New Flair

I'm headed over to http://reddit.com/r/loseit to get my 55-lb flair! It looks like this:

Last week...

Last week I lost 2 lbs. That's less than usual on this plan, Take Shape for Life. It was pretty frustrating.

Every day, I eat 5 of their low-calorie meal replacements, plus one 'regular' meal. Each of the Medifast MRs is about 100 calories, so I had maybe 550 calories there. The 'regular' meals are lean protein and green vegetables. The protein is typically chicken breast (6 oz.) or fish/shrimp (7 oz.). Sometimes we make a recipe (Sandy's Kitchen Adventures) and that protein might be eggs/cheese. The green vegetable is usually lettuce (3 cups), spinach (1.5 c), greens, like mustard greens or kale (1.5 c), or maybe zucchini or eggplant. We don't even have green beans because they're higher in carbs. Carbs are the enemy. We also have some fat with that meal, like dressing or a little oil for sautéeing.

So 550 for the MRs and MAYBE 500 for the lean and green meal. Now THAT'S a calorie deficit! And that deficit is why my average weekly loss has averaged 4.X lbs. So a whole week with 2lbs to show for it is frustrating. Especially given the up/down daily scale readings. In other words, for part of the week, it looked like I gained weight.

When this happens, which is seldom, I figure it's because I had something salty and I'm retaining water in the AM. A late-night pickle as a snack might do it. An extra ounce of lean protein in the form of cottage cheese has a nice little dose of sodium also. These items aren't enough calories to impact my results, and they don't have enough carbs to push me out of the fat-burning state. But they show up on the scale in the morning. Drinking plenty of water can help (the daily goal is 64 oz., but more is fine too).

The good news is this. The following week is usually a good one. Last week was 2. This week is 4 so far (Sun: 186, Fri: 182). That is motivating.

One last note: Sandy's Kitchen Adventures is a wonderful resource. The recipes are good. (Hey, nothing on this diet is 5-star delicious. I'll save the exuberant praise for the weight-loss results.) It's fun to be back in the kitchen slicing, chopping using the pots and pans. Her writing style is very personable. I love reading stuff from real people as much as I hate reading stuff from impersonal organizations. THE BEST PART is that she provides the counts of lean protein, green vegetables, healthy fats and condiments that we track on the plan. That makes it easy to record what we're eating. And it makes doubling or splitting recipes easy to manage and track. Thank you Sandy!

C'mon 50!

From 236 to 186.5 (this morning). Yeah! 26 more pounds to my goal!

It's been pretty easy to stay with this. The weight comes off so quickly - it's really motivating. And, as you may have heard many times before:
I'm not hungry all the time
I have more energy
I'm very happy with the way I look
...stuff like that.

And all I had to do was reject, wholesale, the American industrial food complex!

What you should know about Take Shape for Life

I started at 236lbs. I'm currently at 195lbs. (That's 41 lbs lost). IN TWO MONTHS!

Here are a few things you should know about TSFL:

• You start with a health coach. Mine is a guy named David. He's been working the program for a while and knows a lot about the why's and wherefore's. He's handled all my questions so far, and has been very encouraging to boot.
• TSFL is more than just a diet. But I'll tell you about the diet. Once I hit my goal, I'll learn more about other aspects. For now, I've been very focused on the diet part. And with excellent results.
• I never feel famished. I eat 6 times per day, about every 2.5 to 3 hours. Even though I'm eating about 1,000 calories per day (creating quite a caloric deficit), it really doesn't feel like it. And it's not hard.
• Five of those meals are low-calorie meal replacements.
• One of them is the Lean/Green meal. Lean protein (chicken, fish, veggie options) and green vegetables.
• I have to eat healthy fats every day. Apparently that's good for the gall bladder.
• I eat over 72g of protein. That makes me feel full.
• My carbohydrate intake is limited to about 80-100 grams per day. So I'm not using them for fuel. Rather, I'm burning fat. LOTS of it.
• TSFL is VERY STRUCTURED. That's a good thing, at least for me it has been. Bear in mind:
• My physician has been telling me, for a LONG time, to be more active, eat more healthy foods, stay away from high-carb, high-glycemic index stuff and so on. He told me to eat more of a Mediterranean diet. He told me to snack on nuts (just a palmful).
• That advice is well-intentioned and sound. But it's not very easy to follow. It doesn't tell me what to eat when. And it leaves many questions unanswered: What constitutes "high-carb?" How many carbs should I have per day? How about fat? How about protein? Can I eat at restaurants ever? How will I know?
• With Take Shape for Life, I know exactly what to do. And it is DO-able.
• My physician told me about it. He sees it as an extension of his practice. He told me something very interesting which I will paraphrase heavily:
• "I treat people for high-cholesterol, typically with prescriptions. A lot of them really need to lose weight. But I've never had a concrete weight-loss program to offer them. I'll continue to write prescriptions, but now I have TSFL to offer them as well. Many won't do it, but some will. And they'll lose weight, lowering their risk for ALL those related ills: high blood pressure, heart disease, type-II Diabetes, arterial disease, high cholesterol and so on. It's just another way to treat the same conditions. But in fact it's a lot better for most of them than simply taking medications." 

That's the gist. I'll add more as I progress.

I have lost 40 pounds so far

Congratulations to me.

Looking for Inspiration?

Visit http://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/

There, you'll see inspirational, unedited stories of weight loss complete with before/after photos. And the writers are mainly young people, teenagers and twenty-somethings who are transforming their bodies and their lives as they prepare for their futures.

And there are A LOT of them.

Read it. It will inspire you.

That was then, this is now

Oh how the weight loss has slowed.

In my very first week, I dropped 11 lbs! There after, I've seen 7 to 4 lb losses per week. I was weighing myself every morning and, more often than not, I'd see a new, lower number each day. That was then - this is now.

For the last couple of weeks, the losses have been more modest. I'm still sticking to the plan as well as I always have, but the results are slower to come. The Take Shape for Life plan promises 2-5 lbs per week. I'm getting around 2 to 2.5.

I'm pleased, of course. But I need to readjust my expected timeline. I had been thinking that I'd be at my goal by November or December. Perhaps it'll be January or February.

It's not a race. That's the advice I got from my health coach, David. He's right. Since the beginning I have been losing at a rapid rate. An attention-getting rate. That was fun. But that was then, this is now.

Today: 197 lbs
Loss to date: 39 lbs
Remaining: 37 lbs
Goal: 160 lbs