Day 12

Kyle 279.4 day -1.0 total -15.2

Jenny 160.2 day -1.0 total -6.8

I was very frustrated this morning to be down only one pound. Normally, that is great. But in light of how I almost killed myself yesterday, I was expecting to lose more after ballooning up 3 lbs. The small loss was as disheartening as the big gain, as odd as that may seem. I am happy for Jenny, though, to have lost a pound. She's close to making up the ground she lost when we celebrated our independence from the protocol.

I can see now how my poor decisions on Sunday are still affecting me. One bad day or big cheat are not isolated incidents. They have repercussions that ripple out for days, affecting not only weight loss, but also attitude, and can domino into more bad decisions.

I've been tired most of the day, not enjoying my usual extra energy, which I guess is just left over from yesterday. But that lack of energy didn't help. It contributed to a poor attitude, and helped lead to me feeling sorry enough for myself that I went off protocol again.

Breakfast, lunch, snacks, everything was spot on. By 5 PM or so, I was getting edgy, cranky. I could feel my empty stomach, which is not the same as actually feeling physical hunger, but for me it was close enough.

We went to my parents' to grill out at around 6, but instead of having things started, they were still at the store. I quickly became agitated and frustrated, complaining to Jenny about the food not being ready, and how hungry I was. I started with a small handful of tortilla chips from the cupboard, then snacked on another, then pinched a bit of shredded cheddar cheese, then another. The helpings were so small that I was justifying it, thinking that since I'm sincerely so hungry, that it won't be an issue. Even worse, my cheating encouraged Jenny to cheat, too, and she had a few chips. Not as much as me, but as we've seen, probably equally detrimental.

And maybe it would not have been an issue, except that once we started eating our on-protocol grilled chicken and asparagus, I started developing this thought of, "I splurged on Sunday, and it tasted good, and I deserved it, so how bad can a little more be? Why can't I feel good today?" So, a few handfuls of chips and cheese grew into several spoonfuls of mac & cheese, and then, through small bites here and there, I added half a chicken breast and a 240 calorie beef met.

It was ALL emotional eating. My BODY did not ask for any of it. But my body will undoubtedly pay the price by adding back the pounds, which is even more damaging to my determination and focus. What was supposed to make me feel better will most likely make me feel worse. How stupid! Did I not learn my lesson when I weighed in yesterday, then carried that sinking feeling around in my gut the whole day? Instead of the weight gain on Monday and small loss today teaching me just how disciplined I need to be, I took the attitude of, "Oh well, might as well enjoy it if I'm going to screw up." That is so juvenile that I am startled by it. I'm taken back by my own immaturity!

I'm assuming that I will not get the results tomorrow that I desire. Even so, Jenny and I both are recommitting to the protocol. We want to feel again how we felt Sunday morning, and then continue that success.

Day 11

Kyle 280.4 day +3.0 total -14.2

Jenny 161.2 day +1.8 total -5.8

Ugh. I just shook my head each of the five times I weighed myself this morning. I had to do it multiple times, hoping that it was an error, hoping it wasn't really that bad. But it was. And it was a bad start to a bad day.

Since it's a holiday, I knew I wouldn't be seeing any clients. So when my buddy Trent asked me yesterday if I was interested in helping him finish up a demolition job, I signed on. Another friend of ours bought a house in Newport, and Trent's job was to get it "drywall ready." He had done most of the work. All I had to help him do was get all of the attic insulation, which was covering the upstairs rooms two feet deep, down onto the ground floor. Then we had to get all of that, and a ton of other garbage, and the piles of the wood slats they use under plaster, into a dumpster outside.

It was hot today, and even hotter upstairs, but it wasn't stifling. And the work was tough, but not killer. The majority of it was throwing the wood strips down through holes in the floor, and then push-brooming all of the insulation. Around 10 AM, we started by making manageable piles of wood strips down stairs, which we couldn't take to the dumpster because it was full and a new one had not been delivered as promised. So we went upstairs to start "moving" stuff down. There was one room left to tear out, so I started swinging at the walls with a pickaxe. And that was when I started to tank.

Since I've been on this diet, I've noticed little things concerning muscle fatigue, but didn't think it was a big deal. For example, I have a healthy nine month-old son who weighs 24 lbs. Recently, I've found that my shoulders and arms about give out after just a few minutes of holding him over my head and tossing him around a little. They are rapidly fatigued, and I just have to stop. After four or fiveswings of the pickaxe, I could barely lift it, and my entire body felt zapped of energy, like I was running on fumes. For the remainder of the day, I was miserable. I couldn't work for more than five or so minutes without stopping to catch my breath and let my body rest. The masks we had to wear sure didn't help. A few times I had to sit down, and even lie out on my back, when the room started to spin. I was lightheaded most of the day, and by late afternoon I developed a horrible pounding headache. I kept apologizing to Trent. Here he was willing to pay me to help, and I wasn't being much help.

My saving grace was that the empty dumpster never came. As frustrating as it was for Trent to lose almost half a day of progress, a big, silent part of me was relieved. Loading and carrying all of that junk to the dumpster would have killed me. If I already felt like dead weight, it would have been ten times worse.

Trent dropped me off at home a little after 4 PM. I headed straight to the hose in the backyard. I was covered in black dust and insulation, and I washed off as much as I could. I took my good ol' time sitting in the tub. I had no energy. I was spent.

I fell into a heavy sleep on the couch for a couple of hours. I got up for dinner, then I went to bed early.

TMI Alert - On a side note, throughout the course of the day I drank nearly two gallons of water. At 4:30, I peed for the first time since morning. And it wasn't clear at all! I had sweat out every bit.

I've read about people becoming fatigued quickly on this diet, and how most people don't do anything more than light aerobic activity. I figured that I'm an active enough person that it would not hit me too hard. Wow, I was wrong. But I'm hoping that today I somehow paid penance for yesterday's transgressions. I'm praying that the Holy Scale shows me new mercy in the morning with just as drastic a drop as the increase I had today.

Day 10

Kyle 277.4 day -1.4 total -17.2

Jenny 159.4 day -2.2 total -7.2

I would love to talk about how wonderful I felt this morning, how wonderful we both felt. I am down over 17 lb.s, and Jenny dropped over 2 lb.s today after two days of stalling, putting her at over 7 lbs.! I felt so great at church this morning, especially when a few friends asked how the diet was going. But ultimately, today was marred by poor choices.

We did not fall off the wagon today. Jenny and I got off, loaded the wagon with 4th of July fireworks, then blew the whole thing into a million pieces.

I was hoping some cute joke would make me feel better about it all, but it didn't.

We had a decent plan, and we knew we were going to fudge a little bit, but we'd keep it under control and minimize the damage. For lunch, we'd have our healthy burgers. After lunch, we'd play outside or in the pool for a few hours, then head back in. Since everyone was ordering pizza for dinner, we planned to make our own little healhy pizzas, as close to protocol as possible. Sounds fine, right?

But we helped ourselves to a few things here and there throughout the day, and it all started slowly adding up.

Our friend and host, Kala, bought peanut butter M&M's as a table treat/snack, just because they're my favorite! She didn't know we were on the diet, and how strict it is. I started counting how many I had, so I could enjoy just a few. After a few hours, I stopped counting in the 20's. Jenny brought her delicious homemade salsa, which requires tortilla chips, which I had a little of with my burger, and then more bites here and there throughout the day. I also "tried" some sort of mixed up potato or something salad, with healthy stuff like onions, mayo, cucumbers, Fritos, stuff like that. It was very yummy, so I munched on it a bit more throughout the day.

We enjoyed our 2 or 3 hours in the pool (and sun), then made our way back in for dinner. Jenny made us our little pizzas while us guys went and picked up the real pizza for everyone else. When I got back, the look on Jenny's face said it all. "These are not good," she said with a frown. I tried them, and agreed. So, what should we do? Wouldn't it have been better to just skip dinner at this point, maybe munch on some veggies or something, even fill up on water? Yes, it would have been, but my mindset at this point was, "Well, we've already gone off protocol. We might as well enjoy ourselves!" And we each had a piece of pizza. Which wasn't even that good.

At this point, I was experiencing some familiar feelings that I had not been missing since I started the protocol. My stomach was bloated. I was out of breath when I had to bend down or do anything halfway strenuous. And I was getting tired and lethargic. Maybe that was the 3 hours in the sun, maybe not. The bottom line was, I wasn't enjoying it.

So, I figured I'd celebrate that by drinking the last 8 oz. glass bottle of Coke. I'd watched my friends enjoy them throughout the day, so I snagged the last one and sipped it down. And that was the proverbial straw. The carbonation and sugar made me sick within 10 minutes. Within 20 minutes, I was in the bathroom throwing up the Coke, half the pizza, and some delicious homemade salsa! Since I'd already started, I was actually wanting to throw up more. But that was all that came out. And, no, I didn't make myself throw up.

It was here that I realized I had made a big mistake today. And it was here I knew that the price I'll pay tomorrow will be much, much higher than what today was actually worth.