How I’ve lost 40 lbs in 79 days

I mentioned in my writing yesterday that I am on a new journey to health and wellness. The first step of that journey was to realize that I am grotesquely overweight. The second step was to seek help.

I’ve heard stories, both good and bad, about having bariatric surgery done. Many have GI issues and a few have been hospitalized from complications. But all have lost weight and have done amazing things. The majority of the people I have heard from say that no matter the troubles they have, they would never change their decision.

But with bariatric surgery there are a lot of limitations that I am just not willing to put myself under at this time. First would be the recovery time. While most get back to to normal activity between 3 to 5 weeks, I’m a stay-at-home-homeschooling mom with some very active and cuddly kids. I also don’t particularly like that all meals, for the rest of my life, must be eaten a certain way in a certain amount at a certain time, or I’ll be in trouble. GI trouble if nothing else. No, there has to be a better option for me.

Enter the Kaiser Medical Weight Management program. I actually participated in this program 4 years ago, after I had Shakespeare. It worked great! I lost about 75 lbs in about 20 weeks. But it’s expensive, all told with product purchases and program cost it is about $5,000. At about week 20, my life crashed. James lost his job and we had to make some serious cuts to our budget. The first thing to go was my diet program. Wait a few more years, complete with depression swings where I eat my feelings and having another baby, and I was all the way up to 350 lbs. That’s about 40 lbs more than I weighed when I started the program the first time through.

Knowing how well the program worked the last time, and being in a much better position financially with JimBob’s recent career move, I was excited to start the program anew. I went to the Q&A session knowing that I would be signing up. Our first class was July 2nd. I was interested to find out that at least four of my classmates were repeating the program.

So, what is this program? It’s a huge commitment.

The program alone is $2,860. But that covers so much. We meet weekly for a support group and educational class. We learn about why we eat the way we eat, what triggers our body to crave food that isn’t healthy, how to acknowledge life stressors and do something other than eat to manage them. We also learn about proper nutrition and exercise. That cost covers having blood panels drawn monthly to ensure that our bodies are still healthy, or becoming healthy. It also covers meeting with a doctor once a week to talk about how our bodies are feeling and to have any medication adjustments made. These classes alone last for 30 weeks. After the nutrition and meal replacement classes are over, we can go to support group. Technically this lasts until week 82, but you can continue to go for life.

Then there is meal replacement. This varies from person to person, but averages at about $1,845. The program is a complete meal replacement using OptiFast products: shakes, soups, and bars. It’s a nutritionally complete meal replacement and gives me all the nutrients and vitamins I need for a balanced diet. Since starting on week 2 (we sampled and ordered on week 1) I have only eaten on plan. The amount of products you eat every day is based off of your BMI. If you have a BMI between 30-40 you have 6 products a day, 40-50 you get 7, over 50 is 8. My BMI was over 50, so I have to eat 8 products a day. That is 5 shakes, 2 bars, and 1 soup for me every day. Each product is only 160 calories. That means I’m eating only 1280 calories. Every. Single. Day. On week 17 we start transitioning back to real food, taking away one meal replacement and adding in a certain amount of food. The first week, which should be October 23rd, I should be getting 4 oz of grilled chicken, and half a cup of vegetables. Mmm-mmm good. I will slowly transition, eating a certain amount of calories each day until I am fully weaned back onto real food. If I choose, I can still purchase enough to still have three meal replacements a day to help maintain or lose weight.

I’m not gonna lie, staying on program has been incredibly difficult. I miss food. When you watch TV, 75% of the commercials are about food. And about 25% of the show has the actors eating. When you go out with friends, what do they first recommend doing together? Grabbing a bite to eat. When you want to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, what do you do? Go out to dinner and have a cake. I have been tempted every single day to eat something off plan. But my will power, and desire to become healthier has paid off.

Now, I could have been losing weight at a much faster rate this time around. I’m not even close to the average weekly loss that I had last time. But last time I developed gallstones and my ALT test became high. In August, my ALT began to rise again. Early this month my doctor ordered a scan of my gallbladder and it is shown to be full of gallstones. He doesn’t want to order surgery, but instead watch the test numbers. Since then, I have practically stopped exercising as I fear my gallstones cause an obstruction. My test numbers have gone, which tells me that, while not the best option because I not only need to but I want to exercise, it has benefited my gallbladder to have me just doing the diet. On plan I am only losing about 2 lbs a week. I know that if I threw in a regular workout regime, that I would be losing 3-4 times as much. I’m still in talks with my doctor about what is best for my health. Hopefully we can figure out a way for me to exercise and figure out this gallbladder situation.

But why now? Well, I have three little kids who need me to be here in their lives. Before going on the plan again, I became diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I’m not really a fan of that diagnosis because my fasting blood sugar was only 103 mg/dL. According to Kaiser, my medical provider, the danger zone for pre-diabetes is over 99. So it could have been just something that I ate the night before affecting my sugars. But my doctor labeled me as pre-diabetic anyways. I had also read in late May a story of a 30 year old man having a heart attack and dying. Since I’m only 34 myself, that definitely shook me. My kids are so young. And they need me so much. And I plan on being around for every event in the lives. Every baseball game, gym meet, recital, graduation, and life event. I want to be there to meet my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. So why now? Because I can’t wait any longer.

It is so hard to stay on plan. But the results are worth it. In the last 13 weeks I have lost 40.9 lbs. I’m ecstatic with these results. I can’t wait to see what is in store for me in the future!

 

Om nom on, people! And be healthy!