Losing a part of me

So far, so good. It may sound like a false brag that less than 9 hours after I woke up, I have not yet broken my diet, but for those of you who have tried to start (and failed) you will know that even getting going is a huge step.

After walking Princess Sophie this morning, I had my first shake and a couple of cups of coffee. By the time 1pm rolled around it was actually 2.5 cups of coffee, which is how much my coffee machine makes when set to the half pot setting. Around 1pm I had my second meal replacement (this time a bowl of soup). About half an hour ago I had my third meal replacement (a protein bar). I admit, I am still a wee bit peckish now, but I will endure. Knowing me, I will eventually be breaking the diet, or making exceptions for this or that… but it will not be on Day 1.

Unlike the other times I embarked upon this journey, I am doing it this time without any medical help. I did tell my doctor that I would be doing it, and he encouraged me to do so. He is a general practitioner, and not a bariatric specialist. In fact, when I asked if he could get the meal replacements that are prescribed in the program, he told me he was not even familiar with them.

I mention this because unlike the other times I have gone through the program, there are a lot of things that I am going to have to try to remember myself. The first one of these is that drinking huge amounts of water throughout the day not only helps to dissipate hunger pangs, it also helps flush your system and increases the rate of weight loss. And so, I will be drinking a lot of water, and in fact I have already started. I have a stein that I measured to hold exactly 4 cups of water. When I woke up, it was about half full. I drained it upon returning from Princess Sophie’s first walk. I then measured it to establish it was indeed 4 cups and have filled it twice so far. It will sit on my desk, and I will go through it at a pretty fair clip. I will make it my goal to drink 16-20 cups of water per day. This, of course, means that I am going to spend a great deal of time running to the toilet. As I am working from home (and not going out very much) this will not be an issue, except that I will have to warn my students that it is to be expected.

What else would I be reminded of by the doctors? I don’t remember. However, I do have the old journals that I kept during my previous two attempts at this program. Each one is a few hundred pages long, organized chronologically. I intend to read each day of the diary I kept two years ago, which will tell me on each day what I learned, as well as what I was thinking and feeling at the time.

Dieting is not fun, but neither is being fat. At least with this program (and with my program buddy) I might stand a chance at being successful.