In order to lose the weight I need to lose, I contacted a Weight Loss and Wellness Clinic. I had done some research online and read reviews and testimonials about the doctor there. He apparently has had some success and has several offices in North Carolina where I live.
When I arrived for my appointment on Tuesday, August 23, I was very nervous. I didn't know what to expect from them. Much of my nervousness was relieved when they gave me a workbook and showed me a 45 minute video of the doctor explaining the diet, shots, prescriptions, etc. that are available.
I was taken into a room where a very friendly nurse put me on the fanciest scale I've ever seen. It weighed me and calculated my body mass index (BMI) and calculated where I carried most of my weight (legs, hips and butt). Then, it gave all that information in an informative color printout with pictures and graphs and told me exactly what I needed to lose and from what part of my body I needed to lose water weight and maintain muscle mass. Super cool, but still depressing.
The paper says:
"Body composition testing is the process of measuring the components of your body, in short what you're made of. Weight alone is not a clear indication of good health because it does not distinguish how many pounds are fat and how many pounds are lean body mass. By regularly monitoring your Body Fat, Muscle Mass or Muscular Development, you can understand how your diet, lifestyle and exercise regime are influencing your body composition. Knowing what's working for you can help you target and reach your wellness, appearance and longevity goals."
The nurse asked me, before she showed me my paper, how much weight I wanted to lose. I told her 100 pounds. My paper says I need to lose 96.8 pounds. So, I've already lost 3.2 pounds in my mind. She asked me if I would be doing the HCG shots. I had read about the shots ahead of time and had made the decision to take them. HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) is a controversial treatment for obesity. HCG is normally produced by pregnant women in very high levels in the first trimester of pregnancy. The dosage they give for obesity is much lower than what you would experience in pregnancy. Men are also able to take these injections and they actually have better results than a lot of women. You cannot take these injections if you have a history of cancer and they don't work for everyone. I had my first injection at the doctor's office on Tuesday and was sent home with three more syringes. I have to give myself shots once every Tuesday until I return to the doctor's office on September 20th.
The other decision I had to make was whether I would take the diet pills. I elected to try those as well. I am currently taking three 35 mg Phendimetrazine per day. These are appetite suppresants. That is what I need. Since the pills are addictive, the doctor will not leave me on them for an extended period of time. I'm good with that. I'm admittedly a little nervous about taking them. He says that I should use these 30 days to retrain my body and my mind on portion control and self control. He also said that if I stick to the diet plan, that my stomach will shrink by as much as 80%. It will be like having a gastric bypass without all the surgery. Since I had been considering GB before discovering this diet, this is good news. Frankly, if my insurance would cover the GB I would probably be writing a blog about my recovery from surgery.
In the morning I drink a whey based protein shake. One scoop mixed with water. If you get the vanilla kind, you can mix it with 1/3 cup frozen unsweetened fruit, diet soda (orange for dreamcicle flavor) or other things. Had I realized how much more flexible the vanilla was, I would have gotten that. I elected to get the chocolate thinking that it would taste less "pasty". I will try the vanilla next month. The 30g of protein are supposed to keep me from being so hungry and help me burn more fat throughout the day. So far, that is not the case. I take my first pill with my protein shake at 6:30am.
At 11am I take my second pill. At 12pm I eat lunch. I have been eating a "diet" pre-boxed microwaveable lunch such as you find in your local grocery store. The ones with high protein and low carbs are the best choices. Watch your calorie content. According the diet I am on, take your total protein grams and multiply by 4. Subtract that number from the total calories you consumed to get your TRUE calories. Those are the calories you need to burn off. You should get no more than 600 to 800 calories per day the first two weeks of the diet. The third week, you increase to 1000 to 1200 per day. You keep repeating that rotation to keep your metabolism up.
I take my last pill around 4pm when I leave work. For dinner the first night of my diet, I had a baked chicken breast about 6pm, but didn't have any of the required low starch vegetables. Remember, I have to change my entire lifestyle and all my eating habits. All I had on hand were potatoes, rice, corn and beans. All bad. This proved to be a huge mistake. Even though I waited the required time between my pill and my meal, by the time 7pm rolled around I felt I could have eaten the south end of a north bound buffalo.
The second day of my diet, I made a huge bowl of sugar free Jello. I followed the same meal and pill plan except for supper I had a center cut pork chop, string beans (allowed) and I had Jello for dessert. Much better! You are allowed one small snack per day. Sugar free Jello, 28 pretzel sticks, apple, etc. Healthy choices and low carbs and sugars are the key. If it has protein in it, much better.
The third day I followed the same plan for breakfast and for lunch, but for dinner I had Moo Goo Gai Pan from my local Chinese restaurant. True, dining out options are very limited on this diet, but there are some things you are able to eat. You just can't eat all of it. I got a pint of Moo Goo which came with white rice. I could have eaten half the Moo Goo and 1/2 cup white rice. I chose to forego the rice and eat the pint of Moo Goo to get my vegetable serving and my protein and less carbs. For dessert I had an apple. I felt satisfied, but not overly full.
I am supposed to get two vegetable servings and two fruit servings per day and drink 6 to 8 glasses of no calorie or low calorie liquid. I count my protein shake as one of my liquid servings since I mix it with water. I have black coffee with two sweetener packets when I get to work. My company provides bottled water. I purchased some of the pre-measured drink mix pouches and mix those with my water throughout the day. Normally I drink two of those while I'm at work. Before I leave work, I mix another pouch with water and take it with me. I sip on this as I run errands, pick my son up from school, etc. That's four. When I get home, I drink a glass of unsweetened tea with two packets of sweetener with my meal. Before I go to bed I refill my glass with water. I sip on this throughout the evening as I walk on the treadmill and watch television.
According to my doctor, you should exercise at least four times a week but no more than six. You should exercise at least 20 minutes. That should be consistant movement. He said activities such as lifting weights do not count toward those 20 minutes. Water jogging, swimming, water aerobics and walking in water are his recommended exercises for people just starting out. It's easier on joints and helps support your weight. Even though I belong to a gym with a pool, I choose not to use it because of my body image. I do not like wearing a bathing suit in public.
I purchased a used treadmill from someone online and my husband picked it up for me. It is now in the middle of my living room. It looks awful there, but I can't not notice it or forget about it there. I'm not tempted to hang clothes on it. Plus, I can walk on the treadmill while watching television. Last night was my first attempt. I would like to say I put it on 2 mph with full incline and jogged for half an hour, but I'd be lying. I put it on 1.6 mph with no incline and made it almost thirteen minutes before my legs felt like lead weights, I was sweating, out of breath and beginning to limp from the pain in my calf muscles. As my husband said, that was more than I did the day before and I just need to make it a little further every day. I like that.
My booklet plainly says to not weigh yourself at home because all scales are different and people get discouraged. I couldn't help myself. Even knowing that you weigh more at night than you do in the morning, I weighed myself before I went to bed. My scale said 274.6. Surely I haven't already lost 8.5 lbs. That's not possible in three days, is it? If I have then it is probably all water weight or my scale reads lower than the doctor's scale. Since I don't go back for a month, I'm curious to see how much I can lose. Now I'm motivated. I would love to lose 20 pounds this month.
So, here we are on day FOUR of the diet. I have had my protein shake and my first pill of the day. I am drinking my coffee...and I am starving. I have a diet dinner in the freezer at work. I think it's chicken parmesan. I will take my next pill at 11am allowing me to eat after 12pm. I can't wait!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Diet - The Prelude
A little background:
In my early childhood I was extremely skinny. As I went through puberty I was average weight for my height. It wasn't until I reached high school that I started to put on weight. I discovered that eating made me feel better about the stress of school and home life. I love food! I went from 5'7" and 150 pounds to 185 pounds by my junior year. By the time I graduated, I had bulked up to 200 pounds.
As I entered college, I lost weight. I was away from negative influences at home and I had drive and ambition and a positive attitude. Also, there wasn't a lot of junk food in my dorm room because I couldn't afford it. I dropped down to 170 pounds and began playing tennis and taking nightly walks with my roommate. I felt great.
After college, I moved home again. My weight immediately began to climb. My parents divorced after twenty five years of marriage amid lots of emotional and mental anguish for all of us. I ate and ate and ate. Before long, I was up to 240 pounds and I was miserable. Then, I got a very physically demanding job. I was twenty one and I started working for a large company in the shipping department unloading trucks. Within six months I was down to 170 pounds.
I met my future ex husband at work. After deciding to move in together a year later, my weight began to climb. You see, I thought he was my knight in shining armor. He was going to rescue me from the emotional and mental abuse I dealt with in my family. Little did I understand, at that time, that I was doing nothing more than exchanging tormentors.
My husband's first assault on my fragile ego was when he began talking about a girl he worked with at his new job. He bragged about how she was flirting with him and how good she looked. He continually assured me he wouldn't do anything with her because he was with me, but that didn't stop the comments. If I said anything about it bothering me, I was called "jealous", "psychotic", and "crazy". I ate my insecurities and pain.
The more I ate, the more pain I had. When we got married I had a good paying job with a large company in their engineering department. I was 23 and my weight had already climbed to 210 pounds. My husband began making comments about my weight. One time in particular, I had just gotten out of the shower and he said, "You need to go on a diet." Another time he said, "You used to be beautiful before you got fat." Those are only two of the comments I remember. We won’t discuss the looks, sounds of disgust and jokes. We didn't have sex on our honeymoon. He was very subtle when he stated "If you get to the point that my seatbelts don't fit you any more I'm divorcing you". He had a sports car at the time and while the seat belts fit me fine, he said they hadn't fit his sister when she rode with him and he was disgusted by that. I ate.
Our sex life completely dried up. I can count on one hand the number of times we had sex the first three years of our marriage. He kept saying it was him, not me. I suspected infidelity, homosexuality and every other thought a woman in her early twenties with a husband in his mid twenties would suspect if they weren't having sex. Especially considering that sometimes we had sex three times a day while we were living together. I was constantly finding pornographic magazines and internet porn sites on his browsing history. I was too insecure and scared of losing him to say much, but it bothered me a lot. I knew something was wrong, I just wasn't sure what. I bought lingerie and cooked romantic dinners. I took him on weekend getaways. Nothing worked. So, I ate. You see, having children was extremely important to me. In fact, before I married my ex I told him that I would not marry him if he didn't want children. It was the only condition I had.
By our fifth year of marriage, I was now 28 and he was 32. We didn't have sex the last three years of our marriage at all. We were married in March 1995 and divorced in November 2002. From 1999 until the day of our divorce, he had not touched me. I hated him by then and probably would have attempted to break his hand if he had tried. I knew he was cheating on me. He had admitted to going to parties and enjoying the company of a seventeen year old girl, "but nothing happened". I also found out he was taking a woman he worked with on "dates" that he called "friends hanging out together". Again, I was called crazy, psychotic and jealous when I had a problem with that. I was done. I also weighed 270 pounds.
After telling my ex husband to leave the house in October 2001, I lost fifty pounds in less than three months. I had the support of friends and family. I was meeting people and began dating four months after our separation. I had made up my mind that I was too young to be miserable any longer and that I was going to have a life free of emotional and mental abuse. I didn't care when I found out he was telling everyone I cheated on him. I didn't care when I found out he had a letter written by someone I had never heard of and was telling people it was from my boyfriend. I didn't care when he told my mother I had made a pass at his co-worker at a party. I didn't care when I found out that he told everyone that he worked with that he didn't know where I was a lot of times when he knew I was visiting family or on business trips. What got me is when I found out he married the woman he had been cheating on me with and she had three kids. I discovered black, swirling, sucking, stinking pools of hatred deep within my gut that I never knew existed.
I began dating someone that I thought was the answer to all my prayers. He was handsome, successful, and independent. He treated me like I had always wanted to be treated. Nights that I got out of work late, he would call me and talk to me on the way home until he was sure I was in the house and safe. I felt loved. I felt cherished. I felt beautiful. I lost another twenty pounds. I was now 180 pounds. In June of that same year, 2002, I found out I was pregnant. I also found out that my Prince Charming wasn't so charming after all. He disappeared. He moved, changed his phone number, changed his email address and told the people at his work not to put my calls through. Now, it may surprise you to hear that I really wasn't that upset with him. I was too happy about being pregnant. I could do this on my own. I owned a house, a car, had a good job. I didn't need him or anyone to help me. This was completely doable.
I lived forty five minutes from my mother at the time and I'm diabetic. She insisted that I sell my home and come live with her. I resisted. She insisted. I resisted more. She insisted more. Finally, after realizing that my morning sickness, weekly doctor's appointments, endocrinologist appointments and twice weekly non-stress tests were taking a toll on my job and my pocket book, I agreed. If I didn't have the house payment to worry about I would be fine. That was the beginning of the end.
My younger sister, who lives next door to my mother, was not supportive. Actually, saying that my sister wasn't supportive is like saying Hitler didn't like Jewish people. I was called everything but human. I was criticized. I was ridiculed. It was nine months of unceasing hatred, finger pointing and harassment. My morning sickness increased, I began losing weight. The doctors worried about the baby. My sister accused me of being a drama queen. My mother refused to take sides or "get in the middle". I regretted my decision to sell my home, but now I couldn't afford to move out because of all the missed time from work. I was on FMLA and my hours were quickly dwindling. People at work would look at me and say, "I can't believe you're still coming to work." I looked like death warmed over.
When my son was born I quickly regained my weight and extra. I was up to 240 pounds in no time. My weight has steadily climbed since that time. I am now 5'7" on the dot and 285 pounds. I am happily remarried and living away from my mother and sisters. I will be forty years old in September and it has taken me this long to admit that those family relationships are toxic for me. I have made a decision to lose the weight and to get past the constant negativity and indifference of my family. I will do it and I will be healthy in my forties both physically and mentally. My son needs me and he needs me to spend time with him and to be more active. I want that too. He is the most important thing in my life and since heart disease, diabetes and strokes are in our family history, if I don't do something I won't be here in twenty years. I truly believe that.
And so, it begins...
In my early childhood I was extremely skinny. As I went through puberty I was average weight for my height. It wasn't until I reached high school that I started to put on weight. I discovered that eating made me feel better about the stress of school and home life. I love food! I went from 5'7" and 150 pounds to 185 pounds by my junior year. By the time I graduated, I had bulked up to 200 pounds.
As I entered college, I lost weight. I was away from negative influences at home and I had drive and ambition and a positive attitude. Also, there wasn't a lot of junk food in my dorm room because I couldn't afford it. I dropped down to 170 pounds and began playing tennis and taking nightly walks with my roommate. I felt great.
After college, I moved home again. My weight immediately began to climb. My parents divorced after twenty five years of marriage amid lots of emotional and mental anguish for all of us. I ate and ate and ate. Before long, I was up to 240 pounds and I was miserable. Then, I got a very physically demanding job. I was twenty one and I started working for a large company in the shipping department unloading trucks. Within six months I was down to 170 pounds.
I met my future ex husband at work. After deciding to move in together a year later, my weight began to climb. You see, I thought he was my knight in shining armor. He was going to rescue me from the emotional and mental abuse I dealt with in my family. Little did I understand, at that time, that I was doing nothing more than exchanging tormentors.
My husband's first assault on my fragile ego was when he began talking about a girl he worked with at his new job. He bragged about how she was flirting with him and how good she looked. He continually assured me he wouldn't do anything with her because he was with me, but that didn't stop the comments. If I said anything about it bothering me, I was called "jealous", "psychotic", and "crazy". I ate my insecurities and pain.
The more I ate, the more pain I had. When we got married I had a good paying job with a large company in their engineering department. I was 23 and my weight had already climbed to 210 pounds. My husband began making comments about my weight. One time in particular, I had just gotten out of the shower and he said, "You need to go on a diet." Another time he said, "You used to be beautiful before you got fat." Those are only two of the comments I remember. We won’t discuss the looks, sounds of disgust and jokes. We didn't have sex on our honeymoon. He was very subtle when he stated "If you get to the point that my seatbelts don't fit you any more I'm divorcing you". He had a sports car at the time and while the seat belts fit me fine, he said they hadn't fit his sister when she rode with him and he was disgusted by that. I ate.
Our sex life completely dried up. I can count on one hand the number of times we had sex the first three years of our marriage. He kept saying it was him, not me. I suspected infidelity, homosexuality and every other thought a woman in her early twenties with a husband in his mid twenties would suspect if they weren't having sex. Especially considering that sometimes we had sex three times a day while we were living together. I was constantly finding pornographic magazines and internet porn sites on his browsing history. I was too insecure and scared of losing him to say much, but it bothered me a lot. I knew something was wrong, I just wasn't sure what. I bought lingerie and cooked romantic dinners. I took him on weekend getaways. Nothing worked. So, I ate. You see, having children was extremely important to me. In fact, before I married my ex I told him that I would not marry him if he didn't want children. It was the only condition I had.
By our fifth year of marriage, I was now 28 and he was 32. We didn't have sex the last three years of our marriage at all. We were married in March 1995 and divorced in November 2002. From 1999 until the day of our divorce, he had not touched me. I hated him by then and probably would have attempted to break his hand if he had tried. I knew he was cheating on me. He had admitted to going to parties and enjoying the company of a seventeen year old girl, "but nothing happened". I also found out he was taking a woman he worked with on "dates" that he called "friends hanging out together". Again, I was called crazy, psychotic and jealous when I had a problem with that. I was done. I also weighed 270 pounds.
After telling my ex husband to leave the house in October 2001, I lost fifty pounds in less than three months. I had the support of friends and family. I was meeting people and began dating four months after our separation. I had made up my mind that I was too young to be miserable any longer and that I was going to have a life free of emotional and mental abuse. I didn't care when I found out he was telling everyone I cheated on him. I didn't care when I found out he had a letter written by someone I had never heard of and was telling people it was from my boyfriend. I didn't care when he told my mother I had made a pass at his co-worker at a party. I didn't care when I found out that he told everyone that he worked with that he didn't know where I was a lot of times when he knew I was visiting family or on business trips. What got me is when I found out he married the woman he had been cheating on me with and she had three kids. I discovered black, swirling, sucking, stinking pools of hatred deep within my gut that I never knew existed.
I began dating someone that I thought was the answer to all my prayers. He was handsome, successful, and independent. He treated me like I had always wanted to be treated. Nights that I got out of work late, he would call me and talk to me on the way home until he was sure I was in the house and safe. I felt loved. I felt cherished. I felt beautiful. I lost another twenty pounds. I was now 180 pounds. In June of that same year, 2002, I found out I was pregnant. I also found out that my Prince Charming wasn't so charming after all. He disappeared. He moved, changed his phone number, changed his email address and told the people at his work not to put my calls through. Now, it may surprise you to hear that I really wasn't that upset with him. I was too happy about being pregnant. I could do this on my own. I owned a house, a car, had a good job. I didn't need him or anyone to help me. This was completely doable.
I lived forty five minutes from my mother at the time and I'm diabetic. She insisted that I sell my home and come live with her. I resisted. She insisted. I resisted more. She insisted more. Finally, after realizing that my morning sickness, weekly doctor's appointments, endocrinologist appointments and twice weekly non-stress tests were taking a toll on my job and my pocket book, I agreed. If I didn't have the house payment to worry about I would be fine. That was the beginning of the end.
My younger sister, who lives next door to my mother, was not supportive. Actually, saying that my sister wasn't supportive is like saying Hitler didn't like Jewish people. I was called everything but human. I was criticized. I was ridiculed. It was nine months of unceasing hatred, finger pointing and harassment. My morning sickness increased, I began losing weight. The doctors worried about the baby. My sister accused me of being a drama queen. My mother refused to take sides or "get in the middle". I regretted my decision to sell my home, but now I couldn't afford to move out because of all the missed time from work. I was on FMLA and my hours were quickly dwindling. People at work would look at me and say, "I can't believe you're still coming to work." I looked like death warmed over.
When my son was born I quickly regained my weight and extra. I was up to 240 pounds in no time. My weight has steadily climbed since that time. I am now 5'7" on the dot and 285 pounds. I am happily remarried and living away from my mother and sisters. I will be forty years old in September and it has taken me this long to admit that those family relationships are toxic for me. I have made a decision to lose the weight and to get past the constant negativity and indifference of my family. I will do it and I will be healthy in my forties both physically and mentally. My son needs me and he needs me to spend time with him and to be more active. I want that too. He is the most important thing in my life and since heart disease, diabetes and strokes are in our family history, if I don't do something I won't be here in twenty years. I truly believe that.
And so, it begins...
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