New Orleans here we come-maybe

I have had this trip planned for about six months.  I have wanted to see Mardi Gras and this was the year.  So the day before T2 and I went had our nails doneand then I came back and packed.

Our flight was set for 5:30, so we had to leave at 3:45, my alarm went off at 3:30, and I jumped up got Ted up and did my bathroom stuff. Getting out of the bathroom I was assailed by a strong skunk odor.    Shit I thought The small dog is out there.  So I called her, but then realized she was on the rubbing her skunkky body all over our bed.  I got her off the bed without touching her but was gagging at the smell.  I put her in the kennel, then thought better of it and put her in the garage.  T2 came running through the room and I said the dog got skunked.  Without stopping she ran up the stairs saying I know.

My eyes were bleeding skunk, and I couldn't find my glasses.  So I yelled and hollered and screamed for someone to come help me find my glasses.  Surprisingly no one came.  We were way past the 3:45 mark to get to the airport on time, and I couldn't go because I had no glasses.  Finally TH called down asking if I was going through the garage.  I said no I was looking for my glasses could he come help me.  I finally checked my bag and they were in there, so I zipped up my suitcase and ran out the door.

As we got closer to the freeway I realized that I forgot my rain jacket that was sitting by the door, along with my soup. Ted offered to go back, but I am like what, it's 4:05 and I wanted to get there at 4 so no we are not going back.

So as I sat in the car I reeked of skunk, it was in my hair, my clothes, my mouth, it was horrible.  I sniffed TH coat and it didn't smell as bad as mine so I made him take it off and give it to me.

We were 1.5 miles away from the airport and traffick came to a screeching halt.  An accident at 4:00 in the morning?  How is that for luck?  I have never missed a plane, and I wasn't worried about missing the plane I was worried about checking my bags.  I had my product in the bag and if I didn't get it checked I wouldn't be able to eat for the week.  I was really starting to panic as we got closer to that point in time when they won't check your bag.  But we got there at 4:30, and we got through everything by 4:35.

It was at that time T2 disowned me.  She told me they wouldn't let me on the plane, that I should go into the bathroom and wash my clothes, maybe the hand dryer would get them dry, she went and tried to get another seat so she wouldn't have to sit next to me.  She asked me to go stand in the hall, and we got in the plane she told me to throw a blanket around me to try and mask the smell.

Only about five people moved away from me, and one guy stopped eating, but the rest of the plane ride was pretty uneventful.

Tomorrow - New Orleans

Birthdays

I met J about 6 + years ago.  We were both in the same orientation class, we both showed up early and when they said that they only had three spots left we both ran out of the room like bats out of hell.  I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to get in the program, and there she stood in front me.  I was seriously thinking of tackling her and taking her down.  But we were the first in line, so if they were truthful I had my place and she could have hers.

That memory was imprinted on me.  She is the only person that I remember from that meeting, but I guess there were more in there that joined the group.  (They lied they had more then three spots.)  The first couple of weeks in class she talked to everyone and participated.  I sat in a corner hoping not be called on.   How did it happen that we became such good friends?

As I said I sat in the corner quiet, and she sat kitty corner to me.  Eventually we had to do some activities in class together, and she finally pulled full sentences out of me.  (It is harder than you think.)  It became a rhythm that we would sit together and chat.  Then she started talking to  B to get together and walk.  I overheard her talking with him and said I wanted to walk too.  She suggested that we walk before the meetings, and I agreed, only to find that her walking included massive hills.  And she walked way too fast.

Over the course of the program and afterwards we continued to walk together.  Then on one of our walks I said I was doing the program again, I had gained too much weight and I couldn't take it off, and she said she had been thinking about it as well.  We signed up and here we are again.  I am so thankful that she has agreed to share this journey with me again.

I hope W puts a candle in her bar.  Happy Birthday!!!      

Hunger strikes

I have spent the last two days looking at food pictures.  Ack.  I am so hungry.  I am at the point that fish is looking mighty good.  Okay the picture I am looking at right now maybe doesn't quite get me real excited, but ...

My dog is getting cabin fever, but every time I try and take her out she heads straight back inside.  What kind of dog doesn't like the rain.  Well actually both my dogs do that, but I am sure it has nothing to do with me.  Now the big black dog is a bit of a fraidy cat.  I have no expectation that she would save me if someone broke in, she would be under the bed.  As she has been for the last 3 days.  Poor sweet thing so afraid of the wind.

Oh yea hunger.  I am back to week one.  Why?   I could cut calories and eat healthy and low calorie, really I could.  I would be so good.  Really.  Why? why? why?  Why am I depriving myself of the wonderful food all around me.  

So what am I craving today?  Chicken.  I want chicken cooked (rather than raw), with cucumber salad.  I am craving this meal.  I want this meal and I want it now.  

I went to a client today, and I had to walk up a teeny weeny hill.  When I got in the door they came rushing over to  me offered me a seat asked if I needed water, in general was I having a heart attack.    I told them not to worry I wasn't having a heart attack I was starving.  So one of the rushed upstairs and brought me down a bunch of cookies.  Notice that when you tell someone your starving the first thing they offer you is sugar.

I politely declined and then watched them all munch down on the cookies brought for me.    

Oh yea, I found taking the dog for a walk was a good distraction from food, but short of carrying her on my back, she is not in the mood to help me at this time.  

Ah well 10 weeks and 2 days.

Mentor?

After writing last nights blog I realized that maybe a mentor could help with the long term maintenance.

Not everyone would be or would want to be a mentor, but what if the group that starts week 30 mentors one of the new participant in through their week 30.  What if someone who has kept the weight off for a year or two mentored those going into maintenance.

What would that look like?  I don't know.  How much time will someone give to a stranger?  Would they be willing to give up time in their busy lives to help those who come after?  Would people be interested in a mentor?  If it meant meeting once a week would it be important enough to both parties to meet and not cancel?

We who are enmeshed in this weight loss are obsessed and truthfully our loved ones get pretty tired of listening to it.  What about someone who has been there done that and has succeeded?  Group classes are good, but they get stale and boring, they are not geared towards everyday life.   Having a program like this might encourage people staying in the maintenance program, might make the program more successful long term.  The maintenance program doesn't work now.

When we weighed in we were in with a group that was in their maintenance phase, and they said that they had started with a group of 24 and they had 5 who still remained in the group.  My guess is by the end of the year there will be none of that group left in maintenance.

It is a thought.   

What happens when you don't lose the weight you want to lose?

My heart went out to one of the group members.  It appears that she is not losing weight as rapidly as she had hoped.  And if she is following the program she should be.  But I remember when I first started out, that first week I lost 1.7 pounds.  I was shocked and disheartened, only to have it followed up with a three pound loss the next week.  I had over two hundred pounds to lose and if the first week is water loss, I should have lost like 15 pounds.  I had expected to lose 10 pounds.  I remember thinking that this was not going to be the quick start I had hoped for.  And hearing others in the group talk about their weight loss, one even lost 13 pounds, left me completely demoralized.

But time is the great equalizer.  I consistently lost 4 pounds a week for the next 6 weeks, and for the first 16 weeks I averaged 3.67, and for the 30 weeks I averaged 3.03, yes I lost 90 pounds in 30 weeks.   I persisted.  We persisted.  Their were a few of us that embraced the program, made goal weight, and worked at the goal weight.

What do you tell someone whose weight loss is less then they expected?  Hang in there it will come?  One pound is better then none.  Those are hollow words.  They mean nothing to us.  It is the reason why heavy people look for blogs from people who have lost a lot of weight.

For me, I didn't care if you lost 45 pounds.  45 pounds wasn't really going to help me in the long run.  I needed information from someone who lost over 100 pounds.  I needed to know someone had actually lost the amount of weight I needed to  lose.  I needed inspiration.  I needed to know that sometimes they didn't lose a lot of weight one week.  I needed to know I was not alone.

I scoured the internet looking for that inspiration, read blogs by people who had lost 100- 200 even 300 pounds.  They did inspire me, but the difference was they were all young.  I wanted to find a blog where a 50+ had lost the weight.  I found the blogs harder to find, I guess by the time you reach 50 you have accepted your weight.  You are set in your ways and it is harder to change a life long habit of eating.  But they are out there.  I hope to join them.  I hope this member will join me, joining them.

To tired to eat

This diet takes everything out of me.  I did an abbreviated workout with E yesterday, and came home, and instead of running upstairs to grab something to eat I collapsed in bed and slept an hour.  Then today I got home from swimming and again instead of feeding myself I fell in bed and slept for another couple of hours.  I finally dragged myself upstairs to grab a product only because I was dying of thirst.  I thought it was getting better, but I am just getting more run down.

But I have to say that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to work out at all last night, and I did do a 40 minute workout rather than an hour, but I felt better when I was done.  It only lasted until I got home, but I did enjoy  momentarily feeling good.

But this was my excuse, the beginning of  the weight gain.  I couldn't live on the calories  I had assigned to maintain weight, I was just too tired, too hungry, so I started adding food.  Not unhealthy food in the beginning, but more.    You find that those additional calories help, and you gain a few pounds and you don't worry about it, because you a fitter then ever.

Then the bike trip.  I had been so careful not to fall into the habit of eating food that never satisfied and always wanted, but on the bike trip I found I could eat anything.  Stop at the SAG and grab a couple candy bars, cookies, fruit, cake, whatever they had laid out.  Then stop for lunch and eat hamburger and fries, stop for ice cream, and then whatever was served with dinner and desert.  And finally late night have whatever was left in my bike pouch from the day.  I was not depraving myself of anything.  I ate what I wanted when I wanted, and in those three months I lost 40 pounds.

But that is not what really happened.  Yes I ate anything I wanted, when I wanted, but surprisingly what I ate was not what I thought it would be.  At the SAGS I always craved the fruit.  I couldn't eat enough of the fruit.  Sometimes I would eat two whole oranges, and occasionally I would grab something sweet, but my go to was always the fruit.  Lunches we didn't always stop, but when we did I would get a sandwich, I would order fries sometimes, but never could finish them.  You never really wanted to ride after stuffing yourself, so you had to take it slow because I knew I had another three or four hours on the bike, and I didn't want a stomach ache in the middle, it was hard enough just riding.  The late night snack was usually a granola bar and that was only when I didn't really like the dinner they served.

So my body went automatic mode, taking the food I wanted and needed to maintain the bike ride.
But in my head I thought wow I can eat as much as want whenever I want.  And it is that that I brought back with me.

I need to figure out how to eat like I did on the bike trip, naturally, without having to kill myself in the process.

Up next weigh in tonight!!

Hula anyone?

J wanted to try out Hula dancing, and I thought hey it sounds like fun.  How hard can it be?

So off I go to beautiful Half Moon Bay, no trepidation in my heart, really how hard can it be?

J decided that we should be at the back so no one could see us mess up.  Me, I think we aren't going to mess up, how hard can it be?

I arrive a little late, a little harried, the traffic, well just traffic.  J is waiting for me in the parking lot, so off we go to our class.  We walk in to this horribly cold room, and the instructor tells us to strip (okay take shoes and socks off, but same difference.)  I try and keep my shoes on, but I get the J look, so off goes my shoes.  I had the cutest socks, not really warm, but some protection, and I get the "second" look.  I capitulated and off came my socks.  I did notice J had painted toes nails, mine were just ugly unpainted toe nails.  We got there about 10 minutes early and I started to worry that this was only go to be the two of us.  That means no hiding.

Well I was right, just the two of us.  Like a private lesson.  ACK.  We couldn't hide behind anybody because their was nobody to hide behind.  She has us warm up doing the basic steps, and after about five minutes I finally realized that there was a pattern.  But then the warm up was over, so I couldn't show her how smart I was that I figured out the pattern.

It went downhill from there.  We were to make our hands dainty.  Like flowing water.  Wrist up in a smooth beautiful motion, my hands looked some old man trying to open a can of beer.  Not what she was after.  I did my crosseye at J and found that she didn't have a problem making her hands dainty.  Harrumph.  We tried the footwork with the dainty hands, didn't work for me, and J said it wasn't working for her (thank god) so we got to put our hands on our hips and just do the footwork, for a nanosecond.

I have no sway, no coordination, no rhythm.  I stumbled and missed and was completely out of step or just forgot the step.  It was putting the hands to the steps, I am sure, if I hadn't had to do the stupid dainty hands I would have been perfect.

I have been to classes before and I have heard a lot more encouragement then I did at this class.  She said good job three times.  I counted.  She couldn't even fake it.  And to add injury to insult those three time I was standing there looking completely baffled.  Put your weight on your right foot, now your left, now heel, toe, heel.

The hour went by really fast, and afterwards I thought I need to find a dance that I don't need hands.  Tap anyone?    

Diet is not the end all

I think the problem with dieting is not the dieting, it is what comes after.  Most people can go a few months with restricted calories, and would happily do it for the weight loss if they thought it would stay off.

But as research shows the weight does not stay off.  If you go through the discomfort of dieting, the reward is a short period of "lightness" before the weight starts to creep back.  It might even start to creep back the minute you "complete" your diet.    Most people who have done the diet thing knows that it comes back.  So there is resistance to the diet.  Why bother if it all comes back, plus.  And so millions of ex-dieters just get heavier, slowly or quickly, over time because dieting is not the final answer.

But it is the start of the answer.  For all who have become obese, you have to diet, you have to cut calories in order to remove the excess fat from your body.  So Optifast has mastered the diet part.

But there is a negative commentary, even with Optifast, about maintenance.  Only a small percentage keeps the weight off, and most will gain back 1/3 in two years, whereas, the majority gain it all back and then some.  No diet program will stand in front of you and say we can help 90% of you keep the weight off.  Because they don't know how.

In Optifasts groups they have the most dedicated dieters, those who really sincerely want to lose the weight.  The want to lose the weight and they want to keep it off.  They have an audience that they could work with to start working on a  program of keeping the weight off.  Their major maintenance program is weekly meetings.   There needs to be more.

I must ponder this, I need to find a solution to the "after" diet, and I need to find it within the next year.    Or I will be here in another five years pondering the diet.

Lapses - Again?

Last night the facilitator basically stated that she expected people to lapse.  Wow.  Give permission or what?

Here is my views on lapsing.

This program is so regimented that it is hard to cheat, lapse, eat something accidentally that you are not suppose to eat, basically it is fool proof.  So if you do lapse, that is a conscious decision not an oops.   For example I am hungry I don't have a bar so I stop at KFC.  I will eat something low calorie there and get back to program tomorrow.  No harm no foul. Right?  Wrong, that is not this program, if that is how they want to diet they should choose another program.

It should not be expected that you will eventually lapse.  To me it is pretty black and white.  You are dedicated to losing weight and you are willing to work at it because losing weight is very important in your life for whatever the reasons.   Or you want to lose weight, but it isn't as important to you as you thought it was and that piece of chicken looks mighty good.  If you don't want to spend four months eating 970 calories of the same food over and over again, then this really isn't for you.  There is no variety and the food never will taste as good as that low cal KFC meal that you just had.

The facilitators should make it clear -very clear that we should not lapse.  They should say that lapsing is not expected.  At least not during the diet phase.  Lapsing is a maintenance issue and should be addressed in maintenance.

Ah maintenance - the bane of my existence, if only it was as easy as the the dieting.

Why?

Why am I doing this again?  I have been asking myself that.  NOT the food,  I am counting the days until I can have real food again.  So I ask myself why?

I felt healthy, I can sit in seats with no problem, people don't care about my weight, I don't get those disgusted looks I used to.  I exercise and I can reach down and pick things up.  I don't have the feeling that if I don't lose the weight I am going to die.  And even though I gained all this back, I don't hate my body like I used to.  So why?

Because I am on a uncontrollable uphill slope.  I am not where I was, but I was heading in that direction.  I had stopped fighting the weight and I had let it take over.  I ate what and when I wanted, I didn't watch the calories and the only thing that saved me was the exercise which helped keep me from gaining even more weight.

And there you have it.  The exercise.  The weight was hampering the exercise.  I can swim, bike, walk or hike, but the more I gained the harder it all became.  Water carries you, but you still have to pull yourself through the water.  Hiking too was a bear.  Pulling my body up those hills was pure torture.  I realized in New Zealand I was handicapped on the walks because of my weight.  T2 didn't find the hikes as challenging as I did, and I don't think I would have found them as challenging as I did if I had been even 30 pounds lighter.  It was not a wake up call, but definitely helped to make up my mind.

I actually like moving.  It doesn't have to always be breakneck, but moving makes me feel good.  It makes me happy, and if I am going breakneck, I love the feeling when I am done.  And if ever I lose that ability to move again...I just can't go there.

Tomorrow - 2nd weigh in

Bargaining

So I have started the bargaining, a little early, but it happens every time.  When I complete the diet I will...

The first thing I will do is have a huge and I mean Yuge pizza.  Goop it up with everything and I am going to eat it until I get sick.

But first I have to lose the weight.

The first thing I am going to do when I lose all this weight is have a pound rib-eye with bone in and a baked potato with all the fixings.

But first I have to lose the weight.

Right now those are the only things that I am craving, I am sure as time goes on this list will get longer.

But I am doing this for the gold, never to have to eat this product again, so I am thinking I need to come up with other bargaining chips.  (ooo chips)

As soon as I lose the weight I will...buy a diamond ring?  Nope not me.

As soon as I lose the weight I will...buy and train a puppy?  Nope THS won't allow another one in this house right now.

As soon as I lose the weight I will...go to NYC?  Nope I can do that without losing the weight.

 As soon as I lose the weight I will...take a six month writing sabbatical - now that starts to sound a little appealing.

I will have to come back to this, but at this point in time it still is, when I lose the weight I am going to eat.

Speaking of which - time to eat.

Weigh-in

This is the first official weigh in.  The program recommends that you don't weigh yourself during this active weight loss.  I certainly don't adhere to that recommendation, and from prior experience I don't think anyone else does either.

I have been weighing myself everyday, sometimes two three times a day waiting for that number to go down.  "It's a miracle I lost ten pounds in three hours" but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

I am always expecting that I can lose like a pound a day, so it is always a shock to see a modest weight loss.  As was the case this week.  3.1 pounds.  I suffered, I exercised, I followed the program to the T and what I get a mere 3.1 pounds?  And is that water weight loss?  I sure hope not.

Since I have been dieting off and on all my life, I expect someday I can cut my calories to the bare minimum and I will lose nothing.  It is at the back of my mind every time I start a diet, is this the time that my body will quit losing weight.  Will I die of starvation at this weight?

So just as when I am not dieting I get on the scale, the weight is what it is and I start stripping.  I wonder how much the top weighs, oh and the pants are at least 3 pounds, oops I guess not.  Standing on the scale bare naked I realize it doesn't matter what it says here, I am not stripping at the doctors office...

Well maybe next week it will be ten pounds.

Weight Gain over the years

As I said, I started in 2010 and by 2012 I was at goal.  During that period of time I was on active weight loss (product) for eight months, but the whole two years was a constant down on the scale.  So was that dieting or was that maintaining for 16 months and dieting for 8?

From ending the program in August 2012 to August 2013 I had gained 15 pounds.

From August 2013 to August 2014 I had gained 15 pounds.

From August 2014 to August 2015 I had gained 30 pounds.

From August 2015 to August 2016 I had gained 20 pounds.

And after deciding to do this program I put on another 10 pounds.

So there you have it.  For two years I watched, weighed, suffered, everything I put in my mouth.  But obviously those eating habits are hard to break.  If I had stayed the course and continued what I had been doing for the first two years- two and 1/2 years I would have kept it off.

So yes I got a bit worried in 2015 and dropped 20 pounds, for a day, but does that mean it was a 40 pound gain in 2016.

There you have it.  They say if you can keep it off five years you can keep it off forever.  Getting to those five years is the problem.  This time it isn't so much about the weight loss (it is but...)
but what happens after the weight loss.

We can only wait and see.