My 7 Day Diet -Day 3: The End

The title of this post is indicative of the reason why I have not finished blogging about my 7 Day Diet.  It's because I did not actually complete my 7 Day Diet.  I quit on Day 3.  It pains me to be a quitter, but for the livelihood of my family, my own general well being, and my sanity it was needed.

Since I committed to blogging about each day of this diet, let me go back to Wednesday and give you a glimpse of what Day 3 felt like... I woke up with absolutely no energy.  I seriously felt like I could not function.  I had hope that with a little fruit first thing in the morning I would perk up.  (Day 2 was veggie day, so I didn't even get the natural sugars of fruit that I had on Day 1.)  I had a bowl of Watermelon and felt bloated, but not full.  I also had a cup of tea because I was still battling my caffeine withdrawal.  Somehow I managed to get myself and the kids ready to head off to school.  (I'm pretty sure I was drooling as I packed their cheese sticks and peanut butter crackers for lunch.)

For a mid-morning snack I had a bowl of cherries.  Those gave me a feeling of satisfaction and fullness, so that was good.  Also cherries take a little longer to eat than other fruits because each one has a stem and a pit to be discarded.  Lunch consisted of Cabbage Soup (ugh), Celery Sticks, and some Kiwi.  The cravings and general feeling of malnourishment lasted throughout the morning, and increased in the afternoon when I came home from work.  I was trying to persevere, as I really liked the 3 pound loss I had seen thus far, and as mentioned above, I really hate to be a quitter.  But my will was weakening dramatically.

My fuse was short when dealing with my kids in the afternoon, and I was really low on energy as well as patience.  I had a whole bunch of things planned to do for my son's upcoming birthday party, but had little motivation and energy to get any of it done.  I did manage to make some squash and zuchinni chips in the afternoon:

One Yellow Squash sliced as thin as possible, spray pan lightly, spray top of squash slices lightly, sprinkle with salt.  I don't have a picture of it, but I did the same with a zuchinni.  Bake at 200 for about 2 hours.

The zuchinni took a little longer (maybe 2 hours, 20 minutes or so), and this is what they looked like coming out of the oven:

They shrink up considerably... this is what my plate looked like with 1 whole squash and 1 whole zuchinni.  I ate these in about 30 seconds.  No sharing took place, as they were too darn good.

5 o'clock rolled around and I fixed my kids their usual dinner of Mac 'n Cheese.  That's when it all fell apart.  In case you weren't aware, I love Mac & Cheese.  So it's no surprise that when I stirred that pot of Annie's Homegrown Aged White Cheddar Shells and Cheese I could not resist having just one bite.  Or four.  After that I texted my friend and diet buddy Kelly who has been depriving herself alongside me.  I made my confession and she wrote back that she just had made a small concession as well.  After some deliberation and an agreement that we gave it our all but weren't cut out for this, we were done.

I went grocery shopping and filled up my cart with English Muffins (whole grain ones), cheese (many different kinds), and some Swedish Fish. (which I ate in the parking lot.)

Stay tuned for my final thoughts on this plan, and the aftermath of fast food cravings that came in the days that followed.

My 7 Day Diet- Day 2

Day 2 was a little tougher for me than Day 1.  First off, no fruits.  Just veggies.  All day long.  I like vegetables as much as the next person, but without the sugary sweetness of fruit that got me though yesterday, I felt bored with my choices, and pretty deprived throughout the day.

First off, it felt strange waking up and eating carrots for breakfast.  Almost a whole bag of baby carrots.  I felt like a bunny rabbit by the time I got to work.  For lunch I made myself a huge salad with romaine lettuce, cucumbers, celery, red and yellow peppers, and shredded carrots.  It was yummy, and quite filling.  I used about 1 ounce of balsamic vinegar mixed with 1 teaspoon of basil-infused olive oil, and a little Pampered Chef Bell Pepper Rub Seasoning.  I know it would have been ideal to forgo the dressing on my salad, but really?  I'm not going to eat a salad without dressing.

After work I was feeling pretty good, not as groggy as yesterday with no headache.  I took the kids to the pool for the afternoon so I would not be tempted by the food in my kitchen.  I munched on pepper slices as they enjoyed their nice protein/carb snack of cheese and pretzels.  Oh, how I would have loved to share some of their pretzels.

The only thing that got me through the day without giving in to temptation was knowing that I was having a big baked potato for dinner.  With butter.  I had a big bowl of Cabbage Soup while I waited for my potato to finish cooking, and I've never been happier to see this:

Did I go overboard on the size of my potato?  (that's a salad plate by the way, not a dinner plate!) Probably.  But I haven't had a complex carbohydrate in 2 days.  I've also had very little salt and only a teaspoon of oil as a fat, so I loaded the thing with butter.  Heck, I've earned it.  And when the week is done I highly doubt the size of my potato or amount of butter I used is going to matter as far as poundage lost.

And that's my day, in a nutshell.  Or a lettuce shell, in this case.  No nuts allowed.

Tomorrow is a combination of days 1 and 2, minus the potato.  I'll be glad to have fruit again, but I sure will miss the starchy goodness that I ate tonight.

My 7 Day Diet- Day 1

Hello bloggy world!  It's been a while, I know, and I've missed you.  Unfortunately I just don't have the time to sit down and post as much as I used to.  Ok, I probably do have the time, but it is taken up by other things.  (Damn you, Facebook, Pinterest, and Draw Something for iPad.)

I'm bringing myself back though, and I've decided to go public with my weight loss to do it.  Blogging about my weight loss is something I've never been really comfortable with, for many reasons.  I'm more of a quiet dieter who hopes people (who don't know I'm trying to lose weight) notice that I look thinner.

But I've been inspired and I've decided to keep track of my journey here for a little bit.  I've been attending Weight Watcher meetings for about 3 months now.  I've lost about 11 pounds in that time, and I feel like it's a huge roller coaster.  The first 5 pounds came off fairly quickly, but the next 6 or so pounds did a yoyo on the scale each week.  I'm not disappointed with my loss, (11 pounds is nothing to sneeze at!) but I wish it were more, and I've recently been wondering if there is something I could do to just completely shake things up and get my body into biggest loser mode.  Then my friend Kelly started blogging about her "Weight Loss Experiment."  Read it here.  When I read her blog last Monday night, it couldn't have been more timely for me, as I had just finished out a not so great week with my yoyo scale.

Kelly was going on a "crash diet," as some would call it.  A "7 day cleanse," the "cabbage soup diet," a "detox plan," call it what you will, but after reading her blog for a couple of days, and doing some research on this idea, I was inspired.  So here I go...

Today has been interesting.  Fruit only (minus bananas) plus as much Cabbage Soup as my heart desires.  I love fruit, so I figured it should be a easy day.  And for the most part it was.  The hardest part for me had little to do with food, and a lot to do with beverages as I am a total caffeine feign.  A typical day for me starts with a huge mug of caffeinated tea, followed by a travel mug of coffee to take to work.  Mid afternoon I have another large coffee, and sometimes a super-sized Diet Coke as well.  I know... it's bad.  So giving up my beloved coffee and other caffeinated beverages posed to be quite a problem today.  A problem so big that I caved around 2pm and made myself a small cup of coffee.  That took care of my massive headache, and allowed me to get through the rest of my afternoon feeling normal and less sluggish.  A cheat?  Yes.  But it had to be done, so I don't feel bad about it.

As for the foods I ate today, it went a little something like this: almost half of a watermelon for breakfast. Pineapple for a mid-morning snack (not recommended because of the high glycemic index, but it was on sale and I love it so whatever). Cabbage Soup for lunch followed by a bunch of cherries.  2 green apples for afternoon snack, and a very large bowl of Cabbage Soup for dinner.  Oh, and I have drank about a thousand glasses of water.  I have felt mostly satisfied, and after dinner I had tons of energy which led me to scrub my hardwood floors (on my hands and knees nonetheless), and clean 2 out of 3 bathrooms in the house.  Normally during the week I do none of that.  I may sweep and wipe down the counters but that's about all, I save the heavy cleaning for the weekend.

I did have a craving for cheese for most of the day  Probably because I had very little salt, and I cut a bunch up for my kids' school lunches this morning.  I also felt like snagging a handful of pretzels from my kids' snack this afternoon, and had trouble watching my husband devour a bag of Chex Mix 20 minutes ago.  But I was able to curb the cravings with fruit and Cabbage Soup, or simply stepping away.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, cabbage soup has a lot more than just cabbage:

All and all, not a bad day.  Aside from my coffee slip up I stayed completely on the diet.  Will I have coffee tomorrow?  Maybe.  Will I feel bad about it and/or let my headache get so bad that I feel like crawling in a dark closet?  No.  If I need it, I'll have it.

One more thing I've learned today is not to put off the urge to pee while on this diet.  My water intake has obviously increased, therefore I've spent significant time in the bathroom.  Like every 10 minutes.  So yea, I learned the hard way to pee on demand and don't just do one more thing.  Standing at the sink doing the dishes tonight with a slight urge to pee, I thought to myself, "I'll just finish this up real quick and then go." My bladder apparently couldn't wait.  I peed myself.  Yup, sure did.  1 minute dry as a bone, the next minute not so much.  Lesson learned, it won't happen again.  At least I hope not or Olivia won't be the only one who needs to bring extra panties wherever we go!