56 days in

Let's just say my commitment to the program has been better than my commitment to blogging.
I'm 56 days into the 84 days of living exclusively on OptiFast 900. That's 2/3rds complete. It's been remarkable to see the shift from day 1. In the beginning I was worried about staying on the OptiFast. Now, on day 56, my worries are about re-introducing food.
The 2nd week of PMS was as brutal as the first. It's a struggle to stay on program and it's frustrating to GAIN WEIGHT on 900 calories a day. But it's educational to learn that if I hold true to being healthy even when it's hard, even when the results aren't there, at least I don't go backwards (much). I can hold within a pound or two and that might be the best it will ever be.
My cheats have been tiny and insignificant. There was a slice of fresh carrot and a lick of stuffing during Thanksgiving. The odd lick of a finger when making the kids food - almost always mindless. I chewed on a piece of ham and spit it out. There was a day when I started on tiny pieces of roast but I stopped pretty quickly. That's over 56 days! I'm pretty impressed with myself.

The worries of eating

There is an ease and convenience to the liquid diet. The lack of choice - for me there's not even a flavour option - just makes it simple. I grab a package for every meal I'll miss. Take a shaker. I know now that bottled water and ice are easily available at Subway, both my work spaces and (I've heard) McDonald's.
My sense is that I'm going to miss the simple packing and preparation when I return to real food. The return of stress of making the right choice and the work of creating food that's appropriate will both hit at the same time.
The Partners for Healthier Weight program spends the next few weeks talking about nutrition. It's exciting to have the opportunity to study the value of food and understand nutrition.
I wish I could embrace the counselling aspects of the program as well as the nutrition education. There is value in the counselling. My challenge is the willingness to work as it's needed. Some of it is just hard for me. Journaling makes me uncomfortable.  The concept of building my support systems makes me value my friends even more and greatly appreciate their loyalty.

Lesson 1: What you control

Choosing to participate in 12-weeks of a medically supervised liquid diet teaches you a few unexpected lessons. The one that hits home right now is:

1. you control what you control and nothing else.

Remember just a few days ago when I was worried over my weight loss?  It wasn't much worth worrying about. Because I'm certainly not worried about my weight gain.  Yes, you read that right, my weight gain.  I'm back up 2lbs.

Just so you know, I'm 100% faithful to the program to date. Not a morsel, calorie free or not, has passed my lips.  My water intake fluctuates between three and five litres a day. So on 900 calories of a perfectly balanced meal replacement, my body can still gain weight.

Oddly, I'm not worried or frustrated.  It's a relief.  It's never seemed believable that hormones and water might make me gain weight. Weight can be gained even if I'm on track for balanced calorie appropriate meals and exercise!  I have proof.  I can only control what I can control.

Next I need to take that discovery and turn it into action.  The number of pounds I weigh on any day is just a number.  It can help me know when the trend is going the wrong direction.  But what's really going to matter is:

1.  making good choices as often as I can, and 
2. not getting demoralized.

The number is just a number. It's a solution to an algorithm with too many unknown variables to calculate. It's as opaque to me as calculus. So I'll focus on what is clear.  How I:

1. fuel my body, and
2. how I use my body. 

Should I be worried the weight is coming off too fast?

It doesn't seem possible, but it's true.  Today it took a calendar to figure out how far into the Partners for a Healthier Weight program I am.  Nineteen days on the program, 12 days on the liquid diet.  That's 7% done the liquid only phase.

This may come back to haunt me, but right now, it's not that hard.  There's a lot of stress involved in deciding what to eat, when to eat, when to prepare the food.  Opening up a package of powder and mixing it with ice and water is easy.  And knowing there's no decisions is eliminating a lot of the worry that goes into my normal eating habits.

What have I noticed after nineteen days?

Most of my pants are too big.  Unusual for me, but my bra size is holding steady.  The inches seem to be coming off my butt, thighs, hips and the area you work out as the obliques.  Spanx are still exercise to put on.  The stubborn above the belly button fat that usually shrinks with diet and exercise isn't budging.

I am tired.  There's a bit of brain fog.  It's difficult doing exercise that used to be easy.  My 2x10&1 run was a flop on Sunday.  Today walking to the car seemed like an effort.

Oh yes, and it's not easy to get blood work done in the HRM during the afternoon.

To me, my weight is coming off a bit too quickly. I am concerned that I'm losing muscle mass.  Including the time on 1200 calories and OptiFast 900, it's been about 12 lbs lost in 19 days.  My exercise is scaled back already and I'm following the plan exactly, so I notified the team in Halifax about my concerns.  Sounds like they'll have questions next time they see me. But they're not worried.

Next steps:

1. Wake up every morning and stay on plan for the day.
2. Make sure the team is ok with the weight loss.
3. As my current exercise program ends, replace it with one focused on building muscle probably at the Sackville Sports Stadium.

What is Partners for a Healthier Weight?

To quote some of their welcome package, Partners for a Healthier Weight is a "medically and psychologically supervised" program that "uses a meal replacement called Optifast which provides 900 calories per day.  The meal replacement is 12 weeks in duration and is followed by a 6 week transition to food.  Regular physician/nurse assessments and blood work are all a mandatory part of the medical monitoring.


The meal replacement will certainly help you lose weight; however it is the weekly facilitator-guided sessions that are essential to your long-term success!"

Before the program starts there needs to be a referral from your family doctor, an initial fasting blood work, and an extended online survey.  The results from the blood work and survey are the basis for the meetings with the nurse, dietician, and psychologist.  They all assess you for your likely success, review the survey and have some questions of their own.  Plus there's a bit of a physical with the nurse.

Week 1 was a welcome and introduction where the nurse, dietician, psychologist and physiotherapist are all present.  Because of the pre-work I'd already met the nurse, dietician and psychologist.  There was a meet and greet to get to know some of the other participants.  Once we'd done the meet and greet the group was divided in half with half starting with a walk test and half starting with weighs and measures.

The weighs and measures were much what you'd expect.  Waist measurement, a body comp analysis and an extended blood pressure test.  I've forgotten the waist measure and blood pressure, but I have the Tanita Body Composition Analyzer TBF-310 results.

Height 5'5"
Weight 226.0
BMI 37.6
Impedance 422
Fat % 45.8
Fat Mass 103.5 lbs
FFM 122.5 lbs

The walk test was a bit of a surprise to me.  They suggested comfortable clothes and sneakers.  It turned out to be the 10 M Shuttle Walk Test.  I was kicked out at level 11 for not making the time.  After it was over I regretted not wearing my sports bra - it was nearing a full out run for me.  Unfortunately my course was shared with another who went even farther than I did.  I probably went out because of the pressure on my back and hip of always having to turn left and the dizziness.  Wish it could be done again and there would be an option to turn left or right on demand!

Most of the rest of the night was caught up in signing away waivers, quick talks and getting an intro to week 1.

Week 1 was a 1200 calorie diet with a strict measure of tracking.  Each day there were:

• 5 70 cal servings of grains and starches (only 2 could be bread, corn, potato, turnip, squash)
• 3-4 65 cal servings of fruit
• unlimited vegetables
• 2-3 90 cal servings of milk or alternatives (milk, yogurt)
• 6-7 75 cal servings of meat or alternatives (1 oz) includes cheese, eggs, peanut butter, legumes
• 3 45 cal servings of fats
• 2-4 condiment servings of 20 cal

The first few days I struggled to get to 1200 calories.  I was out and about and didn't have the reference with me.  By the end of the weekend, knowing it was your last time in a long time to chew food, it was really hard to stick to the program.  There is a cupcake splurge I must admit to being the lone participant in.  There were also many of my favorite healthier foods - spinach, corn, raspberries, and apples.

The first week had a high level of anxiety for me.  The idea of not eating was just so far out of my realm of possibility it was stressful.  There were nightmares and random feelings of being completely overwhelmed.

It's actually been less challenging to be on the liquid diet than to think about being on the liquid diet.

Partners for a Healthier Weight - Day 9

More details to come later on the Partners for a Healthier Weight Program.  But I wanted to share that I am enrolled and doing my homework.

What that means today is that I`ve just finished day two of 84 days on a liquid diet of 900 calories.  That means only 328 (of 336) more drinks to go.  And then, presumably, I get to crunch something.

The liquid product is surprisingly disgusting.  The OptiFast 900 in Canada is only available in vanilla and chocolate.  Both flavours taste vaguely like cake batter.  Cold seems to improve the taste some.  Made with ice in a blender and using a straw to minimize time on the tongue works best for me.  I`ve also gone well past the recommended amount of water to dilute the taste.  Both flavours of OptiFast 900 taste better when I`m hungry - but with four packets a day - I`ve only been hungry when out longer than I expected.  (Wishing for other flavours or chewing, but not actually hungry).

Odd side effects have been minimal.  Behaviour changes are a bit surprising.  I`m brushing my teeth constantly. Not certain if that`s to rid my mouth of the flavour or because the toothpaste introduces another taste.  The dry(er) mouth is noticeable, but not problematic.  My lips have also dried out so there`s an increase usage of lip balm.

My early speculation is that the nasty taste for me - and the almost gagging response to the last few mouthfuls - is not dissimilar to how I feel about many proteins (especially powdered), bananas and yogurt.  Might explain the low iron that`s plagued me through life.

As for the running, it`s still going.  I finished the learn to run clinic with a slow 3k.  This week I got in a couple of 10 & 1s on Sunday, Thursday and Friday.  Thursday was about 2.7 in 24 minutes, Friday was 2.5k in the same 24 minutes or so.  Not fast... but still moving.

Recipe: Homemade Fudgesicle

My girls have been eating too much junk.  The end result is they're begging for more.  To beat the requests for freezies, I decided to try making my own fudgie ice cream snacks.  

Banana Fudgesicle

Ingredients

• 3 VERY ripe bananas
• 1/4 c chocolate chips
• 2 T low fat peanut butter

Instructions

1. Barely melt chocolate chips
2. Stir peanut butter into melted chocolate
3. Use food processor, Magic Bullet or blender to mix all 3 ingredients.
4. Use cooking spray on popsicle forms
5. Pour mix into popsicle forms
6. Freeze for 4+ hours
7. Eat!

This treat was very rich.  Next time I'll make it with less peanut butter and chocolate.  Might try replacing chocolate with cocoa.  I'm sure you could make it without the peanut butter for those who need to avoid nuts.

Really enjoyed the one I tried tonight.  Way more than this guy enjoyed his Nonfat Milk, Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali) (Adds A Trivial Amount Of Fat), Modified Food Starch, Soy Protein Isolate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Mono and Diglycerides (Adds A Trivial Amount Of Fat), Cellulose Gum, Guar Gum, Polysorbate 65 & Polysorbate 80, Carrageenan, Salt, Natural Flavor and Artificial Flavor treat.

But it's worth noting that it was probably a shortage of water that has me craving the sweets. These seem like a much better choice then the chocolate chip cookies I wanted to make!

Photo courtesy of Ian Hoar

Fiber 1 Chocolate Peanut Butter Haystacks recipe

Craving a snack tonight and it had to be sweet. It's been a day of heavy exposure to sweets and goodies, but no eating. Tomorrow there's going to be cake, but today was just the torture of baking.

Fiber 1 Chocolate Peanut Butter Haystacks
Ingredients

• 1/2 c chocolate chips
  
• 1/2 c low fat peanut butter
  
• 1 T cocoa powder
  
• 1 c Fiber 1 original cereal
  
• 1/4 c coconut
  

Instructions

1. Mix Fiber 1 and coconut. In larger bowl.
   
2. In a microwave safe bowl, warm chocolate chips in microwave (about 1 minute).
   
3. Add peanut butter to soft chocolate chips and microwave (about 1 minute).
   
4. Stir in cocoa.
   
5. Add chocolate and peanut butter to cereal mix. Stir until coated. If the mix is a bit wet, add more cereal.
   
6. Place on cookie sheet or similar in 12 small piles.
   
7. Refrigerate about 2 hours.
   
8. Eat!
   

Really enjoyed the one I tried tonight. But it's worth noting that it was probably a shortage of water that has me craving the sweets. These seem like a much better choice then the chocolate chip cookies I wanted to make!

Eating right instead of eating wrong

Eating right is a struggle for me.

Mary tweeted about grocery shopping everyday. She reminded me how far I've come. Not that many years ago I walked through a grocery store to get home everyday. My habit was to pick up supper and my 'snack' for the night. Usually large chips & dip, cookies, Smartfood, chocolate, or my favorite - cheesies. I often ate a large bag of cheesies in one night. Or two. But never three.

When Mary tweeted? My first thought was - wouldn't that be great - fresh fish every night. Quick access to fruit when you run out. Salads just waiting to be picked up. That was a great reminder of how far I've come.

But within a few minutes I knew that today I'd still much rather open a giant bag of cheesies then make a salad. It's hard to understand. The cheesies taste yucky. I feel yucky when I eat them. There's even an eating hangover where my body is dragging for eating them.

So I do the easiest thing possible. I don't buy cheesies. If they get left at my house after a party? They've been known to be opened and DUMPED IN THE GARBAGE. (Or dropped in a food bank box).

But removing the nasty food from the house is just creating a new bad behaviour. Lynn at Life Health Fitness called it Disordered Eating. Mine is less severe. I don't purge. But I do binge. There's a need to keep eating when I'm:

• tired
  
• bored
  
• angry
  
• alone or
  
• with others
  

Sometimes I eat til I feel ill. I eat past the food tasting good. I eat when it makes me uncomfortable.

This behaviour? With the food hangovers, the yuck-factor? Gets in the way of my return to running. Slows me down. Makes me feel bad.

I'm going to beat it.

Eight years later, I can say that even if I lived IN a grocery store there will be no return to the daily intake of chips, chocolate or pop. That's a lifestyle change I've made.

And I'm keeping it.

Veggies gone wild!

The challenge for April was about upping the veggie intake, but now the challenge got bigger. I've signed up for a program at the gym. It was supposed to be just a workout program, or so I thought.

But it's everything. And I'm now eating the Canadian Food Guide. For me that means:

• Vegetables & Fruit - 7 to 8 servings
  
• Grain Products - 6 to 7 servings
  
• Milk & Alternatives - 2 servings
  
• Meat & Alternatives - 2 servings
  

7 to 8 servings seems crazy. But I've mostly gotten it in since Saturday. Pretty proud of that. A little heavy on the fruit, but still, much better then my usual day. I'm ready for something to work for me. The trainer I'm working with lost 100lbs using the Canada Food Guide and exercise. This is the something to help me smash though the 220lb range down to below 210lbs. Think how much easier running will be when there's 10lbs gone!

Next I need to fill you in on how much water he has me drinking.

OK2010A! Challenge #4 - Increasing veggies

Operation Kick 2010's Ass is commencing part IV.
Another month, another challenge. Are you ready?

This time we're back to a nutritional challenge. For the month of April your task is to eat two full servings of vegetables.

This is less than half of the recommended servings of vegetables each day. Two is better than none Two is nearly halfway to where you need to be.

Examples of one serving of vegetables:
five broccoli florets
ten baby carrots
one roma tomato
3/4 cup tomato juice
half of a baked sweet potato
one ear of corn
four slices of an onion
1 cup leafy greens

Potato does not count!

Here's a list of some interesting veggies. They can be canned, fresh or frozen.
http://cookery.newarchaeology.com/vegetables.php

Some suggestions for working your veggies in:
1. Soup with cabbage, spinach, carrots & celery something like the one I made but didn't eat
2. Spinach salad topped with strawberries, oranges & nuts
3. Roast cauliflower mashed half & half with boiled potato
4. Baked sweet potato done french fry style
5. Bake salmon with fennel and tomato.
6. Frozen stir fry veg with some soya sauce, oil, garlic, brown sugar or honey
7. Veggie fajitas
8. Roast root veggies and use on salad, quesadilla with feta, or on pasta with cream sauce
9. Caesar salad
10. Ants on a log

Hope you're in! Don't forget you're still working on
1. 30 min of activity a day
2. tracking food
3. squats challenge

Singapore Noodles Recipe

A go-to meal for me and the husband. Add in wonton soup and dumplings and sauce for the kids and it's a take-out cooked at home.

Singapore Noodles
Ingredients

• 1 T sesame oil
  
• 1 T peanut or canola or vegetable oil
  
• 4-6 tsp minced garlic
  
• 2 T slivered fresh ginger
  
  
• 1 cup cooked match stick sliced protein of choice (chicken, pork, egg white)
  
• 1 slivered onion
  
• 1 slivered green pepper
  
• 1 slivered red pepper
  
• 2-3 carrots turned into strips with peeler
  
• 1 sm zucchini turned into strips with peeler
  
• add other veggies as desired peas, beans, green onions, etc
  
  
• 1/4 cup oyster sauce
  
• 3 T curry powder
  
• 2 tsp soy sauce
  
  
• package of rice vermicelli
  
• boiling water
  

Instructions

1. Heat cooking oil in wok. Cook garlic, ginger and onion until tender.
   
2. Start water boiling.
   
3. Stir fry protein until hot. Add veggies as desired and cooked to desired tenderness.
   
4. Make sauce with oyster sauce, curry powder, soy sauce. Add to veggies and protein.
   
5. Follow directions for rice vermicelli. Add cooked vermicelli to wok with sauce and protein. Stir.
   
6. Sit back and enjoy!
   

Would spaghetti squash noodles work instead of rice noodles? Let me know if you try it.

Slow Cooker Challenge

Taking on more than reasonable seems to be my regular plan. School, sick kids, running and the gym keep me pretty busy. But a desire to be a real 'blogger' had me jumping up yelling, "Pick me! Pick me!" when Ali of Fat to Fit was looking for volunteers for the Health Slow Cooker Challenge. (She even has a pretty image that I don't know how to include.)

I did it! I did! My day was Sunday and I cranked up the crockpot just after midnight with my oatmeal for breakfast. But my excuses are almost as good for exercise as they are for blogging. It's almost the end of Wednesday and I'm just writing it up now.

So breakfast was a grand success. Inspired by Steve Dinn's success at losing 101 lbs in less than a year I have followed his breakfast habit of steel cut oats.




Guess what? Steel cut oats are even better in the crockpot. I threw in a cup of PC steel cut oats and 3 1/2 cups of water and let it go all night. In the morning I dressed it up with a bit of sweetened cocoa and milk. Delicious!

Following that success I tackled an evening meal. I made my famous refrigerator soup. The recipe has many steps. Enough to write them in a loop.

if fridge is not empty:
---remove item from fridge
---if item is a soup ingredient
------put item in pot
---else place item on counter


Sundays soup was the result of a full fridge. It was full of wonderful health goodness. The ingredients included:
8 cup turkey stock
1 cup diced turkey
1/2 bag of frozen thai veggies
thinly cut spinach
onion
celery
salt
pepper
roasted herbs
OXO beef package
prosciutto
left over roast veggies (onion, carrots, celery potato & sweet potato)
summer savory
bay leaves

It was delicious. From the one spoonful I ate I can tell you that.

But I'm tired. And stupid. And I make mistakes. So I tasted it. We went out for supper. I came back and FORGOT TO PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. Found it the next morning. So it's deliciousness is now hanging out in my compost. So sad.


Thank you to Ali for letting me take part in the Slow Cooker Challenge. You can find more great Slow Cooker Challenge recipes at:
One Day at a Time
Fat to Fit
La Fuji Mama
Happiness is a Journey for Janna
Shari Rocks a Lot
Embracing Balance

Eating better

Obesity Boot Camp taught me that the little things count. That I shouldn't be trying to change everything at once. That I shouldn't be focused on losing big amounts of weight over a little amount of time.

Since Canadians can't get on Biggest Loser, I kind of have to agree.

I think it was Health Psychologist Michael Vallis that spoke about a theoretical weight loss of 50lbs. That most of us would see success as losing 50lbs in 6 months and keeping it off for 5 years. According to him, long term success would look more like losing 10lbs over 3 months and keeping it off for a year. Then losing another 10lbs. Rinse and repeat until the last 9 months of year 5 you are at goal weight.

To do that? You make small changes and stick with him.

My small change last week was to drink 64oz of water everyday. To help me make it happen I've been putting a container of water (just for me) in the fridge each night to chill. (No more foot stomping and childish behaviour when the kids and husband use up all the cold water in the family pitcher).

It worked. I lost a 2.6 pounds.

This week my goal is high fibre cereal (Fibre 1 Honey Clusters) 5 mornings a week.

On Thursday I'll know if it worked.

Fibre1 Honey Clusters has the following nutritional information per 1 cup.
Calories 200
Fat 1.5g
Sodium 300g
Carb 43g (Fibre 13g)
Protein 5g

Plus it has 50% of my daily iron (something I need).

Something good to eat: Chocolate Banana Muffins

Do you love chocolate? Need something tasty and real to fill those chocolate cravings? I made up this recipe and it's not too bad.

Super Simple Chocolate Banana Muffins

3 ripe bananas (mashed)
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
1/4 cup cocoa (could use more or none at all)
1/2 cup sugar
4 T applesauce
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
chocolate chips/nuts to taste

Mix it all together. Throw batter in the greased muffin tin (or large loaf pan). Pam works great. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes. Loaf will take longer.

Tip #1: Double the recipe. Scoop the first pan of muffins with no cocoa. Add the cocoa and chocolate chips to make your second pan.


Tip #2: Do NOT overcook. They get hard and dry.


Tip #3: They freeze REALLY well.


Tip #4: I think a muffin works out to about 3 points in Weight Watchers depending on how much chocolate chips and/or nuts are added.

Tip #5: A 1/4 tsp of salt doesn't hurt them at all.

Tip #6: See comments for adding zucchini.

Logging activity: April 19, 2009

2km stroll in less than 28 minutes. Pitiful. But nice to get my heart rate up a little.
30 weeks pregnant
Slightly over 250lbs

Water challenge is going well. Week 1 complete. Stayed on track for 5 of the 7 days.
What are you doing?

Weekly goals to help get back to slow running: Water

The long term goal of this blog is to motivate me to get back to running. Since I've been mostly sedentary for about a month now, I've decided to set a simple goal each week. Hopefully all this prep will have me ready to hit my running circuit just a couple weeks after this baby arrives.

Facing down the 250lb mark again, after having been below it for 3 years might be a motivator, too. (For the record, my all time high weigh-in was 270lbs+).

This week I'm going to increase my water intake. I've fallen off the wagon in terms of healthy eating and drinking, so this is a simple step back.

Once upon a time I took a class about project management and the importance of having a plan to succeed. It's a good approach to accomplishing anything. Paraphrasing an excellent professor, a solid plan has at least:

1. A stated objective
2. The tasks required to complete the objective
3. A time frame to complete the tasks
4. A person assigned responsibility for the task
5. An estimate of required resources
6. Deliverable/Outcome

Finally there's a need to always look ahead to make sure that dependencies are accounted for and there are some contingency plans.

Drinking more water is probably more of a task, but I'll take it out a little further.

The objective:

• Drink more water

The tasks:

• Drink two cups of water before each meal & snack
• Take a travel mug of water when on the road
• Actually measure how much water goes in my standard drinking classes

The time frame:

• Drink at least 8 cups of water/day and keep it up for at least 3 weeks

Responsibility:

• That has to be me!

Required resources:

• Mug at work
• Ice cube tray at work
  

Outcome:

• A lot more time in the bathroom.
• Less last minute purchases of hot chocolate, juice, diet soda because there's no nearby cold water.
• More satisfied feeling from my meals and less likely to over eat.

The dependencies:

• Can't think of any.
  

The contingencies:

• Traveling this weekend might be a problem. I'll be sure to drag around a travel mug so I don't have to waste money and environmental resources on bottled water.
• Around the house I'll add a second jug of water to the fridge.
• Make it part of my nightly routine to fill the ice cube tray.
  

Wish me luck!
I know from experience that simple adjustments can cause big changes. I lost my first 5 lbs (in about 1999?) just by giving up Coca-Cola. Maybe this will help hold my weight for the next couple of weeks.