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.
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