THANK YOU MEDI-WEIGHTLOSS! 40 Pounds Gone

Okay my friends. Here they are -- my before and after side by side. I am down 40 pounds and working on maintenance. I'm so glad that I have the professionals at Medi to guide me through this. I am so afraid of eating more food at this point. I am adding back in calories slowly and tapering off of medication. I will go back to the clinic weekly for monitoring for the next 4 weeks. I know I will be as committed to keeping this weight off as I was in losing this weight. Stay tuned for how this is going. I want to thank you all again for following me through this process for the last 6 months. I also want to thank my friends and family for all their support and encouragement. Stan and the kids have been great as have my mom and dad and brother and sister-in-law. I am so lucky to have a loving, understanding family. They loved me through everything and I am blessed.

The Melancholy Baby and the Prom Queen

I was a big melancholy baby Saturday. My daughter went to her first prom and is seeming so grown up. She looked beautiful in her dress, with the hair curled. My little tom boy all dressed up with heels and everything. I helped her with some of the preparations including sitting at the salon while she had her hair done. We took pictures outside and when she finally left with her boyfriend to go off to his house for pictures, I was so deep in a blue state of mind. I swallowed all my feelings along with the need to swallow some chocolate. I had laughed earlier at a friend who posted on facebook that after helping her duaghter with all the preparations for prom, she was going to need a few cocktails. I thought how bad can it be. Well, I did finally understand where she was coming from. After Carrie and Camil left, I took off to the grocery store to pick up groceries for the week as well as the things for our son's 12th birthday party on Sunday. I walked around the store in a daze and all I could think about was that I needed chocolate. I was doing pretty good until the end and went back and grabbed a couple of large bags of M&Ms (for the party, of course) and checked out. When I got to the car, I grabbed a bag of the M&Ms (peanut butter kind) and ripped them open and starting popping them like pills on the way home from the store. "Medicating" myself with food is the old me. I could not control the emotions I was feeling and thus couldn't control my hand to mouth action. I did stop myself but not until the damage was done and it was not the last time because I did dig into them a little bit later in the evening when I felt the wave of emotions coming over me as she was going to an after party and staying the night at a friends house. Thank goodness this happened as I am at goal and not in the midst of the acute phase of the program. I got right back on track Sunday morning and did not touch an M&M or any of the fudge-iced brownie cake that I got for Steven's birthday cake (okay, aside from the one little lick of icing off my finger after I served the cake to the boys). So the new me on a diet is back and atoning for the bad Saturday but it just really goes to show how food is tied to emotion and up until that point, I had dealt well with other emotions but was not prepared to deal with the one that I felt on Saturday. I will have to make sure I am prepared next time because I'm sure with the kids getting older, it is not going to be the last.

Short Term Maintenance Begins

My brother Jeff has been a great sounding board for me throughout the years and with all my false starts and stops at weight loss he hung in their with me listened to me, offered advice and never chastised me. He always was honest with me about my downfalls whenever I was on a diet. And on starting Medi in December, he gave me some great advice on how to be successful and told me not to be ashamed because I needed medication to help lose the weight. "They have medication to help people stop smoking and to stop drinking" he said. "Why not take medication to help you lose weight if it is available."

So now for the news of the week:

My counselor today at my weigh-in appointment told me to wear something spiffy next week because they are going to take my AFTER picture. I can't tell you how awesome that feels. As I am typing this I am actually welling up with tears because finally after 12 years I have attained a weight loss goal. This is a very emotional for me. I have lost 39 pounds since December 29, 2009, almost 5 months ago. Today, Yancy told me to make sure I get my 500 calories of protein a day and add a fruit serving along with my 2 servings of vegetables. I now will slowly start adding food back into my diet until I get to my calorie requirements for maintenance. She said I can expect to still lose while I am making this transition. This will be fine with me. I actually would love to lose about 5 more so I can use 135-140 as my range. I thank all of you for following this blog and supporting me throughout this process. The blog and talking about it was part of my strategy for being successful.

You have to see this news item. http://www.newscentralga.com/news/local/93626474.html It is about Medi-Weightloss Clinics. I echo the sentiments of the 2 patients featured in the item.

Being overweight is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a medical problem and can be treated with a medical program. It takes a team of doctors, nurses, dietitians and counselors along with the right support of medication and nutritional supplements. Just like any other medical problem. Because I have lost the weight, my health risks for diabetes and coronary disease are greatly reduced. If I had continued at the weight I was I could have ended up with diabetes especially since I was already a high risk factor being that I was gestational diabetic when I was pregnant with Steven. If I would have ended up with diabetes, I would have had to take medication and watch my diet and see doctors, nurses, and dietitians so I decided to use those resources for weight loss instead. I have the angel on my right shoulder to thank for my success. When the devil on my left shoulder would whisper in my ear to eat something not so good for me, I had the angel whispering in the other ear "that's not you." and "You are better than that." Self-talk was a big component. Being accountable was the other component. Knowing I would be going to the clinic visits, writing this blog and talking to my friends and family, kept me accountable for my actions. Another big factor I think is that I saw results quickly. I loved to see the results each week. It always spurred me on to maintaining myself 100% on the program each week. Now that I will be having my after picture taken, I am going to have the same commitment to maintenance as I did with the weight loss portion. This took me too long and I worked to hard to gain it all back.

Weigh In Tomorrow

I moved my weigh-in this week to Thursday. Tuesday was kind of hectic with work and other things so I changed the appointment. Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that according to my scale at home, my weight would have stayed the same as last week. I don't think 2 days will make a difference but I have pretty much made up my mind that after the weigh-in tomorrow, I will ask to go on maintenance. I am very happy to have lost 38 pounds and have gone from a size 12/14 to a size 6. My goal was to wear a smaller size and I have exceeded that expectation as I thought I would at best get to a 10 or at least an 8. My other goals besides the weight were also to get my BMI into the normal range and to get my waist under 32 inches (reference to Dr. Oz's book You on A Diet) and I have done both those things as well.

I am encouraged by a fellow Medi-Weightloss member who was on the Today show recently after losing 293 pounds. His name is Jerome and he is blogging at http://feelinglighter.wordpress.com/. He says that he would like to lose the last 7 eventually just to be able to say he literally lost 300 pounds so I know how he feels. I would like to lose the last 3 just to say I am 140 pounds on the nose. That would actually be a 41 pound weight loss since December 29. I know his and my weight loss needs were different than Jerome's but it doesn't matter that I had 40 to lose and he had 300 to lose. It is all relative to one's particular situation. My 40 pounds might as well have been 300 pounds. It was a real challenge for me and it took hard work and determination to lose it just as it did with Jerome. I can't tell you how impressed I am with his determination to lose the weight. Medi-Weightloss is the one that really works. I am sure that once I relax and go on maintenance that the last 3 pounds will come off within the next month anyway as my body adjusts to the changes and I increase my exercise a little bit. I have decided to re-join a gym. I enjoy the structured environment of an exercise class and really like elliptical machines as opposed to walking in the Florida heat that we have looming over us this time of year. I am not disciplined enough to do an exercise program here in the house by myself so I am going to check out a gym that maybe is about 5 minutes from the house. They just acquired another gym's membership that closed so maybe with the extra members some new classes and class times will be added. I'm sure they have Pilates and Yoga so I will be happy with that. I will be back tomorrow with another update.


Oh, and no special reason for the picture...just felt like including it. It is Carrie and I at the Chocolate Gala (Fundraiser for Alvin Dubin Alzheimer Resource Center) May 1, 2010

I am no longer afraid of my dryer. You know that Cheerios commercial where the 2 ladies are in the laundromat and the one loading stuff in the dryer asks the other for more quarters because she is trying to shrink her clothes in the dryer because she lost weight eating whole grains? I am putting clothes in the dryer that I was afraid to put in the dryer before because I didn't want them to shrink. I have a few things now that are a little too big for me that I am putting in the dryer hoping they will shrink just a little. I even threw in some of my new size things not worrying about if they shrink a little or not. Crazy thing to think about but since I spent so much of my life being heavy and bouncing up and down between 170 and 180 pounds, I never knew how things were going to fit and feel if I washed them and put them in the drier. I love being able to shop and look at a smaller size that I thought I would never see again and don't even remember being. I am a very happy camper despite my 0.2 pound weight gain this week. It was because I was retaining water. Thanks to the wonderful computerized scale at Medi, it told me that my water weight was up and my fat weight was actually down but because I was retaining water my net weight was actually up. Oh well...I did start what I call jog walking this week. That is where I warm up with a 10 minute walk and then for 10 minutes, I alternate walking and jogging between telephone poles. The last 10 minutes is power walking into my cool down. I have done that 3 times already this week. Also, according to Yancy, the counselor I met with at Medi this week, I have to drink more water. Since it is warmer out and I am exercising, I have to drink plenty of water to help relieve the water retention. So, we will see what happens on Tuesday.

Birthday Weekend and Chocolate

The four of us (Steven, Carrie, Me and Stan) posing together at my parent's house after the "chocolate gala"

Saturday was my birthday and I let loose a little on Saturday to celebrate. We went to a fundraiser for the Alvin A. Dubin Alzheimer's Resource Center of which Stan is on their board. It featured a buffet of hor's d'oeuvres, chocolate tasting, live and silent auction. The theme for the night was Pirates and Pearls. Unfortunately, I did not get my picture taken with the Captain Jack Sparrow look alike. I enjoyed a little chilled shrimp and bacon wrapped scallops and then headed for the chocolate. The chocolate purveyors were there sampling their chocolate creations for everyone to sample and then vote on their favorite. I did not take any of the cakes but I did try a forkful off Carrie's and Steven's pieces. There was one vendor Irresistible Confections with some chocolate candies and something they called "sipping chocolate" which was dark chocolate mixed with Cabernet wine. Oh my goodness, I was in heaven. It was so delicious. I poured some in one of the little sampling cups and brought it back to the table took my sip and then and passed it around to the family. I did of course have to try one more that I kept for myself. It was warm and decadent; almost like sipping hot fudge. Well that was it for the chocolate I had my fill and put all my plastic gold coins that we were given for voting into the basket for Irresistible Confections and, of course, they did win the award for the best chocolate of the night. The kids liked them so much they got Grampy to bid on a Chocolate Party for 2 offered by the same company during the live auction. Grampy won so the kids get their chocolate party. I of course got something for my birthday that Stan bought through the live auction also. It is a 10 karat white gold bracelet with 2 k diamonds. It is gorgeous. We also won somethings in the silent auction as well and all the money goes to a good cause.

Four months on Medi-Weightloss program and 38 pounds lost, I really enjoyed the way I felt in my dress and I did not feel guilty enjoying a little chocolate and wine. My strategy now is to go back on protein only for a couple of days and see what happens at my weigh-in on Tuesday. I'm not expecting anything big but I do not expect to have gained. The chocolate definitely kicked me out of ketosis and that is why I want to just do protein to get back into ketosis.