I take my last HCG shot a week from tomorrow. After that it’s two more days of the super-low-calorie food regimen while the remaining hormone works its way out of my system, and then it’s three more weeks of a different food regime — larger quantities, adding fats and oils back in, but still avoiding sugars and starches.

So by one perspective, there’s still a long way to go. And yet, it also senses like enough of an accomplishment to be nearing the end of this initial six-week stretch that I’m kind of thinking of myself as being in the home stretch. At least, on some sort of home stretch.

And at this point, I am ready to reach the first finish line. Because, however fine my physical body is doing on this regime, the emotional body is currently a little worse for wear. All these little daggers of frustration adding up.*

1. There was an upsetting happening yesterday afternoon, and the emotional craving to self-sooth with comfort food was as strong as it has been since this HCG journey began.  (I distracted myself from the craving with a footbath and a funny movie.)
2. We let the food stores run very low in expectation of doing our grocery shopping today after church choir — only the last apple in the house turned out to have gone spoiled. So I didn’t have my usual apple on hand for today’s breakfast, which totally threw my morning off to a challenging start.
3. Mr. Mezzo and I did our grocery shopping together, and as we walked into the aisle to pick up his loaf of bread and English muffins, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting, “I miss bread.” (Bought some spring tulips instead.)
4. I’ve started reading up on the next phase of dietary restrictions, which are very clear in suggesting that the first week or so after HCG it is best to stay within the same limited list of allowed foods (lean proteins, plus certain veggies and fruits) and just increase one’s portions. Meanwhile, I’m obsessing over something I saw on GMA about shirataki noodles and how I could use those as a way to do “macaroni and cheese” within the new (and looser) restrictions. And I do think the shirataki mac & cheese would obey the letter of the new dietary laws, but it sure isn’t in the spirit of what’s recommended for this upcoming phase.

This is always the mental pattern that I most hated about times I would try to diet or “get myself in shape” by “eating right”: the part where my attempts to eat healthy burgeon into a full-blown food obsession. Ugh.

I was in a detox class yesterday where the teacher talked really eloquently about the ways it can sometimes be unhelpful to approach detoxing through the lens of “eating the right things” in order to prevent the ingestion of toxicity. Instead, it could be possible to acknowledge the fact that one’s system has already ingested some decades’ worth of environmental, energetic, and yes, food-borne toxins, and thus place a stronger emphasis on ridding the system from that accumulation.

I’m holding this teaching very close to my heart today as I try to imagine my remaining weeks in the current and future phases of the HCG experience. I aspire to get back to that more balanced perspective on things.

But right now, I’m feeling a bit on the edge of a precipice. Feeling the grip, the gravitational pull of that food obsession. Thinking about food all the time, maintaining routines and rituals as a way to stay on track (see: today’s upset re: the spoiled apple). Chafing against the restrictions, trying to figure out every clever trick I can to stay just a hair’s breadth within the rules (see: my shirataki noodle obsession), tempted now and again to just say “fuck it” and eat a whole package of Kraft macaroni & cheese with a microwave popcorn and Ben & Jerry’s chaser.

I’m still holding within the boundaries of the protocol. But if this is really meant to be a detox journey for me, then the way any possible other insights have been swept away by all the food obsession hits me as just a tiny bit problematic. Okay, hugely problematic.

But it’s all I got tonight.

* Phrasing inspired by Henry Rollins, Airport Hell: “That’s two minutes of time I don’t get for myself. It’s like he’s murdering me — just a little. Like he’s murdering me with a very tiny knife.”

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Image credit: http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/2013/11/15/friday-a-help-obsessed-food/