Yesterday was day one of our diet. I was going to wait until my six week postpartum period was over to start losing my pregnancy weight, but my ice cream, tortilla chips with queso, macaroni and cheese diet was starting to take me in the other direction. So we started a week early.
Having a baby is the quickest weight loss regime I’ve ever followed. I dropped ten pounds the first day, and fifteen by the end of the first week. Yesterday, when we started the diet, I was seventeen pounds down from my pregnancy weight. My goal is to lose the other thirteen pounds I gained, plus the ten left over from my last pregnancy, as well as the twenty-five extra I was already carrying from being “happily married” and ten more because I’ve always wanted to be thinner. I know you pulled out your calculator, but let me save you the button pushing: 58 pounds.
It’s hard for me to believe that I am 58 pounds overweight. I have two pregnancies as a partial excuse, but it’s clearly a lifestyle thing. Also, I make men fat. Every man who’s ever dated me has gained significant weight. Odie is no exception. During our courtship and engagement, he gained about ten to fifteen pounds, and he gained about twenty with the pregnancies. Like me, he tends to not lose weight while I’m breastfeeding, despite other people’s claims that it just “melts off.”
I chose The 17 Day Diet for us because Dr. Phil told me to. I am not a fan of Dr. Phil, but for some reason I feel compelled to do everything he tells me to. I’m admitting that to you because he tells me that I can’t change what I don’t acknowledge.
Like most books that promise weight loss short cuts, this one is full of crap. It is NOT a 17 day diet. It is a lifestyle change. It just comes in 17 day phases. The first cycle is called “Accelerate” and it lasts (wait for it) 17 days. That didn’t seem like a very long time until after I ate my first Atkins-y breakfast and realized that was it until snacktime. I’ve been eating an entire “Large size” Stouffer’s Mac and cheese for breakfast almost every day for a while, so my egg whites with spinach and carmelized onions and green tea was something of a letdown. Unsatisfying, you might say, if you were going for the Understatement of the Week Award. Unlike Atkins, I can’t smother everything with cheese and ranch dressing.
All four phases of this diet start with “A.” So far, I’d call this phase Atrocious. Appalling also comes to mind. How about abhorrent? Any of those will work.
Not because the good doctors (Phil and author Moreno) have a bad diet, but because ALL DIETS ARE BAD!
Well, except for my macaroni and cheese/tortilla chips with queso/ice cream diet. That one is glorious and sublime.
We’re eating tons and tons of vegetables, which I do not enjoy. I’m a vegetarian, so my “lean protein” options are boring and limited. I didn’t realize how much pleasure I was getting from food until yesterday morning when I ate that egg white scramble while watching “Breaking Bad” instead of my usual Waffle Cone Ice Cream.
Watching “The Next Food Network Star” (aka “The Next Person who will have a show on Food Network for five episodes and then fade into obscurity”) or “Chopped” or “Hell’s Kitchen” is now painful and masochistic.
Up until I got pregnant with Viva in August of 2008, I’d been on a diet continually since I was ten. Even though I gained over twenty pounds after getting married, if I’d truly let myself go unrestricted, I would have gained fifty. I put it on easily too. Just thinking about the key lime pie at my favorite restaurant will put me up about .6 lbs.
Some of you will be tempted to give me advice about this. Thank you in advance, but I’m doing this and this is the way I’m doing it. The good news is that The 17 Day Diet is all about making changes that you can sustain for life, thereby keeping the weight off for good. I will not have to permanently give up things I love. It’s just for 17 damn days that I have to eat the way I did yesterday and today. After that, there is another 17 day phase that looks easier. Phase 1 is Agonizing, but phase two promises to be merely Arduous.
Ack.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
If misery loves company, I’m on this quest with you. I got on the scale last weekend and realized I weigh 15 pounds over what I consider my ideal weight. It’s like the Freshman 15 all over again, and, just like 22 years ago, I can’t quite figure out how it happened.
I’m going full-masochistic with Jillian Michaels’ Master Your Metabolism, and I’m debating doing the P90X videos. I’ve watched the first DVD just to see what the buzz was about — tomorrow I’ll watch the second one and maybe consider doing a bicep curl.
My boss did P90X in preparation for her wedding. She is already super thin and in good shape, but those videos took her over the top according to her. I put on muscle like crazy. I’m one of those 6% of women who actually bulk up with weight training. I’d look like Linda Hamilton in “Terminator 2.” As for not being able to figure out how it happened, I think it’s our age. Metabolism is slowing down, muscle mass is decreasing. We have to work harder to stay thin as we get older. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? We should have to work hard to be thin when we’re young because that’s when we have the ENERGY and time!
In my family, we’d call your mac & cheese breakfast selection to be fully complying with the Templeton Diet. Remember the rat from Charlotte’s Web? We like his lifestyle choices.
Love to all the O’s
Rosie
Ah, Templeton. Oh, yes. I could never forget that rat or that movie! Paul Lind was the perfect choice to voice the character too. “It says, ‘Crunchy’.”
Do you do Skinny Cow ice cream treats? That’s the only snack I’m allowing myself as I approach my first wedding anniversary and a 12 pound weight gain from this first happy year! I’m a “goodie” person, so I can’t just cut them out completely or I think I might die…
LOVE Skinny Cow ice cream treats! In Phase 3 of this diet, they are optional snacks. I will be exploring that option 100%.
Mrs Odie,
Just don’t drop your calorie count too low, otherwise you’ll affect milk supply. I’m in the same boat as you–I have a two month old and have about thirty pounds I want to lose (I had three pregnancies back to back, and I kept on ten pounds with each one). I’m doing Jenny Craig and they put nursing moms in a 1700 calorie diet, which is too low. The weight was flying off and I noticed my milk supply was down. I’m now consuming 2200 or 2300 calories a day and the weight loss has slowed–about a pound a week now–but at least I know I’m consuming enough. As long as you control portion size and do some sort of exercise, the weight will come off! Good luck with it!
Thanks for the advice! I’m adding raw nuts and avocado to the diet for that reason. I need my healthy fats!
Always amusing!
I just can’t believe that eating a WHOLE egg, yolk and all, would kill a diet, but then I’m the woman who worked hard to lose 25 lbs in 4 mos. and gained back 5 lbs in 1 month…Maybe it was the whole eggs.
Whole eggs are fine in moderation. I prefer to have my daily egg yolks in the form of hard boiled eggs chopped up in my salad. The yo-yo effect is so frustrating! The problem with most diets is that once you go “off” the diet, you gain back the weight. We’re never going off this diet.
I’m right there with you, sister! Anytime you want to lick some ice or eat some negative calorie celery, I’ll be there! Lifestyle changing sucks.
Think of it this way, in the future we can go shopping together like we did right before school started in 2008, and instead of being disappointed at the large sizes we were wearing and how bad stuff looked on us, we will be fitting into single digit sizes and the only thing we will be sad about is how we can’t afford to by ALL of the adorable things that fit us. It’s a date! (and cocktails after, natch)
I feel you on the weight issue. I gained 50 lbs. while preggo and have lost 27 so far. Plus the 10 I gained after getting married. So 33 to go. I also wanted to let you know that my little man made it 39 weeks and weighed 8 lbs. and was 21 1/4 inch! He is happy and healthy! Reading your blog during bed rest was one of the few things that made me laugh! Thank you for that. Hopefully in a month or so we will both be at least 10 lbs thinner!
Congratulations on the birth of your son! I am so happy for you! It must be nice to get up and walk around whenever you want.
Ah, I can completely identify with the previous commenter Lin. I have a 4 week-old. I gained over 50lbs (pregnancy induced hypertension, aka. major swelling). By 2 weeks postpartum I lost 36 lbs but all weight loss has since stopped. I would like to lose another 30 lbs to get back to my “fighting” weight. We’ll see if I can do it. I like my ice cream a little too much =)
**Mrs. Odie edit: I had to capitalize your I. It’s just an English teacher thing. I didn’t change any of your content.