cindy's world

Day 6: BEEF AND VEGGIES. Eat to your heart’s content of the beef or lean meat and vegetables this day. You can have two or three steaks if you like with green leafy vegetables, but no baked potato. Be sure and eat the soup at least once today.

I had the soup for brunch since I still can’t bring myself to eat red meat for breakfast. For lunch, as you’d know if you’d read the previous post, I ordered a Caesar salad, no croutons, with bland broiled shredded chicken. The salad was good because it had some flavor, but I was pretty sure the salad dressing and parmesan provided more fat and calories than the diet had intended. I only drank water. For dinner, Mr. W brought out a thick cut of beef steak from his freezer and I cooked it on the George Foreman grill, again seasoning it mildly with dried barbecue seasoning. Mr. W had a pork chop which he didn’t even get 3 bites into before he threw it away, since the both of us decided simultaneously that meat no longer tastes good to us. Maybe there’s something wrong with the freshness of our meat, or maybe we’re just used to clean eating. But meat — yuck. Gamey. I’m good not eating it for awhile, unless it’s poultry or fish. I practically felt my body hit ketosis after dinner. Blech.

The scale did not budge at all today. One more day, and I’m celebrating the end of this nonsense diet with frozen yogurt.

(As always, rest mouse pointer on photos for captions.)

Mr. W and I met up with my realtor, his wife (as they are long-time friends of my parents’), and my parents at our future new house for a home inspection today. I think my mom was relatively happy with the house, altho she still complained about it being too far away. I have to say, tho, you never realize all the little issues you have with a place until you do a home inspection yourself. There are 3 or 4 switches that seem to activate nothing, we can’t get 3 of the ceiling fans to work altho the lights attached to them do come on, and the garage door lock is installed backwards such that you can click the lock from inside the garage, but you need a key to unlock it from inside the house. Also, the sprinklers seem to have missed a portion of the lawn for some time as patches of grass have died. This was supposedly fixed so we’re just hoping it’s fixed in time to revive the patches. Ideally, we’d also like to upgrade the bathrooms.

See where the grass is yucky?

Mom and realtor’s wife bored.

Mr. W and realtor in kitchen.

Just a note: all the furniture you see is not ours; they’re stuff left behind to “stage” the house so that people viewing it can picture what goes where. Once our place is situated I’ll take more photos. Should be soon; we’re in a 35-day Escrow. Man I hope my place rents right away! I’d like the transition to be seamless.

After the home inspection we all went for lunch at Claim Jumper. Since I was on my diet, all I had was a Caesar salad, no croutons, with shredded broiled chicken. It totally looked like diet food compared to the garlic cheese breads, babyback ribs, sandwiches and delicious food everyone else was having. And then after that we all went to the City’s private lake 2 miles away. Everyone was impressed and made plans for future fishing. After that was a leisurely walk around Dana Point’s beaches, we all climbed some rocks, and then we separated; Mr. W and I went to Costco and then back to his house as my parents and the realtor and wife went to Balboa Island for fishing.

Pretty decent day. Except for the food. Man, Costco had some fine looking cupcakes and ice cream cupcakes. And soft serve frozen yogurt, and chicken bakes, and pizzas.

Day 5: BEEF AND TOMATOES. You may have 10-20 ounces of beef and a can of tomatoes or as many as 6 fresh tomatoes on this day. Try to drink at least 6-9 glasses of water this day to wash away the uric aid in your body. Eat the soup at least once this day.

I started off the morning with a glass of water and followed with the veggie soup. I mean, the alternative is beef and no way I’m having red meat for breakfast, especially when I haven’t had any for almost a week. For lunch I cooked about 10 ounces of sirloin beef on the George Foreman grill, and only seasoned it with a dry barbecue seasoning rub (sea salt, dehydrated garlic, onion, carrot, chive, spices). The seasoning tasted SO GOOD. The meat did not. It tasted so gamey to me, and I’m not sure if it’s bad meat or maybe my tastebuds just sensitized from the week of bland vegan food. I opened a can of stewed tomatoes, ate a piece and made an involuntary “yuck” face. It was like eating sugared mushed tomatoes. I checked the ingredients and sure enough, the second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Why does everything have sugar in it?! I never noticed because I’d never eaten so blandly for so long before. I managed to eat half the can and switched to eating a fresh tomato, which was much better.

For dinner, Mr. W grilled another 6 ounces of the same sirloin beef for me in a pan and this time it was more tender than it was on the George Foreman grill, but it had the same gamey flavor. I ate the other half can of stewed sugared tomatoes, and chugged water. I watched enviously as Mr. W blended himself a banana smoothie. Mid-steak, I started having the meat sweats. Pretty gross. Mr. W suggested we take a walk and we took a very brisk 3 miler. On the way we passed by a playground, and I said, “I wonder if I can do a pull-up now.” I hung off the pull-up bar and applied pressure to my biceps. To my utter surprise, my body quickly lifted. I dropped off the bar after the pull-up, figuring I’ll stop while I’m ahead. Mr. W proceeded to show me up. Whatever. I think kicking your feet for momentum is cheating, anyway.

When we got back from the walk, I checked my cell phone and saw that I’d missed a call while we were out. It was my friend Erin, whose message included this little gem: “I saw on your blog that you’re doing the cabbage soup diet thing. It looked like you’re on day 5 or day 6. I just wanted to tell you that I did it…and I didn’t lose any weight.” GAH! Why didn’t I know this earlier?! Altho once Vanessa told me this was the infamous Cabbage Soup Diet, I lost all faith in it cuz I don’t believe in fad diets. I did weigh myself today — no change from yesterday. It’s basically just self-inflicted torture for nothing.

I did take a picture of myself today for show n’ tell. I guess it would’ve helped if I’d taken “before” pictures, but oh well.

This lame-ass picture with the obstructive flash was the best I could do. No matter how many lights I turned on, I could not get the flash to not go off. I couldn’t take the flash off, either, cuz then the shutter stayed open too long and I can’t hold the camera steady enough for it to not be totally blurry. I don’t know how to get the shutter speed to go fast AND not have flash. Whateverz.

I’ve also just noticed that Mr. W’s bathroom mirror is pretty dirty.

Day 4: BANANAS AND SKIM MILK. Eat as many as 3 bananas and drink as many glasses of water as you can on this day along with the soup. Bananas are high in calories and so is the milk, but on this particular day your body will need the potassium and the carbohydrates, proteins, and calcium to lessen your cravings for sweets.

If you guys know me, you’ll know how funny today is, cuz I don’t eat bananas and I don’t drink milk. I have not drunk milk in years due to being lactose intolerant, and I’ve stopped eating bananas for a couple of years after learning they tend to make you fat. However, I’m following this diet as closely as I can, so I had a banana for breakfast, then had a glass of 1% milk. The milk tasted funny to me, like it was too rich. I can imagine that if I drank whole milk now, I’d vomit. Anyway, I swallowed 3 acidophilus tablets with the milk and didn’t have much of a problem with it. I highly recommend acidophilus tablets to anyone lactose intolerant; it’s enabled me to eat ice cream again and drink milk, apparently. For lunch, I took Busykitty Vanessa‘s advice and made myself a smoothie with a banana, milk and ice. It was surprisingly delicious! An hour later I had some of the vegetable soup.

I’m not craving sweets, but I am craving crusty French bread like you wouldn’t believe. I saw Ross and Rachel eating it on an episode of “Friends” on TV earlier. I’m trying to drink a little more water today, too, which had me going to the bathroom pretty frequently. Mr. W wanted to go to our new neighborhood to watch the Lake’s fireworks, and I peed twice before we left, but still had to go once we got to our new house and wandered in the back yard for awhile. As we were leaving the house, we drove by a bunch of people in the neighborhood walking in the same direction with fold-up lawn chairs on their backs, so we parked and followed them. Turned out they found a perfect spot to watch the Lake’s firework show, which was SPECTACULAR and three times as long as the city firework show we caught last nite. This was definitely a wealthy town. We also explored a park within walking distance from the new house, and it’s beautiful! Playground plus BBQ area at one side, an entire professional-sized soccer field on the other, walking paths around and throughout. And the best part, a bunch of bunnies hopping around in the twilight! But as I’d worn out my Kegel muscles by this time, we soon drove back to Mr. W’s house, with him making fun of my bladder urges the entire trip back and then some. The first time I’ve had to pee while we were out whereas HE goes thru this 9 times out of 10, and he doesn’t let me hear the end of it. Sheesh. He said I’m like a child and that I should’ve prepared myself better knowing he wanted to spend the evening out watching fireworks, but since I’d peed twice before leaving, I demanded what he expected me to do to “prepare better”, go back in time 4 days and not start the diet?

Speaking of bad timing on starting this diet, I’m slowly adopting a theory that maybe this is the PERFECT time to be on this diet. Just by the sheer quantity of temptation that I’ve had to turn down in the past few days, if I weren’t on this diet, I may have eaten a ton of stuff I have no business eating, and had I not had this reason to reject offered food, I may have even gained weight this week. So that was a close call, good thing I arbitrarily started this diet!

Here’s a new concern I came up with talking to Bridesmaid Sandy earlier. Knowing my body, and especially if this is a fad diet, I won’t lose anything substantial. What if my cravings for deprived food is so intense this week that as soon as this diet’s over, not only would I have not lost anything, but I’ll eat everything in sight next week and GAIN weight? Ack, time for a weigh-in…

117.8 lbs. Not bad. Of course I’ve had virtually no solid food today.

Day 3: Eat all the soup, fruit, and veggies you want. Do not have a baked potato. If you have eaten for three days [as specified], and have not cheated, you will find you have lost 5 to 7 pounds.

Today was hard. Yesterday’s temptations were nothing compared to today’s. It went like this:
Breakfast – red apple
Lunch – Fuji apple
Skipped the noon workout and instead went with Gym Trainee to pick up her son so that he could be with us when we do the rooftop fireworks celebration later in the evening.
Tried not to smell the food as the three of us went to a Mexican restaurant to pick up burritos for Gym Trainee and her son.
Avoided the BBQ some coworkers were sponsoring in the parking lot in honor of Independence Day, altho I couldn’t avoid coworkers talking about how delicious and plentiful the food was.
Tried not to see the burritos that Gym Trainee and her son devoured in front of me while I angrily drank some vegetable water soup.
Afternoon snack – remainder of the baby carrots left over from yesterday, which I shared with Gym Trainee’s son who’s apparently a carrot freak. Thank goodness, cuz I am sick of carrots. And all other veggies. And fruits.
Dinner – Declined coworkers’ invitation to join them at Outback Steakhouse.
Gym Trainee wanted a light dinner of smoothies, and we walked across the street to a smoothie place. As we passed Cold Stone Creamery, however, Gym Trainee’s son decided he wanted ice cream for dinner. So we went in where he got some crazy ice cream concoction and Gym Trainee got a smoothie, and I tried not to drool as I inhaled sweet ice cream and warm waffle cone aromas, noting that the scent molecules I’m inhaling are richer and higher in calories than what I’d eaten all day.
I crankily drank the rest of the soup. At this point Mr. W came by and met up with us, a delicious looking sandwich wrap in hand, and the tortilla looked to be tomato basil. Argh.
In the evening when we attended the rooftop firework celebration, I was confronted by a cupcake cake (bunch of chocolate cupcakes positioned close to each other and frosted together to look like a cake from the top), which I declined. Ate another apple instead.

The firework show was great, but I was exhausted at the end of the evening. In retrospect, it was probably less physical tiredness than starvation. I still think it’s weird that I’m this hungry on the diet, since I’m eating more on this diet than I normally do. I don’t think I lost 5-7 lbs, though. I was right that I don’t have that much stored-up crud in my system that has to be cleansed out. When I got home, I ate a mixed salad but cheated by adding a dollop of blue cheese dressing. Well, I’m not sure if it’s cheating, because the diet instructions don’t say I can’t use salad dressing. Now I’m at the beginning of a long weekend, and I’m still on this diet thing. Guess Mr. W will be having his meals without me. I really didn’t think this through.

Day 2: ALL VEGETABLES. Eat until you are stuffed with all the fresh raw or canned vegetables. Try to eat green leafy veggies and stay away from dry beans, peas, and corn. Eat along with soup at dinnertime on this day; reward yourself with a big baked potato and butter. DO NOT EAT ANY FRUITS.

Oops. In typing this, I realized I may have messed up. Today, I had a tomato for breakfast. There’s some to do about whether tomatoes are fruits or veggies, but today for my purpose I’ve decided it’s a vegetable. I munched on raw organic baby carrots all day at work, then hit the gym for a 35-minute cardio session at lunch. For lunch I had a container of the veggie soup I’d brought along. Then more carrot munching. I felt hungry and unenergetic. I felt my skin and poo turn orange. I walked by coworkers’ desks displaying open containers of chocolate chip cookies, M&Ms, and animal crackers drooling but with my head held high and my teeth clamped shut.

Upon my arrival home, I was famished enough to instantly nuke some veggie soup and down it as I cooked some frozen broccoli and carrots in a saucepan. In re-reading the instructions for Day 2 as I’m typing this post, I don’t think I’m supposed to eat cooked veggies except for what’s in the soup. Oh well, goof. Now I’m microwaving my “baked” potato which I’m going to eat with a mixed salad, no dressing because my instructions don’t say I can use any. I’m looking really forward to the baked potato.

I don’t know why I thought this was going to be a walk in the park. I’m having cravings like I’m PMSing. There’s something about things being forbidden that makes you want them more than when they’re allowed, like that one Catholic church incident I’d experienced during a funeral. I stupidly figured I’ll just be home all week so 5 days of dinner on my own and soup drinking would be fine, but tomorrow we’re doing our annual Independence Day fireworks watch on the roof, and the event has been getting bigger and bigger each year. Last year it was more of a potluck with food, margaritas, chips, desserts, wine, etc. This year, I can only eat…*looking at diet instruction sheet*…soup, fruit and veggies! Argh.

Day 1: ALL FRUITS except bananas. Eat only the soup and fruits. For drink — unsweetened tea, cranberry juice, or water.

I had a container of fresh mixed fruit (grapes, canteloupe, apple and orange slices) for breakfast, the veggie soup for brunch, hit the gym at lunch, returned to the rest of the soup, and ate another container of fresh mixed fruit (melon mix of watermelon, canteloupe, honeydew). I was starving all day, and it was weird to walk by the minty rice M&Ms on my reporter’s desk and not be able to have some. But, as I told Mr. W, if I can’t stick to something for just a week of my life, I suck. Strangely, I was hungrier this day than I am when I don’t eat anything at all. So my body must be burning stuff.

Mr. W convinced me to go on a date with him after work. He wanted to test our after-work drive to our new home, catch the new Will Smith movie Hancock on its opening day in our new neighborhood, then watch the sunset in our new view back yard. So I agreed. I met him at his house which was halfway to the new house, and he’d called his daughter on his way home to ask if she wanted to come along and surprisingly, she was game, so we went to pick her up first. Then, because it turned out Hancock didn’t show until sunset, we went to the house first. Even though we couldn’t get into the house as we didn’t have keys yet, we walked around the perimeter and back yard, and Daughter loved it. She even climbed on the low wall to get a better perspective of the dropdown view. She thinks she’ll still be staying with her mother her senior year of school, but expects to visit fairly regularly. She already established where all her local friends are in relation to the house, which she did by text messaging madly on her cell as soon as she found out the cross streets and neighborhood landmarks. Teenagers. Haha.

So since I could eat nothing but fruit and soup that day, and had run out of soup as I didn’t go home after work for a refill, we went to a market so I could buy 3 nectarines. I ate a leftover apple from Mr. W’s lunch as Mr. W and Daughter had delicious looking frozen yogurt from a Cherry On Top near the new house. Then we went to the movie theatre, where I reached a new low sneaking in three nectarines as outside food, which I washed in the bathroom and munched on during the movies while Mr. W and Daughter shared a giant horse bucket of butter popcorn.

Life wasted no time in testing my will on this diet, but I prevailed this day. During the weekend, when I was bloated from PMS, I weighed in at 122.5 lbs. My body released water all day on Tuesday, and when I weighed myself at Mr. W’s house before I left in the morning, I weighed in at 119.4 lbs. I can’t tell if this is water weight, or if I’m actually losing something real.

My wedding makeup lady gave me a week-long diet plan that’s supposed to be safe and effective. She said she’s given out the diet for years, and everyone who tried it have lost weight. According to the diet, at day 3 I should have lost 5-7 pounds. I’m dubious, but the first few days of the plan appears to be a high fiber cleanse, so maybe the average person has 5-7 pounds of poo to clean out, I dunno. Well, in the spirit of my engagement photos in 2 weeks, I thought I’d give it a shot. Feel free to do it along with me!

I took the plan with me to Fresh & Easy and bought all the food I’m supposed to eat for the week. $35 got me this:

Not depicted is a carton of milk, a jug of orange juice, and a package of frozen veggies. I just forgot about them.

Living alone, I don’t grocery shop much, so I was surprised how much things cost. Plus, I assume all the food prices were driven up recently from the gas crap going on. But when I think about it, if I ate out by myself, $35 would’ve gotten me 2-3 meals, so if this truly lasts a week I’m doing great.

So tonight I made some vegetable soup that I’m supposed to consume all week long. The ingredients are:
6 large green onions
6 fresh tomatoes
1 large head of cabbage
2 green peppers
1 bunch of celery
3 cubes of bouillon (I subbed in a can of organic chicken broth)

After a loooong time spent chopping the above to death with a small but very sharp knife, I dumped the chunks of veggies into a giant pot I happened to have. The makeup lady told me to half the recipe because “Who the heck could drink this much soup? Good grief.” Well, if this is going to last through the week, I could. I didn’t half it. I regetted that decision mid-way into hacking the giant head of cabbage, pieces all over my kitchen counter, sink and floor. The pot was filled all the way to the top with cabbage.

It took a long time for the veggies to shrink down so that the lid could sit all the way down.

The rule with the soup is, “Eat as much as you want, whenever you want. This soup will not add calories. The more you eat, the more you will lose. Fill a thermos in the morning if you will be away during the day. If eaten alone for indefinite periods, you will suffer malnutrition.” Oh, pshaw. The way I eat (or rather, don’t eat), there’s no way adding food to my week will give me malnutrition. I’m now waiting for the soup to finish boiling so that I can season it with “salt, pepper, curry, parsley, bouillon, or hot sauce, if desired.”

Tomorrow will be Day 1. The rule for Day 1: “ALL FRUITS except bananas. Eat only the soup and fruits. For drink — unsweetened tea, cranberry juice, or water.”

Q: What is college roommie/bridesmaid Diana’s nickname for you?
A: Psychic Cindy.

Q: Why?
A: Cuz I get a sense of something and I’m usually right.

Q: How does that apply to your current housing situation with the #2 house?
A: I’d said that the #2 house seemed a little too good to be true, and that it didn’t feel like home. I’d also said that the bank was jerking us around, holding out for a better offer it was going to take over ours, because it LIED about how full-price offers would be immediately accepted and entered into Escrow.

Q: Does this mean you heard from your agent about the #2 house today?
A: Yes.

Q: When?
A: Today. At 6pm.

Q: Well? What’d he say?
A: He said that the bank accepted another offer that, unlike our offer of 20% down, offered 50% down. That offer came in last nite, possibly due to the publicity from the online publication featuring that house. Bastard bank shouldn’t have even been on the market to HAVE that offer, since our offer went in last Friday and was only supposed to be valid until Monday, but they stalled us and dragged us along until the article was published, only to reject us the moment something better came DELINQUENTLY; the assholes at First Franklin should suffer bad karma for that jackass move. Not that my realtor said it like that.

Q: How do you feel about this?
A: Pretty good. There’s no way we could compete with 50% down so it feels like it’s not meant to be. Too rich for our blood. It’s not like we just missed it by a hair and have to kick ourselves. Plus, the fact that this house took itself off the market made the acquisition of the #1 house feel more destined. There’s no more wondering, cuz all signs continue to point toward the #1 house.

Q: Do you think the #1 house is still available?
A: Last my agent checked, it’s still listed as active. He’s going to call them and ask if we could continue where we left off with the offer and counter offer. I’m looking forward to the full bed/bath downstairs in the #1 house, cuz it’d be perfect for our guests! Plus, I get to plant my little avocado tree in the back yard somewhere; I got a glint that the #2 house wasn’t meant to be when I saw the mature avocado tree there last Saturday. It was like, “Then where will my tree go? It’s superfluous here.” Hope those people are forgiving of our little stall!

I skipped another lunchtime workout so that I could call my realtor; since we’re in the mother of all boring court trials, I couldn’t talk on the phone during regular times. I was pretty ticked and probably didn’t control my volume well. I wasn’t yelling AT my agent, but I was yelling TO him. I feel bad about it, but it’s SO frustrating to be jerked around like this, to be ignored by a bank who supposedly said that if we meet their asking price it’ll be accepted immediately and move right into Escrow. My agent even called and verified this with the agent before we made the offer, that’s WHY we made the offer. Otherwise we’d be in a normal Escrow with a normal house right now. So either they lied, which is MESSED UP, or they want us to offer more money, which they should’ve TOLD US in a COUNTER OFFER. My agent explained that the banks in these short sales don’t feel obligated to follow any courtesy timelines and as a matter of course let offers expire all the time. (Our offer to the bank expired Monday.) He said we may hear something by the end of the day cuz hell, that’s what they told us the day before, and also the day before that, so it HAS to be true, right?

At 4:30p, my agent called me, and said quietly (probably afraid I’d blow up again) that he called the other agent, and was told that the bank definitely does not have a response for us today. But the other agent gave her “100% definite guarantee” that the bank will have an answer to us tomorrow. WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?! And how is that different from Monday, and Tuesday, and today?

When I got home and checked my email, turned out James saw an online article featuring the #2 house that was published YESTERDAY and emailed it to me. It identified the bank as First Franklin. Jerks! I’ll NEVER do business with them! And now I’m wondering if the bank’s holding out because it’s hoping that the article would spur more interest and offers.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow. HMMPH!