Original Post April 22, 2011
I am a woman who, like most, is in a constant battle to lose weight. Oh I have my excuses as to why I am overweight. I have a thyroid condition. It is hereditary. I am closing in on fifty. I am in pre-menopause. I only have one ovary. The list goes on. As you can tell I have a lot of things working against me but there is one reason that I rarely admit; I like to eat. I mean I really enjoy eating. I truly love food. I love to eat it, love to cook it heck, I even love to shop for it.
As you know my husband is in the Navy. With us having three kids and at some times only surviving on his salary we had our share of lean times. While during those times I may have felt guilty buying a new outfit or something for myself, I never once felt guilty buying food. I may have cringed more than once at the checkout while paying for it, but I have never scrimped on food. Oh that is not to say I didn’t opt for hamburger when I would have preferred steak or bought chicken legs instead of breast but we were lucky to have never gone hungry. I know my way around the kitchen and I can do a lot with ground beef and even more with chicken and I can make a mean turkey burger.
Since I enjoy my cooking, I tend to love eating what I cook. I also find I have a knack for deciphering what is in a dish. It is fun to go home and try to recreate a yummy dish, unfortunately after recreating it I then feel obligated to eat it. As you see heredity and body issues are not the only obstacle I have when it comes to food. So given all of the reasons above it should come as no surprise that I am constantly searching for the miracle cure for weight loss. I think I have tried every diet there has been in hopes that this one will indeed be the one that works for me. I think the first diet I ever tried was smoking. Yes you read it here, I used to smoke. I cannot believe it myself as I am so anti-smoking now. I can’t stand the smell or the way it makes my skin crawl. I find being around it physically painful but, back in the day, I lost a great deal of weight because I would use my lunch money to buy cigarettes, thus was the invention of my cigarette diet. Then there was the diet supplement called Aids. Yes, that was really the name. It was a little chocolate square that was supposed to curb your appetite. As a chocolate fanatic all this did was give me a new candy to eat. It did nothing to curb my appetite and only proved to give me more calories.
Once, when my husband went out to sea, I lost a tremendous amount of weight on the corn diet. That was my own invention. Most days my dinner of choice was a can of corn with a half a stick of butter. That was when I was young and did not realize the evils of eating a half a stick of butter. I am still paying for that as now I have high cholesterol. I guess I cannot blame that one on anyone but myself. Then there was the cookie diet. That’s right you were encouraged to eat cookies! It was not cheap and they tasted like a dirt covered tire that had been rolled in gravel but those little fiber filled gems really did the trick. Just by eating a cookie and some water for breakfast, and repeating the process at lunch, I managed to drop an incredible fifty pounds.
Next was the cabbage soup diet. While some complained I rather liked the taste. The problem is I could not get very far from the bathroom while on it. I guess that is how it works. I have tried several diet pills, one of which was dexatrim. I think the reason this one works is because it has you so wired you can’t stop. How could you not lose weight when you are constantly on the go? I also did a herbal pill called Body Tabs. While this really worked for me and for some crazy reason lowered my cholesterol dramatically the ingredients were not deemed safe and I figured my heart was at risk while on them.
I lived gluten free for the past two years and while that was done for medical reasons, it is still a very restrictive way to eat. I am no longer eating gluten free and have been lucky enough to not be ridden with the medical issues that first caused me to go that route. I have however found my weight to have increased since I am no-longer limited to a restrictive diet. It is for that reason I find myself exploring yet another diet that is somewhat new to the scene. I have been doing some reading and researching and have decided to check out the 17 day diet. It is based on four cycles each lasting seventeen days. The first or initial cycle is pretty restricted as to what you can eat. You can eat chicken, fish and turkey along with a wide assortment of vegetable and fruit but, no fruit after 2pm and probiotics from a gathered list within the book. You also are required to drink a cup of green tea three times a day and start the day with a cup of warm water with lemon.
The next set of seventeen days your options increase as more foods are added to the approved list, followed by even more options during the third seventeen day cycle. When you get finished with the third set of seventeen days, if you have not met your goal weight, then you begin the process once again, starting back with the original set of seventeen days and what was allowed. This continues until you decide you have reached your goal weight. Once you have met your goal weight then you get to proceed to the last cycle, which you will stay on in order to maintain your weight. It is a win-win situation for me as I have to eat healthy during the week but can cheat on the weekends. I feel this is a plan that I can live with, as I am more prone to eat “bad” on the weekends anyway.
The weight loss during the first seventeen days is said to be pretty dramatic. I would welcome dramatic, especially since we are heading into the summer months. I am currently on day 12 and so far I have lost a total of 8 pounds. I guess there is something to be said for eating healthy. While I do not intend on turning this blog into my diet podium I will give updates as I continue on my journey. I prefer journey to diet as I have been on a lot of diets and they have not always produced lasting results. This time I feel I am more on a journey to find the lifestyle that works for me. This time there will not be any cigarettes or diet pills. I may have a bit cabbage and even a little corn. I promise to forgo the butter, but I am told that during the next cycle I will be able to eat a cookie or two!
I am a woman who, like most, is in a constant battle to lose weight. Oh I have my excuses as to why I am overweight. I have a thyroid condition. It is hereditary. I am closing in on fifty. I am in pre-menopause. I only have one ovary. The list goes on. As you can tell I have a lot of things working against me but there is one reason that I rarely admit; I like to eat. I mean I really enjoy eating. I truly love food. I love to eat it, love to cook it heck, I even love to shop for it.
As you know my husband is in the Navy. With us having three kids and at some times only surviving on his salary we had our share of lean times. While during those times I may have felt guilty buying a new outfit or something for myself, I never once felt guilty buying food. I may have cringed more than once at the checkout while paying for it, but I have never scrimped on food. Oh that is not to say I didn’t opt for hamburger when I would have preferred steak or bought chicken legs instead of breast but we were lucky to have never gone hungry. I know my way around the kitchen and I can do a lot with ground beef and even more with chicken and I can make a mean turkey burger.
Since I enjoy my cooking, I tend to love eating what I cook. I also find I have a knack for deciphering what is in a dish. It is fun to go home and try to recreate a yummy dish, unfortunately after recreating it I then feel obligated to eat it. As you see heredity and body issues are not the only obstacle I have when it comes to food. So given all of the reasons above it should come as no surprise that I am constantly searching for the miracle cure for weight loss. I think I have tried every diet there has been in hopes that this one will indeed be the one that works for me. I think the first diet I ever tried was smoking. Yes you read it here, I used to smoke. I cannot believe it myself as I am so anti-smoking now. I can’t stand the smell or the way it makes my skin crawl. I find being around it physically painful but, back in the day, I lost a great deal of weight because I would use my lunch money to buy cigarettes, thus was the invention of my cigarette diet. Then there was the diet supplement called Aids. Yes, that was really the name. It was a little chocolate square that was supposed to curb your appetite. As a chocolate fanatic all this did was give me a new candy to eat. It did nothing to curb my appetite and only proved to give me more calories.
Once, when my husband went out to sea, I lost a tremendous amount of weight on the corn diet. That was my own invention. Most days my dinner of choice was a can of corn with a half a stick of butter. That was when I was young and did not realize the evils of eating a half a stick of butter. I am still paying for that as now I have high cholesterol. I guess I cannot blame that one on anyone but myself. Then there was the cookie diet. That’s right you were encouraged to eat cookies! It was not cheap and they tasted like a dirt covered tire that had been rolled in gravel but those little fiber filled gems really did the trick. Just by eating a cookie and some water for breakfast, and repeating the process at lunch, I managed to drop an incredible fifty pounds.
Next was the cabbage soup diet. While some complained I rather liked the taste. The problem is I could not get very far from the bathroom while on it. I guess that is how it works. I have tried several diet pills, one of which was dexatrim. I think the reason this one works is because it has you so wired you can’t stop. How could you not lose weight when you are constantly on the go? I also did a herbal pill called Body Tabs. While this really worked for me and for some crazy reason lowered my cholesterol dramatically the ingredients were not deemed safe and I figured my heart was at risk while on them.
I lived gluten free for the past two years and while that was done for medical reasons, it is still a very restrictive way to eat. I am no longer eating gluten free and have been lucky enough to not be ridden with the medical issues that first caused me to go that route. I have however found my weight to have increased since I am no-longer limited to a restrictive diet. It is for that reason I find myself exploring yet another diet that is somewhat new to the scene. I have been doing some reading and researching and have decided to check out the 17 day diet. It is based on four cycles each lasting seventeen days. The first or initial cycle is pretty restricted as to what you can eat. You can eat chicken, fish and turkey along with a wide assortment of vegetable and fruit but, no fruit after 2pm and probiotics from a gathered list within the book. You also are required to drink a cup of green tea three times a day and start the day with a cup of warm water with lemon.
The next set of seventeen days your options increase as more foods are added to the approved list, followed by even more options during the third seventeen day cycle. When you get finished with the third set of seventeen days, if you have not met your goal weight, then you begin the process once again, starting back with the original set of seventeen days and what was allowed. This continues until you decide you have reached your goal weight. Once you have met your goal weight then you get to proceed to the last cycle, which you will stay on in order to maintain your weight. It is a win-win situation for me as I have to eat healthy during the week but can cheat on the weekends. I feel this is a plan that I can live with, as I am more prone to eat “bad” on the weekends anyway.
The weight loss during the first seventeen days is said to be pretty dramatic. I would welcome dramatic, especially since we are heading into the summer months. I am currently on day 12 and so far I have lost a total of 8 pounds. I guess there is something to be said for eating healthy. While I do not intend on turning this blog into my diet podium I will give updates as I continue on my journey. I prefer journey to diet as I have been on a lot of diets and they have not always produced lasting results. This time I feel I am more on a journey to find the lifestyle that works for me. This time there will not be any cigarettes or diet pills. I may have a bit cabbage and even a little corn. I promise to forgo the butter, but I am told that during the next cycle I will be able to eat a cookie or two!
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