Monday 7/12 - Sunday 7/18, 2010
Week One Summary
Week One was an adjustment. And I was already eating pretty "clean". I liked that my grocery bill was low, since I'll be eating the same thing every day all week. Simple. Cheaper. I didn't like that my non-domestic butt was in the kitchen for 2 and a half hours on Sunday making all my food for the week. And I forgot to make two things!
The food plan is tricky. Only in the sense that they somehow make all this healthy food add up to 2,000 calories! I get six meals a day, to try to eat 2 1/2 to 3 hours a part. As a massage therapist, this could get sketchy. My days are usually booked to the minute, no real lunch break to speak of, and the timing could get hard to adhere to. But I'm motivated to see some results and I'll figure it out.
Breakfast is a fruit/protein smoothie. Not good with Greek yogurt, but YUMMY with whey protein. Close to what I was already eating before.
Snack is egg+egg whites and plain oatmeal with frozen berries mixed in. Probably so it doesn't taste like eating a bowl of cement. Blech. I actually came to love the oatmeal by the end of the week by adding a packet of Stevia and mashing the frozen berries in it so much that it flavored every bite.
Lunch is a Greek turkey burger (their recipe, which is DELICIOUS!!) on an Oroweat sandwich thin and some fruit. Yummy, but not filling enough for me.
Snack is a string cheese and 15 Kashi crackers. Yummy, but not filling enough for me.
Dinner is a chicken salad with balsamic vineagar and oil dressing and some random nuts and fruit thrown in for good measure. Yummy. And satisfying.
Snack is 3/4 cup cottage cheese (is it me or does this plain taste like it is a rotten food? Blech.) and raw vegetables.
My problem came as early as day 1. Breakfast great. Snack great. But an hour later I'm starting to get hungry. Moderately hungry. Already. Eat lunch and it doesn't even register on the radar. Uh oh. By afternoon snack I'm a rabid cheetah and inhale the cheese and crackers. Not even a blip on the radar. Dinner helped and evening snack helped. But it's very stressful to feel the panic of starvation and I went to bed feeling okay but a little worried about tomorrow. Day 2 was just as I feared. Even worse than Day 1. I'm starving and I can't do this. I have to eat. In the afternoon I add a Zone Perfect bar to my snack. It helps a little, but I'm not in a good way at this point. I starve the rest of the day. And I'm down 4 pounds in two days, but I'm sure it's not all fat mass and I'd gladly trade some poundage for a meal at this point.
Day 3, 6:30 am I email my NT a desperate plea for more calories. Please. Help. Me. Salvation is delivered into my Inbox by 8:30am with a 2,300 calorie plan. Who would've ever thunk it? So happy to have authorization to eat more, I happily do. The plan basically stays the same, they just increase your portions on certain things and lo and behold...they added a Zone Perfect bar to the menu!! What are the odds?!?! Downside is I didn't exercise at all today. So, up .4 pounds on morning of Day 4. I tell myself not to panic. The calorie fairy is not going to come in and take my extra 300 calories away today for gaining a little weight. I plan to workout hard today, so it will more than make up for it. My workouts today were weight training for an hour, a very vigorous step aerobics class and then my schedule opened up that night so I came back for Zumba. Lots of exercise today. I was fine all day until after Zumba. Then the starvation returned with a vengeance. I told myself it was because I exercised extra today and it will all even out in the wash for tomorrow. Wrong. Day 4 I stick to it but man, I'm hungry. I'm not a pansy about this sort of thing, either. I can handle discomfort. But this is a primal urge to eat. Day 5, I went to run inclines on the treadmill at the gym and 20 minutes in, I feel like I'm going to pass out. I ate my prescribed breakfast, but I'm completely out of gas. I stick to the eating plan knowing we will go out to dinner in the evening. Looking forward to eating something different, though worried about what to order. I don't want to totally blow it. We went to Mexican food so I ordered chicken fajitas, did not partake in sour cream or guac, ate one tortilla and ate the rest of the filling with no tortilla. It was really a half order because I shared with my husband. Yum. Food. We went to dessert. A true Courthouse Nutrition animal would've passed. But I pulled out the excuse of my traumatic, starving week and ate a small vanilla cone at DQ. Felt a little bad, but got over it instantly. With 2,300 calories, surely I am a metabolic inferno!
Day 5...I'm sorry, did I say metabolic inferno? Yeah...not so much. Up .4 today and today is going to be an anti-plan day. We have an event tonight that is once a year and unfortunately completely centered on eating. The food is top notch and there's lots of it. And I'm going into it with a loaded gun...I'm hungry!! And have been for a week!! I'll be honest. I didn't even really try today at all to stick to the plan. It felt great to eat tasty food that sticks to the ribs and with as much as I ate, I'm not sure I ever even felt stuffed. Oh well, what's one day?
Day 6...I'm sorry, did I say what's one day? Try gain it all back in a day! Surely I'm just bloated from real, unclean food. The problem is, the drastic gain on the scale and the taste of the nasty but delicious unclean food has made me want more. I continue to be Mrs. Anti-Plan on Day 7, finishing out my week certainly unlike the way I started.
I recognize this is a lifestyle change and let's face it, sometimes we just don't have it. But here's what this week is teaching me about myself: I'm a weekend diet saboteur. I'm spotless during the week. I make fairly healthy choices when we go out to eat, but no matter what I get at a restaurant, it will never be as calorically balanced and beautifully low-fat as my homemade plan food. And we tend to eat out a few times each weekend, so I need to reach out to my ever-helpful NT prior to this next weekend and have her help me navigate this pitfall of mine.
All in all, I really like the program. In my NT, I feel like I have a buddy alongside me ready to answer questions and cheer me on at anytime. The food gets better tasting over the week and they happily offer alternatives if there's something you don't like or the prep won't work for you. They try to give you food that is findable in a regular grocery store and realistic that you might want to actually eat it. And they try to give you healthy portions to control the rabid cheetah hunger. So far, so good.
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