Consolidation The not so very secret diary of Atropos, 11 &1/2

[anjuschka]

Hey that sounds great!

Yes 'the new normal' is a good name for it! Those portion sizes etc do become second nature although I have not managed to shed my sweet tooth where (my own) home baking is concerned...

Carbs are no problem as such though I did have to sample the new potatoes last night and I have diversified into the nutritionally superior carbs like pulses and quinoa. And dragged the family along with it - but of course they still get their rice pudding

Minor point - you are supposed to have the cheese ration in one meal. Wait till stab before splitting it.

And hey well done your sister too!

 

[Atropos]

Carbs are no problem as such though I did have to sample the new potatoes last night

I was gutted when the Jersey royals arrived in April and I couldn't have a sample - the smell of the mint simmering in the pan was a torment, I had to go for a long walk and avoid lunch.

Minor point - you are supposed to have the cheese ration in one meal. Wait till stab before splitting it.

Good to know!

Looking back, I'm not really spliting it - I just can't eat all that cheese in one omelette, but I love cheesy omelette, so more often than not I just use half and abandon the rest in the fridge - (in a closed box, at the back, so I'm not tempted to "pick")

I think once I got a cheese craving, and added the "second half" after coming in at 11pm famished.

(good thing is I'm not in the least bit tempted by the takeaway options around our place at that time of night)

 

[dukandebut]

Atropos - how on earth can an omelette be TOO cheesy! That's sacrilege.

Now go and wash your mouth out with some extra mature farmhouse Cheddar! ;-)

 

[Atropos]

Atropos - how on earth can an omelette be TOO cheesy! That's sacrilege.

Now go and wash your mouth out with some extra mature farmhouse Cheddar! ;-)

Can't. Already had me cheese ration for the day!
:Na_Na_Na_Na:

 

[Atropos]

Arghhhh!!!! I've lost a day in the wash - I thought it was wednesday and it turns out to be thursday.

Another day older, and another day nearer the weekend.

 

[Atropos]

Looks like last night's update didn't get through!

Didn't get to eat last night until midnight.

I happened to stop at the Royal Festival Hall on the way home - 6ish - and spotted a photocopied notice that Muzsikas (my all time top music crush - 20 years worth of bootleg tapes, imported CDs and finally legit mp3 downloads) was performing a gig for free. With dancing. At 10pm.

I have never seen them live

So I settled in, on a sofa in the ballroom, with coffee and the laptop, and at 10.30 was dancing; I was just starting to train as a International Folk Dance tutor 10 years ago when I broke my ankle and spent 18 months on crutches - haven't danced like that since.

I thought I was fit-ish (aqua-aerobic, ditch digging, hill climbing) - clearly I need to do more, because my heart tried to hammer itsway out of my chest!

Good times!

Still - it meant I ate nothing after the cottage cheese snack I had at 5.30pm.

 

[anjuschka]

Wow what a brilliant evening. Not sure how you survived without any kind of sustenance but glad to hear you had such a brilliant time!

 

[Atropos]

This is what Muzsikas sound like - and a sample of the dance style to explain why I nearly went home in an ambulance:

YouTube - ‪Muzsikás LIVE 002. - The Hungarian Folkmusic Ensemble with Zoltán Farkas‬‏

 

[Atropos]

Still losing weight in conso - I'm now 4 lbs below my goal, only 4 weeks in

I'd rather the scales went down than up (and it's so slow that I'm sure I won't get saggy or baggy) but its not something I want to see happen long term.

Four weeks in, and I am feeling much more "normal" - I was very sleepy in conso to begin with, and I'm perkier now (or as perky as anyone can be in this humidity with only 5 hours sleep).

The noisy neighbours have added a new torment. They've phased out some of the 2 am parties in favour of -

- shouting and playing music outside my window at 5am.

I'm complaining in principal only - as I usually get up at 5.30 anyway. But then I spend the first hour of the day tip-toeing around trying not to wake anyone else - not playing music through a mobile phone in someone else's front yard.

 

[Mark James]

I can fully sympathise with your neighbour situation. Why do some people have to be so selfish and inconsiderate? I'm with Spike Milligan when he said there are two things in life you can do without: haemorrhoids and neighbours.

Mark

 

[Atropos]

I can fully sympathise with your neighbour situation. Why do some people have to be so selfish and inconsiderate? I'm with Spike Milligan when he said there are two things in life you can do without: haemorrhoids and neighbours.

Mark

Ha! As always, Spike is the main man!

I do tend to flit from one extreme to the other; in Northumberland my nearest neighbour is a 30 minute cross country hike away. In London I live on the set of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window" with 80 windows to watch and added Suround Sound.

 

[Mark James]

Rear Window's a fine movie. Just hope you're not the one who bumps off your neighbour (I know it was the man killing his wife, but you know what I mean). Jimmy Stewart might be up there somewhere opposite, leg in plaster, with his telephoto lens zooming in.

Mark

 

[Atropos]

Oh, I was Jimmy Stewart - I broke my leg the year I moved in to the block, and spent 6 weeks sleeping on the sofa, watching the show unfold in front of me.

No Thelma Ritter to ease my pains, alas.

But I did get the story of the woman who married a pair of identical twins - she was legally married to one, but they wore 3 identical wedding rings between them, and shared a flat. (It had a sad ending - after 25 years of marriage the two brothers died within weeks of each other, and the inconsolable double window drank herself into a long, loud and anti-social decline)

 

[dukandebut]

You're experiencing my problem, Atropos. It's great at first, then can become a little disconcerting when the weight keeps dropping. I worried about it initially, but then decided that my body was going to do whatever it had to do during its adjustment period and that the best thing was to go with the flow.

However, I did start making some gradual additions - such as a slightly increased daily bread ration. It may be a good idea for you to do the same if your weight continues in this pattern? Some people start introducing the second carb meal early, in phase 1 instead of 2, in order to counteract this. I wasn't brave enough to do that, but I did move onto phase 2 a week or two before my calculated date.

Whatever the reason for the downward spiral, I appear to have stabilised at around 8lbs under target. Both Laura and Anja did put on a small amount of weight during Stab and so I think we'll probably make up for some of that loss when we move over into the next phase.

 

[dukandebut]

But I did get the story of the woman who married a pair of identical twins - she was legally married to one, but they wore 3 identical wedding rings between them, and shared a flat. (It had a sad ending - after 25 years of marriage the two brothers died within weeks of each other, and the inconsolable double window drank herself into a long, loud and anti-social decline)

What an incredible story, but such a shame about the sad ending. It really would make quite a book or film.

 

[anjuschka]

Hi,

just to echo DDs comment - even I was experiencing this in phase I (I wish I had that problem now...) - and after 3 or 4 pounds below or so I was definitely adding extras to stop it: I went from 60 to 80 gr of bread, and two fruit a day. That seemed to work, kind of, and then the time was up and I moved on to Phase II. At that point unwanted losses were no longer an issue ISTR. My conso diary is this way>>
http://www.minimins.com/dukan-diaries/167845-anjas-journey-through-conso-closed.html
if you can bear to wade through a lot of boring stuff, you might find notes about my concern regarding continued losses.

 

[Atropos]

Glad to hear you girls experienced some of the same downward shift in conso - as I think about it, it makes sense, as I must be eating far less fat and carb than I was even on weight watchers - plus I suspect that once one is eating sustainably one is likely to drift closer towards the "true weight" figure.

It's just so unexpected when your voices have convinced you that you are going to spiral back up of control as soon as the brakes are off!

Shows how pervasive the voices are.

 

[Atropos]

Can't eat in this heat - last night I managed to hail the ice-cream machine out and churn some yogurt - but anything more substantial, just forget about it!

 

[Topaz63]

It's just so unexpected when your voices have convinced you that you are going to spiral back up of control as soon as the brakes are off!.

but of course the brakes aren't really off, are they? The whole point of Conso and stab is to return to a normal style tho not necessarily one's old style.

 

[Atropos]

but of course the brakes aren't really off, are they? The whole point of Conso and stab is to return to a normal style tho not necessarily one's old style.

Exactly - and now I realise this is the first time I have reached a genuine diet goal at all.

Every diet I have followed before has held out the promise/threat of a "maintance stage" - but I have never discovered what that is, because none of them have actual delivered the promises "goal weight"

Before - diets ended when because of external events - holidays, sickness, christmas, work, whatever - not at a specific weight or date - and certainly not in the circumstance where one would be up for a whole new "maintenance" program....

I'm quite tickled about that "healthy(TM)" of 24.9 BMI creeping up on me - at least I would be able to shove two fingers up at any of the snottier GPs who are fixated on the figures!