Current Mood: Tired

Day one and two of the hcg diet include taking the drops, and loading up on food. Fatty foods, sweets, you name it, whatever you want, filling yourself to capacity. I’m not sure I’ve completely succeeded in that. Yesterday we skipped lunch to test drive cars (and my stomach wasn’t feeling too great either while adjusting to the drops). Had a nice, big dinner out after buying my husband a car for his birthday (2011 mustang). Felt slightly hungry late last night but there was absolutely nothing appealing to me in the house, so I ate nothing.

Today there’s a little more upset stomach so far. My last day of eating so I started it with donuts which I suspect may be what’s unhappy with my stomach. I don’t think this diet really likes sugar at all. Both days it’s been sweets that bothered me. I almost can’t wait for tomorrow so I can live on small amounts of chicken, veggies and fruits and pretty much nothing else. I’m tired of the way my body reacts to other foods. What I mean by that is foods that aren’t so healthy, usually in much too large quantities. It isn’t a good feeling. I’m hoping to feel really good once I adjust to the diet.

I had another great silly thought last night about this diet. HCG is the pregnancy hormone that shows up on home pregnancy tests. If I took one, would it be positive from taking the drops? I think it would be…

Current Mood: Determined

Today I’m starting the HCG diet. Yeah, the one where you take pregnancy hormones and don’t eat much. The one that sounds extreme, yet doctors are putting their patients on.

After regaining about 36lbs of the 63 I had lost, I thought it was time to shake things up and try to reset my body with this diet. I’ve tried plenty of things to get me back on track over the past year. None of them have worked. Partly because I lost my willpower and resolve. With this diet, it’s all in or nothing, so I’ll have to find that willpower and keep it.

After only two doses so far of the HCG drops I feel pretty much the same… Today and tomorrow I get to eat normally. Day 3 brings the food restrictions.

Things that have crossed my mind this morning:

Will my cat think I smell weird like I’m gonna bring home another one of those baby things?
Is the whole world going to smell bad to me like it did when I was pregnant?
Am I going to be pregnancy hormonal?

Other things crossed my mind, but I’ve forgotten them already…

To get on with the process, here is the current before picture.

That’s my cute daughter running with me this past Saturday.

I’m really hoping to be successful on this diet. If I’m not, then I’ll just have to find a way that IS successful. See you at the finish line, and all along the way.

Current Mood: Tired

Yeah… some people kissing while doing yoga. Maybe this is why I always bring my husband to yoga class with me.

I’ve been quiet, I know. I’m working on something that’s been consuming quit a bit of time. It’s a good thing. Someday I’ll be ready to talk about it.

In the meantime, I’m starting my big diet tomorrow. Little bit nervous. I’ll be updating this through the process. Hopefully it’ll be as successful as I’m hoping for. More on that tomorrow.

Now, time to get ready for yoga.

Current Mood: Silly

Haruka and Yuu from Noein.

We watched this series over the last week or so. Finished the drawing about the same time we finished the last of the episodes. It’s a series that definitely left me with more questions than answers. Realistically I probably only understood about half of what was going on, if that, yet we enjoyed it quite a bit.

I suppose it wasn’t funny in the Japanese version, but we got much entertainment from Yuu’s name in the English version. I am Yuu. I want to go with Yuu.  Yeah… maybe this is part of why I had no idea what was going on half the time.

Current Mood: Crazy

I don’t draw boys often enough. I think it’s about time I get better at it. So here’s just some random guy. He sort of has a big nose. I have no idea why. He looks almost like he could have been my husband, but I swear he isn’t supposed to.

I had high hopes at finding a good manga book with lots of boys in it over the weekend, but wasn’t happy with any of the books I found.

Pandora is playing Loser by Beck. really? That’s so… high school. I guess that means I’m pretty old now.

Working on another drawing with a boy in it. Thankfully there’s a girl, too. Girls are so much easier for me.

Current Mood: Determined

Running. And running out of time before the races we’re planning to run come about. We were planning on September 4th as my husband and daughter’s big racing debut. Turns out that too good to be true race at the University my husband works for is no longer employee only. Now it’s employees and family and we’re all signed up to run together August 28th. That’s soon. Like really soon. Then a week later we’ll still be running on 9/4.

I also don’t know why with time about to catch up and overtake me, this has been a completely hideous week of running for my whole household. I take that back. Monday we rocked out! Then Tuesday we sucked, and I cut a mile off the end of my run because my calves were hurting too much. This morning, both my husband and I were having so much calf pain that we only did one mile… and walked more than half of it.

It could be said that trying to run 3 days straight was a pretty silly idea, especially after pain on day 2. Now we know.

It’s also no surprise that my running shoes have hated me since day one, and now they’re 3 months old, and I decided against replacing them before these upcoming races. It was a monetary decision, and likely the right one, but damn I’m sick of pains from these shoes! So those are on the top of my list when it becomes a good idea.

Today I took the kid for haircuts. My hairdresser is a friend of mine. Probably the only friend I’ve made in 10 years of living here, and yeah… it’s not like we hang out all the time. But she’s a friend and when we get to see her it’s catch up time. This time I hadn’t seen her since April because we’d just been growing our silly hair out long anyway, so why not spare some finances and not cut our hair all summer? Today we walk in and my hairdresser friend is skinnier than she was when I first met her. She hadn’t started trying to lose weight until after the last time I’d seen her. I guess my reaction was similar to how people used to react to me when I dropped 60+ pounds over the course of a year. I wonder if I get points from MizFitOnline on how to give a compliment rather than how to take a compliment because I sure complimented all over her. And not in a jealous way. I’m so proud of her. Not to mention she was always one of my biggest and most gracious complimenters herself.

It did however open my eyes to just how badly I want to get back to where I was after a year of 30 pound gain back after the whole quitting of smoking thing last summer.  And all the talk lately with my husband about what I should consider doing with the rest of my life and the whole yoga instructor dreams and the what about physical therapy or something to do with sports medicine conversations. And how I won’t be pursuing at least the fit little yoga instructor part until I find a way to shed this weight again. So the goal I think is to try this diet. I’ll be starting in early September, post race around my husband’s birthday. Not going to discuss the particular diet yet as it’s a bit more extreme/controversial than I thought I’d be willing to try at this point in the healthy living/weight loss journey. I’ll talk about it once I get it started and as I go through it. I’ll need to talk about it then. Right now I need to not talk myself out of it. It’ll mean giving up a lot of things I live on. Like those stupid caffeine free diet dr. peppers. And most food. I’m going to need support through that I think. But I’ve given up fun eating before, and said caffeine, and said cigarettes. So I can do pretty much anything if I set my mind to it. And if this method doesn’t succeed in resetting my body so I can lose this weight that wants to cling, then I’ll just go back to another method or find a new one until something does work.

I can’t keep giving up anymore.

I can’t make any of these dreams/plans/goals a reality with this much extra weight hanging on.

I’m never going to run as well as I’d like to while carrying around this much weight, no matter what shoes I’m wearing.

And it’s all ok. And I’m worthy of compliments. And I’m going to make things happen, one way or another.

Current Mood: Good

Connecting with the earth today in down dog, have you been watching Elena Brower’s daily asanas from Wanderlust? So beautiful and moving.

This concludes my 31 days of yoga.

Current Mood: Hungry

Boat today. Figured I may as well hit the tummy a little with it.

One more pose to go and my challenge is complete!

Feeling great over the fact that I didn’t miss any of my planned workouts this week. I feel very back on track.

Current Mood: Blah

Today’s pose was bridge. Done both with and without the yoga ball. I’m really digging te yoga ball for tummy workouts this week.