Binge triggers

I went to bed with plans for the day - I'd get out of bed before midday, vacuum the carpet like I've been wanting to do for over a week, go to the doctor and walk home, and manage to eat all the 17 Day Diet meals.
Yeah, nor so much. I woke up just before midday, but getting up proved a little harder, in no small part because I took my laptop to be last night and there's always distraction online. And I needed a little recover time after my shower; instead of seeing the doctor I made an appointment for tomorrow, which is something, and I've rung work to let them know I won't be in - I'm certainly feeling better but from a pretty low base line and there's just no way I'd be useful at work - on an average shift I walk 13,000 steps and I doubt I could manage that, let alone the actual work, and I'm still having episodes of uncontrollable coughing.
So what did I manage to do? I finished yesterday's turkey for breakfast and steamed cauliflower and asparagus with over baked cherry tomatoes and salmon for lunch. And then I read an email from my sister in London, asking me to delay my trip until next year, which my mother's been prepared to do at short notice in the past. Apparently my recent presence disrupted my niblings (niece and nephew), made her life more stressful and hectic, and didn't ask her if the last trip was convenient, let alone this one.
As it happens, though I'd be less inclined to going to Europe as often as I do if I didn't have family there, the last trip was because of a biannual conference in the Netherlands that I presented at. I did also go to a conference in England that, while interesting, was predominantly so I ha a tax-deductible reason for visiting London as going so close and not popping in felt rude.
My next trip encompasses three conferences, two in London and one in Manchester. The conferences fees aren't refundable, just like my flights, train tickets and hotel, all of which I got at a reduced rate for booking early. I can quite easily not see my sister, or at least not often while I'm there, but I did ask if I could spend a night there and leave my suitcase for a couple of days, as I've got a day seminar near them and then leave that night for Manchester. I can book another night at the hotel but they won't hold my luggage overnight, let alone for three days, so I'll have to take that with me, which is doable but annoying. I'm feeling quite grudging about the presents I bought my sister and her family, and pleased I didn't buy her the new phone and tablet I was thinking about getting her.
I'm more sanguine than I was initially, but getting from pissed to less pissed and a little amused was aided by the ingestion of a packet of Lite'n'Easy crunchy noodle snack and several sweet things; to whit: a Choo-choo bar, a mini Bounty, and an entire box of Toffifee, which I don't even like that much. The good news is that I'm still under my notional daily calorie aim (per Calorie King),and even factoring that in I've only averaged 850 or so calories a day, but I'm pissed that even knowing what I was doing I still swallowed my emotions instead of finding a more productive response.
I'm old enough to have moved past from this kind of stimulus-response behaviour. I like to think I can manage these kinds of ingrained reactions but I'm starting to think I need a professional to help give me the tools to manage better. I've had several annoying family incidents in the past week - my sister calling twice after midnight because she hadn't printed out vouchers for the holiday to Rome I arranged for her on behalf of my mother until the day before her flight; my father calling twice early in the morning because my mother couldn't work out how to use her CashCards even though I set the PIN she wanted, wrote it down where she asked, and went through it with her before she left; got three texts late last night from my mother's friend asking me to contact my brother in the US to make sure he was ready for her arrival today (that would be three texts back, two emails and a phone call to my brother); and a text and phone message from my aunt this morning, worried because she couldn't get on to him, followed by a message from him reassuring me he was fine, which I wasn't particularly concerned about as we spoke last night, when he called because he couldn't contact my mother in Rome and wondered if she was okay. It's really no wonder I've decoded not to add news of my pneumonia the angst that is my family dynamic.
They're not going to change any time soon, so I have to. Otherwise this cycle, which has repeated for as long as I can remember, will continue and I'll be fat and swallowing my emotions for the rest of my life. - Alex

I left the house!

I had to go in to work for a meeting today, which is my biggest exertion and expedition in over a week. It did pretty much wipe me out, but it's progress. I'm pretty sure, though, that going back to work this week won't be a viable option even if this irritating cough abates. Still, at least I no longer feel as though I've been doing crunches.
I also broke the 17 day plan by eating a banana - I'd bought several for day 4 of the Kick Start program (for smoothies) and not finished them, and the ridiculous price of bananas in Australia make throwing them out a notion of financial moronity.
I was going to buy some turkey mince from Coles or Safeway for the taco salad, but even though they're only a fifteen minute walk away usually a) I'm walking at a far slower pace than my usual 6+k/hr and b) I was too tired, so I bought shaved turkey from IGA instead. It's quite nice, low in fat and sodium, and dead easy to prepare - just peel open the pack! Even with that I only managed 505 calories for the day, including steamed vegies and lemon-poached chicken, but I'm working on it. - Alex

A meal a day

And that's pushing it a little at present - salad (as for day 2), salmon, a Yakult light and a few strawberries and that was it. I'm so looking forward to doing something more interesting with my life than sleeping, haivng a shower, lying down to recover from the shower, then make myself eat despite disinterest in food, rest again, and force myself to drink a glass of water. O! the terrible first worldness of my problems. - Alex

I've lost the ability to tolerate fat

I did lapse a little today - I managed the eggs from Saturday, a repeat of yesterday's chicken and steamed vegies, and a few strawberries, but was also swayed by a miniature Snickers bar. It was very nice, but about an hour later I was wracked with abdominal cramps and diarrhoea, which may be coincidence but I suspect now. Incidentally, an 18g Snickers has a whopping 4.5g of fat - not nearly as much as I got from the wodge of salmon I had, but a lot more saturated.
My preoccupation is still the crappiness of recovery rather than my diet, but I've only got another day of roxithromycin and I'm feeling quietly confident that my improvement to date will continue. - Alex

I'm ready for my appetite now

So it's day 2 on the 17 Day Diet and I couldn't face anything until half way through the day, so my breakfast comprised a bottle of Yakult, which is a little light on. But I had a dish of steamed asparagus and caluiflower accompanied by a piece of chicken breast poached in lemon juice, which is my preferred no-fat method.
It's no doubt because of my recent loss of appetite but it was quite pleasant, and less bland than I'd usually find it. I followed it with homemade frozen yoghurt - frozen berries and no fat yoghurt in the blender with a little sweetner, which was soothing and quite pleasant. Which I see was my description of the meal, so my vocabulary's becoming as bland as my palate and my plate. - Alex

17 Day Diet

My Kick Start week fell apart a little thanks, for a change, not to my falling off the wagon but a moderate dose of pneumonia. So I've lost 5.5k in a week through an unsustainable combination of fatigue, nausea and anorexia instead of the ideal combination of healthy eating and physical exertion.
I'm now two days into a five day antibiotic course and starting to feel better but I think it's going to be a while before I'm able to do anything more exciting than z light walk without having to stop for a breath, and today's the first day I've even felt up to that.
I can, however, watch what I eat. I'm flying back to the UK in just over a month, and I want to get there thinner and fitter than when I left a fortnight ago, and maintain a healthier lifestyle while I'm there, despite a disrupted routine, new (and tempting) food and no kitchen. I decided while away that I'd spend this time between the Kick Start week and my flight doing the first two stages of the 17 Day Diet. See my review for details on the program, but essentially it's a low fat, low carb program that's high in animal protein, low GI fruit and vegetables, with an emphasis on probiotics.
The Kick Start diet's actually been quite a good introduction to a low carb program as, with the exception of yesterday's bowl of cereal, I've had nothing significant in the way of grains in the past week.
I'm not anticipating following this long term, but I think I need something to re-initiate the progress I was making until I got to the magical scary weight that triggered a frightened reversal. I've lost 18 kilos in twelve months, which is certainly a start, and sustainable, but I want to lose another twenty plus in the next year.
So, back to the Moreno program! I started with scrambled eggs mixed with a smidgen of mustard, followed by an orange, which slipped quite nicely down my sore throat. Lunch was a huge bowl of salad with iceberg and mixed leaves, celery, capsicum, raw cauliflower and tomato, topped with a can of drained tuna and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil with 2 of vinegar. It was crunchy, fresh, quite filling and surprisingly tasty.
I should have finished the day with steamed vegies and chicken, another piece of fruit and some yoghurt, but all I could manage was a Yakult, but it's a start and I feel quite content. - Alex

We Have a Diagnosis...

and the reason I've been feeling more crappy (that'd be a technical term) than the expected with average cold is because I've got atypical pneumonia. Good news - time off work. Bad news - all I want to do is lie down for hours at a time.
Instead of vegetable soup I celebrated the return of a (half-hearted) interest in food by making vaguely Chinese-influenced chicken soup for lunch, and totally ruined the whole carb abandonment by having a bowl of WeetBix with muesli and rice milk. It hardly burst the calorie count - today I clocked up 965calories for the day and just couldn't manage anything else.
Tomorrow I'll start the 17 Day program, though if the past couple of days have been anything to go by I won't be able to manage the entire intake, nor the otherwise reasonable 17 minutes/day light exercise recommendation. - Alex

Killer cough

O! the horrible coughing-to-the-point-of-gagging.At least I no longer have a fever, but I have post-febrile patheticness and have done little for the past two day but lie in bed. And cough.
Yesterday's orgy of beef and tomatoes didn't happen, and my total intake amounted to 43 calories of Raspberry Zinger tea with honey.
While I was in the UK I bought a vast array of lollies from the awesome A Quarter Of, ostensibly for the licorice care package I'm putting together for a brother-in-law; though I certainly bought a beautiful array of licorice and aniseed treats, half or more of my purchases were for me - pips (tiny little lollies with fantastically intense flavours), Irn Bru-flavoured humbugs, lime hard-boiled lollies, rhubarb and custard lollies, pineapple chunks, raspberry millions, mini Parma violets, Chelsea Whoppers, monkey bars, Krakatoa foaming fizz... and I didn't even know what those last half dozen are! I do, clearly, have impulse control issues, which is how my expedition to buy a pair of shoes netted me two pairs, plus two pairs of ankle boots and a glorious (but unneeded) red leather suitcase. But I digress.
I've been very disciplined since my delivery arrived some three weeks ago, but today I managed to choke down two Cadbury fudge bars (25g and 115 calories each) and two Nestle Caramac bars (30g and 173 calories per bar - they're basically caramel-flavoured white chocolate). They were quite soothing to my irritated throat but sat less well in my still nauseated gut, so I may stick to tea and honey for now. I also had four pips, in banana, cola, strawberry and cream. I can't find any nutrition information on them, but they're tiny boiled lollies, weighing about 2g each so 30 calories.
I just can't do anything physical, thanks to quite unpleasant and persistent shortness of breath with essentially no exertion. So somewhat less the rest of the Kick Start program and rather more of the This Bug is Kicking My Arse... - Alex

The magic of fad diets

So after the two fruit days when any fruit except highly-calorific bananas were allowed, on day four my (by now quite boring) soup can be supplemented by up to three banana smoothies. I'm not quite sure how they're high potassium levels (like the vast quantities of tomatoes in the soup and in the two days ahead) now outweigh their calorie count, but that's why I'm not a fad diet creator.
Yesterday was a bit of a catastrophe, though in the reverse way one might expect. I did, I must confess, break the Kick Start diet a smidge, by eating about 10g of crisps, but my total daily intake was very low. As, in fact it has been since Friday: Friday 546, Saturday 747, Sunday 544, Monday 709, and today a comparatively whopping 1168 - must be the potassium!
I had my soup overnight, plus the alluring crisps (or, to be precise, Smith's Aussie Fries), and before leaving work (at around 8:45AM) I had a multigrain muffin with extra light ricotta and half a tomato, followed by half a packed of delicious Soyco Malaysian Satay tofu (and I'm surprised by LiveStrong's nutrition break down of 47.3% fat when the label says 9.6...) I then went to help my mother pack for a trip to Rome, and got home around 3PM, so exhausted I showered and went to bed, sleeping until 1AM and then again from 3AM til 7:45, so no Day Three update, and not much eating or, sadly, exercising.
That's probably a good thing, as the cold I've been incubating's picked up a touch - last night I had some slightly alarming creaky on inspiration, and as I type I'm shivering with a low-grade fever. So perhaps working out is something to put - or, more accurately, stay - on hold. Just getting the washing off the line made me both short of breath and a little nauseated.
I did cheat a little this morning, weighing in before the week's over: 4.4k off since Saturday's weigh in (or 3.3 since the Friday weight). I think it's way too soon to be triumphant, and no doubt a chunk of that's water weight, but it's still a move in the right direction. - Alex

Running Music

Somehow I neglected to record the momentus occasion of completing the couch to 5k running program. Well I complete it I did and since have been getting out for about 30 minutes of running three times most weeks. (I have learnt to modify my activity depending upon how the left leg holds up. So some runs are considerably shorter and some weeks don't see me out three times.)
In celebration of my new running routine I decided to make my very own running playlist. I carefully went through my mp3 collection and chose half an hour worth of music with varying beats (slower at the start and finish, faster at the ten and twenty minute mark where I tend to sag) and loaded it up onto my mp3 player. The player most helpfully rearanged the music into alphabetical order by artist, thereby stuffing up the running order.
Thinking "there is probably a way to fix this but buggered if I can work it out" I went online searching for tips and came across jog.fm
I love this site. I can give it my ideal pace and it will make song selections in any genre I choose to match that pace, with handy links to where the song can be purchased. Even better I can give it the name of a band and nine times out of ten it can give a list of their songs and their best for running time.
I now have an extensive running playlist at around the right pace for my current ability and it doesn't matter what order it's played in.
The site also has music for walking and cycling-go check it out.-Lynn

Heavier already?

So I weighed myself when I got up, and I've managed to gain 1.1k after my first two kick start meals - proof, if any was needed, that day-to-day weighing doesn't accurate reflect anything much.
I started day 2 feeling fine but tired, but when I got up I felt quite dreadful - dull headache, really tired, and just not right. An apple made no difference, so I had - in lieu of a cheese and ham sandwich - a toasted multigrain muffin with reduced fat ricotta and tomato on one half and Vegemite on the other. That and an apple picked things right up. Sadly I didn't do anything much on the exercise front, a problem lately with my night shifts - staying up too late in the morning, then scrambling to get to work in the evening, and probably the next bad habit I need to work on.
I had a small bowl of soup overnight, having neither time nor inclination then for more. Breakfast was a bowl of fruit salad (black grapes, kiwi, rock melon, honeydew and strawberries, accompanied by a diuretic glass of carrot, apple and celery with ginger.
I feel as though I could eat a meal now (some three hours after breakfast, as I'm not working on the early-to-bed thing yet), or just as easily head to bed. I don't, however, feel at all like any more soup, which probably doesn't bode well for the next five and a half days. I'm choosing option B, and will keep you posted. - Alex

Kick starting things

I suspect the reason why people lose weight on this diet is because of the vast amount of time spent chopping and peeling the ingredients. A kilo of carrots, a bunch of spring onions, a couple of capsicum... and already I've gone off program because the recipe specified green and I went for the (tastier, less expensive) red ones instead, and threw in a couple of cloves of garlic. Oh dear, it's all over!
So I had my first bowl of kick start soup at 2AM - it was surprisingly nice, but I suspect I'll be reconsidering that in a couple of days. For now, though, it's all good and I'm feeling quite virtuous.
I've flipped days one and two, starting with soup and vegetables; tomorrow's soup and fruit (because I'm going out for breakfast after work and fruit salad will be on the menu at 8AM, unlike steamed vegies). Monday is soup plus fruit plus vegies (be still my heart), Tuesday is non-chews day, with soup and banana smoothies. On Wednesday I get to add "six luscious tomatoes" (why six? No idea) and beef, plus soup, with beef (or chicken, or tofu) and vegies on Thursday. And on Friday I get brown rice, vegies, fruit juice and the note "you might need more soup today."
So my vegies when I got home where a bunch of steamed asparagus and a handful of snow peas with a little butter and olive oil. Of course, had I been a little more careful with the reading I'd have realised I could reward myself (their words) with a jacket potato topped with butter or yoghurt. Silly me, I was paying attention to day three, when I can eat all I want but no potatoes. Why? No idea - it must be magic.
Fruit day (the official day one and my day two) allows as much fruit as I like, except bananas. This is a little perplexing, because day three (soup, fruit and vegies) says nothing about bananas, and day four I can have up to three large bananas in my smoothies as they're a great source of potassium. But not on day one?
If I have hypoglycemic symptoms (headache, anxiety, drowsiness) I can have up to one sandwich of wholegrain with cheese and ham, but no butter or margarine. Butter's okay with a jacket potato but evil with a wholegrain apparently. Why? No idea - diety magic again.
All of this is, of course, key - mystery and a thin veneer of science, and ignore the discrepancies. And yet here I am, doing it anyway. So I'm off for a little more soup before bed. My cunning plan is weighing in when I get up, a return to the working out for the first time in quite a bit, and a yummy breakfast of soup and maybe a jacket potato (if I'm up to a supermarket trip before work).
Watch this spot. - Alex

Day 365...

Tomorrow will be twelve months since I first started Lite'n'Easy and embarked anew on changing my lifestyle to the healthier. I've lost 14k so far, which isn't a bad thing but I've definitely lost ground from an initially strong start, and had several falls from grace with corresponding restarts. I lost ten kilos in the first four months, and by mid-April got under 100k for the first time in over a decade. Unfortunately this seems to have been a strong emotional trigger, because I rapidly returned to the safety of triple figures, virtually stopped blogging, abandoned CalorieKing and, three months later, even stopped my monthly measurements.
I haven't been sleeping enough, I've had enormous difficulty getting in enough water (and though I know eight glasses a day is a myth, when I don't drink enough, especially if I haven't slept, my feet swell), I've done no real exercise in entirely too long (the odd walk here and there may be good but it's hardly aerobic), and my diet's veered way off track.
On less-relevant but allied topics, I'm well behind on the thesis front (not entirely my fault but that makes it no less problematic), I've got three years worth of tax returns to finalise and submit, the financial records I've maintained for the past four years have been neglected for months, and my house deposit has been badly eroded.
I've just returned to Melbourne after three weeks in Europe, and I'm ready to get my life back on track on the multiple fronts of academic, financial and lifestyle.
I bought a new diet book a couple of months ago, The 17 Day Diet by Dr Mike Moreno, and am thinking I might give it a go, though I haven't finished (or even done much more than start) it. From what I've gleaned so far, it's composed of four sections - the first three are 17 days each, followed by a maintenance phase. Why 17 days? I have no idea - thus far there's been no indication why two and a half weeks is magically better than two or three, but the first three phases take fifty one days, and that brings us almost to summer.
I'm going to start, though, with a kick start. The Kick Start soup diet, to be precise. Yes, in the long-term this is ridiculous, and come December I'll be switching to a diet high in complex carbs, minimal animal protein, and lots of fruit and vegies. But a week of high-fibre, ultra-low carb, low fat eating won't hurt me, a concept I'm much more comfortable with after reading this article - I'm not 450 pounds, but I also have no intention of fasting for over a year!
So my plan is to start the Kick Start program tomorrow (October 1st, my dieting anniversary), stage 1 of the Moreno program the following week (October 8), stage 2 a magical 17 days later (October 25), stage 3 17 days after that (November 11), and look at the maintenance program 17 days after that, which brings us to the beginning of December.
There is a titchy hiccup to be negotiated - day 1 of stage 3 is also day 1 of a three-weeks-and-change trip back to the UK. However, though this may put a little crimp in the exercise component, I can pick diet-appropriate meals (I'll be flying business with an option to upgrade, and thus many menu options) for the meals en route, and just need to apply a bit more discipline than usual, and can weigh in on December 1st at my sister's - though not first thing in the morning and naked it'll still give me an idea of how I'm going.
It's not been all sedentary since I last wrote - in June I hiked in Olympic National Park, Washington with my US-based sister and brother-in-law, managing to scale a 5,000 foot mountain without expiring, and actual enjoyed both the exertion and the view, as well as the three other hikes over the short time I was there. In fact, I plan to join her in Colorado next year for a few hikes at altitude, God help me!
And my recent trip included a couple of exertional activities - on the day arrived my other sister, brother-in-law and 'niblings' took me for an hour on a paddle boat, and I managed to paddle for most of the time; much to my surprise I was able to walk afterward, and would have enjoyed it even more if I'd had a shower first! On my last day in London, four days ago, my sister and I hired Boris's Bikes for an hour or so and rode through Hyde Park - I was quite apprehensive, as I haven't been on a bike that actually moves (as opposed to the odd short spin on an exercise bike) in easily twenty-five years, but the adage is true and, with the exception of the occasional wobble, I was fine, albeit a little puffed. So perhaps, despite the sedentary nature of my past few months, I may not have lost all my fitness achievements.
I know that my backsliding went hand in hand with my abandonment of blogging, so I'm also going to post something every day, even if all I'm documenting is that I'm maintaining my momentum. - Alex