Winter brought its usual
dilemma. The months dragged while I sat at the computer thinking about what I
would cook for dinner. Normally I succumb to my “Oregon Five,” the five pounds
I manage to gain while sunlight is absent and I’m sitting in a funk.
But this year I challenged myself
to accomplish what I anticipated would be a grueling bootcamp, six-week stint of
semi-starvation, an HCG diet with its 500 per day calorie requirement. A protein,
three cups of veggies that one normally trims off for the chickens and a piece of fruit from a limited list. An eyedropper filled
with hormones that come from pregnant women. Best not to dwell on that part. I
had passed up the diet when two friends suggested it, but when Rob, my health
food naturalist guru pressed the information into my hand, I finally took the
bait. I needed a plan and this offered one. I bought the little bottle, took
the fifteen pages of tips and headed home.
The diet demanded little of me in
terms of choices beyond a protein, three cups of veggies and a fruit for each
meal. Since I am at heart a skeptic and I want to hang on to all the muscle
tone I still possess, and since our hens had started laying again, I cheated
and had three eggs a week, which made everything easier. Three times each week I
sautéed a mound of beet greens in a skillet, added a beaten egg and some green
onions, bell pepper or whatever, and called it an omelet, even though the egg
was scarcely detectable in all the greenery. But it met the criteria and took
away the hunger, for which I was grateful.
I began to appreciate food in a
new way. Each meal was a celebration. I set the table with fresh flowers, a cloth
napkin and my favorite dishes. I obsessed over each bite, making tiny cuts and
chewing twenty times.
I made it through my six weeks, and
I lost weight. Not 30 pounds like the diet hinted that I might, but
half that. My body incinerated fat cells 24 hours a day. My husband took great enjoyment in my progress, which was lovely.Hopefully I didn’t lose too many brain cells or muscle tone. In the
early weeks I managed a respectable number of minutes on my exercise bike each
day and managed to make it to the gym. In the later weeks I had the energy of a
sloth. I think I swam and tread-milled a
few times, but maybe that was hallucination. In the last week I sat under a
blanket and watched my dust bunnies dance.
A
word of warning—the plan suggested that one should cease all medications, with
physician’s approval. Of course I skipped this step, anticipating that my
doctor would try to talk me out of my course. I ceased taking my thyroid pill for
two weeks before I came to my senses, but I got busted when my annual physical came around in the middle of the diet and my lab test revealed lower levels. When I confessed, my doctor said I had sabotaged
my weight loss.
The take-away lesson from all of this is a new
relationship with food. Sugar isn’t worth it, and bread seems unnecessary. There
are entire aisles in the market that I don’t have to walk down. I shop with a
smirk of superiority when I see what other fatties are buying. One night I
allowed myself two cups of plain popcorn and ate kernel by kernel like thin
girls in movies when they are talking to a boy and don’t want to get yuck in
their teeth. I eat my grapefruit, segment by segment, while voicing
attributions about the sweetness of the fruit and my gratefulness for each
bite. When I eat a boiled egg, I set it in an egg cup, crack the top and dip my
spoon into the yoke, fully present to the miracle I am experiencing.
I used to scoff whenever a diet
ad came on TV because I didn’t need advice about how to eat. It’s not like I
gorge on potato chips and moon pies. But a 500-calorie diet made me rethink portion
control. Early on, I dropped a handful of shrimp into a skillet to stream.
Curious, I read the package and had to pluck seven back out when I realized my
idea of a serving was roughly double the allowable portion. Now I read labels
for everything and I am almost always over-portion.
I drink copious amounts of herbal tea to chase away the hunger beast, but I do love my teatime snack. Today I planned to eat something
chocolate. When the hour arrived, I reached into a bag of dark chocolate chips and counted out
exactly 16—the serving size on the package. I scattered them onto a white saucer and made them last all afternoon.
In ten weeks I’m going back on the
HCG program again. But that will be the last time. I agree that sudden weight
loss isn’t a good thing. HCG Dangers It’s just that the diet works for me, and that’s a
compelling argument. Until then you’ll find me sitting
at the breakfast table, dipping toast spears into my coddled egg.
