Jane and I both gained back 6 lbs, over the 3 days of Christmas, and have one week to trim up before New Year’s. I’ve observed that there’s weight gain, and then there’s ‘binge weight gain’, —and if you don’t let B turn into A by going ahead with the binge, you can get away with it.
Each of us gained 6 lbs. We went back to virtue on Monday: Wednesday morning and we were back down 2 lbs. By Thursday we should be down another 1 lb. By Friday, we have another two-day binge on spaghetti, Russian Tea Cakes (beg Jane for THAT recipe—melt in your mouth little balls of sweet buttery nuttiness) and fresh hot bread and butter with Champagne…
That’ll probably put on 2-3 lbs, and THEN we start the long haul into spring. We’ll be on the straight and narrow for months, and peel off the ‘soft’ 6 lbs, —by my rule, the second 3 of that will be much harder, by reason of having let it ‘sit’ unlost for a week—and once we’re both into the good zone again (Jane is one inch shorter than I am, and I’m a consistent about 10 lbs heavier than she is when we’re both in the good zone)—
So back we’ll go onto huge amounts of veggies. The site we’re using is South Beach and we’re still very happy on the diet, particularly as we can now add bread.
I think it’ll all come off – two or three days is likely going to put water weight on by driving up blood sugar – once that comes back down the water will leave too. It’s unlikely that you added any real fat weight! I’d bet you a dollar but that’d be gambling across state lines!
I note your milestone of nearly 90% complete on the next Bren novel. Congratulations! I admire the persistence it takes to write and will appreciate this coming read all the more!
I wish you happiness, health and prosperity in the New Year!
P.S. I like the new “preview” button, but especially the email of followup comments.
Are you going to believe I was the Soul of Virtue during the holidays? Well almost, anyway. On Christmas I had a piece of pumpkin pie, a few crackers with pepper jelly and a piece of chocolate cake. The day after, as is traditional, we did Dim Sum at Bo Ling’s, and I ate a a lot of things covered in rice noodle and dough wrapper — but it was all good.
I really can’t afford to go off a diet once I start it. I don’t even have a goal for this one — just “do it as long as possible, and if you fall off get right back on”. I have some hope that it will be possible to do indefinitely.
I have lots of old lbs to drop. I find a diet works a lot better for me and I stick to it better if I cheat on it regularly.
Just wondering how the diet is going. I am still hanging in there even though I’m not losing weight. There is only the slightest difference in my clothing- sometimes I think it’s wishful thinking that *maybe* a garment is a little looser than before. After 28 strict days, I’d hoped for a better results.
I’ve read in your posts that champagne is one of your special occasion treats. I have added the occasional glass of wine (5 oz) in Phase II and was just wondering why you reserve it for the special occasions. Is it that you don’t want it to go flat? 🙂
I was trying to hold out for Super Bowl Sunday to have my first off-the-diet lapses but after a hellish week, capped by this awful day, I am ready to throw in the towel and go get something good for dinner!
I’m on Weight Watchers and they allow the occasional treat. Just watch the portions and eat until satisfied, not full, and tomorrow is another day.
We’re kind of at a stalled point, but inching downward.
Jane came up with an interesting way of looking at things. You know how you look forward to how far down you can get. But what you don’t notice so much is that your detested ‘high’ starts to get lower. So we are starting to look at that. A 1 day binge now does not put me above 179. It used to be it didn’t put me above 235, to be specific. So my ‘highest’ is shrinking right along with my ‘lowest,’ which right now is 177. The other thing we’ve noticed is our appetite shrinking. We’ve been at this since September—and now I sometimes put a dish aside unfinished, because I just don’t want another bite. This is a good thing! The other evening I ate all the bean sprouts out of the chicken stir-fry, but had only a few pieces of the chicken because we had had extra mozzarella on the noon salad. I just didn’t want the extra protein. It didn’t trigger the ‘eat it’ response, quite the opposite, in fact.
So I take this for a good sign.
Try some pine nut hummus with celery sticks for a snack. I don’t like regular hummus, but the pine nut stuff is pretty good.
And you do start noticing differences in your clothes. Once you shift the balance more to muscle, which ‘eats’ fat up and burns it off, you may find that you haven’t ‘lost’, because muscle weighs 18% more than fat, but your shape is slowly altering, and of course, it’s the muscle that not only replaces fat, it consumes it. So yes, inches may be telling you something.
I’m starting to find it easier to get out of a chair: just simply to stand up with my hands full, say, is now not a struggle, or a calculation: I just do it. It’s those things you can rack up as success once they come, along with the blouse that starts fitting.
Yes! I am celebrating small accomplishments, as in moving a bit more easily. I’m still waiting on the appetite decrease 🙂 Thank you for pointing out that both targets are lowering, the “high” and the “low” weights. I do plan to dive off the wagon next weekend for two events, a Fun Night at a distant church and the Super Bowl, of course. PIZZA is in my future, thick crust, pan pizza haha. But, I will get back to it on the following Monday and be tough. I don’t expect a big lapse at Valentine’s- I’m asking for a Kindle instead of flowers and chocolates.
WOW! I just re-read your post about the pounds you’ve lost. Amazing and wonderful! I hope I get there, but for now, if my jeans button a tad bit easier, I’m ok.
Every progress IS progress. I keep telling myself it didn’t come on that fast, and it’s not going to go overnight, but progress is progress. You enjoy that pizza, as much as you want, and then get right back on the diet, and you’ll find you DIDN’T give up much ground—that’s the wonderful thing about this diet: stick to it, and it gradually teaches your body to respond more normally to treats. Never waste a moment in guilt over having a good time now and again—and just be sure to go back to the straight and narrow. I find it takes me about a week to shed all traces of a half a cream pie and a bottle of Champagne!
It *IS* almost overnight, though. Didn’t you all just begin this in Sept.? That’s a very short time in which to accomplish so much and that it still works!!
no, no, not all of it from September, didn’t mean to give that impression. I don’t know where Jane was, but I’d come down from 235 to 200 in a constant battle, and couldn’t get past that; then tried Atkins again; then fought through from 200 to 195 over a month or so; THEN we started South Beach in September, and from there on, it’s been steady, which is from 195 to a reliable 179-177 over the last few months. So not to say it’s been miraculous or easy, but thank goodness it’s been steadily downward through September, and we celebrated, between Sept 1-Jan 1, my birthday, Jane’s birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, in each instance with cream pies, Champagne, and occasional bouts of pasta and fresh bread. So now we’re in the long nose-to-the-grindstone haul between New Year’s and, well, maybe Valentine’s, and St. Paddy’s day is nearly legal except the killer salt content! But spring is easy to be good: it’s the Sept-January period that is so rough on us!
I *hear* you on the constant battle. I’m so glad for you, that you found a plan that works and fits in to *real* life! Thanks for sharing with us here!
We all of us lead more sedentary lives than we’d like, and it’s something we all battle—but—I really think the current diet is the best so far!