Lost Forty Pounds on Optifast in Three Months

Both on the Kaiser scale and my home scale I've now lost over 40 pounds since starting in early January. It may be three months and one week but still, it's pretty amazing. Can't argue with those results! And I bet others in the program have lost more. The doctor last week said that you lose more if:

• You have more to lose
• You start out further from your goal (which is saying the same thing)
• And you were eating a lot more before the program 

So for that last bullet, if you were eating 3000 calories a day before going on Optifast, obviously that's a much bigger difference than if you were eating 1600. A difference in thousands rather than hundreds, in terms of calories.

So I'm in the category of having less to lose in that I didn't start out at 250 or more pounds, and wasn't (at least in my opinion) eating a huge amount before. So my forty pound loss, thrilled as I am with it, may be below the average for our group!

But if you read about Optifast no one really argues about results. After all, wasn't Oprah the posture child for dramatic weight loss on Optifast? But its reputation - and it isn't alone in this by any means - is that the weight comes back. So as I mentioned before, the real challenge ahead is transition, and then maintenance. But I feel SO much better at this weight. The money and effort have been worth it. I can keep from going back. Yes!

Messed Up on Easter :-(

I shoulda known better. Our Kaiser group leader said when we "transitioned" we would start with cooked vegetables, not fresh vegetables. But I had prepared a "salad bar" for our family Easter meal and thought, how bad can it be to make a salad and join the others eating real food just this once?

Of course the salad included chicken, garbanzo beans, avocado, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, salad dressing and more. Oh and I also had a stick or two of celery with clam dip. So yeah, totally screwed up.

And paid the price. First of all, the volume was way more than my stomach was used to so it felt like it was going to explode. Tummy pain all night. And really bad indigestion. And worry that I was going to end up in the ER with gall bladder issues. Dumb dumb dumb

On the other hand, I didn't gorge on chocolate bunnies, peeps and jelly beans. Though maybe in terms of GI stuff they would have given me less trouble! I just thought, salad, how bad can it be? And now I know.

So back to products of course, and when we transition in a few weeks it will NOT be by jumping into the foods our experienced, wise leader has warned us about!!

Oh Dear Oh Dear No More Holidays Please!

I love spring, and Easter. But, I will be so glad when Easter is over and no more holidays (with lots of sweets) until Halloween! I have to admit I love peeps, and jelly beans, and Sees chocolate filled eggs, and... yeah. I'm having to make Easter baskets, stuff candy eggs, and cook Easter lunch for family (scones, brownies, rice crispie treats, etc. etc.) and it is not easy. I know I could refuse, or say yeah, we're having a carb/sugar-free holiday. But I'm not supposed to be eating anyway right now, so in theory it should be easier than having to limit. But the sugar fumes are really getting to me! Must.Hang.On.

Blood Pressure Chart

Obviously my blood pressure chart doesn't show as much change as my weight chart, but still, good things happening. Moving from the 130s to the 120s - I like it, and so does the doctor. I hate taking meds and my blood pressure has always hovered in the almost-needing-medication zone, so I'm happy to have it lower. Heart disease is the thing that kills us in my family, so glad for the improvement.

Weight Loss Graph

So, this is the chart of the weight I've lost since starting the program. Tonight I was at 159. Woo hoo! Two more pounds and it will make 40 that I've lost! I met with the doc tonight and talked about a goal weight. I was surprised he thought I should lose another 20 or more (he said goal of 135 or 140). I'm thinking maybe 15 more and that would be it. We'll see. If it came from the right places that would be great. But instead my arms, legs, neck and face will just get scrawnier, LOL. And since he was rather portly I wanted to ask what HIS goal was. ;-) But obviously I'm quite happy about the progress I've made during the last 12 weeks. My goal is more maintaining rather than lots more lost, frankly. That's the true battle for any diet/weight loss program. Transition back to food a few weeks away...

Optifast Newbies - Just Starting Out

So right before our Kaiser "cohort" meeting on Monday night is a new group/cohort just starting out. This week will be their first week on product, so they left the room just as we were moving in, carrying their bags of shakes/bars/soups and lining up for the photo op that the leader does, so there's a  "before" pic. I know there are others out there who have started this week as well.

Though I didn't speak to the "newbies" leaving for their first week of the program, I wondered to myself what advice I had to give to these people just starting out. Is there anything I could have been told at the beginning that would have helped? Some of them looked pretty apprehensive.

Here's what I might have said:

1) It's normal to be nervous, even panicky. I had to fight panic attacks over the small pile of food for each day. I imagined eating it all by 1 or 2 and starving the rest of the day. But for me at least, that never happened. In fact, sometimes I skipped (against orders) the last product!

2) Some groups or group members are going to be much more athletic than others. If you're a couch potato don't panic. Any movement is good, you don't have to go to a spin class. As you lose weight moving will get easier. Don't give up because you aren't doing as much exercise as the leader might want. Baby steps.

3) Sixteen weeks (of product-only) sounds like forever. Like impossible to get through. But here I am at week 13, practically on the home stretch, and it's gone really fast. Which is what they said would happen. But it's hard to believe starting out.

4) Losing weight, getting smaller, feeling better, is all so good that it's worth the inconvenience and stress of skipping parties, passing on treats offered, saying no to alcohol, avoiding restaurants in general, and eating weird when the rest of the world seems to eat whatever they want. The reward is how you will look and feel, and the sense of accomplishment in getting the number on the scale to go down, whether it's fast, or as in my case, slow and steady.

To those just starting out on this program (or any regime to improve your body and develop healthy habits to take better care of yourself), stick with it, good luck, blessings and best wishes!

More Tech Toys for Weight Loss

There are tech toys dieters and healthy eaters can use besides the Fitbit and related gadgets - which of course track activity, food and water intake, sleep etc. What's left? Well, at our "cohort" meeting this week our leader strongly suggested that we buy a scale for the upcoming transition to food. And she mentioned a more fully-featured one than I have had in the past - the digital Kitrics scale. (Available on Amazon Prime of course, so already in my hot little hands.)

You not only can get the food's weight, but also info such as calories, protein, carbs, fat and more. That's because you can enter a "food code" (there's a book) with numbers for all kinds of food items (fresh, prepared, etc.). That way, the scale can use what it knows about the food, along with the weight, to provide the additional info. I tried it with a lemon and a hard-boiled egg just for fun.

It is battery-run but comes "pre-loaded" (you pull the tab to start battery use), and the instructions are simple, even to me. I'm not in the food-eating/food-weighing phase yet, but once there, this new toy will help me more accurately track what I'm eating.

BMI Breakthrough

So as I mentioned in my previous post, there are other milestones and pluses along the weightloss-way besides numbers on a scale. Another number that matters (though it does relate to the number on the scale) is BMI (Body Mass Index). At the start of this diet and up until my last weigh-in, I was officially in the "Obese" category. Needless to say - ugh. Now I can celebrate the fact that I am merely "Overweight" rather than obese. Of course it is just a label, but it indicates a decrease in health risk factors, which is important. I was happy to realize I'd made the jump from one category on the BMI chart to another, going in the right direction! (For more info on BMI, see the American Heart Association web page) I will say, though, that I think I'm going to have to resign myself to the "Overweight" label, as I'd have to lose another 25 pounds in addition to the 35 I've lost in the last 13 weeks, to get into the "Normal" category, and I don't think that's going to happen. I'm OK with that though, at my age. I'd like to go down maybe another ten pounds, but probably not much more. Then I'll be just happy to just maintain a 40-45 pound weight-loss permanently!