NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about my weight loss program for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is that life – as usual – trumped this journey and frankly fucked with my momentum in the ugliest of all possible ways.

After having lost almost 50 pounds, and having done reasonably well not snarfing anything I could with the excuse of celebrating my birthday, I got word that I would have to move out of my home by the end of May. That word came to me while driving my cat to the first of four trips to the vet (which turned out to be an infection brought on by the festering nastiness that was growing in my roommate’s bedroom as it mysteriously vanished almost instantly once we moved). Money went from somewhat tight to downright unavailable and thus the first thing that had to go was the program. Now (especially after having seen this photo)

...I am chomping at the bit to get back on the horse and ride like hell.

How many dieters wouldn’t just love a good excuse to not stick to their program like that? I mean, you cannot dispute lack of funds. We’re talking about something that generally costs about $350 a month for the program products and then I’m supposed to find an additional budget for “real” food on top of it, for the one lean-green meal a day. To give you an idea of how realistic that is, my current food budget for the next month looks like this: 6/24-7/1 $10, 7/2-7/8 $10, 7/9-7/16 $30, 7/17-7/23 $40. In the meantime I’m going to be living off of Pasta and for the first time in my life, I am NOT happy to have to eat pasta. NOT HAPPY!

The good news (oh yes, I can still see a glimmer of silver lining to all this), is that my mindset is such that I WANT to be on program. I want to succeed and finish this goal. That is frustrating since I can’t right now, but it’s also hopeful in that I honestly don’t remember a time when I ever felt that way before; Where I had the chance to totally justify, in my mind, dropping the whole thing and going back to stress/boredom eating, and didn’t want to take it and run. Albeit I ate a couple of things this past weekend, at Disneyland, that I never ever eat, I know I won’t ever need to revisit one of the items and can easily live another year before I have the one I did like.

I said I would give this program a year. Since I had to take April, May and June off, that means the year will end almost literally on my 42nd birthday. Suddenly, I have something amazing to look forward to again!

Never give up, never surrender!

Forward

It’s been almost an entire month since my last posting, and ugh… what a month. I’ll spare you the gory details and any suspense of that which kept me from you, other than to say that the usual things that conspire to eviscerate my dreams of weight loss have NOT… I repeat… NOT overcome me.

I am still on program… mostly. Bad planning on my part (or rather wishful thinking in terms of my ability to consume everything my kind friends gave me) left me with only inedible foods for the last week and half and I was forced to live mainly on “real” food.

Dear LORD! Wise choices this early in the game?! Absolutely! Despite some of the most ungodly stress, I managed to not go nuts (i.e. large pots of macaroni and cheese or loads of bread or pasta).

Have I always made the right ones? Nope. Sure haven’t. But even when I made a couple naughty decisions that I knew weren’t the best, a good result yielded from that choice. Either I realized that I don’t “need” whatever it was that I felt like I had to have; or not having had it in my system for a while meant that the experience of eating it, and it’s presence in my body, was a tremendously different feeling than it used to be. When you’re not consuming mountains of salt or sugar and you suddenly introduce something extremely high in either content back into your body, I guarantee, if you’re not in a coma… you’re going to notice the effect in a deeply significant way. Suffice it to say, I am officially over In-N-Out burgers. I wasn’t that big of a fan before. Now, they’re dead to me.

Little side tangent here… there’s a “Healthy Express” drive thu a couple of blocks from the pottery studio I belong to. I drive past it every time I go in and wonder how “healthy” their food really is and I fantasize of a truly healthy drive thru; a place where you can easily get a pint or quart of freshly steamed, herbed veggies (that’s not just broccoli and carrots), where you can get a freshly broiled chicken breast cut into small pieces to go with your veggies, and a freshly brewed iced tea. Or better yet, where you can get where you can get grilled, lean, marinated steak and Portobello mushrooms and a lightly dressed slaw wrapped in lettuce leaves (like a wrap), with a light pesto-esque dipping sauce. In my mind, there is a market. I’m sure that if I were to ask the people in my life, they would say the same. But on the whole? Not so much. I highly doubt the majority of the people in America would partake of such a thing. Fast food, in their mind, means greasy, salty indulgences. Not, “quick, healthy, nutritious and tasty.” So, I’m going to let that go-ahead and be a dream… for now.

My next food order arrives tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. I’m ready. Ready to take on the next few months of this project. Ready to get more weight off. Ready to feel lighter and more energetic. Ready to keep moving forward. That’s ultimately what this is all about… to keep moving forward.

My first OMG moment of the program!

It's been a little over a month since I began the Take Shape For Life program. To say that it has not been an easy month would be a ridiculous understatement. Work was utter hell, was trying to deal with selling a property in New York (that we've been trying to sell for a year and a half), and lots of weird health issues meant making the transition into the year of this program a less than smooth one. Still I feel pretty aclimated to the food and routine on most levels. Here's what's been going on...

Health: I have a lot more energy. No bones about that! Sometimes, so much so, that I feel a little "high". I'll chalk that up to the drastic change from being so "Blah" I could barely move (and rarely wanted to). Now the downside, something's throwing off my hormones in a really unhappy way. I've seen the doctor but all we can come up with is a vitamin deficiency, but I've had what feels akin to major PMS for a month. Wrenched back, constant spotting, pressure/bloating, major mood swings. One minute the pain's there, the next it's gone, then it's back, then it's gone, etc. NOT fun. It seems to be subsiding now. We'll see.

Hunger: Not hungry. I'm still not wanting to eat as much as I need to. Even tho most of it is drinking since I ran out of anything crunchy a week or so ago. I will say this, when I don't eat on time (and it's rare that I don't), I actually FEEL hungry. I wasn't experiencing that before, because I think I'd slowed my metabolism down so severely that it no longer sent me true hunger triggers. I'm still going through the struggle of "food = bad, less food = good" in my head. Intellectually I get it, but I guess it's still so planted in my psyche that it's like a frickin' weed! I keep working on it tho.


Naughty: Yup, I've fallen off the wagon once or twice. I'm not going to get upset about it either. I've got a year of this program and I'm going to make it, even if it means "training wheels." Also, I'm not ready to get up at 7:30 in the morning on my weekends just to eat. Not. Not at all. Nope! But once I get my next shipment, I AM willing to keep bars by my bedside, wake up, eat my bar, and go back to sleep. THAT I can do. The important thing is that during my waking hours I follow it. Even after a concert, sitting in an IHOP, staring at my piece of garlic toast and thinking I could get away with it. There was talk of having it taken away. I said, "No. I need to be a big girl about not eating that. It's not worth it."


Nice: Having told co-workers about my program has actually worked to my advantage thus far. It's kept me honest. They're rooting for me. People are starting to notice the difference and tell me so. Are there those who are making "suggestions" that won't work with the program? Sure. Of course. But for once, they seem reasonable about backing down. Noticing that my pants are much looser has been pretty sweet too. But the thing that I am currently wild about... my inner thighs. For a while, they had gotten so big that I could feel them pushing my legs apart when I walked. It was killing my hips. Now, not so much. I can totally feel the difference. That's making me pretty happy. If that's where I am 30 pounds down, I can't wait to feel what it's like 180 pounds down!


Truth: This program is not cheap and I am not wealthy. Having to come up with an alternate food budget on top of the program budget has thrown off the rest of my finances in a truly unpleasant way. I'm having to constantly borrow from next week to pay for something I need this week. My entertainment budget (which is more necessary than ever, considering that food was my entertainment up until recently), has all but vanished. I'm still trying to work that out. It's not easy. But most of that is because I don't make enough money. That's another something I'm working on.


Forward: Now that I've gotten an idea of what tastes good, what I can sustain myself on, etc, I think month #2 is going to go a lot smoother. The next shipment is all stuff I like enough to want to eat five times a day. The food I have to consume until it comes... oh LORD! It's gonna be a tough couple weeks!!! LOL


Stay tuned... more to come!

Day 11: Well on my way

Since I received my food delivery on January 22, I did a bit of a “soft start” over that weekend with the intention of having the full start be the following Monday. As of February 2nd I have lost 12 program pounds. Not a bad start at all. Getting ready to begin the program I probably shot myself in the foot by going to all the places I believed I would miss and eating what I wanted. Even so, I know I had to have taken some of the “overage” from the last year off before my first weigh in. At my recent biggest, I was easily 380. Getting that close to 400 is terrifying and I felt the weight swallowing me up. Oh LORD, I felt it. Now, waving goodbye to 360 (I’m at 356 right now), I know I will never get on a scale and see those numbers again (unless I’m standing on a scale WITH someone! LOL) and there’s nothing sad about that.

Having been on MANY, many weight loss programs before, I know that at my size, caloric and sodium consumption, that water weight is the first to go. If you had seen my swollen feet and fingers a month ago, you’d probably wonder why I didn’t lose more weight in water. At night, I would pretty much be walking on balloons, after sitting all day, with little circulation. With my fingers, the change in that loss was so noticeable, that Tuesday they caught my eye while I was reaching for something and literally startled me into staring at them. They looked a bit as though they were recently popped balloons themselves; a little wrinkly and definitely slimmer.

How am I feeling? That’s a really good question. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the feeling in my gut is. I find it hard to believe that it’s hunger all the time, since there’s so much stress and anxiety (about other, harder things in my life) occupying that space. Whatever that feeling is, it’s not compelling me to eat things I shouldn’t or even eat when I’m not scheduled to. In fact, I’m still having a hard time getting all the meals in per day. I’m making it more now than I was, but still… hard. Energy wise, I couldn’t be happier. I mean, I’m still waddling around in a 356 pound body, so it’s not like I’m signing up for marathons just yet, but I get around a lot easier. Again, I noticed on Tuesday that a trip up the ramp of the parking structure at work used to wind me, and I flew up with ease that night. Seeing where this is heading is so exciting, I can’t stand it!

Something that I find startling, is how BAD my post-work routine had gotten and how much I came to deeply depend on FLAVOR (not necessarily being naughty) to soothe me. I’ll admit now to having consumed in abundance, enjoying the sensation of taste, while not enjoying the effect the food was having on my body. All this because of how unhappy I was at work and then I became just as unhappy to be at home. Even now, I have a hard time getting out of the car when I get home, because I just don’t want to go in. I will also admit… that I was well aware of the choice I was making. It had just come to a point of deciding that food would be the lesser evil of abundant alcohol or some sort of drugs (neither of which are my thing). The further I get away from two serving meals, the more I seriously question THAT rationale. But I do remember one night thinking, “This has got to stop!” and my own mind answering, “I don’t have any physical contact with someone loving. Am I to deprive myself of EVERY physical pleasure?”

It’s difficult to detail how much life struggle is strangling my insides, especially my stomach (where I hold my stress) and how flavor seemed to make better. So there’ll be no “I have NO idea how I got here” quotes from me on this blog. I know exactly how I got here, and I know exactly how I’m getting out and not EVER getting back to this place.

This weekend I start working out again. Thrilled. Simply… thrilled.

Day Five: Figuring it out

It's 2 am on the morning of my fifth day. As with any large undertaking, there is a period of adjustment and let's face it... mine is just beginning.

Monday wasn't bad, though I didn't make it to meal six. I was so tired of eating that I went home and crawled in bed without having had my lean and green. Tuesday was better, had leftover steak in the fridge (from my Death Row dinner on Sunday), but no veggies. Money's been super tight. Shopping hasn't been a priority. Already, I'm seeing how things have gone from questionable to downright idiotic in my eating habits in the past. Puttin' an end to that nonsense right away.

Wednesday was the welcome lunch for my new boss, and I worried that dining out would be a problem, but it really wasn't. Had the most delicious seafood salad, that was completely on program and would probably not have been my choice otherwise. Funny how that works. Then after I got out of my photography class, I found myself unable to stomach the idea of another sweet thing, and was a craving savory, salty, meaty something. Thinking I would still try to be "good", I got a protien style hamburger from Carl's Jr. EPIC DISASTER! My body HATED that choice and I got a bit sick.

A couple of mornings this week, I've woken up lightheaded and a bit woozy to the tummy. I'm taking this as part of my body adjusting to things. Suddenly giving up Diet Coke, I suspect, had everything to do with feeling super sick and having the world's most heinous headache. Its happened before when I tried to give DC up, so I know this will pass.

I can already see how I am going to survive on this program. Mostly it will come down to bars and the drinks and the crisps. They're all palatable, if not obnoxiously sweet, and FAR better than I would otherwise choose during the course of my day. Now that I'm about to get back into the pottery studio, it's going to be even more essential to have “good” meals be that easy and handy.

As for changes thus far, I have been remiss in measuring myself. I will this weekend. But I can already tell you that my body is feeling much different. My clothes are already looser, my feet and ankles aren't swollen by the end of a day of sitting at my desk, my energy is high, my mood is pretty good and while my hormones are clearly going through a shock / adjustment I suspect that will get on track soon enough.

Now, as I lay my head down to catch a few Zzzzs before work, I can still taste that horrible chemical aftertaste in my mouth. I'll get used to it. After all, I didn't always like Diet Coke.

This weekend, creating inspiration...

Take Shape For Life – Day One:

To say that I’m excited about finally starting this program would be a crass understatement. Ever since I decided this was the move I wanted to make, I’ve been feeling like a revved up racehorse, anxiously waiting for the starter gun to go off. Getting the order placed for the first month’s food was a trial in and of itself (and less so thanks to KJ), but once that obstacle was overcome it became clear that another, more daunting task lay ahead; figuring out which of these “meals” are going to be palatable for the duration of the program.

Right away I’ll be frank and say that the oatmeal is one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten. I suspect the pretense of sweetener is the culprit, nevertheless a wholly unsatisfying experience in terms of flavor and texture. Was I full? Pretty much, I’m shocked to admit. If nothing it else, that chemical aftertaste served as a severely good motivation to drink more water! HA! My TSFL Heath Coach assures me that my taste buds will adjust. That may be. I feel like maybe I could just do without the oatmeal and eat something else. After all this program is about getting the weight off, developing a life-long healthy relationship with food and convenience of not having to count calories and spend my whole weekend fixing meals in advance. It’s not to retrain my taste buds to enjoy food that isn’t actually delicious. I would genuinely hate that. Good food is art to me. I certainly wouldn’t let someone jab out my eyes just because gazing at Calder mobiles all day made me tubby!

That said, some of this stuff actually is reasonably tasty. Right away, I can tell that the Mint Chocolate bars are going to be a regular go-to. I’m sure there are those who would find this ironic, but I don’t crave and choose to eat sweets very often and a lot of this stuff gears toward the sweet tooth. Usually, I do want a little sweet thing after a particularly savory meal, but often a mint would do just fine and any over-consumption of candies has been due to having nothing else quick to grab out of the machine at work. So when I look at the vast majority of the food in the big box that arrived on Friday, I find these questions coming to mind, “Will this program cause me to crave sweets as a result? Or will I have so many sweet things that I pretty much never want anything sweet again?” Time, I suppose, will tell.

Its 5:39 and I’ve just eaten meal FIVE of the day. I can’t believe I still have one more to eat. I’m sitting here thinking, “Dear GOD, I don’t think I can fit any more in.” The reality is that I don’t normally eat this much which is largely why I have been packing the weight on. The assumption that all big people are constantly “hoovering” in mass quantities of snack cakes and bacon and cleaning out the buffets is, at this point, ridiculously ignorant. Some do! But we all get to this place by different routes. For me, lately, my bane has been lacking time and appetite, crossed with 12 hours of sitting at a desk. Generally I would eat two big meals a day. One at lunch time (then sit), then one after work (and sleep). Even with waiting three hours before bed, your body isn’t going to kick in the metabolism that way. So eating constantly during the day is momentarily a massive shock to my body. It’s not as though the meals are huge. But the cocoa is really filling (which I had for meal three) and it took me a while to drink it while I work. The bars aren’t huge either, but if you listen to your body, they fill you enough without making you feel like pleasant. Even the heinous oatmeal put a dent in my hunger quite easily and I had soy crisps for a snack. So four meals and a snack more than I’m used to having by this time of day, I am stuffed! I’m fine. I avoided not one but TWO birthday cakes, donuts, scones, pizza and hot wings… and there is no part of me that feels deprived.

It’s all about deciding that this is what I want… to succeed. There will still be cake when I’m done. There will still be hot wings and pizza. I may not want them or crave them, but if I do, they will be there. And by then, I will be working out so regularly and living so much healthier that one indulgence won’t kill me. So even with the horrid oatmeal, I feel well supported for the road ahead.

Coming soon... the before photo and measurements!

A new journey begins.

A year ago, on March 27, I commented to a friend about how much slimmer she looked. I was thrilled for her, knowing she'd wrestled with how to get the weight off previously and she explained that she and her boyfriend had gone on a program that she found through her friend Anita and that Anita would be at her birthday party the following night if I wanted to learn more about it.

At the time, I remember my stomach tying in knots. It always does when someone has a suggestion about how I can lose weight. I'm always fearful that they're going to become dogged about it with me, checking on every weigh in, watching everything I eat (which has happened to me so many times I've lost count). Even now, I can't be certain if the vomiting and headache that ensued later that night and for the entirety of the next two days (thus disallowing me to go to the party) was the over-exposure to the sun or some kind of resistance to being approached by a diet peddler. Perhaps it was both.

Five months later, at the boyfriend's birthday party, I finally met Anita. In fact I probably spent nearly the entire party talking with her about various things, and even a bit about the program she works with called Take Shape For Life, which (as I understand it thus far) is a combination of the Medifast diet and personalized support from a Health Coach (ie. Anita).

I can't say now what made me think this program would be the right one for me. After all, I know I can lose weight with the Suzanne Sommers diet. I have, I do. But I think it came down to a combination of things. First, the testimonies from my friends who had utilized the program, third-person testimonies and finally one of the biggest draws... not having to think about food for a while.

It may sound strange to hear, but a good deal of the weight carry now is largely due to being utterly sick to death of trying to figure out today what I want to eat tomorrow and so on. Then there's the lack of refrigerator/freezer space where I live, the fact that we've had a barely functioning stove/oven for the last two years and the stress of a constantly changing job. The idea, right now, of having all my meals be thought out and ready is like a miracle. Finally, I had asked my doctor about eight years ago (when I'd lost a considerable amount of weight and hit a horrible plateau I couldn't get past) to put me on a meal replacement program and was denied. Instead I was offered drugs that would cost me $200 a week and would most likely be the cause of my regularly losing my bowels. Nothing like a little anal leakage amongst friends, right? So this was the kind of thing I'd hoped for and when I couldn't get it through my doctor, had pretty much given up. I can't describe the demoralization that comes from having lost 70 pounds and still be wearing the same clothing size and to know you've put in ungodly amounts of work and sacrificed to see nearly no results. It finally came down to this being a bit of a no brainer.

Still as appealing as this program sounded, and as fed up as I am with carrying around all the excess weight, there was a major hurdle... cost. Coming up with 300 dollars a month for food has been impossible. It'd be one thing if the food would show up at my door the next day, but I'd still have to eat and pay for life's little expenditures in the mean time. So although I had originally set a date to place the order in December, it took until now to get it situated.

Last night I finally placed the order and I couldn't be more excited. I know it's not going to be a complete cake walk (so to speak). Most of my socializing is done around food for a very good reason! It's economically more sensible. It's very difficult to have separate budgets for food AND entertainment. And now, knowing that orders are going to be automatically generated every month, I'm going to have to crack down even harder. But I know I can do it. I AM DOING IT. A year from now, I will be finally be able to look into the mirror and see myself without having to look beyond the pain and bad choices of my past.

Admittedly I'm scared of the changes that will inevitably come with this commitment. I know there will be some great benefits, but there will be loose skin (which will require surgery to remove) and some social changes that I have found difficult to deal with in the past. You can never underestimate how many people that are around you that need you to stay the same.

Still I've spent a lot of time besting demons and dealing with the past so I can go forward and not ever go back. I'm working again on my book, so I can purge all the stuff that haunts me, and once it's out, I won't look back. There's no need. In any journey there will always be a place of origin, I don't plan on ever going back, so there's no point in remembering how to get there.