The Results are In!

First let me report on my science fair experiment (sorry Cathi, no poster!). I got SICK. Soooo sick. Pain in my gut, please let me throw up or die sick. Couldn't sleep sick. Then sick because I couldn't sleep.

I should confess that the evening of the sushi lunch I took a friend to dinner for her birthday. I ate the fish and cabbage from two fish tacos. The fish was ono (very tasty, like halibut in firmness and not fishiness) and was lightly coated/breaded. Oops.

I'm not doing that again. I'm not sure if the sick was from too many carbohydrates all at once, too many calories total for the day, or gluten. To tell the truth, I don't care. I won't be doing more science experiments to isolate the causality of the SICK. You'll just have to deal with the ambiguity!

I finished week three with a two pound weight loss bringing me to a total of 18 pounds (I've lost one more since then). I'm feeling pretty darn good about my progress and choices.

It's surprising how when something clicks; it works. Wait. That makes it sound like this is all luck. I guess I mean that I hit the proverbial 'rock bottom' this time--not because of a number on the scale, but because of poor health as a result of poor eating habits. So because I was ready and determined to make a change, Medifast has been a perfect fit for me right now. I truly feel I was inspired to look at the website and take the plunge.

Why this is working:
1) The time of year--shakes and drinks are perfect for hot days. A brownie is perfect anytime.
2) The support system--family, friends, colleagues and my Medifast coach.
3) Having a meal every 2-3 hours. My glucose levels are stable--no peaks and valleys.
4) I have a big event in a few weeks--a nice motivation.
5) I am seeing results nearly every day.
6) I've been diligently recording my meals on the Support in Motion site for Medifast users.

My sister Loene lost 100 pounds when she was 50. I'm looking forward to sharing that accomplishment with her! She proved that even if you're "older" or going through hormonal fluctuations, weight loss can be a reality.

Sushi and Me on Week Three

Today at lunch I had sushi. I knew we were heading to lunch to celebrate my friend Jill's birthday. That was cool--Lean and Green all the way, right? When I found out we were going for sushi I knew I was in trouble. Here's why:

1) I love sushi.
2) Sushi is pricey. When my boss is payin', I'm eatin'.
3) I'm not a super knowledgeable sushi-ite, so going with experienced 'roll'ers makes it fun.
4) I don't have many friends who like sushi, so it's a treat on many levels to have a sushi lunch.

I wanted to order a dry chicken breast and a salad. No I didn't! Who wants a dry chicken breast and a salad? Still, that's what I planned to order, then eat maybe one (or two) pieces of sushi.

No chicken. Sushi. Ten pieces of Mexican, TNT, and various sushi rolls with names I don't remember.

Yummy. Not too disastrous calorically, but waaaaay too many carbs. It will be interesting to see how this impacts me. Scale? Energy? Cravings?

I'm choosing to analyze the fallout from my sushi lunch as a science experiment. My hypotheses are: 1) My weight will remain the same, 2) My cravings will increase, and 3) I will feel head-achey and sinus pressure-y.

Will Mr. VandenBosch (my 8th grade science teacher) want me to make a poster board display of my findings?

Yummy Pizza and 3 Pounds

I had a good Saturday and Sunday and I'm down three pounds (the two I gained plus one more). It feels good to welcome the last three days of the week with good momentum. Plus, the food routine at work makes dieting easier.

I made pizza with cauliflower as the crust--and it was very, very good. Not like real pizza crust, but since I can't eat that anyway (Celiac disease), I'm always on the hunt for a substitute. I found a great GF crust at Whole Foods, but the calories are astronomical - people don't realize that non-wheat flour can be three times the calories as the wheat kind. So when Medifast Mary sent me a recipe for pizza made with cauliflower, I was skeptical. Then I saw similar recipes on Pinterest, so I decided to go for it.

I was floored. Here's a link to the blog where I got my recipe:
http://stickafork.net/2012/04/16/cauliflower-crust-pizza/

I topped mine with pizza sauce, turkey pepperoni, and low fat mozzarella cheese. Best part? The entire pizza counted as my Lean and Green! Yup, I ate the whole thing. It makes a nine inch pizza. Tasty!

Oh, I couldn't find a 'no sugar added' pizza sauce, so here's the simple sauce I made:
1/2 cup diced canned tomatoes (no juice)
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt
Blend all ingredients until smooth (I use a Bullet type blender). It's kind of runny, so you could cook it to reduce some moisture, but I used it as is and loved it!

Bump in the Medifast Road

I weigh every day. Thursday I had lost six more pounds (for a total of 16)--yay for Week 2 on Medifast! It was certainly easier than Week 1. It seems like I'm getting into a rhythm that I can sustain. I really wondered those first few days how I could keep myself motivated.

Losing weight is motivating. 


Today I gained two pounds. I weigh myself every day, so I'm very aware that weight can fluctuate for various and sundry reasons. I know my patterns and this gain fits my patterns. Still, my first reaction is to say, "Really? If I'm gonna gain 2 pounds, I wanna enjoy the journey to that gain. Where's the chocolate? Where are the sweet potato fries? I gained two pounds eating Medifast and Lean & Green?"


Gaining weight is enervating.

Weekend Report and Medifast Week 2

After a great week 1 on Medifast, I was feelin' all sorts of cocky.

I had a rough patch at work on Thursday--just didn't lead a meeting very successfully and was feeling emotional about it, but I had plans to join some friends who were scrapbooking Thursday night and Friday all day which gave me something to look forward to.  

Thursday night at my friend's house I accidentally made my shake with the water I had warmed for my soup (I like my soup much better if it sits for a few hours and I reheat it), so I was in a quandary. I couldn't eat the soup because it hadn't had time to 'stew' and I didn't want my shake hot...so I stuck it in the fridge at my friend's house and ended up waiting an extra hour to eat.

Friday morning I didn't get my first meal until about 9:30, which threw me off for the day. I usually eat breakfast at 7:30, so my meal schedule is 10, 12, 3, 6, then 8. With a late start, I just never found my groove--so I ended up with a meal at 10 p.m. which just felt wrong on many levels. Who knew an on-the-go meal plan could be so complex? Sheesh! The other issue with Friday was my water. I struggled to get 64 oz in. On a normal work day, I have 24 oz before I even get to work, then another 64 oz while I'm in the office. Not so on Friday. And I was kind of grumpy. I wanted to scrapbook, but didn't have my mojo going. I finally left at 4:00 and stopped at Carl's Jr. for my lean and green meal--figuring a lettuce wrapped burger would be fine. Then I changed my mind and got chicken, thinking that would be a healthier choice. It would have been, except the chicken was that pressed stuff, not a real chicken breast. Ick! Still, I was hungry, so I ate it. Oh, and they messed up, so I got it on a bun (threw it away). Okay, here's the real issue. I got a combo. With fries. You might ask, "Bonnie, what were you thinking?" I was thinking I wanted a Diet Coke with my meal and it would be just as cheap to just get a combo and I might just lick one french fry. I ate three fries. They were very, very good. It was a pain to figure out how many calories I'd eaten because I couldn't find anything online about three fries, so I weighed three remaining fries and figured out the ounces and estimated about 70 calories to account for the oil. Who knows?

Saturday I woke up early then fell asleep reading, so breakfast was at 10...which made for a repeat of the Friday 'off' schedule except I skipped my last meal instead of eating at 10 p.m. again. I ended up grocery shopping around 5 p.m. and bought some pine nuts because the Quick Start Guide says I can have 40 of them as a snack. I also bought fat free cheese and turkey pepperoni which are low in carbs but not in the Quick Start Guide. And I bought the wrong kind of pickles--Famous Dave's spicy which I thought meant dill, but are more bread and butter-ish. Yum! Yikes!

By the end of the day on Sunday I had eaten all the pine nuts, three slices of cheese and two pickle spears. I'm not beating myself up about it, but aiming for a clear look at my behavior. I really feel I was upset about the Thursday meeting and trying to find a way to cope with it--food has always been my best friend in situations like that.

The good news is yesterday I 'fixed' my Thursday mistake. And I pledge to 'eat clean' for the rest of week 2 on Medifast.

Medifast Day Seven

I'm nearly done with my first week on Medifast. It's been easier than I thought and as difficult as I thought. The breakthrough on Monday really has been encouraging. I've also found some ways to make the meals a bit more interesting and add variety to them without adding calories. Nifty! As of this morning I've lost 10 pounds. We'll see what the scale says tomorrow. Can't wait! How often does a person say that?

So in my quest online for recipes and such, I found a site called GetSkinnyBeHappy. The blogger of this site shared all sorts of tips, tricks and recipes...but I can't find a post later than 2010. I'm worried about him. In one post he said he'd lost his job but was still committed to the diet. What's he doing now?  Is it strange that I am concerned about this random person I've never met but whose blog was helpful to me? Probably.

Or maybe not. I'm invested in him because he's a fellow survivor of the first few days of Medifasting. And I want to know if this highly motivated person has kept of the weight he lost. Will I? Can I?

Okay, back to the here and now. First I need to finish this day and this week. Then I can worry about day 8 and week 2!

My Medifast meals for a day.

My way of organizing all the meals for the month.

A cute dog to make you smile!

Euphoria Delayed

Medifast Mary told me many clients experience a great feeling of euphoria the third day. I waited all day Sunday--no euphoria. Headache, fog, and food cravings, yes; euphoria, no. (Any grammarians out there? Please fix that sentence!)

Today around 11:00 I felt...different. Not as panicky about sustaining this. More confident I can keep it up. Not hungry. Actually, every time I turned around it was time to eat. Not a bad thing, eh? Finally, around 2:00 I decided to call the feeling euphoria and embrace it.

Nice feeling. I want to keep it.

My Medifast Journey Begins

I'm on a DIET. After deciding I couldn't afford $15,000 for lap band surgery, I knew I needed to do something. I sought for higher power as I looked at my options, and the phrase 'aggressive dieting' kept coming to me, so I began to do some research into gluten free meal programs. I knew Jenny Craig still didn't offer gluten free meals, but I wanted to double check. I looked into Nutri-System also, then researched Medifast. Well knock me over with a feather! Medifast has a gluten free track of meals including brownies! After a quick prayer for guidance, I took the plunge and ordered 4 weeks of meals.

Here's the plan:
Every day I eat five 100-125 calorie 'meals' (one every 2-3 hours) and one "Lean and Green" meal of my own consisting of 5-7 oz of protein, 2 cups of non-starchy vegetables and a small amount of healthy oil. That's a total of between 800 - 900 calories per day.

Here's how it's going so far:
Thursday was a busy day at work, so I think that made my first day easy. I had eggs for breakfast-- powdered scrambled eggs with southwest spices. I was very surprised that they tasted good. I had a Cranberry Mango drink for my next meal at 10:30. It was okay--I thought it was a shake, so I wasn't blown away by the flavor and consistency. I ate Chicken and Wild Rice soup at 1:00. By then I had already drunk 60 oz of water, so I was pretty busy dashing to the ladies room every hour. My next meal was a chocolate shake which tasted exactly how I expected--satisfying. After work is where I ran into an trouble. I stopped at the store to stock my fridge with Lean and Green meal components and was feeling quite shaky and hungry by the time I finished. I ate my 6 oz of turkey on the way home, then made my green salad. At 7:30 I ate my brownie. Heaven! It's one of those 'make in the microwave and eat while it's hot' brownies--fudgey, warm, and very satisfying.

Friday was a bit less intense at work. I had a pancake for breakfast (tasted fine), then a shake. For lunch I ate a 6 oz chicken breast and 1/2 cup broccoli at Chili's. Tasty! I could have had a larger portion of vegetables, but I had dinner with book club that night so I wanted to save some 'green' for that. Before dinner I had my tomato soup meal, then I ate 2 cups of arugula at Settabello. Okay... that was torture. Sitting for 2 hours with friends who are eating authentic Italian style pizza and gelato and trying to make myself content with straight lettuce as my meal? I should get an Oscar for pulling that off!

Saturday was difficult. Without the routine and distraction of work, it was harder to control my cravings and emotional need for food to 'tame the savage beast.' Still, I did fine. I added two celery stalks and a package of Medifast Soy Crisp snacks to the menu and ate my Lean and Green meal at 3:30 instead of for dinner. It was the hardest day so far. I had a headache and lots of sinus pressure--probably has nothing to do with the diet, but that's how I felt physically. Emotionally I struggled, but I made it!

As of this morning I've lost 7 pounds! That's what I call aggressive. I know it won't be like this all the time, but it feels good  to see immediate results.

I prepared for this by doing the following:
1. I purged my fridge and cupboard of any non Medifast compliant food.
2. I deleted the Food Network from my favorites list on cable.
3. I only watched recorded television shows so I could skip food commercials.
4. I still got on Pinterest, but skipped the food pins.
5. I organized all my meals into reusable bags so I can grab and go for the next 5 weeks.
6. I told my family, friends and co-workers.
7. I signed up for a free Medifast coach (her name is Mary, so I call her Medifast Mary) and have spoken with her nearly every day.

So, that's the latest. I am full of hope.