Today I started doing more than just lamenting or ignoring the extra pounds that I’m carrying around (including the 2.5 more of them that appeared this weekend). Today I started the 10-Day Citrus & Protein Diet, which I considered and rejected back when I was flirting with the 140’s (oh, those were the days). Is it healthy? No. Is it sensible? No. It is a way to jump start my renewed weight loss efforts with a dramatic break from what I’ve been doing.
The only other time I managed to stay on this diet for the full ten days was my freshman year of college. It worked a treat then; I’m hoping it will still do the trick even though that was many years and many weight cycles ago. If I follow the rules, I’m pretty much guaranteed to be eating fewer calories than I have been, so that should lead to weight loss right there.
The hardest part of this diet is the grapefruit. If the “citrus” part of the title were of my choosing, it sure as heck wouldn’t be grapefruit, and even if I did become senseless and choose grapefruit, it sure as heck wouldn’t be unsweetened grapefruit. I like fruit best when it’s full of sugary goodness, whether provided by nature or heaped on by me. Grapefruit in its unadulterated state does not even come close to my idea of good. It barely qualifies as edible in my book. But grapefruit is an important part of this diet. A half a grapefruit or four ounces of juice ingested before each meal automatically improves the taste of whatever comes after. It may be plain tuna and a meagerly dressed green salad, but compared to the bitter grapefruit it’ll be mouthwateringly delicious. (I say this having not yet had the plain tuna and salad, but I’m pretty confident.)
So today is day 1. If all goes according to plan, by day 10 I will be a little lighter and in frame of mind where a sensible diet will feel indulgent. I haven’t settled on exactly what form that sensible diet will take. I’m leaning toward going back to what I think of as “Weight Watchers Classic”, the program in the form it had when I first joined, with the exchanges for starch and protein and dairy and fruit and such. That structure lends itself to better habits than points, at least for me. But I’ve got ten days to ponder that, so I may be influenced in another direction between now and then.
So far I have not snapped at anyone or even looked in the snack cupboards here in the office (whoever said “you can’t get fat eating free food” didn’t work here). Go me!
Addendum: because so many people have asked, I put the rules for this plan here.
A year ago, I was in the office on a holiday. I’d forgotten all about that.
Two years ago, I was home but not writing an entry.
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