Days 9-11: A Discouraging Word

I read dire and discouraging words yesterday. In a preamble to her new book, Big Brother, Lionel Shriver quotes The Eating Disorder Foundation saying that “the dieting industry is the only business in the world that has a 98% failure rate.”   Not knowing exactly how the Foundation defines success and failure, I assumed they meant that only 2% of people who go on diets reach their ideal weight and maintain it for the rest of their lives. 

Instead of focusing on the grim statistic, I decided to give my full attention to anecdotal evidence--to numerous stories of people losing weight later in life for health reasons and keeping it off to both prolong life and increase the quality of life.  For now, those stories are my source of inspiration. 

Day 8: The Day of Reckoning

Friday was my first weekly follow-up appointment with the diet center.  After a day of BBQs and night of fireworks, I woke up to the realization that I had to face the scale squarely in the eye. I stood in front of a highly sophisticated machine that looked like it could launch me into space.  The uber scale was capable of measuring body mass and fat of each limb individually.  Friday, however, the nutritionist chose the low-tech function, identical to that of a bathroom scale. In few seconds, that felt like 5 minutes, the device registered a 2.9 pound loss!  Not bad for the first week!

Day 7: Not All Vegetarian Burgers Are Created Equal!

Cheese seemed to be oozing out of my fresh from-the-microwave vegetarian patty, a mosaic of different grains.  Vegetarian sources of protein, such as vegetarian burgers, are included in my diet list. I took a few brave bites before fishing the box out of the trash can. 

 

My burger contained rice, oats, and various other grains glued together by low-fat mozzarella.  “You’re not supposed to have rice and oats!” my brain sounded an alarm.  Sometime, somewhere, someone told me that a garden burger is grains and veggies whereas a soy or bocca burger is, well, soy.  While I heard that somewhere, it never really registered in my meat-burger mind.  Now I learned the hard way--in a way I will never forget.

 

Day 6: Slimed!

Arugula, my staple, my salvation, went bad in the unopened plastic bag before the “best by” date. Arugula is one of the diet’s “free foods” which I don’t have to record in my journal. I can eat as much of it as my heart desires—and my heart has never desired more than two full salad bowls at a time.  I couldn’t believe I was undermined, “slimed,” by a bag of leaves!

The premature deterioration left me scrambling for a “free” food to supplement my chicken breast dinner.  In desperation, I turned to a frozen vegetable mix.  A little olive oil, a little garlic, a few spoonfuls of horseradish, some chopped red onion along with sprinkles of cayenne pepper, and I didn’t have to open the sweet sauce that came with the veggies, thus avoiding unnecessary sugar.

The stir fry was filling but required a watchful eye during consumption.  I had to fish out sliced carrots and water chestnuts--both no-no’s on the diet--from my plate and offer them to my greatful husband.

Arugula, I await you in your inexperienced, youthful state!

 

Day 5: Of Scales and Such

During a doctor's appointment Tues, I had to jump on the much-dreaded scale.  The scale sighed and started to register my weight. When I finally had the courage to look down at the uncompromising, climbing digits by my toe nails, I realized that I lost 1.4 pounds in four days! 

I hope this success doesn't go to my head to the point where I'm so happy, I start gaining weight back. 

Can she handle this?  How much more will she lose in the following 4 days?  Stay tuned . . .

Day 4: An Evening with a Rockstar

Dinner was good last night despite agreeing with the diet.  I added sun dried tomatoes, walnuts, and chopped red onions to arugula.  The microwaved salmon, the size of a standard bar of soap, melted in my mouth.

Once I finished stuffing myself with arugula, which I devoured before and after salmon, I realized that this low-carb feast would be incomplete without a desert.  My options were sugar free Cool Whip, sugar free Jell-O, or sugar free Cool Whip on top of sugar free Jell-O.

So, I reached for a cold 16-ounce can of sugar free Rockstar.  After all, it tastes like candy and gives you energy--something I lack from the late afternoon slump to bedtime. My husband raised his eyebrows.

Sipping the cold drink slowly through a straw, I felt the life force coming back to me with every bubbly swallow.  I cleared the dinner table, talked to the twins, and, at 8 pm, settled for my only week night of mindless television.

I stopped drinking Rockstar at about 9:30 pm, right as the Bachelorette was going through another trauma with one of the young men.  "No problem!" I told myself.  I've been able to nap after a cup of coffee--there's no reason why I shouldn't sleep well tonight. 

As for the Bachelorette, this one seems to cry a lot--every time she learns the true nature of one of her beaus.  Why doesn't anyone tell her to be happy about dogging another bullet?  The preview of next week's show makes it look like she's sending all the young men home.

Whether it was carb deprivation or the Rockstar boost, I truly felt sad for the Bachelorette. As I was falling asleep, I prayed for her to find a love connection wherever it may be.

I finally drifted off to what felt like restful sleep.  I woke up only two hours later. I looked at the clock and commanded myself to return to slumber.  Two hours later, I woke up again. Unfortunately, that became the night's pattern.  I was in bed for eight hours--which means I woke up four times throughout the night.  No more evenings with Rockstars for me!

Day 3: Carbs and the Human Progress

Sunday I tasted the low-carb pancakes for the first time. The batter consisted exclusively of eggs and protein powder.  The pancakes tasted like . . . an omelet with syrup on top (sugar free of course.)  So, that's why my six-year-old daughter didn't want to eat the pancakes I prepared for her a few days ago!  I apologized profusely to her.

For lunch, I consumer half-a-cup of low-fat ricotta.  Who knew it tasted so good, almost decadent?

After two snacks of low-fat string cheese wrapped in thin slices of deli turkey, I had one meal left. 

By 7 pm, I was exhausted and irritable.  I couldn't move.  I wanted to give my son a life-long consequence for not cleaning his room. 

A bowl of arugula with low-fat dressing hardly hit the spot. That's when I decided to consume a minuscule piece of pizza and a stale chocolate chip cookie, no more than two inches in diameter.  My transformation was instantaneous.  The low-energy ills perished.   I got off the couch and told my son to at least try to clean his room. "Heaven!" my brain was broadcasting to my body.  "This is soooo good!!!!" 

The proponents of low-carb diets say that we need to go back to eating the way humans did eons ago, before bread, pasta, and cookies became a part of our lives--the good old days when we, as hunters, consumed primarily meat, nuts, and vegetables. 

Did any of the low-carb evangelist consider that in those days we didn't have i-phones, i-pads, and therapy?  Back in those days, we didn't think much of the consequences of our actions.  Nor were we capable of creating advanced technological devices.  

It's a fact that, deprived of carbs, some begin to experience depression.  It's also a fact that software engineers and computer programmers live on cola, pizza, and candy bars. 

Could it be that our increased carb and sugar consumption was so beneficial to our brains that it enabled the technological revolution and higher self-awareness? 

I marked my diversion from the diet in the food journal.  I'll be back on the low-carb diet Monday morning.