miscellany...

Turns out that my DAD and I have the same metabolic age! Age 64. I'm 49 and he's 79! He has always been an outdoorsman and active; Bo takes after him. My mom's metabolic age is 14 years higher than her chronological age. I take after her.

Well, I turtled on week two. That is the term they use in TOPS when you don't lose any weight from one week to the next. (Why that term? I have no idea!) You remember that I lost 7 pounds the first week, so wasn't expecting the same results the second week. Toss in the half-marathon with the carbo-loading, and well, the scale didn't change. Still...two weeks, seven pounds is nothing to sneeze at. I visit Bo in a couple days to see what the change in my body composition looks like.

My pants are looser. In fact, that American Idol song "Pants on 'da ground, pants on da ground, lookin' mighty silly with your pants on 'da ground" keeps going through my head.

The tape measure shows that I have lost an inch around my waist. I'm always a little bit suspect of the tape measure readings because I am so "doughy" that it is hard to get the same measurement twice. But, looser pants tell the same story, so I'm hopeful.

Feelin' my metabolic age

My husband and I walked a half-marathon together this morning, and I'm feeling mighty sore. According to the Tanita scale print-out, my metabolic age is 64...and I feel every bit that, and more. In reality I'm 49...but a 49 year old with the body type of a 64 year old. (Another health screening I had recently said that my heart age is 42, so I'm not too worried.) I looked up the 'metabolic age' on the Tanita website, and basically it shows the age they would expect someone with my readings (bodyfat, muscle mass, etc.) to be, based on the many, many measurements they have made over the years.

Aside from the soreness, I feel pretty good, and felt good throughout the race. I stuck to the Empower food plan until yesterday when I "carb loaded" with brown rice, as per Bo's advice. This morning, I started with oatmeal (still following Bo's instruction), but had a bagel at the beginning and end of the race route. During the race, I had water every time they offered it and, also "Cytomax", the sports drink of the Rock and Roll Marathon...oh, and a half a cliff bar.

Now its back to the plan. I wonder what impact this event will have on my weight loss this week...or on my Tanita scale readings later this week?

Changing tastes...hmmm....

Funny thing, taste. Something I didn't much care for last week tasted great today.

I've been on the Empower Food for 11 days now. As Bo says, "all are nutritious; some are more delicious than others". I had the Vegetarian Chickn Fajita for lunch today and, I am happy to report, I have upgraded it to 4 stars on my infamous 5 star rating system. Congratulations are in order for Vegetarian Chickn Fajita! Take a bow!

I find the best way to prepare the 'just add water' lunch meals is to add water (go figure) from the hot water tap on the coffee pot at work, stir, put a lid on it, and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. It seems to turn out better than trying to heat it up in the microwave. I add a little more water than it calls for, and it turns out well.

I also zapped the chocolate chip cookie for a few seconds in the microwave to heat it up. Yummy!

Has anyone come up with creative ways to prepare or serve any of the Empower Foods?

Edited to add: I can't believe I forgot to write about my breakfast creation! I made an iced coffee...with the vanilla shake mix, coffee and ice. It was very, very good. 5 stars, in fact. I just went to make one for my snack tonight, but alas, I have no more vanilla shakes until I visit Bo in another week. So sad.

Medical Weight Loss Center Programs

Here are some of the specifics of the program - the cost and what's included (as of June 2010 - these may be introductory prices, but it gives you an idea):

The Programs include:
Empower Food (you will need to supplement with veggies and protein at dinner and a salad at lunch)
Weekly group support session
Weekly Body Composition & Analysis (at your group support session)
Exercise Programs

Individual support sessions are available upon request ($25 for 1/2 hour session)

Costs:
Initial Consultation
$29 - Sign up with a support partner and both receive 10% off your first week.

Induction Weight Loss Program (Until 85% of weightloss goal is achieved) - 5 meals/snacks per day
$74 per week if you buy a 4 week package ($296)
$87.50 per week, without the package

Essential Weight Loss Program (Until 100% of weightloss goal is achieved) - 4 meals/snacks per day
$70 per week if you buy a 4 week package ($280)
$84 per week, without the package

Lifestyle Maintenance Program - 3 meals/snack per day plus maintenance menus
$62.50 per week

Weekly support groups
Monday - 12-1 or 7-8
Tuesday 5:30 - 6:30


In terms of cost, it is comparable to a NutriSystem or a Jenny Craig...but you get Bo, which is priceless! I find I don't spend a lot on the food that I use to supplement the meals...a few bags of salad/spinach and some frozen chicken breasts.

Half marathon advice

Here's what I got from Bo regarding how I should change the diet for the half-marathon I will be walking this weekend.

"Here are a couple of ideas:

Dinner options-- (the night before)
Rice and chicken w/veggies
Pasta with marinara sauce

Breakfast options--(the morning of)
1/2 whole-grain bagel with natural peanut butter and a banana
Bowl of oatmeal and piece of fruit- still having your protein by cooked egg whites on the side or mixing a little bit of vanilla protein powder in the oatmeal.

During your walk-
cliff bar
energy gel packs
LOTS OF WATER or sports drinks



BTW, are you taking a multi-vitamin? You should be. Also with your weight loss last week I'm worried about your electrolyte balance. make sure you salt your dinner and it would be a good idea to supplement 200 mg OTC potassium & magnesium during Induction. OTC usually come in 99 mg so do one in the morning and one in the evening. "

Results! week one down 7 pounds

SEVEN pounds! In 7 days.

(Bo isn't as concerned with pounds as she is with the other readings that she gets from the Tanita scale: visceral fat, percentage of body fat, etc. Most people will get a weekly readout when they go in for their consultation, but I live three hours away...and pounds are the only thing I can measure on my bathroom scale.)

On Bo's Tanita scale, at 11:30 in the morning, fully clothed, my beginning weight was 192.7 after she adjusted for the weight of my clothes. The morning I started the diet, my bathroom scale showed 191.5. This morning it showed 184. That's 7+ pounds!

To be fair, 5 of those pounds were ones that I had gained over a vacation last month. I find that pounds that go ON quickly over a short period of time also come OFF quickly when you put your mind to it. So I'm kind of discounting the first 5 pounds. I would not expect next week to have such a marked loss.

So my questions for Bo: Are 7 pounds OK? Is it too fast?

Wow, what a weekend!

It has been a wonderful weekend, with amazing wedding festivities. Congratulations to Luke Dunnivan and Katie Graves. May God bless you with a long life together...and as the father of the bride said in his toast, "May your greatest dreams be the least you receive".

More good news on the diet front. Due to planning ahead, I was able to enjoy the meals at all the festivities and still be faithful to the diet.

For the co-worker's birthday lunch, we went to Mexican. I had a Chicken Taco salad, no sour cream. I forgot to ask for no guacamole, but was able to push it over to the side.

That night at the wedding rehearsal, I had baked salmon, caprese salad, ceasar salad, and a little chicken. I skipped the wild rice and bread. There was cheesecake for dessert(!)...but I pulled out a pack of Proticinno and mixed it up in my water glass. The creamy, chocolaty mocha was a perfect substitute.

Wedding reception. I had both a Proticinno and a Rocky Road protein bar in my purse, just in case the meal was all pasta. Fortunately, there were plenty of good choices. I had spinach salad, lots of asparagus, and a chicken breast. I passed by the rolls, potatoes, and the fresh fruit. (Fruit probably would not have been a deal breaker, but it's not on the list). When the cake came around, I pulled out my Rocky Road protein bar and had it.

Since I wore a dress to the wedding, I didn't have a waistband to clip my pedometer to count my steps. I clipped it to the waistband of my pantyhose and hoped that all the movement on the dance floor was counting as steps. Sure enough, when I got home and could actually look at it, I had almost 11,000 steps! Must have been the Macarena and Electric Slide that put it over. :)

Tough day tomorrow

Tomorrow I have a couple of diet challenges...a co-worker's birthday lunch at a Mexican restaurant PLUS a catered rehearsal dinner in the evening. I called Bo for HELP!!! She helped me think about planning ahead. I will have a salad at the Mexican place. I checked on the menu for dinner and I think a bit of salmon and salad will be a good choice.

Today went pretty well. No cheats, but I was hungry, hungry, hungry. On the positive side, it kind of...maybe...feels like my face is thinner. Maybe not to look at it, but my skin feels tighter on my face. It's a good thing.

In 9 days I will be walking a half marathon, so I'll need to check with Bo on the eating plan for the days leading up to it.

Today I had: Honey Nut Soy O's cereal (4 stars), Rocky Road bar (5 stars), Chicken noodle soup (4 stars), Cheddar double bites (4 stars), and the PB&J bar (4 stars).

Food rating system

Bo wants some feedback on the food she provides as part of the weightloss program. I've come up with the following scale - from one to five stars:

Five Stars - Excellent. I'm cravin' it!
Four Stars - Not too bad. I wouldn't mind eating it again.
Three Stars - Tastes OK, but I'd rather be eating something else.
Two Stars - I didn't gag, but it's not very good.
One Star - Please, please don't make me eat that again.

So far -
Five Stars - Proticinno - the chocolatey mocha drink is to die for!
Four Stars - The oatmeal snack bar, the chocolate mint snack bar, the smoothy drinks, the pancakes (although we need to find an acceptable topping), the cinnamon chocolate crisps, the fruit drink.
Three Stars - Vegetarian Chick'n Fajita, Cheesesteak Pasta, Chocolate chip cookie.
Two Stars - Vegetable Beef Pasta
One Star - Bacon cheddar powdered eggs.

More ancient history

What a hoot! I found some old records I kept of various diet attempts over the years. They range from 1995 to 2006.

In 1995, we had an exercise bike in Alaska and I was pretty diligent from January to May of that year. It was also the first year that I started noticing occasional heart palpitations, so I had a column in my exercise log about whether or not I had a heart palpitation that day. Looks like I went from 175 to 163 lbs during that time. I think I read Susan Powter's book and got inspired.

By July 1998, after having moved and gained the expected 10 plus pounds I was at 179, although I think that is down from a few months earlier. I read Protein Power around this time and had a good few months on that program.

In Fall 2000, my husband and I both started on a low-carb plan. I also discovered "Oxycise", a breathing/exercise regime that I followed through May or June 2001. Between the oxycise and the low-carb, I got down to a size 12 for a brief shining moment. It is the lowest and smallest I've been in the last 10 years. If I reach my current "by age 50" goal, I'll be about a size 12 again. (I'm size 16/18 now).

I did Jenny Craig from February - June 2006 and went from 200 to 180 pounds. I've been bopping around that 20 pound range ever since.

My usual mode is to start a diet at the first of the year and carry it on successfully through lent. After Easter, things seem to go downhill. It will be interesting to see how this process will go, since I'm starting the diet during the time of year that I usually gain the most weight.

Some background

Thought I'd give you some background on my diet history over the years to give some context to this effort.

Short story is that I just never outgrew my baby fat! But those rolls of fat on the thighs do not look quite so cute once you are out of diapers. Okay, okay, it is not quite that bad, but the truth is that I have struggled with weight my whole life.

I was a chunky kid. Not real fat, but chunky. I slimmed down in my teens, but was always 'fluffy' or 'doughy' or, as my brother used to say, 'like a marshmallow'. I gained 20 pounds or so the year I was an exchange student in Australia (whole milk with cream to blame), lost it, and gained it back my freshman year of college. Lost it with the Scarsdale diet between my freshman and sophomore years.

I maintained my weight pretty well through the rest of college, wedding, and the couple of years before my first pregnancy at age 24. I lost most, but not all, of the pregnancy weight during the 11 months of nursing my daughter, but got pregnant again before the weight was all gone. While nursing my son, I was in a diet group at church called "Diet, Discipline, and Discipleship" (based on the American Diabetic Diet). Lost much, but not all of the weight before we moved.

We moved a lot during my twenties, and it seemed that each time we moved, I would immediately gain 10 - 20 pounds. Probably from the disruption in schedule and new foods to try at new places. When the kids were pre-schoolers, I went to Weight Watchers. My weight at my first weigh in was about 35 pounds above my 'baseline' college age weight, and I was turning 30. I lost maybe 15 pounds on Weight Watchers before we moved to Sitka, Alaska.

I don't remember being on any particular structured diets in Sitka (although there were many attempts at dieting on my own), and by the time we moved again 4 1/2 years later I was up to 50 pounds above my college weight. I was 35.

June 14 - Go!

Day 1.

So far, so good. No cheats. Did my walking. Didn't eat at the computer, but got a funny look from my boss for leaving my desk to eat my morning oatmeal bar snack.

For breakfast, I had pancakes. Pancakes. That's all. No topping, no butter, just pancakes. I figured they were like bread, so I let them cool and then ate them in the car on the way to work. Ill have to look into options for toppings.

For 1st snack I had an oatmeal bar. It was good, but needed coffee, since it was pretty sweet. I had about a quarter cup of coffee - black - with it.

Lunch was Vegetarian Chickn' Fajita. I'm not sure what it was supposed to look like. I guesstimated the 7 oz of hot water and it turned out like thick soup. Since it had mexican flavorings, I put it on top of my lettuce salad, to make a taco salad kind of thing. Not bad, on the salad, but by itself, the look of it could be off-putting. Lumpy taupe with corn and beans.

The Proticinno was excellent! It is a mocha type drink. It really hit the spot in the middle of the afternoon.

More later.

June 13 - Ready, set....

June 13, 2010
Well, I’m getting ready to start the diet tomorrow. I’ve packed up my lunch packet (chik-fajita), my snack packets (an oatmeal bar and a protoccino drink), my salad, and I have picked out pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes. The food looked awfully small. Of course, there is the salad. I bought a bag of cut up lettuce at Costco and threw in some mushrooms and a few cherry tomatoes. I don’t have any of the zero-everything salad dressings that are allowed, so I put in some minced garlic and herbs and mixed it all up in a big baggie. It should taste good. I often take a salad for lunch, so this won’t be much different.

June 12 - Family get-together...it all starts

June 12, 2010
Today, I was at my sister’s house for a family get-together. She lives about three hours away, so I don’t get to see her very often. She’s always been interested in nutrition and exercise, and in spreading the word about healthy living. She is starting a weightloss coaching/consulting business in a local doctor’s office. She took some of us down to see it. She has a Tanita scale. It is very cool. You step on it, barefoot, and it measures, not only weight, but a LOT of other things as well, such as % muscle mass, % body fat, the amount of visceral fat (the fat that is packed around other organs in the gut), your metabolic rate and your metabolic age. I won’t share with you my body fat percentage, but let’s just say, there is a good reason that I float very well in the pool! And my metabolic age is 64. I am really 49, so that is a big difference.

I told her that she needed a success story, so we took some before pictures. (I have a lifetime of “before” pictures…but not too many “after” ones.) She gave me a questionnaire about my health and eating/dieting habits, and she set me up on the “induction” food plan. In this plan, I eat pre-packaged food for breakfast, lunch, and three snacks, and I eat lean-protein and veggies for dinner. The lunch also has you add in veggies. And, of course, I will be drinking lots of water.

We also set a behavior and exercise plan. I am keeping it simple. Two rules: 1) I am not allowed to eat while at the computer and 2) I have to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. Both of these will require a change in my behavior and, in conjunction with the food plan, should get my weight on a downward trend.

At first, I said that I wanted to try it for a set period of time, like four months, to see how it went. (I can usually stick to a diet for four months without much trouble.) Then we realized that my 50th birthday is just a couple weeks more than four months away, so I decided that I would extend the commitment until then.