What are your feelings telling you? How can you change them?

When I think back to when I was in my worst shape and at highest weight I was constantly eating unhealthy food. After some self examination I was able to realize that I wasn't eating to fuel my body, rather I was eating to fill an an emotional pain/need that had not been met. So I was eating unhealthy foods (and lots of it!) as an unconscious way to cope with my feelings. Around this time I came across a great book by Cal Banyan called The Secret Language of Feelings. From the great foundation of that book I found great personal success by tweaking his method and forming a protocol that better suited me and I would like to share that with you. 

I call this the NCIS Transformational Self-Help Protocol. NCIS is a protocol to transform your feelings from “bad” to satisfaction and fulfillment. 

My suspicions were confirmed.  My jumpstart weight-loss had stalled.  Why? Stupidity on my part. As much as I thought I was following my program I inadvertently introduced elements that were different and it has put a bump in the road. 

Zero Calorie does not equal zero Carbs

I am following a low carb food strategy and I started using Truvia sweetener.  Truvia carries 3g of carbs per packet. Shame on me for assuming it was carb free as other sweeteners I had used in times past.  Truvia IS the healthy way to go... but for now I will hold off on using it until the maintenance phase of the diet.  Since I drink Green tea like a fiend, I was consuming about 35-45 grams of carbs per day alone with Truvia.  That is what I believe is causing the the jumpstart weight-loss to stall.  For the jumpstart program to work, I need to consume next to 55-75 grams of carbs per day for 8 days... (And yes it is not that fun... remember, jumpstarts for any type of diet plan, are to be tolerated... anyone selling "fun" is trying to sell you product, I'd say to save your money.) The rest of the intake is an overload of protein, minimal fats, appropriate amount of salt and a whole lot of water.

I've followed my diet plan 2 other times before in my life. Both times I have lost about 8-10 pounds in the first week of the diet during the jumpstart period.  This go around I decided to try something different by throwing in light cardio exercise.

Things are turning out different.  

The scale is still somewhat static and has not changed much since the start.  So far I am only down about 3 pounds as of the begining of day 5.  Now this could be good or bad.  I am unsure what to make of it at this point.  One fact is I have pounds of food sitting in my system that have not been "evacuated" yet so in another day my weight may shift down again. But on another side, is my daily exercising the reason I am not losing as I did before.  Is the exercise somehow interrupting the fat burning process? I guess a little more time will tell.

Day 4 of the 8 day jumpstart period completed!

Everything is moving along nicely and I am following the jumpstart period without deviation.  The scale did not move too much but that is to be expected as there are always shifts in weight from day to day.  Normally I would only weigh in weekly, however I thought it would be interesting to follow the chart on a daily basis.  Shifts in weight can happen for numerous reasons like water retention, that pound of hamburg I ate the day before and it has not passed yet, really anything... but within the upcoming days we should see more significant weight-loss as my body adjusts accordingly!

Things are moving along! Day 3 of the 8 day jumpstart period completed!

What better way to prove my progress than to take photos of the scale!  It is easy to log and post my weights... but how would you know truth from fiction? I missed photos of the first two days but from here on out I will have photos of the scale every day.  Let's hope it keeps going down! With the type of scale I have I cannot cheat it... it has balance indicators that will not log your weight if it detects that the person is shifting their weight on the scale and little arrows show up on the display to let you know you are cheating!  I love it.