Free Fall

Well this week (so far, at least) has actually been pretty successful as far as my diet goes. My weight seems to be in free fall at the moment, which is a good thing. If I'm able to keep this up, I might actually be completely back on track in a week or two.

Wouldn't that be nice?

I'm getting used to being hungry again, which has both ups and downs. The positive side is that when I'm hungry, my body is telling me in a tangible way that I am losing weight. The negative, of course, is that I feel uncomfortable. When I'm really hungry, my muscles ache and I get a headache.

I just keep telling myself that it isn't forever. This too shall pass.

At least for the moment, though, I'm shooting for minimal calories, maximum weight loss. I know that there are a lot of dieting experts out there that will criticize me for going about this the "wrong" way, since experts always claim that you should aim for a maximum of 1-2 lbs a week. I tried that, and it didn't work. During the 10 months that I was really working on my diet earnestly, I only managed to lose about 20 pounds. At that rate, I still have five years to go.

Too long, I say.

So for the short term, I'm taking a rather draconian approach, in the hopes that I can speed things along. I'm hoping to find a medically-supervised fasting program that I can afford, but in the meantime, I'm just going to do my best on my own. I'm trying to eat lots of protein, few refined carbohydrates and as much fruit and veggies as I can stand. I'm also taking a daily multivitamin supplement, so if I'm missing anything important, hopefully it will take up some of the slack.

I know I shouldn't be in a rush, but I realized this morning that I have lost out on yet another summer.

This summer, we had big vacation plans that involved hiking, horseback riding, and camping, but they fell through. Although I can't blame the trip cancellation on my failure to lose weight (there were other factors involved) I realized that even if we had gone, I wouldn't be able to hike at all, and might not be able to ride, either. I was actually a little relieved the trip was canceled, as I wasn't going to have to find out whether or not I was too fat to ride a horse.

But I have come to the realization that I am too fat to do a great many things. I'm too fat to hike, I'm too fat to swim, and I'm definitely too fat to sit comfortably in those ubiquitous plastic stacking lawn chairs that everyone seems to have on their patios. About the only physical activity that I'm not too fat to do right now is walk, but even that is an effort. Walking the mere mile around my neighborhood on completely level ground really tires me out.

So I need to do something that will yield some results quickly. I can't stay morbidly obese forever.