According to the QWLC people, I have lost 7.5 pounds. That’s during the day with clothes on. According to our scale at home, I have lost 6 pounds, first morning, naked weigh-in.
The food is getting boring. Duh.
The double chocolate bar wasn’t too bad.
I’m going out of town this weekend. Hopefully I’ll be able to do this well.
It’s been a week. According to them I’ve lost 6.5 pounds. That’s quite a bit.
According to my scale I’ve lost 5 pounds in the last week. That’s what they say you’ll lose. 3-5 pounds a week.
So I guess I did.
This food is really boring though.
Tell you what, you want to lose weight when you’re eating all raw foods with little processed foods.
One of my students called today. It was a good call. She left a message to call her back. She’s going to Switzerland and has promised to transport chocolate back for me. Of course, I won’t be able to eat it for a year, but what do I care? It will be there, waiting for me. A tiny bite at a time.
I had intended to give her my whole summer allowance, but $600 of chocolate seems a bit excessive. Even if I weren’t on a diet. Then I thought just $100. But that ought to buy at least 25 bars. And do I really need 25 bars? No. Do I want 25 bars? Yes. But should I have 25 bars? Even if I don’t eat them for a year and then only have one tiny piece a day for a year?
I don’t know.
The chocolate is Cailler’s Lait Avec Noisettes. Milk chocolate with hazelnut. The bar comes in a mainly blue wrapper with white on it and small hazelnuts rolling around the colors.
I haven’t been able to find it to purchase in the US before. But you can get samples, little minis, with this bar in it now. For only $35. Think of that next time you buy a bag of $5 candy treats and think it’s too much. Plus, I don’t like a lot of the others. So $35 for a few of the minis is REALLY expensive. But oh I love that chocolate.
You would think the chocolates would be available, since Cailler was bought/absorbed/merged with Nestle. Nestle does sell here in the US, but they don’t sell Cailler here. I called the Corporate headquarters many years ago to ask.
Of course, Frito Lay doesn’t sell their delicious yam chips, available in Thailand, either. So I guess it’s a question of what the companies think the market will buy. I loved yam chips in Thailand. And even if I can’t eat them for at least the next year, I would still buy them if they became available here, just to help the market. I’d probably even pay my boys to try them.
Anyway, I have to call Kelly back tomorrow and tell her how much money I am going to give her to buy chocolates with. Wish I knew for sure what the bars cost now in Switzerland and what the exchange rate is likely to be. Oh well. I’ll just make a guess. When I used to live there, the exchange rate meant a HUGE bar was fifty cents. When my mom went about eight years ago, the exchange rate meant each bar was $4. That’s a huge difference. I guess I’ll figure on the bad exchange rate since the dollar is low.
Cailler makes the very best chocolate. Even if it isn’t readily available in the US.
This morning my scale said 180.4. It also said 40% fat. Which is 72 pounds. So depending on which day I take I could have gained 12 pounds in fat in the last week. -Yeah, like I believe that. I think I will just have to go with the idea that the fat poundage is a bit off because I’m not carrying any extra water. Or it’s been off all this time and that’s what I really have. Which is not a pleasant thought.
When I went in to weigh, in the middle of the day, with my clothes on, I weighed 183.5. That’s down 6 pounds from the first day, in the middle of the day with my clothes on, when I weighed 189.5. Mostly the same clothes.
I ate all my food.
It sure did seem like a lot. I started eating late and, at nine tonight, I still had bread, margarine, turkey, and a supplement to eat. I got it all eaten. It was fine.
I had the Oatmeal Cinnamon Bar today. It’s okay as long as you have something to drink. It’s a bit dry.
I had the lemonade today. It has an aftertaste. I mixed it with an Ice Botanical and that made it much better. Don’t think I’ll ever drink it by itself.
I mixed up a “pudding” with lemon and vanilla nutrient. YUCK. That’ll be the last time I try that. It was nasty.
I think I’ll get some orange soda pop and try the vanilla with it to see if it tastes dreamsicle-y. I mean, I bought the stuff, I might as well try it.
7 oz of turkey is a heck of a large turkey breast slice. I thought I was going to throw up, though, trying to eat it “dry.” I had it fresh out of the oven, so it was actually moist, but I am used to having ketchup with it.
Then I remembered a recipe I used to make on BFL all the time and I got up and made it. Thankfully I hadn’t eaten all my veggies today, so I could make it.
It’s turkey, lemon juice, fresh tomatoes, green onions, green chili peppers, cumin, and black pepper. There’s a lot else in the original recipe, but that’s what I put in it.
It was very good and it was much better than eating the turkey by itself or with pieces of raw fresh veggies.
I’m going to have to look for more things like it that I like and can make on this diet. It’s so fresh veggies. No canned foods. No preservatives. The only processed foods you eat are two slices of diet bread a day, if those are your starch choices. And lite margarine. You have to have that.
I thought this diet might be a good way to tell if you were wheat allergic, but it’s not. It does have those two slices of bread. Of course, I don’t have any sugar except what is in fruit. You know that wheat, sugar, something else diet everyone was doing a couple of years ago? A girlfriend of mine lost 50 pounds in six weeks on that. She is allergic to one of them. (Deb S.)
If I dropped tomatoes and potatoes, I’d have no allergic foods in the diet at all. But I’m still having those. Just at a considerably lower frequency than I had them as a vegetarian, for sure. Since you are onlly allowed potatoes three times a week, those are probably not going to hurt me. However, I am eating a lot more fresh tomatoes than I have eaten in years. I may have to cut back or risk my skin tearing up when I touch them again. (That’s what happens when I’ve been having too many. Just handling them acts like a light corrosive acid does on metal, burns the skin off till it splits.)
Oh, wait, I’m also allergic to caseinate and that seems to be a main ingredient in some of their supplements. It was listed number one on one of them. I don’t remember which.
The supplement I had this afternoon was the chicken noodle soup. What it really is like is chicken broth. But I like that, so it wasn’t a problem. I also had a piece of toast with my margarine on it. It was a nice, light meal. Of course, they tell you they aren’t meal replacements. They’re supplements. That’s good, because there isn’t enough to them to be a meal replacement. They have quite a bit of protein, supposedly, though. Makes it nice to get your protein from a drink that is actually somewhat palatable.
The last drink of the wildberry passion is not as good as the rest of it, but aside from that it’s pretty good. I mix it with crushed ice and diet Sprite.
I was going to try the lemonade today, but I chickened out.
I also thought about eating another bar, but that first one was so not good and they’re so small anyway, that you just don’t want to.
I am going to try one of the dessert supplements tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. I think I’ll try the lemon pie recipe. (It’s not really lemon pie, of course, but…)
You know, I’ve been on this six days and haven’t made chicken yet. I’ve eaten chicken, but I haven’t made it. I’m not very good at cooking chicken. I’ll have to find some way to make it that it tastes good.
Italian sounds good right now, but since I can’t have pasta or cheese, that’s not going to happen.
Suzanne Brockmann’s Harvard Education is going to be re-released July 1, 2004. Hurray. Finally.
I looked at Harlequin and the search engine said “no match found.” However, Amazon said it will be released soon. Thank goodness. I’ve read the rest of the series over and over. My husband even bought this book for me last year, but the ebay seller never sent it.
But it’s coming!
Okay, I understand the concept. I think the idea is good. But I think that the concept and I are going to go head to head.
I went in today. I hadn’t lost any weight. (That’s not surprising, since my period restarted today with a bang.) But the lady said, “Well, if this were the third week, we’d be tweaking your program.” (Read: taking food away.) Then she looked at my sheet, “How big was this potato?” Ah, hah. They think I don’t know what a small potato is. But I do. A small, miniature, minute potato is what I had for dinner last night. 3.5 ounces.
I’m hacked. Encouragement I can use. Help I can use. But it seems like they’re the food police. That doesn’t go over big with me. You think I don’t care about losing the weight? I care enough to have given them $800 and counting. I guarantee you I don’t just drop money like that on things. I’m tight. (Okay, not as tight as some people I know, but still.)
And I’m grumpy. It’s hard to eat this food. It doesn’t taste great. None of it is comfort food. I’m not starving, but I feel like I never get to eat. Then when I eat, I don’t want any. I’m too full to eat. Aargh.
First off, I love wood. I love the woods. I love trees. I love wood furniture. I love wood floors. I love wood beams, wood mantles, wood everything.
A friend of mine’s sister is a woodworker. A crafter in wood. A wood turner is how she describes herself. It is beautiful wood. Lynne Yamaguchi. Beautiful stuff.
I love some of her work. But I have to say, okay, where am I going to put it? I am married to a person whose decorating style is minimalist. Mine is not, but I don’t want stuff everywhere. Is there anything I have now that I am willing to get rid of to have this? Yes. But the wood pieces don’t really fit where the other pieces are. And I already have some pieces that I love that I don’t really have anywhere to put them. I don’t want to end up with stacks of things put away because I have nowhere to show them off.
I certainly don’t want to end up like my grandmother with so many things I love in my house that people have to walk through a corridor of things piled everywhere. They almost couldn’t get my uncle out of the house when he died. It’s a fire hazard if nothing else.
But I love beautiful things and her beautiful things are within my price range. You can buy a beautiful peroba rosa plate for under $50, when it’s on sale. Or a smashingly exotic yellowheart bowl for $150. I have a thing for yellowheart, even though it’s not my normal color, because of Elizabeth Moon. Of course, my favorite is a paduak bowl for $300 normally. (Wow, that’s a scary number.) There’s a Burmese rosewood bowl for a bit less.
There are three beautiful bowls, a soft maple, claro walnut, and quilted maple, which I adore as a set. They are each about 7 inches in diameter. But one is white and one is dark and one is medium. (Wow, imagine that, no reds, which are usually my favorite color woods.) There’s also a sapele bowl that I like.
I’ve been looking up woods on the net, reading all about them and learning more from the things she had up for the Tuscon Art show than I have learned about woods before. And I have a woodworker in my novel. Cedar is his normal work, Lebanon Cedar. (Which is where the story is set, about 3000 years ago.)
I’ve also watched a couple of woodworking shows on Tivo. On Master Craftsmen, I think it was.
My girlfriend, whose sister the woodturner is, bought a wood piece at an art show in Austin. I am sure I could not afford it, but it is fantastic. It is actually a collection of about twenty different very small bowls and plates of different kinds of woods. It has its own mantle to sit on and black sand. It’s amazing.
Maybe I’ll just get a small muhuhu bowl to start.
180.8
That was my weight this morning.
So I’ve lost five pounds. Supposedly. Haven’t lost any inches that I know of. I should probably take my inches. They did it at the center, but I haven’t done it. At the center, I haven’t lost any inches. That would be weird. Five pounds and no inches.
I am actually feeling fairly well. So this is much better than Atkins.
The supplements are a lot more than I thought they were. The herbs for one month are $135 a bottle. Which makes just the herb stuff over $1200 for a year.
The bars, by the way, taste nasty. Not “I can’t eat this” but “I don’t want to have to eat this.” I had the peanut butter crunch bar with chocolate. It was dry and chewy and hard to eat. Not flavorful at all.
Atkins:
20 June 2003 (see that date’s blog for more) I had been on induction for 2 weeks and lost 4.4 pounds. However, I was feeling very ill, nausea, weakness, no energy. I was at 159 to start.
Body for Life:
2 May 2003 Starting my fifth challenge.
8 April 2003
March (2002) went on BFL. I stayed on BFL until the beginning of February, when I began to go downhill and started losing muscle rather than fat. I was having to take naps again. I was sleeping 10 or 11 hours.
25 March 2003
I have a problem with losing words and sleep apnea. That was getting worse at the end of BFL, plus I was losing muscle those last two weeks. It had been getting better. But at the end of the 10 months, it took a sharp turn downhill. Those are the reasons I quit BFL.
20 February 2003
Body for Life after 44 weeks and a total loss of 45 pounds of fat and 27 inches. But the last two weeks of BFL I was losing muscle, not fat.
26 January 2003
After 44 weeks on BFL and having lost a final count of 42 pounds and 27 inches, I am bailing. I’ve been losing muscle, not fat, in the last few weeks and nothing I could do would change it.
23 January 2003
Day 52 on this round of BFL.
Physique transformation:
31 January 2003
This is day 5 of PT.
10 February 2003
Now I am in a new program. It’s a bit more difficult. You have to enter into the computer every food you eat. It doesn’t matter if you have something new to eat every day, but you have to include all of it.
I am tired often now and hungry, even though my calories are higher. I am hoping that will get better as I work through this.
14 February 2003
This new diet takes hours out of my day, “peeing and eating. That’s all I do.” my husband says. I think that would be true if you added in a bit of time working on the diet on the computer.
20 February 2003
In the three weeks, I’ve eaten more and LOST inches and weight. Three or four pounds and 4.5 inches. It is amazing.
25 March 2003
The eighth week on PT.
8 April 2003
I started looking for another weight loss program. I did ten weeks of Physique Transformation. I began to get better. I gained eight pounds of muscle and lost four pounds of fat. Then the last week of conditioning, I gained fat. Then I went into fat burning. First week, lost five pounds. Second week, gained three pounds. Third week, gained a pound. I couldn’t stand that, so I quit. But I was also feeling worse again, starting to have to take naps again. NO!
We have a 10 week old beagle. I hate to admit this, but she is a sweetie. Cute, as only a puppy can be. Intelligent. Ornery.
We’re still working on housetraining. That’s not as simple as it seems that it ought to be.
S is M’s dog. But E and I are doing a lot of work with her too. More than we intended to, but I don’t think we mind much. R said S was going to be his dog, too, when M goes off to school he will probably leave S here, but I spend a lot more time with her than R does, so maybe she’ll be mine. (No commitment or anything on that just yet.)
I weighed in this morning at 181.4 on my scale. I’ll use both mine and theirs to keep track of my weight.
181.4 means I have lost 4.4 pounds in the last three days. That’s pretty amazing. My hubby says that’s about what I did on BFL. I hope that this goes as smoothly at the beginning and keeps going smoothly all the way to the end. The end I want it to go to and not the place where it just quits working.
I am feeling better. Not as grumpy. I am still getting hungry quickly, so I am trying to break everything down into smaller meals, so I can have more stuff when I get hungry again.
Of course, they tell you that the earlier you eat the better off you are. The problem with that is you don’t always have an option. For instance, R and I are going out for a date tonight. I’m assuming we’ll go eat, since I scheduled the sitter so we could. But then that means I am waiting till we go out to eat to get my main meal in.
We had a church luncheon today. I managed to have 4 oz of chicken and two of my veggies. I ate an apple when I got home this afternoon. So I am on track.
That is more of an accomplishment than it sounds. Other foods there included potato chips, baked beans, homemade cookies, homemade pies, homemade ice cream, and homemade brownies. In fact, the desserts were the most plentiful food at the luncheon.
I tried the berry protein drink that tasted kind of like jello with ice and a diet Sprite this morning. It was very good. I also had the diet bread, okay but not great, and some light margarine, same thing.
I think I will get the pudding mixes and the lemonade when I go in tomorrow to try them.
Bad news. My weight went up tonight, by about a pound.
There are several possible reasons:
1. I think I miscounted my water and drank too much.
2. I started my period, which always makes me jump a pound or so.
3. My lunch/supper meat may have had salt in the spices. I didn’t think so, but it might have.
Now, I didn’t go in today. They said I didn’t have to. Hopefully that is true. And I can’t go in tomorrow because it is Sunday and they are closed.
So I am looking at a full day to at least get back to where I was. I hope I make it.
My mouth is hungry still, even though my stomach is full. (That’s one reason I think I may have had too much water. My stomach is FULL.) But I can’t eat tonight anymore. I think I’d throw up.
Tomorrow we are going to someone’s house for lunch. It’s going to be a buffet, so I think I will be able to not eat, or only have veggies or something. I hope so anyway. I am planning to eat before we go. It means we will probably have to stop so I can get something to eat on the way. I think Wendy’s for chicken would be good. My kids are picky vegetarians, so I may take them through the Taco Bell drive through on the way, just to be sure they eat something.
I am thinking of stuffing an Ice Botanical in the car, in case tea is not available. I figure if I have a glass in my hand, no one will wonder too loudly why I’m not eating.
I am trying to decide what I should have for breakfast. I am actually leaning towards a protein drink. One of their supplements. I could mix it with ice and a diet Sprite. That would make sure I have protein. Which I need in the morning, but which is not on their schedule. Then I could have a starch with half my fat.
I could have one of my fruits, too. They don’t want you to eat those after 6 pm and they don’t want you to eat them together. So that might work.
This is not the most fun I’ve ever had losing weight, but it’s not the worst either.
I went looking last night for people’s comments about Quick Weight Loss Center. I found one person who wasn’t happy with the advertized price versus what you had to pay when you got in there. I’m not surprised about that. Despite the fact that it is considered deceptive pricing, which is illegal, it’s done all the time.
I had to go through over 20 more pages of Google to catch the next comments. It was a from a woman who lost 55 pounds in 12 weeks. She was thrilled with the program. She only had 10 more to lose and she was so excited. However, she never did get the last ten off and, six months later when someone asked, she didn’t say whether she kept the others off either.
Most of the QWLC stuff was adverts. UK especially. From the ads around here you would think the thing only existed in Houston and Austin, but apparently that is so not true.
I found several places which said they had the diet, but when I went there it wasn’t posted.
I know that the hardest thing about a diet is maintaining after you’ve quit losing. It isn’t fun anymore. It isn’t exciting. It’s just plain old work. But I’m going to do it. I don’t want to be overweight any more. I don’t want to wonder if I am developing Type 2 diabetes. I don’t want to have to suck in my gut and watch my excess flab flap over the top of my jeans.
So I’m doing it.
185.8
183.6
182
Those are my morning weights for the last three days.
So I’ve lost more weight again. I like that, of course.
I don’t feel well, but that is probably a combination of several things, most having no relationship to the diet.
My neck has been sore for weeks. I finally figured out it was my new pillow, got rid of that, and went to the chiropractor. It’s much better, but still not perfect.
My back hurts. But there’s no question that is because I started my period today. I shouldn’t have. My period isn’t due for a while. But my body is fighting through the pills and giving it to me anyway. Last time I stopped the pills for a week, to just let it have its way, and it took over two weeks to quit. I’m not doing that this time.
Also, my side hurts. I’ve got a deep muscle pain in my right side. Normally I get those from straining, but I’ve done diddly, so I don’t know why it’s happening.
I took my carb blocker about five minutes ago. I have breakfast and lunch on the stove cooking. The beef has been very good, but I’m not a very good roughage person. That’s going to be much tougher. But I’ll make it.
The reason I started blogging was to get my ideas “out there” and get other people responding to them.
However, no one reads this blog except my husband and me.
So what is the point? Is it my on-line diary? My on-line journal? What is the point of writing something no one reads? Well, I guess I read it. And assuming the web stays stable it’ll be there to be read for a long time. Interesting idea.
I have friends who would read the blog, but if I told them about it, then I would not be able to blog about things I think about that they would be totally opposed to. It’d be kind of like my animal rescue friend J telling my reptile/bug friend A that if A bought a snake, J wouldn’t able to be her friend, because she’d have to feed things to the snake that J tries to rescue. And if you think that’s a close limit, you have no idea how they’d freak over going to a topless bar or reading an erotic novel.
I haven’t finished my 80 oz of water today, so I fixed myself a glass of ice water, added lemon, and sat down to drink.
I asked tonight why only 2 diet sodas were allowed or 2 Crystal lites. They said it was because of sodium. I drink Ice Botanicals. 0 mg of sodium. Why can’t I have all I want of those? I don’t know. Because it isn’t on the approved list. Okay, why not? No answer to that one. I may have to take a bottle in. Someone might have to actually ask a dietician, if the company has one.
Wow. I’m not very positive about this thing I just spent $700 on, am I?
Here’s the positive part: In two days I’ve lost 5 pounds of scale weight. Before I started, in the evening, my weight was 189. Yesterday evening it was 186. Tonight it was 184. Those are some rapidly falling numbers.
As long as I stay busy and don’t drop my work levels because my energy levels are dropping, I should be doing great. Unfortunately, right now they are dropping. I figure it’s carb withdrawals. Hopefully it will stabilize quickly.
For the first two weeks, you are supposed to go in every day to the Center. So I went in again today. According to their scale, I had lost exactly 3 pounds. In about 30 hours.
Turns out you can have decaf tea. I asked.
I’m feeling rather lightheaded. They said carb withdrawal can cause that. I am sure that I’m having that since any and all of my favorite foods are “bad carbs.” They told me to have another orange, if I needed it. But that’s three oranges.
I’m a little more stressed out or on edge than usual. But I guess that’s probably part of the carb withdrawal as well and I will get over it.
You get to eat carbs on this diet. It’s just most of them are roughage carbs… You know, lots of water and some roughage, not much else. The breads, desserts, popcorn… Those are not on this eating plan.
I can eat all I want these first three days, but only of green veggies and beef. After that the diet is considerably more constrained.–At least to my way of thinking.
Last night I went to bed at 9. I can’t do that tonight because I only ate my last orange at 8. So I need to be up several more hours. I think you aren’t supposed to eat fruit after 6, but I needed it. So I ate it.
I am looking forward to getting rid of my size 16s. They’re loose now. But I want to be wearing my 12s again comfortably soon. Certainly I should by the end of the month.
–One thing I learned today. If you lose 3 or more pounds, you go on the trainers’ “plus” sheet. If you lose less than 3 you go on their “minus” sheet. If you gain or don’t lose, they don’t write you down. It’s as if you don’t exist for that week. (Since you normally only go in once a week.) Of course, as with all diets, some people have more problems than others and some people lose way more than others. They only track the people who are “doing what they are supposed to.” So what does that mean if you are following their prescriptions but not losing weight?
That could be a problem.
The evening before I started QWL , my weight was 189. Last night, after one day, my weight was 186. Yesterday morning my weight was at 185.8. This morning my weight was at 183.6. That looks good.
Of course, I know it is water weight, but since my mom is carrying 60 pounds of fluid, all the water weight I lose is a positive in my opinion.
However, the body fat scale, says that I gained 7 pounds of fat and lost 9 pounds of muscle in that 24 hour period. I know that is not true.
I forgot to take the pills they tell you to take with your food, so I’m going to have to have those with my snack. You have to take the carb blocker 10 to 30 minutes before you eat, so when you get hungry, you have to wait to eat. I guess that could be a help. Learning not to eat when you first get hungry.
The only problem with it is that I tend to start getting nauseated if I don’t eat when I first feel hunger pains. So I’ll be nauseated with a medicine in my stomach. Which tends to make my reflux worse. (I don’t have full-fledged reflux. My dad does, though.)
So I’ve lost at least 2 pounds of scale weight. In one day. If that continues, which I don’t expect it to do, I will lose the 5 pounds they promise each week. Plus they said that people often lose 3 to 5 pounds the first three days in the prepatory phase. It’s a lot like Atkins’ in that part.
If I really lose a minimum of 3 pounds a week, then in 8 weeks I will be back to my low weight on BFL. That means by the middle of July I’ll be as low as I was after 8 months of dieting.
Truthfully, I don’t think it is going to work that easily. But I would love for it to and I’m going to do my best to help it. I’m going to stick with the eating plan and do what I am supposed to do.
If I get stuck on a plateau, I’ll add some exercise and hope that helps.
I’m looking forward to posting 3 pounds or more of weight loss in a week. That is something to look forward to.
It’s been one day. I have eaten most of a package of salad, 17 oz of beef, a slice of cucumber, some green beans, one and a quarter Ice Botanicals, 80 oz of water, two oranges, two eggs, and some Morton Lite Salt. That’s been my food for the day. It’s a lot of beef, but not much of anything else.
How do I feel? Well, this afternoon, after lunch, I felt hungry and sick, so I ate some more. Then tonight, before dinner was ready, I also felt hungry, but not sick. I am peeing a lot.
I’m still wondering if this is going to work. I am wondering if I have set myself up to fail. I’ve been thinking a bit about all the foods I won’t be eating for the next year.
The one thing about that is that I know once you haven’t had a food for a long time, it doesn’t taste the same the next time you have it. BFL broke me of my love for potato chips. So, we’ll see if my love affair with bread ends.
I don’t know what I weigh. They said not to weigh except once a week. (Like that’s going to happen.)