Week 2 - Preparing to Rotate

I started the week by getting a cold. It had been working on me since a dry, sore throat on Saturday night but didn’t materialize until Monday morning at work. I took a Claritin D and powered through but when I finished my monthly reports just after noon Tuesday, I gave up and headed home. I had a fever and chills that night and stayed home on Wednesday. It was bitter cold Wednesday so I was happy to be home and toasty, even if it was a snot fest.

I was back at work on Thursday but didn’t really feel much better until later that afternoon, when my energy came back. From there I just felt better and better. There had been no swimming all week and I’d just gone home every night to nurse my cold. I got lots of knitting done, of course. I took my last Claritin D on Thursday before bed, figuring I had no weekend commitments so I could just let the congestion be.

On the way home Friday, it was time to stock up on produce. I was preparing to start The Rotation Diet on Monday. It’s the diet Carolyn and I first did back in the 80’s, when I lost a bunch of weight and kept it off for a decade or more. Carolyn and her husband started rotating again last spring and Carolyn has lost 45 pounds and is a shadow of her former self. She’s inspired me to start rotating.

The diet is brutal but only lasts 3 weeks and I can handle anything for 3 weeks. The crux of it is you eat 600 calories for 3 days, 900 for 4 days, 1200 for a week and then you repeat the 600/900 week. When you’re done with that, you take at least a week off. The diet has been updated since the 80’s and now you have free vegetables so if you’re hungry between the tiny calorie meals, which I always was, you can eat from the veg list. So I went shopping for produce on the way home. A cart load. It’s all good.

Donna had been asking for a kool aid dyeing day for a long time so she came over on Saturday and we each dyed a skein. I overdyed some yellow to green and then spotted it with caramel colored dots. It was fun and a nice interlude in a weekend when I barely left the house. It was a nice quiet weekend, getting lots of things done in the house – chores, knitting and lots of produce prep. I never did get the Christmas tree down, mostly because I’m still enjoying it. But it will have to come down one night this week because I hired a new cleaning lady and she comes for the first time next Friday. I have high hopes for this one. She is a friend of a co-worker and as she walked around my house, she pointed out some of the very things I had problems with, like the cobwebs hanging from my bedroom ceiling and the dismally dirty toilet. Very high hopes. Stay tuned.

So the week is over and tomorrow the rotating begins. The first round will end on my birthday, which is also a week before I leave for the cruise. That seemed like perfect timing because this diet makes you ultra aware of everything you put in your mouth, which will be a good thing when I’m faced with all the cruise food. I’ll then start another rotation the day after I get back from the cruise. My head’s really in the game to eat healthier so I’m hopeful that I can drop some weight and keep if off. I’ll appreciate any encouragement I can get so feel free to send some my way. : )