 30.  I have had a 30-day headache and 30 days of debilitating hunger.  I've never followed the rules so perfectly on any diet in my life.  Yes, diet, if I can't eat what I want, when I want it and in whatever quantities I want, I don't bother with the semantics of saying "it's a lifestyle change".  There's no way I can sustain this for the long term.  I did the best I could planning and prepping and cooking and having food available.  But it's like when you have the flu - you could be starving but nothing appeals.  That's how I feel about this.  If the scale tomorrow doesn't show SIGNIFICANT weight loss in exchange for the pain I've been living with, I'm going to the grocery store for cake and ice cream.  Speaking of which, my sugars have never been in such a sustained healthy range since I was diagnosed with diabetes 10 years ago.  I'm actually looking forward to my next A1C test.  So....it's not all bad!  :-)  I wanted to do this twice a year just to keep things in check but, its like doing a colonoscopy prep:  once you've done it once, you never want to subject yourself to it again.  If I do have good numbers tomorrow, however, continuing the colonoscopy analogy, it may be worth it if it keeps me healthy and on track.  We'll see - lots of pressure on the scale tomorrow - no pun intended!

Tricia

[laura_juggles]

To be completely blunt, if you were constantly hungry, then you weren't eating enough. It's really that simple. 

What have you been eating? Can you list out a couple days with serving sizes for your meals?

[SugarcubeOD]

I'm reallysorryto hear you haven't had a good time of it. We really wish people would come for help before their 30 days was up because if you don't plan on continuing or doing this gain at some point, there's not much applicable advice we can offer

[slc_melissa]

I'd really recommend doing the re-introductions as suggested.  Instantly eating a bunch of cake and ice cream will do you no favors.  Also, keep in mind any body composition changes - you may lose 5 lbs of fat (great!) but gain 5 lbs of muscle (even better!) and be the exact same scale weight with way better body composition.

[TriciaB57]

First thank you all for your responses.  it really helps to share with people that have been through it.  I actually intend to do the reintroduction as suggested.  The cake thing was kind of a joke - but if I hadn't lost weight, I might've succumbed.

I've had stomach surgery so I can't eat that much at every meal.  I have to eat smaller meals more often.  For breakfast, I usually made myself a hash out of root vegetables and mushrooms and I'd have about 1/2 cup with a fried egg on top and a small juice.  Then I usually eat nuts or fruit for a snack.  Lunch was usually leftover dinner - I ate a lot of salads - salmon, chicken, tuna, egg - that I'd spread on celery sticks or stuff in a tomato.  I'd usually have it with several olives or 1/2 an avocado and some veggies.  Snack would be more fruit, or veggies or nuts or some combination thereof.  Dinner was usually 3-4 oz of meat - fish, chicken, pork tenderloin.  I'd roast vegetables and have either roasted or baked potato with it.  After dinner I'd have more fruit - just because it's easy.  I would have an apple, cut up and sprinkled with cinnamon and a few pecans or I'd have a mango.  I'm not very good at cooking meat - I tend to overcook it.  So, I tried to add more protein to the snacks, but that meant I was forcing down a piece of dried up meat, usually cold because I was afraid to heat it up for fear of overcooking it even more!   That's pretty much what I ate. 

I ended up losing 14 pounds so, with that incentive and motivation, I could probably see myself doing it again.  I powered my way through it but if I do it again, I'm going to have to be better prepared for the snacks.

Thanks again for your feedback and for "listening"!

Tricia

[SugarcubeOD]

If you were ever going to do this again, my suggestion would be to cut the fruit and juice back and instead of 'snacking' eat protein and fat.  It's okay that you have to eat smaller meals more often due to your own context but in that case we still encourage eating protein and fat and not falling into the fruit and nuts/snacky behavior.