When Apples Attack

On 3 April 20143 April 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of Study3 Comments

Obviously, I took last night off from blogging — choir rehearsal may make this a common practice on Wednesday night. The effect last night was exacerbated by rehearsal being part of a trifecta that included staying late at work (barely enough time to have dinner and get to rehearsal), and an early-morning training today (so my post-rehearsal routine needed to be a pretty direct trajectory to bedtime).

And I’ll admit I haven’t been entirely sure what else to write about my HCG journey these past couple days. Things have been kind of in a decent routine, actually. Didn’t feel like much to say.

But then there are days where the routine gets a little shaken up.

So here’s what my mornings have looked like. After rolling out of bed and having that sleepy-eyed date with the scale, I’ve set myself up with my daily packet of Blessed Herbs. Now, the usual instructions are to mix the packet with some apple juice, but apple and other fruit juices are verboten on the HCG protocol, so I’ve been putting half an apple, some water, and the Blessed Herbs packet into the Vitamix to make my own mini-detoxifying breakfast “smoothie.” Then I’ve bagged up the other 4 apple slices from the corer and taken them to the office for a mid-morning snack.

All in all, a pretty elegant and effective way to start the days.

Until this morning when this happened:

I don’t know what it was about this particular organic pink lady apple, but the corer wasn’t moving smoothly through it. Clearly, it was not going gentle into this good night, but still I figured it was going to come down to the laws of physics: edge and metal sure to win against soft, fruity organic matter.

Obviously, I miscalculated.

So we’re out one snazzy red corer and I have a cut on the side of both thumbs. (It wasn’t exactly like I had my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, but that’s a close enough description to give you a sense of the injuries.) I know I shouldn’t complain overmuch — the cuts aren’t really that big, and I’ll keep them cleaned and bandaged to make sure they heal okay.

Still, right now they honestly do hurt. And you’re encouraged to stay away from all unessential medications while on HCG, so I’m testing my endurance to see if I can gut through this without taking any aspirin.

And I am so curious about what sort of message there may be for me in this event. I know: it’s a little precious to be always looking for messages in things, and it’s not like I’m expecting all of life’s messages to me to be something hugely portentous or anything. But I’m at a stage in my consciousness work that whenever something really unexpected occurs, I do tend to give it a bit of a closer look to see if that surprising moment is here to show me an internal belief, or an external pattern…. or (in this case) something else I can’t quite put a finger on.

———-

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_corer

Some Fat Acceptance/HAES Basics

On 1 April 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size6 Comments

(Apologies to anyone who’s a Facebook friend — some of this will be a re-hash of the links I’ve been posting there today.)

It’s occurred to me today that because I’ve been thinking about fat acceptance & health at every size concepts for a few years now, I sometimes talk about these concepts in a very “I hold these truths to be self-evident” way. And maybe, instead, it’s worth unpacking just a little bit about my perspective on questions of fatness and health.

Now to be sure, plenty of bloggers have already dropped the mic on this again and again and again, which may be part of my reticence tonight. After all, why cover ground that has really truly been covered with great insight before?

Maybe because the things things these writers have said are worth saying again. And again and again and again, until people finally stop all the fat-shaming and masking their superiority in concern trolling and their obesity panic and bleeping get it.

So here’s my own little piece of the mythbusting puzzle.

Most of what “everyone knows” about fat is pretty much wrong.

To start off, being fat is not automatically unhealthy. Fat people actually tend to live a bit longer, and are more likely to survive cardiac events. There’s also a fair bit of evidence that a lot of health problems supposedly “caused” by fatness might instead be a result of dieting and weight cycling. There is some evidence that certain health risks are tied to having a very specific type of adipose tissue in your body (visceral fat), but guess what? Thin people AND fat people can have too much visceral fat hurting their organs, and unless you’re Superman, I defy you to tell me you have the kind of x-ray vision to know who’s packing VF and who isn’t.

Warning: that last article I linked may give you stabby pains behind the eyes because after reporting on a study that pretty clearly states that the important factors are metabolic health and visceral fat, the author still ends with the concluding thought that these results should not be taken as “an excuse to remain overweight or obese.” Because even though the study shows obesity as a non-factor in measuring health, it’s still somehow a health risk. (Just because?) Ah, ~~rumor-mongering~~ science journalism at its finest.

And while the illustrious staff writers at Time have left such tempting fruit, let’s take on this whole balderdash that implies one’s body shape and size are completely under one’s Ayn Rand-ian will. Because, statistically speaking, diets don’t work. ~~Sorry~~ Not-sorry to burst your bubble on this one: they don’t. And they do incredible harm along the way. The weight loss industry, has a catastrophic “success rate” and an evil jiu jitsu way of transfering its own failings out onto the customer so they feel guilty about it all. Well, to quote Golda Poretsky at Body Love Wellness: “It’s bullshit and it’s bad for ya.”

As for healthy diet and exercise choices, yes they do indeed matter and they can make a big difference in reducing the effect of various “fat-related” conditions like cholesterol levels or blood pressure. But here’s the funny thing: those conditions get reversed independent of any actual weight loss being caused by diet and exercise choices. And considering the negative health effects of being fat-shamed and stigmatized, and considering the fact that fat people have a dramatically lower chance of even getting decent health care on account of the prejudicial attitudes of medical professionals, it’s probably best to steer clear of claiming that a fat person’s health challenges are being caused by weight. ‘Cos I’m seeing a lot of confounding causality here.

I need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, so I’m pulling the cart to a stop here. With one final thought.

Even if fat were unhealthy and if being fat were entirely under an individual’s control, every fat person on this planet would be deserving of fundamental human respect, acceptance and compassion. Just because of their humanity.

The heart-breaking thing is how little respect, acceptance, or compassion fat people get in this culture today — even though fat isn’t unhealthy and it can’t reliably be controlled.

Data Points

On 31 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance1 Comment

The doctor’s office that prescribed my HCG gave me a booklet to help me track all kinds of things. Portions of food, my water intake, supplements, ketosis level — and, yes, a daily weigh-in.

I’ll admit, I toyed with the notion of skipping that last piece. Ultimately I decided I wanted to respect the protocol in every possible detail. Including weigh-ins: even if I have all kinds of associations between morning weigh-ins and the evils of the diet industry, I’m willing to take on this task in the context of tracking my weight as one among a set of data points.

So I dragged the scale out of the basement* and threw it into the bathroom, where it and I have been having a daily, emotionally-guarded, one-on-one.

As I expected, this detox process has meant that my numbers on the scale have been going down, a little bit each day. And, as uncomfortable as it is to admit, there’s been part of me enjoying that trajectory. I spent so many years being brainwashed around the value of skinny** that I know there’s part of me that can still fall into that old model of thinking.

Aside from that, there’s been some concrete benefits. Some of my slacks had started getting a bit tight in the past few months, and even though I would have been 100% willing and unashamed to buy a larger size if need be, I can’t deny that I’m glad not to have to spend the money and to instead be feeling more physically comfortable in my current wardrobe.

I was having a similar issue with my wedding rings feeling a tiny bit tight and uncomfortable, and it’s especially nice for those to be back to fitting better.

Anyhow, today, I had my morning date with the scale and the numbers were exactly the same as they were yesterday.

This is entirely unsurprising. All the information about HCG — even from a weight-loss perspective — talks about the inevitability that some days your weight will “plateau” instead of being lower than the day before. I kinda think the diet guides make a really big deal out of this possibility just so someone doing HCG for the purpose of weight loss won’t freak out when this occurs.

But it was fascinating to witness myself when this moment occurred. In an instant, I could recall all the old tricks I would have used, back in the obsessive-dieting days, to make the scale move in a good direction. Maybe I should weigh myself starkers, or try again after another trip to the toilet.

Or maybe not.

For all that I was able to recall the ways a “plateau day” would have thrown the old diet-obsessed Sherri for a loop, perhaps the most surprising thing about this morning was really how little emotional charge today’s date with the scale held for me. I saw the numbers, saw all the possibilities for being negatively impacted emotionally, and just felt fine.

Almost like my weight is just another data point for me.

* And why did I even still have a scale? For the always-important job of checking to make sure my luggage is under the airplane weight limit.

** Oh who am I kidding? From a cultural messages standpoint, I’m still being brainwashed about the value of skinny. We all are.

———-

Image credit: http://simplykierste.com/2013/01/fit-friday-with-erica-the-scale-friend-or-foe.html (And yes, this was a very deliberate choice…)

Taking this Show On the Road

On 30 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

Well, the wheels kinda fell off the cart today. I had all sorts of ambitions — laundry, unpacking, Coursera, neatening up & getting organized, Epsom bath, and lots of precooking for the week ahead. And some of that got accomplished, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped.

After however-many days of self-neglect, I did decide to put the Epsom bath first on the priority list, and the bath segued into a nap — which is part of why my schedule got so off-course. After all of that, I did manage some unpacking and it will be easy-peasy to do a load of laundry tonight. So: partial success.

What concerns me most is that I haven’t done any cooking with all the food and spices I bought yesterday.

The challenge of taking the HCG regimen through the work week was greatly aided by all the food I’d been able to prepare with my coaches over the weekend. It only made sense to set myself similarly up for success during the coming week with a similar cooking spree, but I have completely dropped the ball.

And the funny thing is that this week, pre-cooking and pre-planning are even more important than they were last week. Because this week, I’m heading out of the familiar spaces of home and office.

I have two different AM networking/training events during the work week, and then Mr. Mezzo and I have concert tickets for Saturday night. Of course, there’s going to be “forbidden” food and drink at all these locales: I’m sure both networking breakfast buffets are going to be all about the bagels and Danishes currently off my list of allowables, and I think the concert venue is one of those “two drink minimum” kinds of places.*

So it would very much behoove me to make some preparations to help me get through these events. Instead, I’m having to look at the question of why, knowing this, I let my lazy child run the show and create a circumstance where I’ve stressed myself out in this fashion.

At least there’s a little more time left in the evening, so I guess I’m going to go do at least some cooking, so I can partially dig myself out of this hole.

* For the record, the tickets were bought many months ago, before I knew I’d be making the commitment to the HCG program. I’m not that much of a masochist.

———-

Image credit: https://theplastichippo.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/preparing-for-oblivion/

Breadcrumbs

On 29 March 201429 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head4 Comments

I know there’s a certain irony to titling a post “breadcrumbs” when I’m in the midst of this no-carbs diet. But nevertheless, it seemed like the most fitting title for a collection of small observations: none of them significant enough to warrant a full post, but still pieces of the HCG experience I want to document.

———-

I’m wondering if the hormone is making me a little bit more susceptible to the cold than I used to be. All this winter, I’ve been sleeping in my pajama pants and a tank top, because it gets too hot under the covers in my long-sleeved pajama top.

Unexpectedly, since I returned from the detox center, I’ve needed to keep the long-sleeved pajama top on if I didn’t want to be too cold to sleep. Go figure.

———-

This protocol does require a certain comfort level with medical-type tasks & procedures. Or at least, if you don’t have that comfort level going into things, the experience might just lead you to be more blasé about such things than you were before.

In addition to the almost-daily hormone shots, there’s a weekly B-12 shot. (I say “almost” daily because you do take one day off a week from the HCG. Of course, for me, my “day off” coincides with B-12 day, so my life is in an easy one-shot-a-day pattern.) Now, the needle size of the syringe is very small, so there’s little in the way of discomfort. Nonetheless, doing the injections has certainly been an acquired skill for me.

I’ve never been needle-phobic: I had so many inoculations as a kid when we moved to S. America that there was no choice but to get used to them. But all those inoculations left me in a place where I was used to needles but I didn’t much like them. So it’s been an interesting progression, having my mild dislike of injections segue into a real matter-of-fact attitude around them.

And then there’s the morning “pee-stick” to track whether your body is still in ketosis or not.

———-

Even with everything I’ve been looking at around my food cravings and my emotional hunger, I wonder if the thing that is most strongly going to tempt me to stray from the program is my desire for lip balm. I haven’t found a single one that doesn’t contain some sort of oil, and going through this last phase of winter without being able to tend to my poor dry lips ain’t no picnic.

Come on, spring!

———-

Between sautéing everything in lemon juice and eating lots of fresh citrus for my after-dinner treats, I have become aware of exactly how excruciatingly painful fresh lemon or grapefruit juice can be on the nail-bed and cuticle wounds of a chronic, hard-core nail-biter. (Raising hand.)

This has not yet inspired me to stop said habit, but I remain eternally hopeful.

———-

(If there’s any topic here that warrants further exploration in its own post, on another day, this would be it.)

I’ve been really noticing some of my limitations around self-care.

In addition to the more “hard-core” detox movements I have going on with the HCG and the Blessed Herbs packet I’m taking every morning, my coaches at the center encouraged me to layer in some other varieties of detoxing that would be gentler, and would help care for my system while these two more demanding processes were underway.

Foot baths, Epsom baths, castor packs, kinesi — all kinds of options, and I haven’t done any of them. Even today, with a whole day off from work, I was so busy with house-cleaning and grocery shopping and the dump run that I didn’t do any of these things to care for myself. Too many other “more important” things that I “ought” to prioritize higher than soaking in the bathtub “like a lazy person.”

At least I’ve managed to keep the sleep levels decent.

———-

Image credit: http://www.sonsiliving.com/blog/cathys-shopping-cart-cart-13-new-years-eve-favorites

Sliding Into Home

On 28 March 201428 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

Even though I tried to be careful in planning my re-entry from the detox “kickoff” trip, I gotta say that I am exhausted here at the end of the (abbreviated) work week. I’m also having another day where the bodily effects of the detox are in my awareness as mild aches and, more than than that, just a general logy feeling.

So right now, I’m contemplating between two options:

Taking an Epsom & baking soda detox bath before going to bed; or
Just going straight to bed and leaving the bath for tomorrow

You will notice that “blogging” does not hold a prominent place on my tentative agenda for the evening, which is why I’m writing this brief “why I’m not posting” post.

In apologies for my slackerness, here’s a video from Pentatonix:

(Tickets to see them next Saturday! Yay!!)

Polly Wants A Cracker

On 27 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

On the first day of my HCG journey, I had a guide session and my coach asked me if I was having any fears or concerns going into the experience. And I told her: “I understand how the shots help the body detox and help tamp down your hunger so you can reset your dietary habits away from all the sugar and processed stuff. But I’m a little worried because for me, eating all the fat and sugar has never really been about physical hunger.”

I’ve been having some trial and error moments throughout the week, but for the most part I’ve been successful in figuring out how to pack lunch, snacks and supplements to get me through the work day and still adhere to the dietary structure of the HCG protocol.

But yesterday felt a bit like running the culinary gauntlet.

In my experience, every office has its own food culture. Where I work now, there’s a stack of take out menus at the front desk: every day someone picks a place and folks make a group lunch order there. It’s a pretty expensive way to eat lunch, so I only ever did it once or twice a week. But we have a standing Wednesday lunchtime meeting, so, if nothing else, Wednesday was always my day to join the group order.

But yesterday — the first Wednesday in my HCG experiment — I didn’t. And as I walked to my lunchtime meeting, I saw folks at the lunch table with their french fries and onion rings, and then I sat down at the meeting table next to someone who’d ordered pizza for himself.

And then later in the afternoon, once all the lunchtime stuff was done, someone decided to fire up the company popcorn machine to make a few batches.*

Man, was I crabby by the end of the work day.

To give credit where credit is due: the HCG held so that throughout yesterday I was absolutely feeling physically satisfied with the lean protein, vegetable and fruit regimen I’m building my meals out of.

Physical satiation levels were fine.

It was the emotional hook that rocked me back on my heels. The ways I participate in office food culture to feel like part of the team when I so often feel alienated and out-of-place in my office. The ways I use salty or sweet snacks to give myself a treat in the middle or at the end of a stressful work day.

It was those patterns that were harder to hold up against.

———-

And at one level, these are absolutely valid ways for food culture to function. Food can and should be a tool for people to bond and celebrate. My family has a whole culinary tradition of dishes for Christmas and Christmas Eve that I treasure dearly. And food can also be a source of comfort.

For me, the tricky part has been in how quickly “comfort” or “bonding” food moments can slip into the land of eating to numb out my feelings and suppress my awareness of life’s and Spirit’s energies. So the scoop of ice cream becomes the full pint, or the serving of mac & cheese becomes the whole box, and the move inevitably goes towards food instead of the myriad other self-soothing and self-caring mechanisms I could choose. Almost every time.

So being separate from the lunch order intensified my usual sense of office alienation, which only made my desire to be eating a BLT club with fries all the stronger. And it was a stressful day, so the popcorn was absolutely emotionally tempting.

———-

When all is said and done, I gutted through it and stayed on course. I mentally concocted an HCG-approved snack I would have after choir practice if I was still craving a salty treat. And by that time of night, I was so mentally entertained by having been singing again that I got home and didn’t even feel the craving for that treat.

So we live to crave another day.

I know ultimately a key way to unwind this emotional hook around eating will be to look more closely at the feelings I’m trying to smother with the food. I’m still skirting around mustering the courage to do that.

Yesterday was shocking enough just to really see how strong my emotional hook is to fat, sugar, and salt. That’s enough world-rocking insight for one day.

* Yes, the company has a popcorn machine. No, I don’t know why.

———-

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Psittaciformes_by_population

The Body Machine

On 26 March 201426 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance4 Comments

(Quick hit: as predicted, I did get into the choir and rehearsal is indeed the kind of thing that takes sole focus and does not permit on-the-side blog-drafting.)

I’m a machine, you’re a machine
Everybody that you know
You know, they are machines
To keep your engine running you need energy
For your high-powered, revved-up body machine
Your high-powered, revved-up body machine
Your high-powered, revved-up body machine
High-powered, revved-up, complicated tune-up
Fascinating body machine!

~~ Schoolhouse Rock

One of the side effects effects of HCG I was warned about was the possibility of experiencing a bit of constipation. And, at the risk of TMI, that is something I’m dealing with right now.

Let me set a bit of a boundary here. I am not really looking for suggestions on how to deal with this. I have medical practitioners and coaches who have given me all sorts of resources and tips in case this circumstance arose. If you do have a resource you wish to share, please know that I will likely thank you but not tell you whether or not I tried it, and certainly not whether or not it worked.

I already feel a little odd about sharing this much detail about my digestive health.

So why am I sharing at all?

Because my level of puzzlement around how to deal with this unexpected condition has me thinking a little bit about all of the ways I take my body for granted.

I have gone through so many cycles of body hatred, self-loathing, self-judgment and through all of that the fact remains that I am remarkably fortunate to be remarkably healthy. So many conditions and concerns that people deal with on an everyday basis: blood pressure, migraines, back problems, and even constipation. And I’m pretty free of all of it. As Mr. Mezzo said right before I sat down to write this: hale and hearty.

Definitely worth giving some more thought and attention to the miracles my body enacts every day, and the incredible luck I have around my health status. Something, methinks, to be a bit more aware and grateful around.

———-

Image credit: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1JZB0_c-s-u-puzzles-201?guid=63b11a7f-f600-42aa-a5a2-0ef958311c07

Knit the Ravell’d Sleeve

On 25 March 201425 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Subtle Body2 Comments

It is entirely common knowledge that healthy sleep is a good thing, and that part of healthy sleep is simply getting enough of it.

It is also entirely common practice to skimp on sleep in these 21st-century over-scheduled times. Neither Mr. Mezzo or myself have been perfect in giving ourselves enough sleep-time, though Mr. Mezzo has a better track record of self-care on this score than I do. This may be because he’s better at disciplining himself to keep healthy routines — whereas I feel half the time as if I’m allowing my unruly inner 6-year-old to run the show. Another contributing factor is he feels the pain of sleep deprivation more acutely than I do.

And I daresay I’ve become quite good at pretending I can get by on a regular dose of 6, 6.5 hours of sleep nightly. But I’m rethinking that right about now.

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast,–

~~ Macbeth, 2.2

One of the gifts of being away at the detox center was I was able to allow myself a full night’s sleep every night. The first night was a “minimal” 8 hours and the rest of the time I managed to schedule even more. Which is, of course, one of the benefits of having some time off from work.

But last night, I followed through on the pattern established while I was away and went lights-out when there were still 8 hours between me and the morning alarm. Shocking!

I don’t know for sure whether last night had its own effect, but I do think I felt the effects of being well-rested while I was at the office today. Obviously, a big part of that was the accumulated stretch of fully-rested nights preceding last night’s 8-hour miracle. (Plus the benefits of the other detoxing.)

But if 5 nights’ good sleep on vacation can add up to something special, there’s no reason that a similar — or longer — stretch of good sleep can’t add up for my benefit, even when that sleep is in my own wee bed.

Sounds like a simply enough plan, right? But I’m actually feeling some challenge around it.

I always have so many things I want to do with my evenings. Some of it is entirely frivolous — my TV/DVR obsession runs deep as the ocean, plus there’s my iPad gaming habit and the eternal time suck that the Facebook/YouTube rabbit hole can create in an evening. Those habits could use some inquiry, and I might do well for myself to release some of those calls on my time and attention. Some of them, mind you, but not all. I have too much love for the honest joy of frivolity to run some perfection/purity of life movement where I scorn all fun and foolish things.

And even if I were living some perfection movement where I’d purged all frivolity from my life, I would still be looking at a long list of interests and aspirations. Kinesi sessions, detoxing practices (footbaths, castor packs), joining a choir, reading books, taking classes, writing regularly here (and beyond?)….

I’m not quite clear on how to interweave all these interests and aspirations with a 9-to-6 job and a shiny new resolution to sleep more.

There is room to find some creative options here and there.

On days I get a lunch break, I could start writing my night’s post then. I already know how easy it is to run a kinesi session in the footbath and/or in front of my favorite shows, so I could cash in on that knowledge more frequently. I can watch my Coursera lectures or read the assigned articles on my iPad while I’m doing a castor oil pack. (Choir rehearsal, if I get in, might be something I have to do sole-focus rather than multi-tasked.*)

So, as with so many things: a work in progress. But also a realm of possibilities.

* I don’t know which is the larger sin: false modesty or arrogance. For the first, see above. For the latter: I’m real sure I’m gonna get in.

———-

Image credit: http://www.annholm.net/2013/01/uncover-your-potential-sleep-sleep-well/

This Is Not Munchkin Food

On 23 March 201423 March 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Health at Every SizeLeave a comment

I saw an ad years ago — I think it was for some burger-n-beer type food chain? Anyhow, the setup is like this: husband and wife have been waiting months to go to the hot new restaurant in town. (Cos you have to make reservations all that way in advance, don’t ‘cha know.)

Smoked Salmon-Cucumber Amuse Bouche — To be fair, this dish is actually an amuse bouche, not a miniaturized entree.

So they show up in their fancy clothes and the snooty haute cuisine waiter sets down plates in front of them containing something along the lines of one pea and an inch-square piece of salmon, artfully arranged.

Hubby and wife look at each other, abashed. “This is Munchkin food!” one of them declares, and then they go off to eat at whatever chain was really being advertised.

I’ve transitioned into the main phase of the HCG protocol, when I’m in that no-sugar, no-starch, no-fat diet I mentioned earlier. It’s also designed to be a very low calorie diet: though my doctor (thankfully!) has worked out a system where you track portion sizes of the allowable foods and don’t have to slide down the obsessive calorie-counting rabbit hole.

———-

Sidebar: even though I wish there were more resources that talked about HCG through the detox lens rather than through the weight loss one,* here’s a trend I’ve noticed in the different ways doctors and HCG centers talk about why HCG works as a weight loss aid.

In my little bit of research out in the field, the centers/practitioners who just vaguely talk about HCG as some almost-magical cause of weight loss — those are the ones you may want to stay clear of.

To my perception, most of the more reputable practitioners explain it more in this way: Of course the extreme low-calorie diet causes the weight loss. The HCG helps that in two key ways, 1) by keeping you from losing your mind from hunger, and 2) by keeping the body feeding off of the energy in your fat cells, rather than going into starvation mode. (Hair falling out, lean muscle mass disappearing, etc.)

(End of sidebar.)

———-

Before I decided to take this HCG journey, I talked to six different friends who’ve done HCG from a detoxing perspective. Every single one of them said that living within the portion (calorie) restrictions of the protocol would be a lot easier than I feared.

Obviously, I trusted them enough to choose this path for myself. But, knowing my own system, and my patterns and tendencies towards over-eating and comfort food, I still had a bit of a question mark as to the level of internal challenge I would feel around living and eating within the protocol’s restrictions.

Well, after two days of eating within this structure, all I have to say is: this is NOT Munchkin food.

As I’ve been working with my nutritional coaches on how to shop and cook in harmony with the protocol’s restrictions, I’ve learned about all kinds of options and variety that’s available within the structure. I mean: serious options. And there have literally been a few meals that, once we had them prepared and plated, inspired me to look at my coaches and exclaim, “This is HUGE!!”

I understand that I still have the enthusiasm of a newbie, and the tremendous benefit of being here with coaches to guide and support me. There may be moments a few weeks from now when my culinary creativity is flagging, or even just a few days from now when I’m feeling the stretch of trying to rewire eating and cooking habits that I’ve set in over the course of months (or years).

Still, even if I have some less-easeful meals on this protocol than the last two days have offered, I am well-relieved to know that this structure will not be flipping me into all my fears around scarcity, punishment and deprivation.

Much to be grateful for around that.

* Hence my re-entry into the blogosphere and JALC’s resurrection.

———-

Image credit: http://www.chefs-resources.com/Authors-Bio