Reflection...3 years later.

Hi guys,

I'm doing this reflection to give feedback about the process after my weight loss. Let me emphasize, my results, failures and/or successes, are of my own. This does NOT mean you will get the same results.

I did this fast, somewhat out of desperation, I think. I was in a rut in my own relationship with my significant other...my self esteem was pretty low. I hated everything about me. I thought that weight loss would change everything in my world.

Eh.

The results were this:

1. I found it really hard to maintain the weight loss...I didn't prepare for the aftermath...like what would I eat? How much of it was okay?

2. When I stopped eating then restarted, everything tasted good...the healthy stuff and especially the BAD stuff. I guess when you let your taste-buds rest, it lets them recuperate. I couldn't believe what I was missing out on. I just wanted more of everything!

3. People are so happy to see you eat after all the torturous weeks of seeing you eat squat. So you're not going to see friends and family change what they serve you. Food in your face everywhere. I received a LOT of grief over my fasting. It sucked because I didn't get support for this whole fiasco.

4. Some will resent your weight loss. Some will be outright mean. My own mom thought I looked "bitchier" being skinner. Granted it wasn't even a big loss in the whole picture of things. I felt so sad because I thought my newfound confidence was shining through, instead I looked bitchy or stuck up. I should have thought "so what", but it mattered to me what my friends and family thought. I think unconsciously I gained my weight back because I wanted to make everyone happy.

5. I didn't learn anything healthy during my weight loss. Not eating got me away from the act, but I obsessed about food. The eating pains went away once I used to it, but I was fighting it the whole time.

6. I just realized I gained all my weight and another 20 pounds. I don't know if my body did this because it was physiologically going through changes (repercussions) or if my mind read all this in books and magazines and therefore I gained it and then some. Either way, I gained more than I originally weighed, although that was over a two year period...so I'm not sure.

7. I gave myself excuses to give up. Sad. I'm pretty sure this stems from more than what's on the surface. I also felt like I somewhat didn't deserve it. Now, on this date though, it's a whole different feeling.

So now what?

That's a good question.

I've gone through some dramatic changes. Not my body, other than gaining that extra 20 pounds...but something that I think is way better than this whole weight loss thing.

It's my mind.

You can't do anything about the body if your mind and soul cannot follow suit. Your body follows what the mind thinks is true. If you think you don't deserve to be skinny, it will be so. If you make excuses to remain over weight, it will be so.

My solution. Change the mind and the soul...then change the body. You must do this first before you can see anything change on your body.

For six months straight in 2013, I worked out like crazy. Did the whole gym rat thing. I lost maybe 10 pounds. It was the hardest 10 pound loss of my life. I hired a trainer, nothing. I take it back, I was sore. I hated it! I did this gym thing out of habit by the sixth month, I was so happy my brother couldn't take me to the gym anymore. I made excuses to not go and eventually stopped going all together. I gained those 10 pounds back.

But while doing that, I was on a journey learning about my mind...my soul. I was struggling with my thoughts for those months. Now it's been a year. I realized that my mind wasn't healthy. Not that I thought like a fat person, but because I thought of myself less deserving of a happy life. I didn't know how to say no to anybody, I sat miserable in giving in to people, including my kids. I pretended that it was okay to sacrifice myself for the sake of others.

Don't get me wrong, if this diet works for you, great. Maybe you're more strong-willed than you thought. For me, I already knew what the problem was, it's me. But it has nothing to do with willpower, it has to do with retraining the mind, conditioning it to be a resilient engine. Then everything will fall in it's place.

So I'm restarting a whole new blog. More like blogs because I can't see myself doing one without the other. And it doesn't make sense to put it all in one because it becomes too general. This is where this blog takes a bow out and if you want, follow me on my newest journey.

The following blogs have been created to meet certain goals:

LOA Co-creators - A blog I share with my brothers about the law of attraction. How to use it to obtain your desires, including weight loss. Hint-hint. This would be the mind part I'm talking to you about

Health blog - Yet to be named. I will also share this blog with my brothers. We all have different goals. I will talk about weight loss, one of my brothers will share his journey with weight gain and vegetarianism and my other brother I have yet to ask if he want to participate. His goal would most likely be about weight gain for those who have an extremely hard time gaining...I guess for the underweight.

The links to the side will guide you to my new blogs once they're up and running.

Thank you for sticking it out with me and reading my entries. I urge you to join me on the other side.

Day 23 - 12/19/11 - Dehydrated and My Wierd Dream

I went holiday shopping, nightmare for my cleanse/diet! I did bring my lemonade drink in a jug. Let me tell you, it was the heaviest thing I've ever lugged around in my bag. I kept getting nauseous and wanted to gag. Maybe it was because I wasn't drinking enough fluids or I could assume it was the reason why.

I went to bed early because of how sick I felt. I had a dream that night that I messed EVERYTHING up by gorging on food. I didn't care in my dream, I was just happy to eat! I woke up in the middle of that dream thinking that I really did that. To my relief it was just a dream. I really have to look up the meaning of that.

Okay out of curiosity, I looked it up and this is what it said:

To dream of eating: If you are currently dieting in your waking life, then the dream may serve to compensate for the sustenance that you are lacking.

PHEW! To think it was something more tragic...I guess it means I just miss food. And I need to nourish myself, maybe with more fluids? :)

Day 22 - 12/17/11 - A.M Post

I've lost another pound. I went to sleep last night early because I felt sick. I don't know why. I'm not sure if I didn't drink enough water or if the water made me feel sick. My brother-in-law bought the house Sparkletts Purified Water. That stuff tastes so gross, there's an awful after taste. I asked my husband  if he could taste what I was tasting and he said he could taste something too. He assumed it was a chlorine taste to purify the water. I could hardly stand the taste, faucet water tasted way better than this stuff!

After going to bed early, I felt way more refreshed today. I noticed that others eating around me is starting to bother me a little bit. I think I miss eating food. Just the action of eating. It became so bad that I sat down while watching t.v. making a chewing movement. I couldn't stop. I think I'm going to have to start chewing some sugar free gum to get rid of that desire. I know I'm not supposed to but I'm feeling the effects of not eating. :(

However, I did notice that my face is very clear. I hardly break out. So I have to assume that my regular diet has something to do with my reoccurring breakouts of acne. It could be the soda or sugars. It could be meat or yeasts. I don't know. I know I'm lactose intolerant. There's so much to figure out.

Day 20 - 12/15/11 Breaking My 200 Pound Mark!

I've never been so happy to see my weight BELOWWWWW 200 pounds for the first time in 5 years! I'm so amped up that I'm looking into an exercise regimen in the next couple of days.

I had gone on another photo shoot for a client and had no resources for water and what not. I prepared this time by drinking a lemonade drink right before leaving. I had to buy some bottled water and sugar free GUM. Yes, gum. I needed something to keep my breath at bay. I've noticed that my breath has become so horrible since I've started this whole thing. Brushing, flossing and gargling with mouthwash hasn't worked! I know there is mention about a white coated tongue in the Master Cleanse booklet, so I know it's considered "normal" during this process. I just haven't experienced the coating, although I have experienced the rancid breath that others have complained about. Sheesh.

My stats are astounding for myself. I can't wait until this 60 days are over, I've already told my family that I want to start shopping and cooking healthier. Go to fast food restaurants WAY less and cook more fish and vegetables. My husband agreed to my new shopping list. I'm quite ecstatic. :D

Day 12 - 12/07/11

I now understand how hard this cleanse can be for others - who work outside of home. I did a photo shoot for a friend. I had to take pictures for a couple of hours and that had cut into my regimen. I should've prepared better for it, but at least I was able to buy a water bottle.

I assume my weight will be stagnate for another day. :( But I know it's because I didn't drink enough water and skipped out on the lemonade drinks. Now that I've seen how sidetracked I can get outside of the home, I'll need to prepare better for this. Call it a work in progress.

I wasn't hungry today and that also became my downfall. I understand that drinking the lemonade mix is supposed to crucial to this diet. And it has to be a minimum of 6 ten ounce glasses. And I'm actually really energetic in comparison to yesterday. I felt like I could take over the world. And cooking for the kids seemed a bit easier...today.

I'm trying to down the rest of my lemonade mix and water as well. I feel soooo full. Hopefully it will semi make-up for earlier. We'll have to see.

Looking forward to day 13.

Why I Started This "Diet"

Hello. My name is April  and I have been doing this Lemonade Cleanse or "Diet" for 7 days so far with great success. I decided to start a blog because I already see this as an interesting journey about ME. At first this "diet" was about my children, but I decided that I made the decision for me.

I've been dieting pretty much my whole life, thinking that I was fat at my lightest weight in high school. I was never happy at any weight, but I never truly stuck to any diet. I always convinced myself that I was going to start and then I failed when friends or family stuck food on my plate. After all, I was one of those kids that had to "clean" my plate or else!

This year and for the last 5 years my weight kept creeping up slowly to my heaviest weight of 228 pounds, and I'm not even 5 feet tall. Talk about heavy. I avoided pictures and mirrors as much as I could and ate everything I could get away with. I binged in secret, sometimes emotionally eating until my stomach hurt making me want to throw up...although I never did manage to throw up any food. This went on for years.

Fast forward to the last couple of weeks. Without effort, my weight went down a couple of pounds, where I stopped at 222 pounds. My skin was getting worse, (I have eczema and keratosis pillaris) it was so irritating and itchy...and my skin became so blotchy, it was disgusting. I ended up Googling everything about my health and finally by some accident came upon some information on the Lemonade Cleanse. It peaked my interest because I remember reading about cleansing to prepare for dieting. The more I read into it, the more I became excited. It dawned on my, the reason why my diets never worked was because the battle was about FOOD! This lemonade cleanse became my answer. I didn't have to worry about food, preparation, and the likelyhood of calling it quits.

The funny thing is, I began my cleanse 2 days after Thanksgiving. The other funny thing is, I didn't even binge on Thanksgiving like I normally would. I ate until I was full then stopped the rest of the evening. Then the day after, I ate NOTHING except for two small cups of McDonald's coffee. I even watched my kids eat hamburgers and drink my favorite soda (Dr. Pepper) several times, but decided I wasn't going to try to set myself up for failure again.

Immediately after that, I headed to my local Trader Joes and bought all my ingredients. I was even excited. I explained to my kids that their mommy was going to be on a diet and I wasn't going to eat anything but my special drink and water. I told them because I didn't want them to be concerned as to why I wasn't eating. I felt great making the decision to do it.

I guess when you mentally decide to take the plunge, you can do it. Granted the first couple of days were hard, but now after doing this for about a week...it's been getting easier. I'm not saying that I'm never hungry or I've stopped obsessing about food. I know it's a process. I've been doing a LOT of self-talk and now that I've gotten this far (I've never been on a diet longer than 3 days), I know I'll be able to do it. I've been able to say no to my favorite foods and I'm the cook in the family. I repeatedly tell whoever I'm with that I can't eat and even when they insist on me eating, I'm able to say no. Saying no has even gotten easier for me. I keep busy by cleaning, doing work on my laptop, watching movies (minus the usual food), taking long showers or bathes and listening to meditation/hypnosis sessions on my iPod. I try not to take naps or sleep in so that I can get myself to bed early enough before the temptations of food creep in (this happens to be the latest I've stayed up - but I want to finish this post.)

Now that I'm at the end of day 7, I would like to have an organized journal to keep track of the journey to my success. In the meantime, I'll be posting some previous vlogs of my first couple of days to catch up on my progress.