Day 55 - Corrections

Went through my closet yesterday and tried on every piece of clothing. I'm left with a few shirts that fit nicely (having been purchased at a time of optimism coinciding with a sale some months ago!), and some more that, while serviceable, were still too large. Some clownishly large.

So in our errands yesterday, we ended up going shopping for some clothes for me. At least one of my readers will be happy to know that while I can fit into a large t-shirt, I still require an XL dress shirt. Give it another month. Pants are down to a size 40.

Also, I missed a medication in yesterday's posting. I get to cut my crestor dosage in half as well.

Yesterday was my first day on a half dose of the blood pressure meds, and I was still dizzy. Not stop-the-world dizzy like I have been, but enough to notice. I've dug out the mini BP cuff and will monitor for a few days; if it stays low, I get to renegotiate meds with the doc yet again. Woot.

Day 53 -I am not a number, I am a free man!

The last time I blogged, I had just gotten back from a week long trip, over which I had lost 7 pounds; It's been a week since then, and today is the first day I've gone back down under that weight; currently at 246.5#. So while I did OK weight wise on the trip, it's apparently taken me a little bit of time to get back into the rhythm here at home. Frustrating, but I seem to be back on track now.

Had my 3 month bloodwork done Monday, and a visit to the doctor today to go over it. The numbers there are pretty amazing, considering I've only been on this program for a little under nine weeks. My fasting that day was 78 (on par with what I've been seeing self-testing), my A1C has dropped to 6.8 (down from a career high of 12, 3 months ago it was nearly 9). My total cholesterol is at 95. I just need to work on getting my good cholesterol up a little higher.

So, as a result, the on-again-off-again glipizide is gone, discontinuing the actos, and I've been adjusting my insulin dosage down 5 units every few days, that's currently at 50. I'm free to discontinue it as long as my fasting looks good; I'll keep dialing it back every few days, but I'm going to give it a few more days at this dosage since I'm dropping the other meds. Also cutting the blood pressure meds in half (been a little dizzy on this diet, so that'll help.) I'm also supposed to monitor the BP, if it gets too low, I'll end up discontinuing that and start reducing one of the other heart meds too.

We also talked briefly about a more final weight goal than my current 235; I'm going to shoot for 205 as a long term goal, but let's get to the first one first, mmmkay? Because things are progressing pretty fast here, my followup visit is in six weeks instead of three months.

Day 45 - Back home again, jiggity jiggle.

So, I'm back from Chicago; I went 5 days without a weigh in anywhere, and while I've been pretty good, I was of course nervous about the weigh-in this morning.

Shouldn't have been; 7 pound drop since last Friday morning.

That puts me at 247 pounds:

• 1st weigh-in in the 240s
• 35 pounds total loss
• 74% towards my initial goal of 235.

Thanks to all the perl/parrot folk who were very understanding about me avoiding the eating portions of the conference.

I have my fasting blood work on Monday and a 3-month doc checkup on Friday; I'll have been on this plan for about 7 weeks when I get the bloodwork done. I'm excited to see those numbers, especially my A1c.

Day 39 - untethered

Well, the day started off like any other since I started this diet. Happened to maintain since yesterday (which is good, these new lows that I blog about have a way to magically influence the daily fluctuations, grumble.)

However, ended up a plane later in the day. Got through security just fine with all my medifast powder, and my drugs (even the insulin needles =-). Mixed up a shake while I was waiting for my flight. I swear the kid sitting across from me looked at me like I was about to conduct a non-TSA approved chemistry experiment.

Did fine on the flight itself, had a bar, passed along the snacky food to the lanky guy sitting next to me.

Did the insulin a little late today, but not too bad.

Staying in a not-so-luxurious dorm room, managed to find a microwave in a common area and heat up some medifast soup. I'm going to have to hit the local convenience store and see about getting a small bottle of tobasco or something.

But, managed to stay on track today on the diet, no problems. Found a vending machine with diet snapple, so I don't even have to give up my fix. =-)

As long as I can get some coffee on a regular basis, this trip should go pretty smoothly.

... And sleep. Sleep would be good. I was nodding off while chatting with the other conference goers, but now that I"m in my room with the AC cranked, no such luck.

Day 38 - 10%, 2 stone, 3/5

My daily weighin today puts me at 254 pounds. This is yet another milestone weight: (though really, any new low is a milestone for me at this point, I've gotten lower than I have in 5 years.)

Going by the 0.5 pound accuracy on my scale, this means I have lost 10% of my original body weight. (282 * 0.9 = 253.8) !

This brings me up to an even two stone (28 pounds) of total loss, in a little over five weeks.

It's ⅗ of my initial, almost inconceivable loss target of 47 pounds. (At this rate, I could theoretically reach 235 pounds by mid July.) My doctor suggested at my last quarterly checkup that I try this program out because I really needed to target my weight. I think she's going to be pleasantly surprised at the progress I (will) have made, both in weight and glucose control. This will be an excellent time for me to set a secondary goal with some medical advice, and come up with a plan for how we can determine what my final desired weight is. 

Over the next week or so, I'm not going to have the unfettered daily access to a scale, so I'm actually going to miss my “official” weighin on Tuesday. I will miss the daily feedback, especially since I'm going to be away from my comfortable routine for a few days.

Day 36 - Week 5 weigh in.

Managed to eke out a little more loss than my previous daily low this week to 255 even. (woot)

This is:

• a 5.5 pound loss from last week,
  
• 27 pounds total,
• 57% of my initial goal,
• brings my average to about 5.4 pounds a week.
  

Did a little bit of clothes shopping this week, biggest news there is that now I can fit into a large shirt instead of needing an XL.

Looking ahead, I'm going to be missing weigh-ins for a few days as I go away to a conference; I am not looking forward to the disruption in routine, but I'm sure it'll be a learning experience as far as figuring out how to monitor my food & exercise, while not having all the comforts of home or work.

Also, not looking forward to carrying nearly all my food with me on the plane!

Update: LazyWeb, please find me a picture of something that weighs 27 pounds and post it in the comments. I found a lot of links to news articles with no pics.

Day 32 - Six Degrees of Obesification

Today's daily was 255.5, which is enough to drop me below the calculated BMI of 35, making me... Obese! Not severely, morbidly, or otherwise, but a plain, simple, vanilla obese. (Vanilla Obese, the new flavor from Ben & Jerry's, mmmm.)

The next BMI crossover, to a tantalizing mere overweight, will occur at 221 pounds, which is beyond my first milestone of 235 and therefore beyond the range of modern science to predict. I do think there's a good chance of hitting that target by mid-August, however, even with plateaus.

You haven't changed a bit!

I had lunch with some old ex co-workers today, and wanted to answer some of the questions they brought up, and figured if they had questions and didn't ask on the blog, someone else might be wondering.

What do you eat?

I'm on the medifast 5+1 (diabetic) plan. The 1 is a “lean and green” meal, which is, basically, 7 ounces of lean meat and some fat, depending on how fatty the meat is, you have a smaller portion size. The 5 refers to the special food from medifast; they have bars (which have slightly more calories), and pouches; the pouches get mixed with hot or cold water, and they have soups, shakes, oatmeal, cold or hot drinks.

You eat the same thing every day?

No, just the same kinds of things; I can have any combination of those 5 medifast meals I want every day. I have an assortment shipped to my house once a month, then for a given day, I eat any five I want. I've had days where they've all been oatmeal, or soup. Only rule is one bar a day; And I've bent that rule if I'm not going to be near a convenient place to mix up the food.

Also, it doesn't matter when during the day I have the meat & veggies. Today I did it for lunch, sometimes I do it for dinner.

How many calories are you taking in?

Theoretically, 800-1,000 calories. Let's check my intake today to see how that matches up. I've had:

• one medifast diabetic bar (140 calories)
  
• one medifast cold drink mix (90 calories)
  
• one medifast soup (100 calories)
  
• one medifast hot drink mix (100 calories)
  
• one medifast shake  (90 calories) (don't get this one for another hour or two)
  
• one snack, a pickle + some low-cal salad dressing (50 calories. Technically I went over on this.)
  
• one “lean & grean” meal. This was at a restaurant, so I'm using Calorie King to fill in some rough numbers here and guesstimate portion sizes.
  
  
  • 9 small pieces of sashimi (183 calories)
    
  • wasabi (20 calories)
    
  • soy sauce (8 calories)
    
  • salad (25 calories)
    
  • unknown salad dressing (170 calories) (!!!)
    
  
  

That works out to 976 calories today. And now that I've checked out a comparable salad dressing, I'll know to ask for it on the side in the future so I can more easily limit how much of it I eat. If I had gotten the salad dry, I would have come in at just over 800 today. Important to look up these calories!

That's not enough, is it?

The plan is that this is enough calories to keep you out of starvation mode, but still force your body to burn the fat stores you've helpfully accumulated for it. I think if I dropped one of the meals, I'd be feeling it. As it is, I get a slight pang pretty much on schedule, go eat, all set.

Yes, but aren't you hungry?

Not really. I eat every 2 to 3 hours. After lastmeal (whenever that happens to be), I usually don't feel hungry, even if I stay up until 2 AM.

You haven't changed a bit?

Sadly, I'd put on weight since the last time I saw these guys, so my amazing 23.5 pound loss so far... basically let me break even as far as they were concerned. Ah well. We'll try again in a month. =-)

Day 30 - Halfway to step one: Part Two!

I am once again at 285.5, 258.5, a feat you may remember from last week.

I still look forward with great anticipation to dropping below “severely obese”. Here's hoping the dailies go in the right direction this time. ^_^

Update: whoops! weight-loss induced dyslexia. I have been feeling a little dizzy on and off…

Day 29 - 4 week weigh in

Whee, a small but measurable loss this week. Especially nice after seeing the daily weigh yesterday. Current weekly weigh in is 260.5, for a one week total of 1.5 pounds, and an overall total of 21.5 pounds. (about 3/4 pound per day.)

Blood sugar is creeping back up, it was 86, 89 respectively the last two days; will hold off on any more insulin dosage changes and get some exercise back in the mix.

Day 28 - Final day of week 4

Since my last post, I've gained 5.5 pounds back (with dailies that were up, down, and one the same); That puts me 2 pounds over my last weekly weigh in. Even more frustrating, the jump up today of 4 pounds is the first time since I started 4 weeks ago where my 5 day average has gone up.

I definitely stuck to program today; Did a much better job than I usually do, and it was easier, now that I'm used to the routine. Stuck to the schedule (pretty much every 2 hours today). Haven't been tempted to go back and have anything after lastmeal¹, either. So, something's working.

So, frustrating, but certainly not demotivating; As of this second (a purely informational bedtime weigh in), I'm back down to my weight of last week. That still puts me at an average of 5 pounds a week for the whole, even if I just hold steady until the official weigh in tomorrow.

Got my second month's worth of food today; sadly, I didn't login in time to customize it, so I got more of the same, but that's OK. I am finding I do better when I conspire to reduce my choices; that helps keep me focused on the food-as-fuel mantra.

Biggest tip I can provide to those who are considering a similar program: Build in some distractions to your day. Have stuff to do. Have a list of things you can work from if that helps. If you're a dork like me, setup a wiki for your household. Clean a room in your house. Do the dishes right now instead of leaving them until after dinner. Go to the library and get some books to read. Go for a walk - not because it's good for you, but because it will trick your lizard brain into looking at shiny things instead of thinking about your next meal.

Hell, go blog about something.

Look for another post in the morning for the official week's numbers.

¹What do you call meals when you have six of them a day, and not always at the same time?