Since Monday, I’ve been following Phase 1 of the The Fat Flush Plan. Thankfully, I’ve got my motivation back due to changing things up a bit. See prior post for details:

http://mycellulitewar.com/2009/06/21/status/week-in-review-moving-past-a-plateau/

I haven’t been doing a lot of exercise this week for two reasons:

1. I hurt my foot and I need to keep off of it and
2. My daughter has been sick and hasn’t been going to sleep and is also waking up in the middle of the night. So, that means someone else (me!) is also not sleeping and I’ve been hitting  snooze one too many times and missing my workout window. It’s probably a good thing too, since if did wake-up in time, I probably would have worked-out despite my foot and re-injured it.

So, back to the The Fat Flush Plan. The plan’s author has a dedicated website at http://www.annlouise.com/.  I haven’t looked at it in detail, but at first glance, it looks like she’s the author of two other diets, “Gut Flush” and “Fast Track”. I’m intrigued. There’s also a community forum too and success stories. Of course, there’s also stuff to buy.

So, in any case I’ve been pretty much sticking to Phase 1 with hardly any exercise so we’ll see how I measure up this weekend.

Thanks for reading

According to The Fat Flush Plan, caffeine is not supposed to be good for weight loss because it raises the level of stress hormones secreted by your body. These stress hormones raise your stress level. Your body, which sees increased stress levels as a threat to survival, starts storing extra fat to protect itself. I don’t need any help storing fat, so the coffee must go. I’ve also heard that ditching coffee enhances your chances for getting pregnant, and since I haven’t given up on having a second child, I’m in.

The last time I quit coffee is when I was pregnant with my daughter. I quit pretty much cold turkey as soon as I found out I was pregnant and got the most terrible headache I can remember. I was sooooo tired too. But that lasted about 1-2 days and then I was fine. Fortunately, the suffering is not prolonged.

I have heard contradictions though on the fat loss part, so that has me a little confused. Caffeine is supposed to increase metabolism and give you more oomph for your workout. But perhaps they aren’t enough to counteract the fat storage due to raised stress hormones. In any case, I’m trying it since it can’t hurt to have one less pollutant in my body.

Thanks for reading!

I’m back from vacation! And of course I didn’t stick to any diet. So when I weighed myself on Monday 6/1, I was surprised and pleased that I was up to 127lbs from about 124lbs. Not too bad given my indulgence.

I promptly put myself back on The Fat Flush Plan and by Wednesday morning I was back down to 125lbs. I know what you’re thinking, “It’s just water weight”, because that’s what I’m thinking too, but sure feels good to see that number on the scale.

It’s an interesting thing though. I look fatter now at 125lbs than I did about 2 weeks ago at 125lbs. I have a theory about this. Every time I lose weight, as soon as I lose it, I look pretty good. But when I stay at that weight for a few weeks, I morph back into my old shape. My theory is that it has to do with your body’s setpoint. When you first lose weight, you’re body isn’t used to it, so it takes on its new and improved shape. When you stay at that weight for a while, your body resets itself into a smaller version of your old shape. Yes, you look better overall, but if you don’t keep at the diet and exercise, your body gets comfortable with the new weight and starts resorting to your old shape.  So anyway, that’s my theory – don’t know if its right or wrong, it’s just what I observe about myself and my husband.  (He’s trying to lose some weight. He’s lost about 20lbs so far and has remarked about the same phenomenon.)

On a separate note, I just want to say for the record that I’m not in anyway affiliated with The Fat Flush Plan – I just keep writing about it because it’s working for me.

In any case, that’s its for now. Next post is this weekend.

Thanks for reading!

I’m currently on my third week of the Phase 1 Fat Flush plan. You’re only supposed to be on it for 2 weeks, but I’m doing an extra week because of my indiscretion on the weekends. I must admit, I’m ready to be off of Phase 1.

Even though I stick to the plan pretty well during the week, I’m beginning to feel that I’m reaching a plateau and that I need to do two things differently:

1. Cut out the overeating and overdrinking on the weekends
2. Increase the amount of time I’m exercising

So far, I’ve been successful at losing 10lbs when I first started in earnest (see my first post and my about page), 15lbs if I count where I first started right after my miscarriage in November 2007 (wow, was it that long ago already).

But now I’m thinking I need to do some things a little differently because I don’t feel like I’m losing any more weight and my cellulite has definitely not gone away (yet).

A word of encouragement though from my husband, he says my butt is looking awesome! It’s definitely tighter, but I wouldn’t use the word awesome.  And what about those saddlebags? Am I too critical?

In any case, I feel like I need to tighten the reins on the eating and increase my exercise time. Specifically, 30 minutes of cardio rather than 20 minutes. The exercise plan that I originally came up with is at the following post:

http://mycellulitewar.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=140

Now that I’m reviewing that post again, I see that I had committed to a 30 minute workout most mornings. So, I’ll need to allow myself 40 min to workout rather than 30 and now that I’m being honest with myself, most days I have been skipping the weight training. The minimum that I’m currently doing is 20 minutes of interval cardio almost everyday and sometimes some weight training. Probably not consistent enough for the results that I’m looking for.

 On a totally separate topic, one thing that I re-read in The Fat Flush Planthat caught my attention is that unsweetened cranberry is supposed to be effective in treating cellulite. Specifically, it says it helps  to “target cellulite”. So, not only can cranberry juice detox my liver, it can also target my cellulite. I’ll be drinking cranberry juice forever! I wonder what is in cranberry juice that makes it have that effect? That’s a bit of research for another time.

Thanks for reading!

After following The Fat Flush Plan for 5 days in the first week, I lost 4lbs. The second week, I ‘fell off the wagon’ a bit and the tape measure and scale didn’t lie.  Here’s the latest, which is the same as last week, with the exception of my right thigh which is down to 21 inches from 21.25 inches:

• Weight: 124lb
• Waist: 26.5″
• Hips: 37″
• Rt.Thigh: 21″
• Lft. Thigh: 21″

I’m planning on doing Phase 1 of  The Fat Flush Plan for one more week to compensate for my indiscretion and then I’ll move to Phase 2.

What I find interesting is that in the past I would have been satisfied with where I am right now and I wouldn’t have tried to move past this point. I would think to myself, I weigh 124lb, I can fit into a size 4 or 6 depending on the brand, I look pretty good in clothes, my face is thinner, yada, yada, yada… But now for some reason, I’m not satisfied with that. I want to get rid of my cellulite, which I’ve had for as long as I’ve been aware of it (first noticed it in my teens), and I don’t feel like stopping until I succeed. I don’t know what clicked, maybe I just got to the point where I realized I was deluding myself and accepting mediocrity – “it’s good enough”. Whatever the case may be, it’s no longer good enough.

So, I’m sticking to the plan until further notice.

Thanks for bearing with me through my mini-rant and thanks for reading.

By the way, what do you want to hear about? I’m open to suggestions.