Raytchaelle

Well I have been in the “maintenance” phase of my program for a little more than a month now. I’ve stayed pretty well in a very narrow weight range and try my best to keep my calorie intake to between 1300 and 1400 daily. I have slacked off a lot on my walking, but that’s because it was so darned hot. Now it’s cooling off so I should be able to get back on track. About the 2nd week of January I will officially graduate from the program I’m in, but I will have free support for life available to me. That’s comforting… I can continue to weigh in weekly for free and I can still purchase the meal replacements from them if I want to.. and there’s a monthly support group meeting that’s also free. So I wont be left on my own, if I have problems all I have to do is contact them. This has certainly been worth the time, money, and effort.

After 41 weeks of high protein shakes I’ve lost 79 pounds and last week I got to start back on food. Last week I got to have 8oz of fruit, 4oz of lean meat, 80-100 calories of lowfat yogurt, 1 serving of veggies, and 45 calories of fat… plus 3 shakes… after the end of that week I still lost! This week we added more fruit, a cheese stick, and starch to the plan and took a shake away. I’ve gone from 800 calories a day to 1200 and my weight still is going down. My blood sugars are still excellent too! I only have 15 more pounds to get to my doctors goal. Yay!

I went to my class/clinic and weighed in at 199!!! Finally back out of the 200’s! I’ve lost a total of 70 pounds in this program. To answer a few questions from my last post: I am on a Doctor run and supervised program that’s only offered to people in the obese catagory and have either weight related health conditions or are at high risk of developing them. Basically it’s the alternative to gastric bypass. I have 4 specially made “drinks” a day for a total of 800 calories. It’s very low carbohydrate so my body will go into ketosis (feed off the fat instead of carbs) which keeps me from feeling hungry. The drinks are high protien and have all the vitamins and minerals required so I’m not missing any nutrients and my muscles aren’t being canabalized from the low calorie intake because of the high protein content. Anyhow, since starting I have gotten off my insulin (type 2 diabetic), cut several other meds out totally, cut my blood pressure meds by 2/3’s, brought my cholesterol back into a healthy range, and lowered my A1C from 10 to 5.6. I had to pass a health and mental screening before I could start this and that included and EKG which is repeated every 50 pounds lost… and I have blood tests once a month to check for problems as well as a visit with my doctor once a month. So is this worth it? Hell yes! This is not about getting skinny for me, it is about getting my health back and actually being able to enjoy life rather than go blind, lose my feet and kidneys and die. I am very happy with my results so far. It’s been worth all the effort it’s taken.

I am one pound from my first goal. 2 pounds from being out of the 200’s. I’ve been on the all liquid diet since the 1st of June. It hasn’t been easy… mostly because I have to fight my mind. For some reason I almost totally shut my page here down… but I decided not to delete it totally.

Things are looking up for me. Got a new coworker, Denise. She’s great… we like the same music and share a favorite author. We have similar views on life and whatnot. I’ve almost gotten her to join me in the program. I’ve also almost got my Aunt to join… she’s really thinking serious about it. Next month I start adding food back in. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I want to eat food… but I’m really afraid I wont be able to controll myself. I know in my mind that I should be able to… I had it under controll before I got pregnant… so I should be ok now.

Jamie turns 4 in a few weeks. She’s been looking forward to her birthday since October. Hard to believe it’s been 4 years since I had her… she was so tiny. She still is small… and a ball of energy!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday! Don’t know when I will post again.