Week 3 - Ten Pounds Lighter

So, it wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated. When I did the Rotation Diet 25 years ago, I remember the 600 calorie days being brutal with headaches and starvation. But the new version has free veggies so this time was a cake walk. I wasn’t nearly as hungry between meals and when I was, I snacked on carrots and celery so it wasn’t bad at all. And it was only three days. I can do anything for three days.

My biggest concern had been doing Aqua Boot Camp on Tuesday with the killer instructor who has you throwing medicine balls in the pool. It was on Mondays last semester so I never went but it was Tuesdays now and that’s one of the days I go. But Lori’s father in law had died so Andrea and I went to the visitation in Omaha on Tuesday after work so I got a reprieve. I swam Wednesday and Thursday and lived to tell.

I had decided when I started the diet to only weigh myself on the mornings when I was changing calories. This had me on the scale Thursday morning and I was thrilled to see I’d lost six pounds in three days. So worth it. The rest of the week was 900 calories/day, which meant I could actually have a sandwich for lunch, which felt so normal after my baggies of meat, veg and crackers. I had already warned Layton that lunch would do our Friday lunches at HuHot during my 900 calorie weeks and that felt like a celebration of normalcy. Delicious too.

On Friday, my cell phone died. Well, it didn’t die but the charging port gave way so it was no longer chargeable. Now my flip phone is so old that my dad was with me when we bought it and he’s been gone since 2006. But I wasn’t interested in a smart phone. I still have a land line and use my iPad for apps so I was looking for another pay by the minute cheap phone. I talked to Verizon but anything that fit the bill would be a special order and I wanted a new phone now. I asked a few people at work, figuring everyone has an old phone in a drawer, but then had the inspiration to put a sign up on the mirror in the ladies’ room like people do for football tickets. Literally 5 minutes after I posted it, I had a cell phone in hand. Not only did Cheryl have one in a drawer, she had one in her desk drawer. Excellent! I stopped at Verizon on the way home and 30 minutes later had the new phone ready to go, complete with my transferred contacts. And this one was so much new than my old one that it feels like an upgrade. Nice.

The icing on the cake on Friday was coming home to a clean house. My new cleaning lady had come for the first time and finally I'd found a keeper. Everything she'd cleaned was spotless, especially the toilet, which had been a mess. She also did the little things like got rid of the cobwebs in the corner of my bedroom. I could not have been happier. What a wonderful way to start the long weekend. Did I mention how happy I was? : )

I had a Friends of the Library meeting on Saturday so was up and out early, which is always good. It was much warmer out and the snow was melting so I got outside a bit and did a few chores. Sunday was even warmer. After stripping my bed and hanging the sheets on the line, the next thing on my list was to prep food for the next week, which was 1200 calories/day so would feel almost normal. Normal except for absolutely no sugar that is. Anyway, I started prepping produce, which left me with another big bag of trimmings to go with the one in the fridge for Lori’s chickens. I called to see if she was home for a drop off and she said to bring over my knitting. It was so warm out that we sat on her front porch and knitted in the sun while drinking tea and watching her kittens scamper outside. I was only wearing a t-shirt and was perfectly comfortable. Nice. While I had planned on a more productive day, you have to take advantage of weather like that in January plus I still had Monday off to redeem myself.

Gotta love a Monday holiday. But the best part was the ten pounds I’d lost when I weighed myself first thing. Beautiful! The weight loss will slow down now that I’m going into a 1200 calorie week but I’d survived the first week with no problem and was ten pounds lighter. That’s the beauty of this diet – it’s easy to follow and the weight just falls off if you follow it to the letter. Just two more weeks to go and I’m actually excited to keep going. Yay!