Fatter than ever, and nowhere to go but down...

After a few crazy life events, I am now officially the fattest I've ever been. That's right; I've gained everything back. And no, Lose It! didn't work for me.

So I'm resetting the armadillo (with a few *ahem* adjustments to the length of the rainbow smiley meter), and getting right back on the proverbial horse starting today. The program of choice?

Remember what I said about singing delivery men on golden bicycles? Well...

It's called The Fresh Diet. Every day, 1200-1400 perfectly portioned calories are delivered to me in the form of three meals and two snacks. A green cooler bag like this one is dropped off at my house in the middle of the night with all of my delicious food in it for the next day.

I will be posting pictures of my meals, and I'll be telling you of my experiences starting today. Leave me a comment if you have questions about the program. Also, if you're thinking of trying it out, if you use the referral code PW15P, I'm pretty sure we both get something awesome. Stay tuned for more...

It's a month later, and reality is setting in.

Pounds lost: 8.4/62

Hey! Remember me? I'm that girl with the diet blog! Obviously, I'm feeling better. Here's what's up:

After I came home from the hospital, I was on my white bread diet for about 10 days before I started eating regularly. A week after that, The New American Diet began.

I hated it. There were a few reasons:

1. Aside from a shockingly delicious hummus recipe (if anyone wants it, let me know), the other recipes in the book are ridiculous. It's as if they wrote down a bunch of random ingredients in unmeasured quantities and sent them off to be published. The contents of one breakfast burrito were not even close to fitting in the specified 8" whole wheat tortilla.

2. It was also rediculously expensive. At forty-ish dollars a day, I could have my meals delivered to me by singing delivery men on golden bicycles.

3. It was WAY too vague. I need a few more guidelines than a bunch of recipes that don't neccessarily assemble well. I did like that there was a specific exercise program in the book, but as far as the eating was concerned, it feels like a free for all within a limiting organic box.

For a second, I forgot about the frozen bananas. Those were also excellent, but a woman cannot exist on hummus and frozen bananas alone.


Who is this diet good for, then? I would say that people who need to loose a lot of weight and want to do it somewhat organically would benefit. And make sure that you have a lot of money.


So! My next diet venture is actually not coming from a book. I'm going to be using the Lose It! program.


Lose It! is a calorie counting website/iPhone app. You input your stats, and it tells you how many calories you should be eating in a day to achieve your weight loss goals. Right now, I'm on roughly 1600 calories a day. This one is fun, because it's free! If anyone wants to join me, you can become my friend on Lose It! by inputting my email address: buckywaters@gmail.com.


Come join me, friends! You have nothing to lose but some ugly flabby neck jiggle!

A new month, a new diet.

Get your Amazon on, folks! We're starting a new diet on March 1st! This one lasts six weeks, so I'll be in it to win it until the middle of April. Get your copy now and do it with me!

It's called The New American Diet: How secret "obesogens" are making us fat, and the 6-week plan that will flatten your belly for good! I picked it because of my love of ridiculously long book titles. Plus, I really like the word "obesogens".

Miraculously, I have not gained a single pound on my white bread diet. I'm still 10 pounds down. I've got to admit, though... I do feel pretty dumpy. I'm starting to incorporate more fiber slowly, so I should be ready for whatever The New American Diet has to throw at me by March 1st.

The best and worst way to lose 6 pounds in 6 days.

Pounds lost: 10/62

That's right. I've lost over five pounds since my last post, and it wasn't because of the O2 Diet, regrettably.

I've been in the hospital with an intestinal infection.

Now, before you start asking, "Where can I get myself one of those? Amazon.com?" I feel obligated to tell you that it's incredibly painful and humiliating and most of that six pounds was probably due to my muscles atrophying because I wasn't able to get out of bed. Plus, there was nothing to wash to my hair with, save baby shampoo.

Nonetheless, it does feel pretty good to say that I've lost 10 pounds thus far. :)

When I was discharged from the hospital yesterday, I was given a list of things that I could and couldn't eat while my intestines are in recovery. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the O2 Diet.

I'm on a "low residue" (read: low fiber) diet. I can't eat anything whole wheat or whole grain. No veggies, save potatoes and very well cooked carrots. No berries or anything with skin or seeds. No nuts, no corn, no lettuce, etc. Also, absolutely no dairy and no caffeine (which means no green tea).

What I can eat is ridiculous. White bread. Cake. Sherbet. Pancakes. Creamy peanut butter. Only about 6 ounces of protein A DAY (so I would have to stop at 3 eggs for a single day). I have to follow this for one-two weeks, depending on how I'm feeling. I'm going to gain everything back. I am absolutely sure of it.

So what's my plan? Well, I suppose that I'll restart the O2 Diet whenever I can and follow it until the end of the month (I want to give it a fair run, after all). In the meantime, those of you who are dieting with me should keep on trucking. I'll catch up with you when I can.

Until next time, this is Diet of the Month Blog, telling you to make sure you wash your hands before you eat. :)

It's not cheating if it's premeditated.

Pounds lost: 4.6/62

This was me last night.

Now, before you get all judgemental, let me explain.

I lost a total of 4.4 pounds on the 4-day cleanse of the O2 Diet. Not bad, eh? You know how many pounds I've lost since then? Zero point two. That's right. I've lost a total of 4.6 pounds, which isn't too bad if you average it over 11 days. But 0.2 pounds in a week? Not so good.

I've been pretty darn faithful, too. I was following the two week Phase 2 meal plan for a little while, but then I switched to the DIY plan. Why? Because this diet is really expensive, and I didn't want the meat that I'd purchased to rot in the fridge while I continued to buy other new meat because EVERY SINGLE DAY on this diet is very very different. So I used what I already had and I repeated some of the lunches and dinners that I'd made earlier in the week.

And then there was the pepper episode. One of the lunches on the weekly menu was basically a bowl of pepper. It was a can of tuna mixed with lemon juice and olive oil and a TEASPOON of pepper over a bed of spinach. I thought I was going to throw it up. I decided then and there that I was officially on the DIY plan.

I've been doing really well. The recipes in this book are fabulous so far (more on that later). But the bottom line is this: I've only lost 0.2 pounds this week, so something had to be done.

It was suggested to me that I "shock my system" by giving myself a "free meal", and I decided to do just that last night for my friend Carmen's birthday. I ate two pieces of cheese pizza, a piece of tiramisu, and a humongous beer. In all honesty, I felt very very sick this morning, and I'm not sure if it worked at all. I'll let you guys know tomorrow.

I'm going to start rating the recipes in these weight loss books on a "Fabulous, Horrendous, or Still Out" scale. The first two are self-explanatory. The third means that the jury's still out, or that I simply haven't made up my mind as to whether or not I actually like it. Here's how everything has measured up so far.

Breakfast Recipes:

• Veggie and Cheddar Miniquiches = Fabulous
These feel like a huge indulgence on this diet. I would eat these even if I wasn't dieting.

• Paradise Smoothie = Fabulous
Full of stuff that I wouldn't ordinarily think would be good in a smoothie, like avocado. Tastes like fruity heaven.

Lunch Recipes:

• Quick Cobb Salad = Fabulous
If I had ordered this at a restaurant, I would have been very pleased. The sunflower seeds make me feel like I'm cheating (not pizza, beer, and tiramisu cheating, but cheating nonetheless).

Dinner Recipes:

• Chicken Mole = Super Fabulous
Make this. Sooner rather than later. And then make it again the night after, because you will want this every day. I promise.

• Salsa Chili = Still Out
I made this tonight for the Super Bowl for myself and my husband. It was pretty good, but really? It's like eating taco filling. It's not chili. Make it if you feel like eating burritos without the tortilla or other filling.

I'm making three new recipes tomorrow for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so I'll be blogging about it then. See you guys tomorrow!

Holy smokes.

Pounds lost: 4/62

Ladies and gents, this cleanse thing works like crazy time. That's four pounds gone in three days! The book does say that it's typical to lose 2-5 pounds during the cleanse, so maybe I'll lose another pound today. At four pounds down, though, I'm 1/17th of the way there! Sorry. I like math.

I solved the apple cinnamon problem, sort of. I put my apple slices in the food processor with the cinnamon and a couple of tablespoons of water, and voila! Applesauce. You should try it. It's not bad.

For dinner, I've been doing the salad just like the book says, plus I'll make myself a 4 oz 96% lean hamburger with a teaspoon of oregano mixed in. I'm basically eating a dry, flat meatball. Ryan's been broiling my asparagus, which tastes more special than eating it steamed.

And then, there are the blueberries. By the end of the day, this feels like a HUGE treat. In an odd way, I really like the restrictive nature of the cleanse, and I'm almost a little sad that it's going to be over tomorrow. Any thoughts from you guys?

On another note, I feel like dieting is sort of a full time job. It takes so long to make everything and shop for everything... I'm a freelancer, and I don't happen to be working at the moment, so I have time to do all of this, but what about the nine-to-fivers? How do you have time to diet?

Sliced Granny Smith Apple + One Teaspoon Cinnamon = Gross.

And so it begins...

Pounds lost: 0/62

Notice my new weight tracker! My goal is to make that armadillo very, very happy. Like, yellow happy.

So I suppose I should post some "before" photos. Here you go:

Oh man. I have those crazy underarm fat pockets. Good thing I'm doing this.

So I started the cleanse today, as promised. Here's how I feel about it so far:

• Breakfast is enjoyable. I thought I would miss salt on my eggs, and I do, but it's not as bad as I thought with the basil.

• Drinking tea is fun. I feel like an accomplished adult when I drink tea by myself in my kitchen. Totally one of those "I'm pretending to be someone else, and it's sort of fun" moments, like the first time you went to the grocery store in college and suddenly realized that you were buying food for just yourself and no one else.

• Apples? Delicious. A teaspoon of cinnamon on/near those apples? Gross. Try eating cinnamon by dipping your apple slices in it, and you will want to commit diet suicide. I have an idea that will hopefully get me past this tomorrow. There's a reason why cinnamon challenges exist on youtube, and that it's funny to watch them. Watch these.

• I'm enjoying the lemon water. It's like lemonade with no sweetener, which is like another cinnamon challenge, except it's actually doable and sort of fun.

• I decided not to do the salmon. I was too scared. My husband Ryan will eat anything on the planet except for salmon, so I wussed out and bought albacore tuna steaks instead. I never ever cook fish, so I had to figure out how to make it so that I could actually eat it. I decided to consult the master of all things home-economist: Lady Martha Stewart (I know she's not really a Lady, I just like how that sounds). Adjusting one of her recipes a bit, I seared the tuna steak over medium-high heat in one teaspoon of olive oil for 5 minutes. While this was happening, I coated the top of the steak with 2 teaspoons of oregano. I then flipped it and cooked it for another 2 minutes. It was freakin' delicious. Good show, Jacqui. :)

• Trader Joe's makes this Orange Champagne vinegar that I used to dress my spinach. AMAZING delicious. Get some right now.

• Pecans were tasty as expected.

• Steamed artichokes are slimy and weird. I've only ever had them in delicious and fattening dips that usually involve cheese, so I didn't know about how weird they really are until today. I choked them down and serenely sipped my second cup of green tea, pretending I was a super skinny yogi or something.

• Did some interval running/walking on the treadmill at the gym for 45 minutes.

I got up late today, so I haven't eaten dinner yet. I'll let you know how it goes.

Questions? Concerns? Advice? Hit me up in the comments, yo.