Hitting a Plateau Means Time to Sweat

Well, I was hoping for confetti and balloons to drop on me from the ceiling today because I was hoping to reach my goal at my weigh-in but actually I found out I hit a plateau. My net weight was only down 0.2 lbs but my water weight was up 1 pounds and my fat weight was down but overall it really means I did not change much again this week. Yancy, the Weightloss Specialist I met with today recommended more intense exercise and breaking a sweat. ARGHHH! Sweating is not my favorite thing to do. Being hot literally makes me nauseous and I have a little anxiety just at the thought of being warm because of my history of nausea with it., which is so crazy since I live in Florida where it is hot and humid 90% of the time (or at least it feels like it). If I want to look hot, I am going to have to endure getting hot and breaking a sweat. I will have to leave the dog at home and go for power walks. I also will go to the power yoga class on Saturday morning. Yoga is my most favorite form of exercise and doing certain repetitions of certain poses, you can get your heart rate up and break a sweat. I am hopeful to have the balloons and confetti next week.

Day 114 - Assessing Dr. Phil's New Weight Loss Solution

After mentioning Dr. Phil in my previous post, I happened to see this item on WebMd's website Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weightloss Solution It is a review of the Dr. Phil's new book. My assessment is "well, duh!" No really, after reading tons of weight loss books including Dr. Phil's first venture into weight loss, I really do not think there is any thing anybody else can teach me about weight loss. I think most people who are obese and overweight all can say the same thing. There is nothing we don't know. We know what puts the weight on and we know what it is going to take to take it off. It is just getting our minds ready to do it because it really is an issue of MIND OVER MATTER. I do not think I would have been successful with the Medi Weightloss plan had my mind not been in the right place. You really have to know that there is going to be sacrifice...great sacrifice to be successful and you really have to be ready for it. I knew if I was going to embark on another weight loss journey, i would have to be really ready mentally. I knew my favorite foods were going have to become no longer favorites because they were the things that helped me put the weight on and kept it on. Now that I am almost at goal, I do not even want to go back to eating the way I did before. I have already made up my mind that there are foods that are just going to have to stay off limits to me and avoid them totally and some foods will have to be eaten rarely. My main diet is going to continue to be low in carbohydrates and free of wheat/gluten products. Processed foods will also be kept to rare-to-none. I will mainly eat lean protein and low-glycemic vegetables and fruit. I find I no longer crave certain things and I'm just going to keep it that way. This week, I should reach my goal at Medi and I will be given the plan for maintenance and be able to slowly introduce some foods that have been off limits. I'm a little apprehensive coming off the Acute Phase of the program but I know with the guidance of the counselors I will be fine.

According to the WebMD article Dr. Phil's book outlines 7 steps to weight loss freedom. I am sharing them with you because they articulate the exact princples that I believe will lead to successful weight loss and maintenance.
1. Right Thinking: Get rid of self-defeating thought patterns, believe that you will succeed, and you will have mastered the first key necessary to overcoming your struggles with your weight.
2. Healing Feelings: Make choices that stop the cycle of emotional eating that has perpetuated your weight problem. Don't let stress, anxiety, or depression lead you to self-medicate with food. Change your emotional response to life's problems, and the unwanted eating behaviors that flow from it, and you can change. He instructs readers in how to identify the "payoff" you get from overeating and addressing those negative feelings -- getting emotional closure, so you stop self-defeating habits, says Dr. Phil.
3. A No-Fail Environment: You must program your environment in every possible way to avoid binge foods and reminders to eat.
4. Mastery Over Food and Impulse Eating: "Did you binge or overeat for one reason, such as a betrayal, a job loss, an illness, some personal tragedy, and you've kept on doing it as a matter of habit? Your pounds came on quickly, but the trouble is, they stayed because you are overeating habitually, whether you are hungry or not," writes Dr. Phil.
5. High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods: This is Dr. Phil's way of saying, "eat high-fiber and other nutritious and filling foods - whole grains, lean protein, fresh fruits and vegetables, dried beans." It also implies eating foods that take time and effort to fix, require lots of chewing, and aren't fast food or other convenience foods.
6. Intentional Exercise: "Regular, intentional exercise is a big deal, a huge deal," writes Dr. Phil. "It unlocks the door to body control - a state of fitness in which your body is metabolically geared for losing weight and keeping it off, and is flowing with energy and vitality People who successfully manage their weight and stay fit exercise as a matter of habit."
7. Your Circle of Support: "Weight loss is not a do-it-yourself deal," he writes. "If you expect to lose weight and keep it off, you must build and nurture relationships that affirm and uplift you in life-changing ways. There is strength and power in support."

The most important of the above to me are Number 7 (Circle of Support). I had wonderful support at Medi and meeting one on one with the counselors provided the psychological support as well as the nutrition education necessary to be successful which also encompases number 4 and 5 (Mastery of Food and High Response Cost High Yield Foods). Numbers 1-3 are really up to the individual to take care of and get their mindset ready to tackle their weight loss issue.

While some people might dismiss Dr. Phil as a quack, etc. and this is not meant to be promotion for his book but rather it is confirmation for me that I did everything right and that all the books I have read in the past have actually contained advice that does work in getting the weight off had I been mentally ready to lose the weight.

Day 109 - Guerilla Weight Loss

Okay, I know this is a picture of a gorilla so it is a play on words. But after 15 weeks on Medi Weight Loss I am a thinner and getting a little giddy with the results. So this week, I lost 1 pound for a total of 37 pounds...3 pounds to go to goal..and I'm thinking to myself, what got me here? Well, I got to thinking about because a lovely lady that I recently met had wanted me to meet her daughter in hopes that I could be an inspiration to her as the daughter has a weight problem as well. In speaking to the mother, the weight issue of her daughter sounded all too familiar to me. The ups the downs, the not finding a program that really works, etc. So now that I am this wonderful weight loss expert because I have been so successful --- ha, ha, ... I thought about the tactics that I took to get me to this place. To finally conquer the enemy. I waged Guerrilla warfare on my weight. In looking up guerrilla on the Internet, Wikipedia defines it as such: Guerrilla warfare is irregular warfare, conflicts in which a small group of combatants uses military tactics, like ambushes and raids, to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army. So aside from the fact that every time I heard the words guerrilla warfare on the news, I imaged hundreds of gorillas fighting battles with guns, tanks, etc, I decided that the way I approached my weight loss was to do something "irregular" or at least "irregular" for me. Something out of the ordinary in terms of a plan for losing weight that I had not done before. The other thing was that I was going to outsmart my fat cells and my brain cells into losing this weight. So in a sense, I ambushed my own cells. I harassed the fat that was in my body as well as my own thoughts about losing weight. It was a 10-year war I was having with my own mind and my own body that I finally conquered. I thought there would never be a program that would help me. I tried and failed so many over the years, structured and unstructured, in meetings, and on my own. It was a long and tortuous road. So basically if I had a chance to speak to that lady's daughter this is what I would tell her. In my best Patton-like rhetoric.

Those fat cells have been with you for so long. They are resistant to everything you have tried. The more you try to starve them, they be after you for more. The more you give them, they will still want more. It is time that you put on your battle fatigues and tackle this war with everything you got.
1. Finally decide that you have had enough. Like Dr. Phil says, GET REAL with yourself. You are not going to spend another summer, holiday, etc. at the weight that you are currently. You are tired of running from the camera because you don't want the way you look immortalized in pictures. This is a talk you will have to have with yourself and you have to be really mentally ready to commit to a weight loss program 110%. This is no time for fooling around and dabbling and trying and see what happens. This is WAR.
2. Do not settle on a program that says to take the pounds off slowly. The reason why you are fat is because of your desire for instant gratification. Food provides instant gratification. So since we are of that mindset, we need instant gratification with weight loss or we will get discouraged and never follow the program through. Slow may be fine for somethings but not weight loss. I don't care what has been written or proven in science that long lasting weight loss has to be slow...get the weight off first and then deal with keeping it off.
3. Commit to the program. Whatever program you decide you are doing. Commit to it. Do not cheat, do not fudge, do not put off. Do it, do it now, and do it all the way. You are in it to win it.
4. The only way to lose weight is to eat less calories than what your body burns. You need to burn the fat by not adding fat in your diet and severely limiting carbs so you can burn the fat instead of the carbs in your body. I will add the caveat to always check with your doctor first or do this in a medically supervised setting. If you need to drop your calories down to 500-600/day and you need medication and supplemental support to do it, don't be afraid to ask for it. There are programs like Medi Weight Loss that provide these things or you can go to your doctor to be monitored on the medication. I was so afraid of "diet pills" because of their rebound weight gain effect that I didn't want to try it. But when I wanted to really do something and do it fast, I did my research about Medi and found that they covered all the bases to make sure that it would be safe and long-lasting weight loss. The dietitians are counselors that you meet with one on one to educate you and motivate you. You cannot do it alone. Also, You gotta shake it up. You can't keep doing the same things you have done for weight loss and expect different results...that is just INSANE. STOP THE INSANITY as another diet guru from the past had said.
5. Focus on what goes in your mouth first and then worry about the exercise. Almost every weight loss program will tell you to exercise to lose weight...BS! Yes it burns calories but ultimately, it is what you put in your mouth that puts weight on. If you restrict your fat, calories and carbs on a daily basis you will lose weight without exercise. I'm not saying become a couch potato by any means but at least in the beginning get your mind right about food first and the exercise will come into play later. Sugar and gluten-based products are not your friends. They are the worst, sinister enemies of your body. Cleanse your body of these vile products and you will not crave them as much and you will be successful. Light walking while you are losing is healthy and helpful but if you are restricting calories and carbs you can do your body more harm than good by exercising too vigorously in that you will burn the protein in your body rather than the fat. Find a diet that is right for you but one that is low carb. The ones I hear recommended by the doctors I work for are the Adkins diet and the low-glycemic diet. The Medi Weightloss diet is similar to both these diets because it requires you to eat 500 calories of lean protein a day and 2 servings of low-glycemic vegetables or 1 serving of low glycemic vegetable and 1 approved fruit serving. Again, check with your doctor before embarking on any weight loss plan.

Since I'm still losing and not in the maintenance phase yet it is hard for me to talk about maintaining but I am a little apprehensive about putting the weight back on now that my goal is close. I have the wonderful dietitians at Medi there to lay out my maintenance plan for me and like I followed the plan to lose the weight, I am committed to following the plan to maintain the weight. I feel and look the best I have in years and I am not going back to the "old me." Those old fat cells can just try to come after my new thinner cells and I will just take the old bazooka out and blow them to smithereens.

Day 101 - No, It's Not My Hair

I like how some people who have not seen me since I started Medi, look at me and know something is different and they immediately say something about my hair. For example, another mother from the neighborhood was out riding bikes with her daughter while I was outside with Bandit and she stopped to talk. After a few minutes she said, "I like your hair. The cut, and color really look nice." I beamed a smile ear to ear and said. "Buffy, I lost 32 pounds" She said, "I knew your face looked different." It happened yesterday again the dentist office. The hygienist was talking about my hair color, which I really have not changed drastically enough to notice and I just smiled and said no, I didn't do anything with my hair. She said "hmmm, well it looks different." I don't know why I didn't mention my weight to her but I figured she could tell because they took a digital picture of me six month ago I was there last and I knew that was up on the computer screen when I walked in the room. Even the girls at the desk when I checked out engaged me in a conversation that they don't usually do, "so what's been going on with you?" kind of sing-songy one said. I said "Oh, not much." and then went on to talk a little about Carrie and Steven. I felt kind of smug in a way but I really did not feel the need to jump right into, "well, I lost 35 pounds...blah blah..." If they could tell I lost the weight, why wouldn't they just ask? I think they were probably just being polite. They were of the mindset that you don't ask a person about their weight. I think I may have read something like that in Dear Abby. It is like you wouldn't say "Wow, you've packed on some pounds." So I guess saying that somebody lost a lot of weight is like saying "Wow, you were really fat before." It's kind of like asking a woman, "how far along are you" when they are not pregnant. That unfortunately happened to me years ago and was mortifying. But to that person's defense (besides that he was a senior citizen and a man), I was pudgy, and I was wearing a loose fitting top so it was understandable. That man just hadn't read that column in Dear Abby where she said you never say that to woman if you are not sure. Dear Abby said that you could ask them ask them what's new in their lives and wait for them to tell you if if they are pregnant. So I guess for weight loss the same could thing apply and maybe it depends on how well you know the person. it is a very interesting study in psychology. The polite thing to do is say that somebody looks great and then see what the response is. I had an acquaintance say to me last week, "You look different." I smiled broadly and the other friend who I was with who knew about the weight loss said "She lost a ton of weight" and almost simultaneously I beamed that I lost 34 pounds. The acquaintance said that she wasn't sure if it was me when she first saw me and she had to ask somebody who I was...While I took that as a compliment because I am so proud of myself with the weight loss, at the same time I thought to myself, Wow, I must have looked so bad before that now I look so different to some people so I pulled up my before picture taken at the Medi Weightloss Clinic and I definitely can see why people would say that. I mean my hair does look great (thanks to my friend Diane at Profiles), it just looks better on a thinner face. Now that I am officially 5 pounds away from goal since my weigh-in on Wednesday (I lost 1.5 pounds this week so now I am official 145 pounds)... I will share with you my before picture...

Okay now quickly go back to the picture at the beginning of this post and erase this image from your memory.