Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 3.‏

Woo hoo! I lost 2.1 kg. That's a total of 7.1 kg in 3 weeks!! :)

I'm so pleased with how well this is going and how I am sticking to it, I've never stuck to something like this for so long. I am also very pleased with where I am tracking, all on track for my lovely graduation dinner with my special friends. :)

My sister Meg is coming to stay this weekend and we are going to hit up DFO, but I'm going to try not to buy anything clothes-related yet. :) Can't wait to do a big clothes clean out at the end and get rid of half my stuff! I am also very excited about Meggy visiting, will be so lovely to have family with me for a while. :) Will be a bit of a challenge though, this is the first time I've had someone stay that's not used to the Cohen's eating plan so I am hoping not to be too tempted by other food. Speaking of which, when I got into work this morning there were 4 Easter eggs on my desk. Sigh. I gave them to the girl next to me. :)

I hope you all had a great Easter, my work place gives the Wednesday off as well so it was a 6 day weekend for me - nearly a whole weigh in week!! Looking forward to the weekend already, he he.

M. x

PS - Photo is of Ange's chicken patties. They contain minced chicken breast, lemongrass, spring onion and coriander - YUM!

Ange's Cooking Adventures

Well, I must say, having Angela move in has been an absolute delight! Not just because it's a pleasure to have her around, but given that she has done Cohen's herself she has lots of helpful tidbits and recipes to offer. Over Easter, she made some little chicken patties and some beef burgers!

I ate one of the beef burgers for lunch with lettuce, tomato and a bit of mayo inside 2 premium crackers. YUM! The celery is there just to make up my vege allowance. :)
One of my lovely friends asked me the other day what a typical day of food looks like for me, so here goes, using the beef burger day as an example (all weights are raw):

8:30 am: 1 poached egg, with 75g total of mushroom and spinach cooked with garlic powder and salt with spray oil (see picture in Sleepy Sunday post).

11 am: 2 premium crackers.

1:30 pm: Beef burger (115g lean mince, fresh oregano, spring onion) with 2 premium crackers, 105g veges (lettuce, tomato and celery) and 1 tsp of whole egg mayonnaise.

4 pm: 1 premium cracker and an apple.

7 pm: 120g chicken breast cooked with 100g total of onion and zucchini, cooked off in spray oil and then boiled in enough water to cover before blending into a soup with added cumin and coriander.

8:30 pm: 1 orange.

So there you have it, a day in the life of Cohen's. Weigh in day tomorrow! I'm a bit nervous given my new and very exciting incentives (see my last post, Incentives...), but I am excited! I feel thinner this week, so fingers crossed!!

Hope you had a great Easter break!

M. x

Incentives...

Well, things are ticking along nicely! A little bit disappointed not to be having my traditional Lindt Chocolate Bunny over Easter, but I'm dealing with it. :)

Still been cooking my lovely meals. To the right is a prawn stirfry with celery, bok choy and zucchini. I used some garlic, cumin, chilli flakes, coriander and lemon juice to flavour it, and it was delicious.

Last night I told my special friend from Uni, who I shall refer to as my 'Student Husband', about my diet and my blog. He had just informed me that he and his lovely partner were planning a trip to visit me in July. Given that when the three of us usually get together, the evening is full of good food, good wine, indulgence, laughter and general frivolity, I thought, 'oh no! I won't be able to eat or drink with them!!!'

I went back to my chart and had a look at my goals. I have said from the start that I plan on doing this in 12 weeks. Whilst I realise that this is very ambitious, the success rates made available by Cohen's indicates that it is possible and has been achieved in the past. So I am to be done by the time they come, or at least in the stage of refeeding where I can indulge, so that we may enjoy our time together as usual.

So I was thinking that I now have a HUGE incentive to prepare myself to enjoy another wonderful evening with my lovely friends at the end of July... and then my Student Husband informs me, get this... that if I make it by then that they will buy me a new evening dress as an additional incentive! I was already stoked just to be able to spend an evening with them and they are offering me another huge incentive! A new dress!!! OMG how lovely is that? I will have no dresses that fit me if I lose so much weight by then so to have a new dress will be magnificent. :) They are going to take me out shopping for a dress and then we will go out for our lovely evening afterwards. I am so lucky to have such lovely friends, totally spoilt! :)

On that note, I hope you all have a wonderful, happy and safe Easter!!!

M. x

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 2.

OMG YAY!!!!! I lost 1.2 kg, which makes a total of 5 kg in 2 weeks. YAY!!!

This makes me very happy. :)

I am totally getting into the swing of things now. Last night I joined a group of wonderful women for dinner, except I didn't stay for the food. I went and had a diet coke as they were all drinking wine and cocktails and left as the food came out. I was so glad that I went, it was so lovely to see everybody, but it did require a considerable amount of strength on my part. Especially when the waitress asked me if 'I was sure I wanted to go home' and 'did I want to see the menu?', told me that the food 'came in little portions' and that 'the chefs weigh it before they serve it so it should be ok.' Sigh. I had to say no about 5 times. It was great though, we were talking so much that it took the girls a long time to order, so I didn't leave until the food came out at 8 pm. I was starving when I got home!!

Now I just have to gear up for an Easter with no chocolate and no champagne. Angela moved in last night, so we have a lot of catching up to do over Easter, and I am planning on completely overhauling my study so I will be busy. I've tried to steer clear of social engagements as I have no desire to test my willpower any more than is necessary, given the amount of times I say no to the offer of lollies and junk at work.

I just want to say that I am excited, and thanks for all of your support. I am so pleased that this is working so well, and am so lucky to have you all in my lives giving me so much encouragement.

Love you all!

M. x

Cohen's Diet; Day 11.

Hello!

I just thought I would put up a quick blog because I was thinking about a few things.

Firstly, I'm not hungry! I've been consistently forgetting to eat my 5th cracker (I'm allowed 5 vitaweats a day), and also often forgetting to eat my second piece of fruit. I tend to get hungry about an hour before I am supposed to eat lunch, but I suspect that is partly due to my Berocca in the mornings. I have gotten used to being hungry, which is another big thing, normally I'd be heading for the fridge the second I had a hunger pang.

Secondly, the meals don't seem so small anymore. For dinner tonight I had a lovely Japanese-style clear prawn soup, it was delicious.

Thirdly, I've noticed that my weight has plateaued for 4 days now, the day after weigh in. So I think I might need to hide my scales so that I don't get discouraged.

Fourthly, thank you so much for your support. I know that nobody (except my lovely Jacqueline) has made any comments, but I get lots of lovely texts and emails from people and I appreciate them a lot. I've also noticed that I've had some page views from the US and from Malaysia! Guess people are finding my blog. So to those people, feel free to follow and leave comments, I need all the encouragement that I can get!

M. x

Sleepy Sunday

Good morning!

Well, good morning for me, and good afternoon for everyone else since I accidentally slept in until 11:30 am. After waking up at 8:30 am yesterday, I didn't think I'd need to set an alarm, but apparently this morning I did! I had 11.5 hours sleep, how ridiculous. Now I feel like I've had too much sleep, and I'll be eating my dinner at about 9:45 pm due to my 5 hour meal gaps. Given that one of the rules is that you have to eat your last meal before 9 pm, I've made a booboo again!!

Well, I suppose I should focus on the positives. For 10 days now I've not drank any alcohol, had any sugar, milk, sauces in my food, or meals of the size that you don't look at and think, 'is that all!?' I'm getting used to it now, but as an example, check out my breakfast in the photo above. 1 poached egg with 1 mushroom and some spinach. No toast, no bacon, no more-than-one mushroom! But it will be worth it in the end.

Hope you are all having a great weekend,

M. x

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 1.

Woo hoo!!!! I lost 3.8 kg! :)

I am absolutely stoked and pretty proud of myself for sticking to it so well.

Lessons Learnt so far:
- I have trouble drinking all my water on the weekends so I have to get started early or take water with me when I go out.
- Mango smoothies for breakfast are awesome!
- Sometimes I forget to eat my 5th cracker as I am only allowed 2 at a time and I tend to eat them at morning/afternoon tea and forget the last one.
- I actually can sit infront of junk and not eat it.
- I have to be careful about putting food in my mouth without thinking.

- Vitamin B6 makes you hungry.

I learnt that last one when I asked my consultant if I could have berocca. I figured I could since it was artificially sweetened, and she said no because it had too much vitamin B6 in it and it would make me hungry. I asked if I could have it if I could put up with the hunger and she said yes. :)

As for the watching what I put in my mouth thing, the amount of times I was cutting up celery (or whatever) and went to eat the part that I cut off as I was weighing it was astonishing. I also found it hard avoiding the skittles on the desk next to me. I think I am attracted by bright colours! I kept going to grab one.

We had a staff meeting at work yesterday and I was offered a blackforest tim tam. I thought it was bad enough that there was a packet on the table until somebody walked into the meeting with a huge deluxe packet of chocolate biscuits including normal tim tams, mint slices, and about 3 other types of chocolate biscuits. At one point they were so close to me I could smell them, which was not helpful. But I am pleased to say that I politely declined, even though they smelt amazing. I have also been asked to stay back and have a glass of wine by my bosses twice this week, so I have done very well.

I think I am just amazed that I stuck to it so well. Now for the hard part, keeping it up when the weight loss slows down! I'm only going to blog on weigh in days and when the mood strikes me from now on, so I will let you know how things go!!!

M. x

One Day until Weigh In

Getting excited ....

Weigh in tomorrow. I can't wait.

I am feeling totally empowered by how well I have done. I have not missed drinking or anything. I'm not even thinking about food. I used to think about McDonalds every time I drove home from work because there is one about 500m from my house. Literally. There is actually a laneway connecting my house to Maccas. But I haven't thought about it other than to think that I haven't thought of it. Normally when I go on a diet (which is about once a week), all I can think about is McDonalds or the BWS across the road from it. Or the pizza shop about 400m in the other direction. But not anymore!!

On that note, my darling Angela recommended a book to me that she said made the difference for her and her relationship with food. It is called, 'Women, Food and God,' and is written by Geneen Roth. I went and bought it and am up to Chapter 3, so far it is resonating nicely. Feel free to make any additional comments below, Ange!

I am just so excited. 2 weeks ago I was feeling very ready and determined to do this, but now I actually know that I can do it. I can feel the weight slipping off and my tummy flattening a bit, and it is thrilling.

Stay tuned for the big weigh in tomorrow!

M. x

Oopsy Daisy!

I made my first booboo!!!! I miscalculated my lunch time and ate an hour early. I was thinking, 'Wow, I made it to lunch with just one cracker in between, it's a miracle!!' I didn't realise until I was calculating my dinner time and it was the same time as when I get up early during the week. Oops. 'What does this mean?', I hear you ask. Apparently, the Human Growth Hormone can only do it's work efficiently (ridding me of my fat) when there is only one protein in my system. Proteins take five hours to clear the system (hence needing to wait 5 hours between meals) and so there was one hour where the proteins were overlapping. I don't think it will do too much damage, but it was still a mistake. They say that one mistake can set you back a week on the program, but I don't think this is one of those mistakes. I think they more mean if you eat something you're not meant to eat, like chocolate. Anyhoo... that's more than enough thinking about chocolate.

Another thing that I am finding strange and difficult about this diet is that you can't eat extra vegies. Whenever I've done Weight Watchers, I've always used celery to sustain me between meals. One of my most helpful past diet strategies has been to have a bag of washed and cut up celery sticks in the fridge to munch on whenever hunger strikes. The fact that I have to weigh my vegetables and can't just snack on a stick of celery between meals baffles me. However, I am determined to do this diet with integrity, i.e., do it the way it was designed to be done, and not the 'Melanie's version', which would no doubt include celery sticks and the odd glass of champagne... and probably a few other things!

Everyone usually gets a headache over the first few days of this diet, but I can't really comment on that because I've had a headache for about 2 weeks, I suspect from emotional stress. That probably made it a little easier to ignore, which is helpful. And on the note of my helpful headache, I shall sign off!

M. x

Cohen's Diet; Day 3.

Wow. This is going so much better than I thought it would. Apart from the fact I am hungry long before I am allowed to eat next, I am doing OK.

I also thought I would have trouble not drinking, but I am pleased to say (and yes, I know it is only Day 3), that I haven't had any trouble yet. I have some bottles of Diet Dry Ginger Ale in the fridge and so I have one when I get home and I haven't even thought about having a glass of wine or anything else alcoholic.

Friday (Day 2) was also easier than I thought. I had cauliflower cheese for breakfast, chicken salad for lunch and curried beef and vegetables for dinner. I also dodged some big bullets. Friday mornings at work are a big, social morning tea. People bring food in (and by food, I mean chocolate, biscuits, cakes, muffins, etc...) and we all sit around a table and eat it. I took a cup of black tea and went and sat at the table and wasn't overly tempted by anything. The muffins looked great, as did the starburst babies, but it made me realise how easy it would be to 'accidentally' deviate from my diet when I am at work. There is always food on the table and I walk past it multiple times a day. Just absent-mindedly grabbing a starburst baby on my way past the table like I would normally would throw out my blood sugar entirely! Home is easy because there is nothing here that I can't eat, but I am going to have to pay attention at work.

I realised today that I am also going to have to be careful with sleep-ins on the weekends. I slept in and had breakfast (omelette) at 10:30 am, which means lunch (beef salad) was at 3:30 pm, and dinner (prawn and bok choy soup) at 8:30 pm. I am not allowed to have my last meal later than 9 pm and so I will have to remember to eat breakfast earlier.

On a self-esteem note, I noticed when I was walking down the hallway at work yesterday (Day 2) that I felt better about myself. Given that it is unlikely that I look any different at this stage, I put it down to the fact that I feel better about myself because I am taking care of myself and doing something that will ultimately make me healthier. Nice to feel a positive change already. On a second self-esteem note, a guy wolf-whistled at me today when he drove past as I was loading my groceries into my car boot. I looked up (trying to be inconspicuous in case he wasn't whistling at me) and he gave me a huge grin and wave and drove off. Felt nice to know somebody finds me attractive at the weight I'm at now, and helped me to remember that I really am doing this for myself and not anyone else.

On that note, I shall sign off. :)

M. x

Cohen's Diet; Day 1.

Well, day 1 down! Here is what I ate:

Breakfast:

1 egg omelette (OMG it was small) with asparagus and mushroom.

Lunch:

Mozzarella with tomato and basil; and
Mozzarella salad with spinach, rocket, mushrooms, cucumber and red onion.

Dinner:
Prawn stir fry with bok choy and zucchini.

Snacks:
5 vitawheats;
Black coffee;
Can of Coke Zero;
Small bottle of diet ginger ale;
a kiwifruit; and
an orange.

I am so glad I made it through day one. The amount of food that has been calculated for me is the precise minimum amount of food that my body needs to function. Well, it certainly was minimum - I am freaking starving!!!!! Waiting 5 hours between meals is very hard, even with a couple of crackers and a piece of fruit in between but it is meant to get easier. *crosses fingers*

On a different and very scary note, Dr Cohen has given me a goal weight of 59-62 kg! Pfft! What the? When I got married I was 76.5 kg, and I thought I looked awesome. I was about 78 kg for 2 years and was pretty happy with that so I had been aiming for about 73 kg, which is near the top of the healthy weight range for my height. Being in the 60s just seems so strange to me, but I guess we will see how we go. I took my measurements and my 'before' photos this evening. I am feeling very inspired after my gorgeous friend, Angela, showed me her before/after photos from her Cohen journey. It is so nice to have some real-life success stories around me. :)

The other thing that is important is that I have to drink 2-3 litres of water a day. This is essential as my fat breaks down and needs to leave my body and is a big part of the diet. As far as I can tell I stuck to my diet 100% today, and even though I am starving I keep telling myself that it will be very worth it when I am skinny!

M. x

And so it begins...

Well, what a week!!

I have had an emotionally draining week and so it was probably for the best that my Cohen's Diet didn't reach me in the mail until this afternoon. I arrived home from the city after an exam at the end of a 3-day work course to find it sticking out of the mailbox. Eager to get started, I grabbed it and rushed straight to the supermarket without even going inside. I returned home with:

- prawns, fish, chicken and veal;
- bok choy, mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, cucumber, tomatoes and spinach;
- eggs and mozarella;
- coriander and thai basil;
- vitawheats and premium crackers;
- oranges and kiwi fruit;
- coke zero and diet ginger ale; and
- snap lock bags.

I now have a fridge stocked full of food ready for tomorrow. I have emptied my fridge of all non-Cohen food, and disposed of food from the freezer that will not last the 3 months I expect to be on the diet. There were 9 frozen dinners that I have made myself over the past few months (I didn't plan that part very well), so Bella will be indulging in a little home cooking over the next few weeks. Tonight she is eating Aromatic Vietnamese Beef Curry. :)

If I was a good girl then I would go and weigh all of the meat out into labelled snap lock bags for the freezer but I am absolutely exhausted. I think everything has caught up with me and I am exhausted to the point where I have growing pains in my legs! So I am giving myself a break and will weigh it all out tomorrow night.

Tomorrow morning I will weigh in and I will record all of my measurements and take some before shots so that I can compare my sexy 'after shots' with them at the end of this adventure. I am a tad apprehensive about tomorrow and not quite sure how I am going to go with my morning coffee sans milk, but I am sure I will survive.

Wish me luck!!!!

M. x

PS - I have added some of you to an email notification so that you will be told when I blog. If you want to be removed from this at any time, please let me know. I can only add 10 people to it and I have only added 2 people that haven't asked me to and it is already full. I will be posting quite regularly the first week (maybe every day), so feel free to tell me to drop you off if you start feeling like you are being spammed. ;)