Week One

When you first begin your health journey, and you start with weight loss, week one is the most difficult week. In response to getting fewer calories than it is used to, your body will begin to cry out for foods that you haven't even thought about in years. If you're like me, and you have a physical addiction to sugars or carbohydrates that has helped you get to where you are today, you'll find yourself irritable and even depressed this week.

If you've ever quit cigarettes, this is going to feel really familiar.

If you're like me - and most of America - a lot of your reasons for enjoying food are 90% emotional. Maybe certain foods are connected to good memories, or remind you of a place or person that you miss. In week one you will be battling the worst part of both the physical addiction and the emotional habit. I don't have any comforting words for you. In my first week my husband endeavored to stay away from me for as much of the week as possible because I was so grumpy that even his attempt to be nice and put his own dishes in the sink would somehow lead to me picking a fight with him.

One time my cravings got so bad that I felt like I was physically in pain. Your body is an amazing machine and it will do amazing things to get what it thinks it wants. Desperate for the highest calorie item on the Shari's menu (CinnaStation french toast, which is french toast made from a giant cinnamon roll), I picked a fight with my husband about whether it would really be bad for me to just have this meal one last time. I was so focused on it, I actually threw a fit like a child! Tears and everything. "You just don't understand!" I told him. He took me out for steak instead and after dinner I felt much better about not having gotten my french toast - even if I was a little emotionally sad about it.

Some people find it helpful to drink a LOT of extra water while they're in this phase. I hope you find this helpful, but it didn't work for me. Some people just keep their mind off of food as much as possible. For me, chocolate cake consumed my every thought.You may want to add an extra 100-calorie meal into your plan for this week, or an extra portion of protein. I found it was helpful to eat every two hours at first instead of every three hours, and an extra protein serving worked wonders for me. We all have different struggles, because we all have different backgrounds that have lead us to this place. The good news is that we are all still humans in human bodies and human bodies do, eventually, learn new habits to replace the old ones.

This week may be internally the most difficult week of your life.

It is especially important to stay connected with your health coach and your support system during this first week. Talk to your health coach every day, keep a journal or a blog of your feelings and thoughts, and call up one of your cheerleaders at the end of the day so you can hear someone say they're proud of you. It really, really helped me to hear my husband at the end of the day tell me that it would get better, that I was doing well, and that I would laugh about this once I had shed my first 50 pounds.

He was right, by the way. It gets better. And 82 pounds later, I laugh. I laugh at the silly girl who cried over french toast, and how much it felt like I would die if I didn't get chocolate cake, and how easy it was to make me angry over anything else because I was really upset with myself for needing so much support in the first place.

Today, think about why your body craves the things it does. Have you trained yourself to turn to chocolate when you're lonely? These are the things that will make it especially difficult for you to stay in line with your commitment in week one. Do what you can to distract yourself. If you turn to junk food when you're sad, surround yourself with things that make you happy (I even rewrote the "favorite things" song from The Sound of Music). Drink lots of water, stay connected to your coach, and remember: This, too, shall pass.