I Have a Confession To Make

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I tried the HCG diet.

(I KNOW, I know, I know.  "Crash dieting never works."  "You have to make lifestyle changes."  "Moderation in all things."  I KNOW.  You don't have to tell me.)

But if I'm going to have to meet a bunch of people in February, I would prefer to be - not in the largest pants size I've ever owned.  That would be my preference.

If you haven't heard of the HCG diet before, it is basically - complete insanity.  Basically, you starve yourself  and you take HCG hormone shots, you can't use lotion or oily make-up or cook anything that would require you to even momentarily touch something fatty, and you - I don't know - spin around three times in the dark and whisper "please make me beautiful" until it all works together to make you lose weight. (Or else, as I suspect, it's just the fact that you are STARVING YOURSELF that is effective and the rest is all complete BS.)

You can't exercise, which means my running program went on a temporary hiatus.  The official reason for this has something to do with burning calories from the "wrong" fat stores, but really, I think it is because they know you would KEEL OVER AND DIE, and they don't want to be responsible for it.

The diet has phases - Phase 1, where you eat like a crazed hippopotamus for two days (this is called "Fat Loading" and it was my Very Favorite Phase); Phase 2, where you eat 500 calories per day for 23 or 43 days, depending upon how clinically insane your doctor is; Phase 3, which they call "Stabilization" and where you basically eat no carbs; and Phase 4, the maintenance phase, where you ease in a few carbs, gain everything back, and start all over again.

(Listen.  I know how crazy it sounds. I have read billions of nutrition/diet/fitness/healthy lifestyle books. I am very good about READING about how to get and stay fit, just not so good at the actual implementation. I know all about how crash dieting effects your metabolism, your muscle mass, etc., etc., etc.  I know about all of it.  I'm not fat because I don't understand these things.  But desperate people do desperate things.   And after viewing Certain Christmas Pictures That Have Been DESTROYED, DESTROYED, DESTROYED, I would say that desperate just about sums it up for me.)

I started reading The Literature (from back in the 1950s - so - Highly Credible), and it sounded vaguely convincing, if you squinted and really WANTED it to be convincing and were willing to ignore all of the other things you knew about nutrition, fitness and metabolism.  And I know a lot of people who have done this diet, who have done WELL on this diet - people who are NOT actually clinically insane, but rather rational, intelligent people.  So I thought - what do I have to lose (besides, as it turns out, large clumps of my hair)? 

I tried it.  For the two fat loading days, and then for eight days of starvation.

The Pros:

• I lost 14 pounds in 8 days. (I suspect 80% of that loss is water, since I look not a smidgeon different.)
• My carb and sugar cravings are completely gone.
• I am completely off the sauce (Diet Dr. Pepper)
• I wasn't hungry, strangely enough.

The Cons:

• The aforementioned hair loss
• Overwhelming fatigue
• Skin like an alligator
• The inability to form complete sentences
• Migraines and vomiting (A HA!)
• Lost work time (due to staring at my computer wondering what the little buttons with letters on them were for)
• Irritability (if by irritability you mean completely losing my nut twenty times each day) (my children LOVED this diet)

Yesterday I started blacking out, so - as of yesterday, I switched to a sensible low carb plan that will allow me to - not starve. OH, SWEET FOOD. SWEET EGGS AND SALAD AND CHICKEN.  SWEET NOT DYING OF STARVATION. SWEET BRAIN CLARITY.

So now here I am, 14 pounds lighter but still having vertigo today.  I'm going to jump back into my running / weights program tomorrow (or as soon as the constant dizziness goes away).

And THAT is My HCG story.

Please folks, don't try this at home.

(Do I win for the craziest crash diet story ever?)

Ginormica LIVES

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• I've been avoiding blogging, because if I blog, it's proof I'm alive, and if I'm alive then I have to actually read my email and feel guilty for not answering it in a more timely-like fashion, and if I feel guilty then I have to eat more chocolate, and if I eat more chocolate than I have already eaten I will most likely end up in a diabetic coma.

• I'm finally off the cursed hormones, and I feel much more like my version of normal. The hormones not only made me crazy, they also made me narcoleptic. I was falling asleep anywhere and everywhere. While sitting at a stoplight. Standing in the grocery store looking at fruit. Typing a sentence. In the middle of saying something to my husband. I could stay awake and reasonably alert around the kids for most of the day, but by dinner time I was pretty much done. It wasn't all that uncommon for my husband to come home after work and find me dead asleep, sprawled on the hardwood floor in the kitchen, the kids running around scavenging for food and generally recreating scenes from Lord of the Flies.

• I'm at that stage where nothing fits very well, but I'm still resisting maternity pants in favor of sweats and really baggy jeans. The baby is only about the size of a cantaloupe right now, but I do not let this define the size of my stomach. I like to stay ahead of the pregnancy fashion curve (why look five months pregnant when you can look seven? Tres fashion forward).
  
  With all of my other pregnancies I've been pretty careful about gaining weight. I didn't need to be any heavier than I was already, thankyouverymuch - but this time around instead of feeling responsible and excited and careful, I've tended more towards feeling completely freaked out and a little depressed, and I ditched my usual cautionary weight gain attitude in favor of SCREW IT, pass the ice cream.
  
  I am GINORMOUS. (We took the kids to see Monsters vs. Aliens on Saturday afternoon. The female monster's name was Susan and her monster name was Ginormica, and I decided it was probably a sign from God, telling me it was inevitable and to just go with it for a couple of months.)

• I was blathering to my husband about camping this summer - maybe we could take the kids to the Grand Canyon, or maybe to Yellowstone, or - and my husband had to remind me about the baby, and the possible-but-not-certain early delivery issue. I just keep forgetting about the dang baby. I never forget the PREGNANCY, but I space the resulting baby. The reality of the baby still seems like some kind of elaborate April Fools prank.

• The doctor says I should be able to carry the baby all the way through to September, or maybe August, or possibly July. She would narrow it down a little, but it all just kind of depends on "how much your uterus rips and how likely spontaneous uterine rupture looks after each visit." But she says not to worry because they'll "keep an eye out." PHEW.

• The kids all mistakenly stayed home from school today. I pulled up the April school lunch menu online and it said "No School - Professional Development Day." I naively assumed this meant no school. But later, when we were driving by the school on our way to the plant nursery, and I realized that all of the other children in the universe were at school. WELL. Then I realized that it must've meant something else. Something more mysterious.

• Hooky or no hooky it was a gorgeous day, and once I was done with work we spent most of the afternoon outside. We planted a few flowers and I pulled up weeds while the kids jumped on the tramp. My husband came home a little bit later and threw baseballs to the kids while I sat on the steps watching in my lazy I-don't-have-to-play-because-I'm-pregnant way. Everyone was happy, and it was one of those moments I wished I had on tape - not just because it was a happy moment, but so that in a few months I could play it back for the kids and say - SEE?!! BEFORE THIS BABY CAME, I WAS A GOOD MOTHER. IT'S ALL THE BABY'S FAULT.
  
  (So if you were wondering if I had a plan for parenting four children, you can put those fears to rest. Clearly, I am ALL SET.)

The End.

Here Is What I Hate About Being Fat

Pin It Where to start.

1) In my head, I'm totally a blonde, blue eyed, 23 year old ingenue, and it always surprises me when I walk by a mirror, like, AAAAAACK! (That picture up there at the top of the blog where I look almost average sized? Outdated by about 25 pounds.) (It's been a stressful year, shut up.)

2) If you are me, which I am, you sometimes feel the need to make jokes about how fat you are, which is just a HORRIBLE thing to do to people. I mean, way to make everyone feel awkward. If they laugh, they're jerks, and if they don't laugh, then it's like they're acknowledging the truth of the statement. What are they supposed to say? "You're not fat?"

3) Yes. That is what you are supposed to say. Even if your friend is 350 pounds, if she says "I'm so fat," the correct response is a quick, automatic, "You're not fat," with a change of subject. Don't worry. You're not enabling her. The thing is - she already knows she's fat. CRAZY TALK, I know. And if you don't say anything, or if you say, "Here, let me give you the number for Jenny Craig," she will drive straight home and eat another gallon of Ben and Jerry's. And yes, I agree that true friends should be able to say anything to each other. Just - not that.

4) I don't appreciate it when my skinny friends give me dieting tips. If I bring the topic up, which I don't all that often, because HELLO, it's not like I need to call attention to it, they will sometimes (gingerly and in a loving way) try to give me weight loss advice. This is annoying because, HELLO again, I know how to lose weight. I've lost my entire body weight, twice (spread out over time, obviously - I'm not MAGIC). I've read every weight loss/healthy lifestyle book known to man. I know about lifestyle change. I know about exercise. I know about muscle mass. I know, I know, I know, I know. I KNOW! I just... ...really like to eat.

A Few of the Diets I've Been On: Weight Watchers, Body for Life, Atkins, the South Beach Diet, Carbohydrate Addicts Diet, the Rotation Diet, the Cabbage Soup diet, and the Diet Dr. Pepper-Fasting-Chewing Gum diet.

Once I talked to a doctor about it, and she actually said, "What you need to do is stop eating so much and exercise." And then on a little pad she wrote Eat less, exercise more.

I stared at her. "Holy mackerel. I have never heard this before. I think you may have just unlocked the door to weightloss for all mankind."

No, I didn't say that. Actually, I just muttered, "That's harder than it looks," which led to talking about my unhealthy obsession with food, which led to her prescribing me an ACTUAL diet drug - phentermine. It was AWESOME. I lost 40 pounds in eight weeks AND I barely ever had to sleep. I was so productive, I can't even tell you. My throat was hoarse from never shutting up, all day long. But eventually Dr. Jerkface made me go off of it, and I gradually gained it all back. (Big surprise.)

5) Highland doesn't have fat people, other than me. I'm SPECIAL. But I love all of my skinny friends, and I never judge them for being all fit and healthy and semi-obsessed with running triathalons. My heart is big. I do not discriminate against the fit. I love ALL sizes (even the 2s and 4s! See? I'm a giver!)

But it would be nice to have a fat friend. It's sometimes nice to have a friend who is fatter than you, so that you can feel like the skinny one. This is a politically incorrect but still true truth. I don't do this anymore (LIE), but when I was younger I cycled between normal and chubby on a regular basis, and if I was with a fat friend, I'd constantly assess our relative fatness, wondering "Do I look like that? Am I that fat? Is she fatter? Or am I fatter? Huh. I think she's fatter." And if my friend was fatter, I felt way more comfortable out in public, because, yeah, I might be fat, but at least I wasn't as fat as her. And then lightning would come down out of the sky and strike me dead, because MAN, that's awful.

But anyway. I feel gross. I've gotten to my gross set point, and I'm ready for a change. (Yes again.) (The folks over at the weight loss blog I started and promptly abandoned are all snickering at me, I know. But I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME.)

So - LIFESTYLE CHANGE, HERE I COME. WOOHOO. Yippee. I'm SO excited. or something.

And now I'm trying to figure out how to go about this, so what I'm wondering is - anyone ever eaten a tapeworm?

P.S. I'm KIDDING, don't send me gross pictures. BLECK.

P.P.S. Don't worry fat acceptance people, I'm not down on myself because of my weight. I know that I am STILL FABULOUS. I'm a basically happy person. My weight is not constantly on my mind (um, food however...). It only bothers me every third Tuesday, when my jeans refuse to zip up. I don't let my weight define me, blah blah blah. Whatever.

Stuff I Think Is Dumb

Pin It 1. The fact that dogs, when you take them to the kennel, you can’t just leave them there forever. Why isn’t that an option? WHY?!!? I would pay them a LOT MORE if at the end of the dog stay, they would just keep the dog and send us pictures once in a while. Alternatively, they could have a “Break the Bad News” option where upon arriving at the kennel to pick up the dog, the kennel people tell your children that Fido went to live in heaven while they were on vacation. That way, you get the whole NO DOG thing, but also, your kids wouldn’t blame you for it. (Quick, somebody write a business plan. We could be billionaires.)

2. My hair. It turns out it really DOES make a difference if you have a professional color your hair or if you try to do it yourself. A BIG difference. It's the difference between feeling like a pretty, pretty, princess and feeling like a giant dishwater colored turd.

3. I would like to announce that I have crossed over into the realm of bloggers who receive free stuff. Did I get a Dyson? No. Did I get a Wii Fit? No. I got (Are you ready for this? It's really exciting.) - a BOX OF FREE POPCORN. GLORY HALLELUJAH. I HAVE ARRIVED.

4. I think it's dumb that in large group settings with people I don't know very well, I sometimes get overly anxious and self conscious. Sometimes when I think of something to say, I get all excited to say it and instead of just SAYING IT like a normal person I get all wound up and sick to my stomach and end up blurting it all out in one overly intense, awkward ramble of words. (On the other hand, give me a microphone and a podium and not only will I not be self conscious, I will totally ROCK YOUR WORLD.)

5. Swim skirts on large women. I'm allowed to say this, because I am currently nine thousand pounds. Here's the thing. We know you're fat under there. We know this because we can see the rest of you. Trying to hide the thighs specifically is kind of pointless. Set your thighs free. Let them come out and run wild and free with your arms and your back fat. Yes, that's right. You can do it. Come on out here and join the rest of us tubbies. I may not speak for the fit people of the world, who might sometimes prefer that we hide our unsightly cellulite from view beneath a swimming burka, but seriously - we're swimming, not going to church.

What do YOU think is dumb?

Ouch

Pin It Carter, on the tramp with me, shreaking with delight, "You bounce me SO high - you SO big Mom!"

Carter, after wandering into the bathroom when I'm getting out of the tub (yes, we're all relaxed like that), and seeing the water level go down when I get out, "Wow, that - that lotto water Mom! You so big! Wow!"

Abby, giving me a big hug and a kiss: "You're such a nice old fat mama. I love you my big fat mama."

Abby, watching me get on my bike: "What if you pop the tires?"

Sarah, looking at us side by side in the mirror: "I'm thin." Looks me up and down. "You're more.... Thick."

My husband, making me want to whap him upside the head, "Gosh, I've lost so much weight. None of my pants will stay up anymore. What am I gonna do?" (Yeah. This is me, not caring about your "problem.")
Anyway.

This is me, the jolly version:

This was probably not a good fashion choice. (No, I am not pregnant, why do you ask?)

Yeah. So...

That whole healthy eating and exercise thing?

SO. BACK. ON.