Not the start I'd hoped for, BUT
 

Started Monday.

Usually, for me, a successful start means handfuls of supplements, careful weighing & measuring, and a bunch of stuff on-hand.

(I know -- most folks advise against weighing daily. For me, I don't mind the bounces in the graph, I can watch the trend... but DOING it is part of the discipline: a symptom I'm taking care of myself. Letting that go can often be the first sign of depression -- depression encourages us to let things slide -- and thus a signal that things aren't going well, and I'm about to stop caring about my health.)

And lots of discussing it out loud with my family, so they don't make my life harder. ("Mom, why won't you eat the tuna-noodle casserole? I made it for YOU!")

Well, I had none of that.

Haven't figured out why my digital scale (that I LOVE) isn't working right. (No, it's not a battery issue.) So no weigh-in.

Don't even have a tape measure by my desk, for measurements.

Haven't popped a supplement, even though there's already ample evidence I have some minor nutritional deficiencies going on.

Haven't even really gone grocery shopping.

And yet...


I started.

I did eat off-plan ONCE, on Monday, when I ordered a bunch of chicken nuggets for my daughter and myself, on the way from Point A to Point B. (I needed FOOD, this was the only way we had time for it, and I couldn't stomach the thought of a burger.)

Monday & Tuesday I was hungry a lot. (I also didn't have much food.... I was too tired to cook, and nothing was ready. There were things I thought we had on hand that it turned out we didn't. So I just didn't eat.)


Wednesday, I was again eating on the run... I had wings, at a place that doesn't bread them. Then came home to my husband making me bacon cheeseburgers & cauli-cheese mash. (I'm about to go have a leftover one for lunch!)

I even went to the movies late last night... Popcorn... I just walked past.


So yeah... this is a bad start.








But it's a START.

I wouldn’t call it a bad start. This is all a process and some days are better than others. I have to remind myself often that no one else is keeping score and I’ll make the best choices that I can in the moment. We also learn a lot along the way. And it sounds like you have a special husband. 😀 That kind of support already makes you ahead of the game.

Any start is a good start. You made the decision to start making things happen. Don't be so hard on yourself. You know what you need to do to be better prepared and you have obviously thought things through. So take the next steps and be better prepared next week. Consider this your warmup and now you can ratchet things up. BTW your comments on depression resonate with me. You are right --- as soon as I don't hit my water goal for a day or slip on the supplements, I know I am starting to lose my concentration on this WOE.

And I second the congrats on your DH -- mine wouldn't have a clue on a LC meal and its unlikely he would cook one anyway (he's a great guy but useless in the kitchen)

be prepared that you wont get any help from your friends and family.
when i first i told my family i will never eat their precious home made food again. They just couldnt understand it. They accept fast food-kebap-desert is bad for health but any home made food is healthyfood.

Sometimes when you say no They are very unhappy but thats the way it is. maybe today they wont approve but 6 months later they will understand.

Re: my hubby...


Yes, I'll admit I married well. *chuckles* I know just how lucky I am.

And part of my "lucky" is that the LAST time I was on LC (from roughly 2011-2013 or so), he was 100% on-board and backing me.... because he saw what a difference it made. (He even joined me for a while, but has trouble with his soda addiction, among other things.)

He loves his potatoes and starches, but makes them as side-dishes.

My daughter is 11. She is a pre-professional ballet student, so has THAT kind of body -- all long, and lean. The one dish she's super-good at making from scratch is "Tuna-noodle casserole"... Which is a stove-top dish of.... basically a variation on noodles-alfredo (from scratch) with tuna mixed in for some protein. (Plenty of fat in the sauce, already). (May not be the over-all healthiest thing, but we've always fought to get fats & proteins into her, and this has a lot of both... and she'll eat it because she makes it.) She's young for her age, and doesn't always "get it" when someone can't eat something she's made... So it takes a little prep-time for her.

Hubby's birthday was Thursday. We had steaks, mushrooms, broccoli, riced cauli with cheese-sauce... and they had potatos & "noodles" (the above dish minus tuna). Bought & served a key lime pie, and nibbled on the remains of steak on my plate while everyone else indulged. Wasn't tempted, didn't even lick my fingers when I served. :)

This morning, I passed below the "lost 15 lbs" line on my tracking graph.

I've reached that stage where everything I'm doing is starting to snowball, in a good way. A diagnosis of diabetes means I've taken things to a deeper level than ever before, because, with IF added in.

I've got my tray of morning supplements laid out next to my desk -- and more to the point, I've been taking them. And I discovered a 24 hour gym tucked into a little grocery-store shopping center, 1.3 miles from my house.

Picked up a new scale eventually, and started my daily weighing, using a doctor's office visit on Nov. 20 (several weeks in) as a starting place. So when I say I've lost 15 lbs.... it's probably really more than that. But I can document 15 lbs.

Going back and reading these early posts.... I was hungry, so grabbed nuggets with my daughter. That was clearly on one of those, "It's the small-paycheck" weeks when we'd just had our auto insurance taken out, and I was struggling to feed us both on a budget. And I was hungry.
Several months in, I'd probably be able to just skip that meal, now. Heck -- yesterday, we had a 3 hour martial-arts work-out at my house, heavy enough that we were frequently gasping for water, and sweating well. Afterwards, everyone else was digging into the meatballs I'd cooked up a day or two before. Me? I hadn't decided if I was going to eat or not. (Two hours later, finally decided I was legitimately hungry, and had some lunch.) Right after, when everyone else was happily eating... all I needed was water.

We have, in house right now, the makings for one of my favorite LC "indulgence" meals -- we have pork fat, and collard greens. Had some on my birthday on Friday, and I think I plan to have more today. (Cook up bits of fat... throw collard greens in the hot pan... Enjoy. You won't eat MUCH, but you'll savor every bite!) We also have the coconut flour that let my husband bake super-decadent chocolate cupcakes for my birthday. (With the special-ordered Ghirardelli cocoa powder I'd ordered, that was even better than the stuff we used to buy in the stores). (We love good-quality dark chocolate around here... We used 100% stevia for what sweetener there was, and we cut the recommended amount by 50%. Just let that rich chocolate, the hint of coconut from the flour, and the butter stand on their own. Floated three feet off the floor on the smell alone. And yesterday, when my DD wanted to know if she could have one of the leftover cupcakes (batch is 6, there are 4 of us) I told her only if she gave the other to her brother. They were delicious, but nothing to spark cravings.)

When I started, hunger was a thing. If my options were limited, I'd have to cheat. (the nuggets). I'm past the hunger place, finally. If my options are limited... I can skip eating until later.

We've been doing jujitsu once a week (roughly) since October or November. (Our old sensei, in California, had a student who's now a black belt move here for college). Yesterday? I'd been to the gym for the previous 3 days in a row, and there were some things I could normally do that just didn't happen right.... things that take a lot of core strength to do properly, and I've been working those muscles hard, at the gym. We agreed, it was probably muscle-fatigue, since I'd gone for 3 days straight.

On the other hand, I was able to do "butterfly" for the first time since we started this. My bad knee simply wouldn't, before. The increased movement led -- as it always does -- to increased range of motion.

My blood-glucose readings are in the normal range when I wake up, and throughout the day. They've become what I'd expect to see for a "normal" person, instead of having weirdly timed morning spikes that only made sense in terms of diabetes.

Literate, congratulations on your 15 pound weight loss! That is fantastic. So happy for you. You are doing all right things when it comes to eating and working out -- I imagine you will have even more success over time. And the pork fat and collard greens sound delicious!

Your doing great, keep it simple, and have things like summer sausage, boiled eggs, and so on hand if your on the go and get hungry. Stay strong and 6 months from now with your new you you will be so glad how you look and your health will be great. Add in fasting down the road and you will be so surprised. Keep at it. :thup:

That is one of the most amazing things: not having to eat for such long stretches!

Too late. :P

Someone gave me tea with grain in it. As part of a Zen meditation ceremony, so it wasn't like I could ask before hand... And my blood sugar (BG) spiked, and stayed up. (diabetes diagnosis as of November, no meds)

So I did a 60-hour fast. Since then? My BG levels have all been double-digits, which is ideal. (They'd been going as high as the occasional 140 after meals, before that.) Amazing what a couple days with nothing to fuel my body except my own fatty liver will do!

I feel slightly amused, because yesterday was a big "hunger" day for me. Starving at lunch, and my BG was low, so I ate. (It wasn't pretty... on the run, so grabbed a Whopper, no ketchup add mayo, and ate it out of the bun while driving.) Was starving again, come dinner time... The aforementioned pork-fat-and-collard-greens alongside some steak, with seconds on the steak (because it felt like that's what I "needed").

My husband has jumped on the bandwagon, too. Not intensely, like me, actively trying to drop, but more trying a "Low-carb, Lite" version of things. (For example, if he is visiting a friend and they feed him, he'll accept foods I'll politely decline.) As we went to bed last night, I was kind of marveling out loud. "Dinner was so good. Loved how crispy the pork fat cooked up, and the collards tasted so good in it.... 'Diet food', ain't we deprived!" :lol:

Of course, I've been hitting the gym in a strength-training way, so my body may well need protein right now. (Based on me needing seconds on the steak.) *shrugs*

I would have had 2 big whoppers with mustard, 1 might not have been enough. keep some jerky with little or no sugar in it with you if you get starving. Also Hardees has those thick burger that are big. You can get them and not eat the bun. add pickles also.

You doing good stay at it. I have tea with no sugar and during fasting and I keep losing. :thup: :agree:

Our Hardee’s will lettuce wrap a burger. The Thickburgers are really good.

Eh, I was good with 1.

I have a problem with Hardees. Namely, I lived in California for 20+ years, so I keep wanting Hardee's to be Carl's Jr., and they're just not. (Besides, BK was on the way.)

Lost another 2 lbs since my last post (though I think my weight is about to start trending up again for a couple days. Dropped 6 lbs in 9 days, so I know a "bounce" is coming soon. I'm gonna be sitting here waiting for it until it happens. *chuckles* My weight-graph looks like a rubber ball bouncing down stairs. Thing is, even though it bounces, it's going DOWN.)

Love that image.