Category: Health and Vanity

Cabbage Soup Diary: Day Three

charleneaross4 Comments

Stupid Cabbage Soup Diet! Yesterday I woke up to a yummy buttery baked potato. Today I get butternut squash and pomegranate seeds. I like butternut squash and pomegranate seeds, but I’d rather have a buttery baked potato. I’m already dreaming of the banana milkshake I’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow.

Also, I miss coffee. Yogi Green Tea is fine. In fact I really like it and it gives me (some of) the caffeine boost I need, but it’s just not the same as my decadent hell-of-a-lotta-cream-and-sugar coffee. I know the cream and sugar isn’t great if you’re trying to lose or maintain a healthy weight, but I only drink 2 cups a day and it makes me happy. I’m 47-years-old. I like things in life that make me happy. I’m not giving up my damn coffee. Well, except for this week.

Yogi Green tea fortune
The only thing multiplying is the hunger in my stomach

I lost another pound and a half, so that’s three pounds in two days. That might be worth giving up coffee for a week. Maybe. (Oh and if any of you are wondering if I’m ever going to disclose how much I weigh – forget it. I’ve already told you how old I am. That’s all you get to know!)

It was a little harder to sleep last night. I forgot the Melatonin because I was so tired (probably from depriving my body of calories) I just sort of fell into bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with that achy muscle deterioration/body detoxing whatever it is pain, but it wasn’t too bad.

I’m not going to lie. I thought this would be a little easier today because of the variety of fruits and vegetables, but it’s not. I’m never tempted to cheat, but I’m conscious almost all day long that I really don’t have enough food in me. At least not the right kind of food.

The morning wasn’t too bad. I had my pomegranate and squash for breakfast, then about an hour later I had some mango, avocado and grapes. That held me over until my delicious (notice the italics to emphasize my sarcasm) cabbage soup diet soup for lunch. Okay, so lunch was at 11:30. But still. That’s not too bad. I snacked all afternoon on snap peas and mini peppers.

Gas-X continues to be my friend. (For the most part.)

Cabbage Soup Diet Tip #3: Do not work out. Be lazy! One of the biggest bummers for me about this diet (you know other than the extreme hunger) is that I can’t work out. Well, it doesn’t say that you can’t work out, but I just don’t have the energy. Or the strength. I know that some of you will look at this as an advantage, but I actually like going to the gym and it kind of seems ironic that to lose weight quickly I have to give up working out for a week.

For dinner I roasted some vegetables and okay, okay, I cheated! I put on the tiniest bit of olive oil on my vegetables. I couldn’t help it. I wanted my roasted asparagus to taste good. (And it did – it really, really did!) But I didn’t slather it on like I usually do. I just sprayed some on with one of those little Misto Olive Oil Sprayers, so even though it is oil, it comes out more like Pam and it’s really just a tiny bit.

Tonight I made my family breakfast for dinner – scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, bacon, hash brown patties and toast and I did not lick my bacony fingers or sneak one bite. So that has to count for something right?

Again, off to bed early. I think I’m going to dream of the bananas smoothie I’ll be having tomorrow!

Cabbage Soup Diet Diary: Day Two

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Hooray! I survived Day One and am ready to recap Day Two of the Cabbage Soup Diet – you better believe the first thing I did this morning was get on the scale. I lost a pound and a half. I know that’s a lot for just one day, but I have to admit I’m a tad disappointed. I was hoping for two pounds. (I thought I’d lost at least that much in gas – even with the Gas-X!)

I took a Melatonin so I would sleep well. Last time I did the diet I had an achiness in my body that made it hard to sleep. I thought maybe it was the lack of protein making my muscles deteriorate. (That sounds dramatic and unlikely after just one day!) My friend Lisa thinks it’s my body detoxing. Whatever it is I don’t like it and was glad I didn’t have it last night.

This morning I had my beloved baked potato (with tons ‘o butter) for breakfast. I bought the biggest one I could find – it was 11 ounces. If you want to know the truth I was hoping for a bigger one. Hell, I would have eaten a potato that weighed more than a pound if Trader Joe’s had them. I should have gone to Vons. They usually have nuclear sized potatoes. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that I put the potato in the oven the night before and set the timer so it would be ready at breakfast time. I have to tell you, it might have been the best baked potato I’ve ever had.

Cabbage soup diet baked potato with butter
Don’t be fooled – I put on waaaay more butter than this!

Even after the baked potato I was still pretty hungry. So I had some butternut squash.

Cabbage soup diet butternut squash
Tasty!

I also snacked all day long. Cabbage Soup Diet Tip #2: be prepared and have a variety of fruits and vegetables. This is what I snacked on most of the day:

Cabbage soup diet vegetables
The peppers were delish!

The peppers were delicious and I ate almost a whole package of snap peas. Trust me, you will not succeed on this diet if you were planning on munching on carrots and celery sticks all day. (Ugh!)

For lunch I had the soup. I hate that stupid soup.

In the afternoon I took a nap. I didn’t really take it because I was tired (I was) but because I was tired of being hungry. The funny thing is, as difficult as this diet is, I haven’t been tempted to cheat.

Everyone was envious of my baked potato breakfast, so I made the family baked potatoes for dinner. This is Marley’s (she insisted on posing):

baked potato with sour cream, cheddar cheese and bacon
Yes, my kids still eat their dinner on the Tupperware plates I purchased when they were toddlers – don’t judge me!

Yeah, I cooked freaking bacon and did not even lick my fingers when I chopped it up. I am a diet queen!

I was probably supposed to have the soup for dinner but I didn’t. My dinner was roasted asparagus, butternut squash, Portobello mushrooms cooked in water and balsamic vinegar, and steamed spinach. I would advise not roasting asparagus without oil. Roasted asparagus is one of my favorite things. I love the delicious nutty flavor, but without the oil – yuck! (I might have thrown it away.)

So… Day Two wasn’t too bad. You know, except for the being hungry all day part. Two days down and five to go. Tomorrow I get to have fruits and vegetables. I can do it! (I think.)

Cabbage Soup Diet Diary: Day One

charleneaross6 Comments

Yesterday I confessed to you all that I was going to torture myself with the Cabbage Soup diet. Understandably, I received a lot of flack. My friend Sarah yelled at me on Twitter. I knew she would. She solves women’s digestive problems. But I don’t have digestive problems. I have my-metabolism-hit-mid-life-and-decided-to-stop-working problems. It might have a lot to do with the amount of cheese I eat.

(Or it might be the wine I drink with that cheese.)

Anyway, I’ve decided good, bad or whatever to do the diet this week and journal about my experience here. (Lucky you!)

Day One:

I think that Day One is the hardest day as it is fruit only and fruit is: a.) not filling, and b.) pretty gassy. Cabbage Soup Diet Tip #1: Gas-X is your friend. Take it first thing in the morning and take it as often as it says you can.

This is what I had for breakfast on Day One:

Cabbage Soup Diet Breakfast
Yes avocado is a fruit!

Looks pretty tasty right? Pomegranate seeds, mango, grapes and half an avocado. Yes, avocado is a fruit. Sure, whoever created this crazy diet probably didn’t intend for you to have avocado, but while the diet strictly says no bananas until Day 4, it doesn’t say anything about avocados. Besides, I gave up coffee. And wine. I deserve something for that don’t I?

At 9:00 I was hungry again and ate more mango and grapes.

At 10:00 See above. (And so on and so on through out the day!)

For lunch I had some yummy Cabbage Soup Diet soup. Doesn’t it look delicious?

Cabbage-Soup-Diet-soup
Umm,.. Yum?

Well, just close your eyes and plug your nose and pretend it does like I do! (Actually, it’s not that bad. But like I said yesterday, by Day 3 or 4 it really does make you kind of gag.)

In all honesty I really wasn’t that hungry. I mean, yes, I was hungry, but I never felt like I was starving. Probably because I was literally eating all day long. And yes, in case you are wondering I did have the second half of that avocado as an afternoon snack. (Damn it was good!)

And I don’t think I was that cranky. (I tend to be when I’m hungry). Although I did snap at Dave at dinner, coincidentally while he was eating his second chicken burrito and I was slurping more soup. (Oops!)

I did roast some grape tomatoes for dinner. They were pretty tasty. Even without the olive oil I usually slather on before I roast them.

Roasted tomatoes for cabbage soup diet
Delicious!

Tomorrow I’ll be eating vegetables all day and I get my baked potato! You’d better believe I’m looking forward to that! I’ll also be getting on the scale and see if I’ve lost any weight. (Yes, overnight. Shut up!)

But right now I’m going to take another Gas-X and head off to bed.

The Cabbage Soup Diet

charleneaross12 Comments

Yeah, that’s right. I’m going on The Cabbage Soup Diet today.

I know… yuck! But I’m fat. It’s true. I haven’t seen numbers this high since the days of postpartum. And rumor has it Thanksgiving is next week. That certainly will not help. I need to do something drastic and this is it.

For those of you not familiar with the Cabbage Soup Diet it is terrible. But it works. It’s certainly not a way of life and it is not a healthy eating plan, but it is a 7-day plan where (pretty much by starving yourself) you lose 7-10 pounds in a week. I know what you’re thinking – that I’ll gain it back the second I start eating regularly again. But I won’t. At least not the first day.

The thing is, I can’t go into the holidays at this weight. I CAN’T. I always, Always, ALWAYS gain weight during the holidays no matter how hard I try not to. Thanksgiving, Christmas, extra alcohol, extra desserts, parties, cheese plates – it’s a mid-life metabolic nightmare. And at least if I can lose 7 pounds this week, if I do gain it all back by the first of the year I’ll be where I am now instead of even heavier. Does that make sense?

So, exactly what is The Cabbage Soup Diet? It is this:

Day One:
Eat only fruit (no bananas) and cabbage soup. All that you want.

Day Two:
Eat only vegetables and cabbage soup. All that you want. For dinner you may have a baked potato with butter.

Day Three:
Eat all the fruits and vegetables you want and cabbage soup. (No bananas, no potato.)

Day Four:
Bananas and Skim Milk: Eat as many as eight bananas and drink as many glasses of skim milk as you would like on this day, along with your soup.

Day Five:
Beef And Tomatoes: Ten to twenty ounces of beef and up to six fresh tomatoes. Eat the soup at least once this day.

Day Six:
Beef and Vegetables: Eat to your heart’s content of beef and vegetables this day. You can even have 2 or 3 steaks if you like, with leafy green vegetables. No Baked Potato. Eat your soup at least once.

Day Seven:
Brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices and vegetables. Eat your soup at least once this day.

It goes without saying that I eat the biggest baked potato I can find (with tons of butter) on Day 2 and usually for breakfast – forget dinner! And you’d better believe that I’m stuffing roast beef into my mouth on Day Five first thing in the morning.

What’s in the soup other than cabbage? Recipes vary. This cabbage soup recipe is very popular.

Cabbage coup diet soup
Mmmm… delish???

This is how I made mine:

  • one 32oz boxTrader Joe’s fat-free chicken stock
  • package of shredded cabbage
  • 2 cans Trader Joe’s Diced & Fire Roasted Tomatoes
  • 1 package Trader Joe’s Fire Roasted Peppers and Onions
  • 1 or 2 carrots
  • 3 or 4 stalks of celery
  • Some water to fill up the pot
  • Lawry’s Taco Seasoning

Just stick it on the stove and cook it on low a few hours until it looks ready. I find the roasted vegetables really help with the taste. By Day 3 the soup kind of makes you gag. I usually only have it for lunch.

And worst of all: no alcohol and no coffee! Well, I can drink coffee – but I can’t have cream or sugar, so what’s the point?

Dave says worst of all is the smell of the cabbage soup and my crabby mood! I can’t share the smell of the soup with you, but I can share my crabby mood. I’ll be blogging daily about the torture my progress.

So this week I’ll be drinking my Yogi Green tea for my caffeine fix and looking at my little tea bag fortunes for inspiration. Here’s today’s…

Intuition is your best friend
Always follow your intuition…

I wonder if that means the intuition I had to do this diet in the first place or the thought I had first thing this morning when I almost changed my mind.

I guess we’ll see…

 

Want to check out my progress? Here’s my Cabbage Soup Diet Diary: Day One

bodyheART

charleneaross2 Comments

I ❤ my body.

Well, not really. But I’m trying to.

About a week ago I went to an amazing seminar called BodyheART at my gym. The seminar was started by a woman named Amber Krzys who spent the first 31 years of her life hating her body and the last 3 years loving it. She wants to teach other women to love their bodies too.

Well, I’m older than Amber and therefore have been hating my body for a lot longer than she hated hers. Her body-loving-soul-searching process took her 9 months.  In the seminar that I took she spoke for an hour. You can only learn to love your body so much in an hour. I think I still have a ways to go.

I do admit that once I reached my 40’s I started hating my body less. (Most days.) Of course that’s actually quite ironic because it was around the time I turned 40 that my metabolism, whom I thought I’d had a pretty good relationship with, decided to flip me the middle finger and go on strike. I’m not quite sure what I did to piss her off so much and I sure wish she would go back to working like she used to, but I don’t think that will be happening. I think she’s done. I probably made her too tired by eating too many cheeseburgers washed down with margaritas and expecting her to work overtime.

I hear she gets even more pissed off when I turn 50. (I can hardly wait!)

Yes, when I reached the age of 40 a few years back I took a good long look in the mirror and realized that my thighs poked out of my legs in a perfect imitation of a potato sack stuffed into a too-small sausage casing my entire post-pubescent life. If I had thunder thighs at twenty, they certainly weren’t going suddenly turn into the graceful gams of a freak-of-nature-supermodel beach volleyball player at forty.

I’m not trying to say that I learned to love my body, but I pretty much just shrugged my shoulders and realized that this is the body I’m intended to have. I try to work out 3-4 days a week (more like 1 or 2) and cut back on the cheeseburgers so my metabolism will quit being the enemy.

I even tried taking the words “I’m so fat” out of my vocabulary. Except at night when I get ready for bed and the florescent light in my bathroom hits my arms just right and accentuates every little dimple of fat – then all bets are off.

And yes, my stomach that used to be as flat as a board no many how many French fries I stuffed into it now has a tiny little pooch. Okay, okay, some days that pooch isn’t so tiny. But as I look around, I notice that many of my post-40 friends have tiny little pooches too. I think they are kind of cute. Well, my friend’s pooches are cute. Mine drives me fucking insane. But I just suck it in, pull on a Spanx cami and remind myself that I could have a flat stomach once again if I never ate carbs and worked out 7 days a week.  I’ll choose French fries and a little self-loathing over that any day.

But I want to try to be kinder to myself.

During the seminar Amber had us close our eyes and do a couple of visualization exercises. We were sitting on the floor of the aerobics studio of the gym and I was wearing jeans and sitting criss cross and as I closed my eyes all I could think of was how my fat belly pushed against my jeans. Here I was at a seminar trying to learn how to love myself more and the first thing I was doing was hating myself.

The visualization exercises that Amber had us do really moved me and actually filled my eyes with tears.

The second hour of the BodyheART seminar is a photo session where you take two photos. Amber draws a heart on your face and a heart on your favorite part of your body and photographs you.

Ugh! My favorite part of my body?!

I was seriously considering having my feet photographed.

I actually think I have cute feet. (As long as you’re not looking at the kankle ankle part.)

I really didn’t know what part to have photographed and didn’t know what to wear. I was feeling icky and ugly and fat and didn’t want to go.

So of course I had to go. I don’t want to feel like that about myself anymore. I’m too fucking old for that shit. I really am. I really like myself at this age. I want to like my body too.

My favorite part of my body is my waist which, when you compare it to the junk I’ve got going on in my trunk, looks really small.

Okay, I’ll stop and be kind to myself. I do have a small waist, but like I said I’ve got a bit of a belly right now. And some serious muffin top back fat so I didn’t want to be photographed from the back either. And I couldn’t decide on what to wear to have my waist photographed so I chose to have my heart drawn on my left breast and have that photographed.

Oh calm down, I didn’t have to take anything off. My boobs are small – especially for my height, but I actually like the fact that they’re small. I hate wearing a bra and usually end up ripping it off and going braless when I get home. (Unless my son has his friends over – then I cover up – I’m not that mom!)

But my breasts are semi-perky (you know for being so emptied out after nursing two babies for 6 months each) and I have a little mole on the cleavage of my left breast that I think looks sexy when I wear a push-up bra.

bodyheART
photo taken by Autumn Lee

I want to say that I love my pictures, but I have to be honest… I don’t. I think I look older than I am – I don’t like the dark circles under my eyes. But I chose to think it’s the lighting and not my face. I will say that I don’t think my arm looks fat (and I always think my arms look fat) and I think that little bit of cleavage I’m rocking looks pretty good.

bodyheART campaign

And one of the things Amber taught us is that all actresses’ and models’ photographs are retouched. So the fact that I don’t love these photos is okay. I know that if I had this photo retouched it could look something more like this after…

celebrity retouch photo
Even Nicolette Sheridan (who is gorgeous) looks better after a retouch!)

So while I did not leave the bodyheART seminar loving my body I do notice that even two weeks later I hate my body less. I’ve even gained two pounds since that day (thank you Easter candy) and haven’t beat myself up about it.

There was such a beautiful energy in the room during the seminar and the photo shoot. Look at these beautiful women I got to spend the day with. (The photo shoot was a blast.)

bodyheart campaign

I know that there is no perfect face. There is no perfect body. I’m trying to teach myself that my body is just perfect for me.

To learn more about the bodyheART campaign and see what REAL women look like un-retouchedclick here.

Follow me on Twitter @Rossgirl08 and connect with me on Facebook.

 

This blog was originally posted on skirt.com on April 25, 2011.