Day 18

137 pounds!

That's the "official" number after the first 17 days and I'm thrilled with it!  The diet guarantees 10 to 12 pounds gone in the first cycle, and considering that I wasn't the best "patient" the good doctors have ever had, I can say that this diet delivers!

Confession time...

Why wasn't I the best "patient"?  I was very slack on the exercise.  This past week saw absolutely no walking and very little in the way of workout.  Not good, I know -- I allowed my "lazy" mentality to overtake my responsibility.  Also, I didn't follow the menus as closely as I could have -- my coffee addiction took over and so I drank almost no green tea all week -- and far too much coffee to boot.  I also avoided the rabbit food when I could and usually forgot to pop the probiotic supplement on non-yogurt days.

Day 18 was supposed to be the start of Cycle 2 for me.  The eating didn't go as planned, so I'm not counting it as anything but a lost diet day -- a day I barely managed to get through with my sanity intact.  It started out promisingly enough -- met a dear friend at our favourite breakfast place, ordered a good breakfast and headed to work.  That's where the day went off the rails.  Stuff came up and before I knew it, it was almost 3:00 and I was starving -- no snack or lunch.  Yikes!  Gobbled down lunch and back to the craziness.  Then I worked overtime again and didn't get dinner at all.  Pretty sure this mucked up my metabolism but good...

Today's menu:
Breakfast -- 2 poached eggs, fruit mixture (red grapes, nectarine, red plum, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon -- most of that fruit isn't allowed yet but I only ate a little bit of it...), coffee
Morning Snack -- cooooffffffeeeeeeeee
Lunch -- Dr. Mike's chicken soup, probiotic supplement
Dinner -- 3 pieces whole wheat toast with margarine, glass of pomegranite/orange/grapefruit juice (yup -- I gave into the carbohydrate temptation -- at 9:30 pm...)

On the plus side -- those adorable white shorts?  Too big!  Gonna have to see if I can alter them.  Wore the olive capris today and they are just shy of too big as well.  Good thing I took sewing in high school -- hopefully I can remember how to alter pants, because I'm not willing to let these wardrobe pieces go just yet...

Back on track tomorrow with Day 1 of the Activate Cycle!  I hope...

Day 17 (Accelerate Cycle)

Well, here I am...

Today is the last day of Cycle 1.  What have I learned so far?

1. Eating at regular time is very, very, very important.
2. I was, like so many people, addicted to carbohydrates.  I miss them terribly, but I know I'm going to have to be careful about them from here on in. The real test for me will be when Survivor is back on the air -- my traditional Survivor snack has been chips with dip and a Smirnoff Ice on the side -- years of bad habit to break there...
3. Yogurt is yummy!!!!
4. Fruit is not evil...
5. Exercise isn't a bad thing, and you don't have to spend hours on it every day -- some people do and that's fine for them, but half an hour is easy enough for the rest of us to do.
6. I have more energy and seem to have more patience -- others might argue the patience thing, but I'm noticing that I have more tolerance lately.
7. I'm more alert during the day and am sleeping better at night.
8. My tummy isn't getting in the way as much when I bend over!!

Today's Menu:
Breakfast -- 2 poached eggs, 1/2 grapefruit
Morning Snack -- 6 oz peach yogurt with 1 peach diced and mixed in
Lunch -- Dr. Mikes' taco salad (did I mention that this is amazing?!)
Dinner -- Greek Salad (leftover from the family's dinner -- I picked out the olives because they're not on the list of allowed foods and I don't really like them...) -- dinner was quite late because I didn't get home from work until after 9:00 -- probably not the best thing.

Cycle 2 (Activate) starts tomorrow morning.  Yes, I'm going to keep going.  I've decided that I will lose as much as possible and deal with the wardrobe issues later.  I was shopping earlier today and came across a fantastic pair of dress pants, but they are one size smaller than what I can pull off right now.  I am very, very tempted to go back to the store and buy them -- turn them into my "goal pants".  I might just do that tomorrow...

There isn't much more to say about the end of this cycle except -- weigh-in #5 is tomorrow morning!  Will I be rewarding myself by wearing the adorable white shorts, the awesome cream pants or the cute olive coloured capris (these weren't a part of the original plan, but they were hiding in the back of the closet...)?  Tune in to see...