Not every day is awesome

Well, first setback. I posted bad numbers this week although I'm still following the diet very strictly. I lost some inches, but I wasn't impressed with those numbers when I had gained weight, lost muscle, and lowered my hydration level. I really didn't expect a setback this early in the game.

To make matters worse, I have to start doing cardio 3x a week in addition to the Tuesday/Thursday group classes. I loathe exercise in all its forms save for training for a sport (like lacrosse or field hockey). Since I can't train for one of those teams in the poor shape in which I currently exist, I have to do boring, old, treadmill/bike workouts.

So WiO isn't a magic fix. I knew it wasn't from the start, but I still had hope that I'd continually lose. I felt a bit patronized by Kris (not her fault at all though) because she seemed so impressed with my numbers anyway. I'm a "tell it to me straight" kind of person.

My new goals for this week are to get my hydration back up by drinking at least 125oz of water a day, do my cardio 3x a week, and go to both weekly workout sessions.

More words on cost - in addition to buying the MRP for $80 a week I had to buy Udo's oil at $42 for 32oz, and I'll have to buy the flour and sweetener separately if I want to make my own bread/muffins/cookies, or I can pay to buy the pre-made ones at Elevate. This is the shadiest thing I've seen so far, and it really isn't that shady. I do think WiO should post the prices of their other products and the products you need to buy in order to properly do the program.

Fish and houses

I'm back from my night away from home. Boy what a day. I successfully kept to the protocol. I brought my almond milk, Udo's oil, WiO MRP, and snacks with me.

My friend Jenny has a 6 week old baby and I held her for quite a while, and my arms were weak afterwards. I'm definitely still adjusting to this ketogenic diet. After I had some nuts, and then my shake, I felt fine. Dinner was a ginormous salad with tilapia and about 4 cups of lettuce.

I helped Jenny with her house. She, her husband Jeff, and the rest of her family have been working on this house from start to finish (save for pouring the foundation). I didn't actually do anything hard, just some edging and handing Halee (one of my best friends and Jenny's sister) mud and grout for tiles.

I'm exhausted. This was quite the eventful Saturday. Here's to the weekend!

Train gone sorry.

Well, I was definitely sore today. My quads and glutes were all, "Hello Laura, we are not happy with you!" -- of course, this is for their own good. Sitting and standing, not the funnest thing today (funnest is a word now).

I'm heading up north to see my best friend and help her paint her sister's house. This is my first weekend not at home or at my parents' house, so I'm packing all the stuff I need to make my shakes on the go. In other news, I tried to make curry again, and failed horribly. Too much coconut milk and too much curry - also, "salad shrimp" are horrible. Don't buy them!

Also, everyone at the fitness class last night was amazing! They were all super nice and had helpful information on what it was like to be on the WiO diet. I'm looking forward to Tuesday's class, but I am also really nervous because it was definitely more work than I was expecting...but that's going to be good in the long run...hopefully.

So much to say!

Okay, so I have procrastinated on my blog writing. I'll get around to working on that (lame joke count 1).

Tuesday -- nothing much to report. I had the largest salad I've eaten at home. I wasn't planning on eating all of it because it was a daunting task, then suddenly it was all gone. My weigh-in was the next day.

Wednesday -- Weigh-in day of sadness. Today was the first day I had some serious hunger. It was quite uncomfortable, but I think I know the reason. I did a service project at Orem Elementary school with my coworkers (and a bunch of other people from UVU). We painted the asphalt with cute hopscotch snails, very hungry caterpillars, and repainted the four-square and regular hopscotches. This was in the sun and required actual movement, so I got pretty tired pretty quick.

I went in for my first consultation and weigh-in. The scale I'd used the time before was broken, so Kris (Rich's assistant) weighed me on a different scale. It was horrible. I'd lost three pounds, but my body fat had gone up 1.5%, my muscle mass down 5lbs, my metabolic age had gone from 50 to 90, and my hydration only went up .2%. I was super disappointed. I went home and maybe ate a whole jar of baby pickles -- they were delicious. I got a text saying that my original scale had been fixed and I should come and re-weigh-in Thursday before my first group fitness class.

Thursday -- Holy crap working out with Rich and Caleb (the intern) was murder! We did squats, lunges, planks, jogging, walking up hills, and this weird rubber band team thing which involved one person running with a rubber band (a big one) around their waist while someone behind them added resistance. I was figuratively dying. I couldn't do the floor abs because my tailbone pokes out too much and it hurts way too much for me to handle at the moment.

Thursday - the re-weight-in -- Glorious day of days! I was reweighed on the original scale (by Lindsay who works at Elevate) and the numbers were much, much more to my liking. I lost four pounds, 1.8% body fat, 4" off my body measurements (neck, shoulders, bust, waist, etc.), and my hydration went up nearly 2%. I was super happy and made Rich look at my file after the workout of doom and he also seemed super impressed.

Thursday - the dinner -- My mom had told me she'd been cooking her broccoli with sour cream and curry powder, so I decided to try it (I love vegetables when they are in a yummy sauce like curry). I didn't want to use a lot of sour cream because it does have carbs in it, so I grabbed a can of coconut milk I had in my cupboard. Coconut milk, at least mine, has NO CARBS. After that I went nuts, coconut milk, curry, garlic, a touch of olive oil, cinnamon, broccoli, and chicken. When it was warm I had to add sriracha hot sauce. I devoured this lovely dish with great joy. Only 2 carbs added to the meal that didn't exist in the broccoli already. I've found a new staple dish.

I'm feeling like I can commit to at least one more week of this. Small goals, right?

Costs, the nitty gritty so far and updates on feelings

So I just read the receipt for my first WiO payment. Here's the breakdown:

1 MRP Vanilla  --  $80
1 Udo's Oil (32 ounce) --  $42*
1 Blender Bottle  --  $10
1 Flavoring - 1oz  -- $9**

*The Udo's Oil I received was 8.5 ounces, but I was charged for the 32 ounce. I'm going to bring this up at my next meeting
**Rich mentioned that he thought the flavorings were just $3-$5 each, but really it was $9

It looks like I'll have to buy the smart flour and smart sweetener. I may ask what a comparable sweetener would be because the sweetener in the MRP is stevia. I'm fine buying my own truVia if I can. I'm also considering buying my Udo's Oil online because it is less expensive as well.

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I was pretty hungry today for about an hour. Some of that hunger came from not having as much water as I needed to. I felt fine after eating, full even, and I made it to dinner just fine. I get a bit bored with the food, but I'm trying to learn that I can be excited by things other than the plethora of food out there.  There is also a plethora of plethoras out there, a plethorasaurus if you will.

Any bloggers reading - what do you do in order to keep yourself from getting bored? Bored eaters - how do you combat that need?

Taco, taco, taco

Today was a great Mother’s Day. I made tacos for dinner. My mom loves tacos, and I can make them without needing her help. As a 27 year old female, I am just beginning to learn how to cook on my own…awkward.  The tacos were totally kosher with the WiO protocol because I had a taco salad (no tortillas, but everything else). It was glorious and filling, olives, avocado, sour cream, cheese, taco filling, homemade ranch dressing, hot sauce, cilantro, and tons of lettuce.

I am coming up on one full week on the diet. I should have a meeting with Rich on Tuesday to discuss my progress, but I haven’t heard from him about setting up a meeting. I’m going to call Elevate and set one up regardless of if he gets back to me in time.  Here’s to hoping I’ve lost some inches and body fat.

I ran out of peanut butter flavor extract yesterday, but the shakes taste fine without them.  I’ll probably do the next week without any flavorings to see if it doesn’t get too boring. Ooh, I just remembered that my doctor should be calling me tomorrow with the results of my blood panel. I wonder how my levels have changed in the last week.  I don’t know how often I’ll be getting my cholesterol and blood glucose levels monitored. I’ll let you know as soon as I know (well as soon as I get around to writing a blog post about it).

On an unrelated note, I got home from my parents' house and realized I'd left my purse at their house (it's 1.5 hours away). My father drove me down because he has a conference nearby tomorrow morning. No house keys, no car keys, no wallet -- I had to have a neighbor bring a ladder and get into my house through the screen door on the second floor.  It was very conspicuous.  Luckily I have great coworkers who will give me a ride to work tomorrow and a great mom who is going to take the train from her house to mine just to bring me my keys.  Love you mom!

Home for Mother's Day and ramblings on eating disorders

Well, the paper Rich gave me explaining how I should feel during this first week on the protocol is very accurate.  It said that days 3 and 4 are the hardest because my body is using up the last of its glucose stores. I slept for eight hours, then woke up for a shake, slept for another five hours, and had another shake.  I'm still not experiencing the ravenous hunger I usually get when I am eating a calorie restricted diet, and that is really good.

I'd like to talk about a quote that's been making the rounds on my friend's Facebook pages. The quote is "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." This is a pro-anorexia quote. It's on most pro-ana and pro-mia websites. Google the phrase and you'll see how connected it is to those eating disorders. Please, don't use this phrase to describe what weight loss has meant to you or what you are trying to achieve through weight loss.

To be honest, I never want to be skinny. That term does not have healthy connotations associated with it. Think about the word "skinny" - does it bring to mind anything close to what a normal person (woman especially) could, would, and should look like? No! At least for me, it brings to mind Twiggy, Kate Moss, and any other sickly thin model that acts as a eating-disorder inducing role model.

Thin, slender, healthy, curvy, sexy, hot, the list goes on for defining exactly how a woman's body should look. Maybe the label women really need to look for is this one - happy.