On Tuesday I went in for my Maintenance consultation. I was so excited to learn about all the good things that await me when I get to my goal weight. I was feeling very desperate to start eating some other foods. I think I was feeling quite deprived due to the summer traveling we were doing. Montreal, with all the fine restaurants; friends visiting with wine and bbqs, and my daughters upcoming birthday, replete with cake and snacks.
I arrived and weighed in at 49.5 lbs - wow, only 9 more lbs to go!
The nurse complimented me and said I was one of the success stories, and if I wanted to, could start the program right away.
WOW!! I was ready - pumped - psyched, and listened eagerly to the program breakdown. I fingered through the two new program "bibles" that would unlock the gastronomic delights that be available to me.
The Maintenance program allows for a smooth transition from the strict diet to gradually re-introducing some new foods and portions. While you stay on the daily multivitamin, you decrease on Saturday your potassium to half the dosage. The additional potassium is too hard on your heart if youre not in ketosis, so its a half tablet in the morning and half at lunch - and thats it!
Heres the Week 1 breakdown:
Proteins: You jump from 7 oz total to 8-10 oz total, and can now reintroduce other forms of beef (eg. extra lean ground beef) and also stick to the other meats on the diet. Along with egg whites, I can now have up to 4 whole eggs (yes, yolks included) per week, any style. And yes, you can ven use a little bit of butter or margarine if need be. (I dont since its my downfall, and continue using PAM spray or Becel no-calorie spray.)
Dairy: Instead of 1 tablespoon milk per day, we drop down to 2 teaspoons only, given the increase in fats from other sources. We can also add 2 oz of hard cheese (fat free preferred) which is quite a bit! I only have a couple of slices with some crackers - that suffices.
Vegetables: Alongside the strict veggies, I can now add some real stir fry veggies, such as water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, snow pea pods and for added variety, can have turnips! There are others like okra and eggplant, but Ive never been much of a fan, so I ignore those... Still not carrots, peas, corn, potatoes or rice (have to wait a month for those.)
Breads: No deviation from the 2 slices Betty Lite bread or my crackers or melba toast until Week 2, when I can add 1 cup of cereal (eg. Corn Flakes, Special K or bran flakes) and 1 cup milk back into the routine.
Fruits: For the first week, we drop down to 1 fruit only, or have instead 6 oz of unsweetened fruit juice. This is actually fine with me, since my fruit usually gets put into my bran "muffin" as applesauce, or now on Maintenance, can go into my 4 oz of fat free plain Danone yoghurt (with Splenda of course for sweetness.) Thats a new addition that I welcome! However, you get to add in the previously omitted fruits from the strict diet. Apparently not mango or such (though the booklet doesnt specify which ones we are to omit) but you can now add onto the fruit selection list.
There are some other items that are now available too: oil & vinegar dressing or low cal Roquefort/Caesar dressings.
Not a jam sugar, syrup or starch in sight for a long time yet though. Which segues into my problem in Week 1 of Maintenance.
***
As I mentioned, there were lots of temptations in the last couple of weeks that were drawing my like a moth to a culinary flame - literally.
I think I literally snapped the moment I left the clinic. Now with some new options available, and ready for lunch, I marched into the cafeteria at work and bought a banana. I ate it on the way up to my office. Why (I thought) did I do that? I had already had a fruit for breakfast, which would have been my daily quota, and here I was eating a banana? I dont even crave bananas, or particularly like them? I felt mad at myself that literally 20 minutes out of the clinic and I was eating with reckless abandon.
It got worse...
I got home to prepare supper for my daughter and I (since dad and friends were away for the day) and she asked for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for her "birthday" supper. Easy and quick I thought, so I prepared it. As I was busy organizing the house, I didnt get my food ready and was really resenting having to pull out my standard meat and 8 oz veggies bags for another meal.
What did I do? I served her up half the KD, and I devoured the other half....Not even elegantly or discretely. I didnt arrange it on a plate for myself at the supper table with my daughter. No. I used the wooden spoon used to stir it and ate it directly from the pot...over the sink...like a desperate starving glutton. It tasted gross - like fake cheese puddy in a gelatenous muck.
Why was I eating this garbage? What was motivating me to just throw away four months of discipline and regime for KD of all things?
I just rationalized it a couple of hours later that yes, it had been four months, and after losing almost 60 lbs, I deserved to indulge a little bit. What happened only half an hour later was the ultimate nail in the coffin.
* * *
As I lovingly decorated my daughters 4th birthday Angel Food cake with vanilla icing, bedecked with sprinkles of every sort and colour, candes and princess flags, my mouth watered to taste a sample. I resisted, but was literally coveting the size, shape, colour and smell of it.
Now normally my trick for resisting temptation was to inhale a giant smell of the forbidden food (be it popcorn, wine, chips, or whatever the culprit) until my olifactory senses "tasted" it and my body seemed satisfied for the experience, without ingesting a thing. I used that trick throughout my diet and it worked.
However, just as I thought I was fine, my husband returned from Montreal with 6 "designer" cupcakes from a fancy patisserie to celebrate her birthday. What?!! Here were were in the kitchen with a huge cake and 6 beautiful cupcakes directly in my midst. Well, wouldnt you know it. Here came two of my husbands friends visiting who were also in Montreal, who also purchased 6 cupcakes from the same bakery, also for her birthday...!! For four adults and 1 child, we had a full dozen rich and decadent cupcakes and a full birthday cake to devour.
I was at my whits end.
As we lit the candles and cut the cake for the guests, I sliced up an equally large slice for myself and thoroughly enjoyed the soft, silky cake and thin layer of icing that enveloped the treat. And for the next two days, I indulged in a slice or a cupcake, as the temptation served to be too great for my resistance.
Dr. Bernstein please forgive me for I have sinned....
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