Day 51

Fruit/Veggie Day.  Technically.  But I had some crab at lunch and it was DELICIOUS.  I got the Dungeness crab, and substituted the potatoes and corn for broccoli and onion straws (yes, fried, bad me, I know, blah).  And I stole some crab dip and chips.  I ate one of the knuckles, and took the other two home, so I have it for the weekend.  Tomorrow I will begin counting the maintenance days.  I went back in for my final visit.  I now have a ball taped to the front of each ear - each in a different location on their respective ears.  There is no rotating required for these (yay!), they just kind of sit there.  Perma-pressure.  My maintenance phase has begun.  14 days of maintenance, then I remove the balls and I'm done!  I go back in a month for a check up (and to return the balls, I guess... they didn't really say what to do with them other than to take them off) to see how I'm doing.  That will be JUST after my Vegas trip, so um, that'll be... interesting...

I only lost 2 pounds this cycle.  Which is only 1 pound more than the last time the balls were in this location, and the last time, I majorly cheated.  I didn't cheat nearly so much this time, I don't think, so I think perhaps my body just doesn't react to that location like others.  But, remember, the second location (intestines) I had a really good loss, which was unusual - so, I'm weird, apparently.  Unfortunately, this means I didn't break the 180 mark before maintenance, which is kind of sad.  But overall, I'm down 27 pounds, and that is CERTAINLY an accomplishment to be proud of!

So what's the plan now?

Well, a ball on each ear.  Still need to eat between noon and 6pm.  Wednesdays and Thursdays are to be milk days - so no more 2-day rotations.  The rest of the days is more of the same - 1.5lbs of 3 types of fruits and veggies, with the addition of 4-6oz of seafood (any kind of seafood) for the day.  And I keep taking the vitamin and herbal supplements.  I should also definitely ramp up the exercise to three days a week - no more slacking off in that regard.

My new little card also tells me what to do AFTER maintenance to help keep the weight off.  Nothing really surprising about it - eat healthy, don't fry things, make most of your meals be veggies with about 4-5oz of protein on the plate (Andre explained it as "fill half the plate with veggies, a quarter of the plate with protein - be it meat, beans, etc - and a quarter with good carbs - and don't plunge straight into a baked potato, work your way up to it with rice, whole grain pasta...").  Try to eat between noon and 6pm.  One day a week as a milk day, one day a week as a tea fasting day, and keep taking vitamins. 

I'll be weighing myself once a week from here on out - once I'm off maintenance, I'll likely scale back the blog to be a once weekly check-in, so I can continue to have the accountability of you all, and to keep track of my weight.