Tag: HCG

apple corer and slicer

When Apples Attack

On 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.

apple corer and slicerSo 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:

broken apple corer embedded in appleI 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

Data Points

On 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.

02.scale_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 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wheelsWell, 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 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.

———-

lane bryant starry nightI’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

Red-browed Amazonian parrot

Polly Wants A Cracker

On 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.

Red-browed Amazonian parrotIn 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

Schoolhouse Rock characters

The Body Machine

On 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.

Schoolhouse Rock charactersSo 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

This Is Not Munchkin Food

On 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

Infrared sauna

Sweat it Out

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, The Subtle Body, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

“I come from a northern people.”

I’ve said this a few times in the last couple of days. And it’s true — not just looking through the Boston/New England lens, but also taking the longer ancestral view. Half Scots, half Lithuanian. Not quite so far north that my great-great-ancestors were riding reindeer to school, but close enough.

And why has this been a relevant declaration for me to make? Because one of the techniques often used to help address the body discomfort that sometimes arises during a detox is to sweat it out. Which means I’ve been spending a little bit of sauna time in past few days.

Infrared saunaI know that the sauna experience is often thought of as a pleasurable one, maybe even luxurious. It’s never really operated that way for me. Heat hasn’t ever really been my thing — hot weather, hot tubs, hot showers, saunas — all of then pretty low down my list of personal preferences. After all: I come from northern people.

———-

I remember once Mr. Mezzo and I were on a beach resort vacation together. Our first evening after arriving, we enjoyed the sunset together holding hands and sipping drinks across the Moroccan tile divider between the hot tub (where he was) and the regular pool (where I was). Ever since then, we’ve had a way of joking about the differences in our internal climates. He’s a hot water duck, while I’m a cold water one.

This detail actually puts a bit of a question mark in my claim that my discomfort with heat is part if my DNA. ‘Cos Mr. Mezzo is half-Lithuanian, half-Irish. Not a whole lot of difference in the ancestral geography, but quite a significant one in personal climate. Kinda makes me want to run a couple cheek swabs through a DNA test to see what else is going on in our ancestral trees.

———-

Anyhow, question marks or no, I’ve referenced my ancestry a lot as I’ve stepped into the sauna movement this weekend. I’ve had a strong enough “no” around them in the past that it felt like I was stretching beyond my comfort zone — in a good way, but a stretch nonetheless — even to be stepping into one. So I think calling out my ancestry was an easy way to give myself permission to cut a session short if I needed to.

So far, there hasn’t been the need. I still don’t think I’m the world’s number one fan of the experience of sweating while I’m in the middle of it.* But I do know the experience has helped ease some of the headaches and body pains I’ve been experiencing — so even if I don’t feel all rainbows and joyous inside the sauna, I’m definitely feeling good because of it.

And my biggest fear about it? The one that has nothing whatsoever to do with my northern lineage? The fear of how excruciating it would be to be trapped in a small, hot box with nothing to entertain myself but the chorus of poisonous inner voices that so often run my mind?

Not the problem I had feared it would be. The voices weren’t really running all that much today.

That’s supposedly one of the detox benefits of the HCG journey, and I’m encouraged to see this small sign that this sort of internal silence might actually be kind of possible.

I am definitely curious to see if that particular trend continues. Because if it does, that would be huge in bringing my life forward.

* I’m sure there’s all kinds of body hatred wrapped up in my distaste for a natural process like sweating. However, tonight is not the time to unwind that particular piece of knottiness.

———-

Image credit: http://www.pdcspaworld.com/Saunas-Infrared.htm

Back in My Yoga Pants

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Don't you want to be thin?, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

Today’s schedule is entirely in the care of my detox/consciousness center. Since I’m with family today, I am garbed in my usual course weekend ensemble of yoga pants, layers and a light sweatshirt. Very different from yesterday’s ensemble.

The doctors’ office down here we used to get my HCG prescription markets HCG through the weight loss lens. Despite that, I give them much honor for being energetically cleaner about it than the places I researched in Boston. To my perception, the tone on the Boston places was all about glamour and enhancing women’s attractiveness to the patriarchy — which is why HCG was bundled in with Botox and laser peels. The doctor here in Atlanta seems more to speaking from a place of saying “this is really good for your body and it’ll help you lose weight!”

Now, there are lots of problematics with any line of discourse that draws a strong connective line between “healthy behaviors” and “weight loss.”  This was pretty brilliantly deconstructed over at Dances With Fat back in January, so rather than rehashing the subject tonight, I’ll content myself to providing a link and a brief quote from Ragen’s insightful analysis:

There is so much confusion about weight and health.  That causes people to confuse weight loss behaviors with healthy behaviors and that, in turn,  causes people to do unhealthy things under the false belief that they will be healthier when they get thinner no matter what they have to do to make it happen.  The next thing you know someone’s doctor has convinced them that the healthiest thing that they can do is have their stomach amputated.

Still, the cultural delusion equating healthy behavior with weight loss is really strong, and there’s a deep deep assumption that almost any woman in this culture wants to lose weight — and, statistically speaking, that assumption isn’t all that far off. So, given the desire of the doctor’s office to stay in business, I get why their marketing plays into the weight loss thing. Honestly, it would be naive of me to expect anything else.

Coming straight out of that cultural construct, it’s not real surprising that my intake form asked various questions about my history as a fatty: highest weight, lowest weight, past techniques attempted  in the inevitable quest to be skinny*, when and how my “weight problems” began, and what my current weight loss goal is for the HCG.

When I got my intake form on Wednesday to fill out, I wasn’t especially surprised to see this line of questioning. Okay, let’s be blunter: I wasn’t surprised one iota.

Despite my utter lack of surprise, it was fascinating to watch how hair-trigger my defensiveness and anger was around that section of the form. There’s the one in me that bitterly knows the pain of being fat-shamed and all the subtle destructiveness of fat microagressions. As my eyes took in the start of these questions and as my mind processed the reality that yes, we were coming up against THAT section, I could literally feel that one armoring up. “Here it comes,” she said, steeling herself. Steeling myself.

I left most of that section blank when I filled out the form Wednesday night.

So yesterday morning, as I was getting dressed, I was super conscious of how I was deliberately costuming or armoring myself for the doctor’s visit. Great sweater, skinny jeans, rockin’ boots. A indisputably Good Look for me.

Nope, my clothes were saying. I am not your self-hating fatty caricature. I am a woman learning to love herself who knows exactly how to dress so I feel confident and centered in my skin.

And with that extra bit of protection, I was able to be calm and matter-of-fact when the doctor and I went over my intake form with all its lacuna in my “history of fatness.” I was absolutely plain-spoken and honest about having a focus on health and detoxing, and not caring what my number on the scale is (or what it’ll be 4 weeks from now). And the medical staff acknowledged that they have clients before coming from a similar place.

I’m doing a lot in this journey to let connection and care in, to practice where and how I can be vulnerable, rather than staying perpetually turtled up in the psychic armor I so often try to wear.

Yesterday was an fascinating reminder that sometimes a little bit of protection is the perfect dose of self-care: something that allowed me to face an unfamiliar and somewhat triggering circumstance for the purpose of starting this detox movement. In other words: allowing myself the armoring movement around the little thing (my distaste for the culture’s weight loss obsession) gave me the space to remain open to the BIG thing (the HCG journey and the larger detox exploration).

That’s a tradeoff I’m entirely at peace with.

* Because as I’ve observed before, to not want to be skinny is pretty damned inconceivable.

Taking It All In

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Fat is Just an Adjective, Practicing in the Heart2 Comments

I’m down here for a 4, 4-and-a-half day experience, which is meant to transition me into a 42-day HCG journey. (Which in itself is intended as the first stage in a lifetime path of detoxing and caring for myself differently.)

I share these calendar details in the spirit of observing that it’s only the end of Day 1, and there is already so much to look at and write about that I could take weeks to do it. I’m assuming that in a week or two, once I’ve settled into the protocol, there will be some time to reflect back on parts of this trip. Given that expectation — and, quite honestly, given the reality that I can only write so much before my weary bones call me to bed — I’m not even remotely going to try and pretend I’m going to capture everything worth saying here in the midst of experiencing everything. Instead, I’m just going to look at whatever is most present to me.

So, one big thing that happened today is I had my doctor’s consult and did my first HCG shot. Which means I’m in the midst of one of the more counterintuitive moments of the protocol: loading days.

Here’s my kindergarten-level explanation of how the HCG protocol works. By combining the hormone shots with a no-sugar, no-starch diet, you’re able to inspire your body to shift into ketosis, where you’re deriving your daily energy from fat molecules rather than sugar molecules. Since the diet restrictions also eliminate fats (new fat intake being what the body would first choose as an ketosis energy source), the body is further inspired to extract energy from the body’s existing deposits of adipose tissue — then allowing the rest of the toxins and gunk from within those cells to be cleared.

However, it takes a few days to shift into that second part of the process, so part of the protocol is to spend the first two injection days eating a whole lot of high-protein, high-fat food — so your system has a short term energy source before the deep detoxing begins.

And I mean a LOT of food.

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Now I know that it is impossible to look at someone’s waistline and magically be able to intuit how “healthy” or “unhealthy” their eating habits are.* But I also know that, speaking only for myself, I have indeed been living from a place of emotional eating and a lot of unhealthy eating habits. So, as I talked through my Day 1 “loading menu” with my detox coach last night, I kinda thought I would find this piece easy. After all, everything on the menu — lattes, breakfast sandwiches, bacon cheeseburgers, calzones — are things that I eat pretty regularly.

But even I don’t eat them all together in the same day. And it was surprisingly like a marathon/endurance journey to get through and take in all the calories prescribed to me for this Day 1 experience.** And there’s still tomorrow…

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There’s the whole other level of “taking it in” — taking in care and support — that I’m also practicing into. Folks filling my water bottle for me and rinsing my dishes after I have one of these surprisingly difficult-to-eat meals. It is harder for me to allow that, even a little bit harder than I expected it to be. And yet, I am profoundly grateful for the care being shown me.

And that, however halfway-told the story is, and however gossamer-thin its conclusion, is all she wrote tonight. Bed is calling.

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* And, just for the record, even if someone has the “unhealthiest” diet in the ever-loving WORLD, that person is still of worth and value and deserves to be met with compassion and acceptance and respect.

** There’s also a whole other exploration worth articulating — some other day — about the surreal nature of taking eating choices and patterns I customarily express in a deeply unconscious place and to be replicating them in a sober, conscious, spiritually awake place. Wild.