A New Way of Life

It's a good news/bad news kind of day. Well, good news - Lost 13.5 pounds! Yeah. Bad news - got kicked off the program. :( Yeah, quite a shocker for me too, especially since I only had to lose a required 4 lbs. But they are sticklers for adhering to only the liquid diet (no alterations). People I assure you if you are adhering to a 1,000 calories - your ass better be losing more than 4 lbs. (in 2 weeks) or you are lying. Which brings me to what got me kicked off the program. You have to keep a food diary of everything you consume. Please understand, I have always been a pretty honest person and I was taught to accept my consequences. Let's back track just a little more, shall we. Sunday morning I had a breakdown. Crying. Feeling generally crappy. And then wiped the tears and began my day. But in the back of my mind I knew there was a crack. It was going to happen today. The rest of my day was filled with coffee and shakes (which were getting considerably ...

Today, here...I write my culinary confession.  I did not stray.  I may have wanted to on more than one occasion, but I didn't.  I was not feeling well on Friday, that was the day when I actually didn't want to eat at all.  I had to force the shakes down.  Sunday was probably the hardest.  With only 3.5 hours sleep, as soon as the Saint's game started.  The commercials were so intense.  Subway, Sonic, Chill's...evil. Next Monday is my 7:30 am appointment.  Weigh-in, blood, and measure me like a thanksgiving turkey. So what have I learned this week; I am weaker when I don't get enough sleep. I am weaker when it's "that time." Lunch time walks are a way to clear the head. I prefer my shakes shaken, not blended. I prefer Chocolate with peppermint, (the soup - doctored up with dried scallops, dried chives, and 1/4 tsp of bacon salt - yes, dear heaven - there is something in the world called "bacon salt"), then Vanilla with coconut, Stra...

Unusual day.  I was scheduled for a Treadmill Myocardial Perfusion Stress Test; let me elaborate.  I was hooked up to an IV, shot up with radioactive isotopes (yeah), made to wait 45 minutes, laid out on a bed that looked kind of like an MRI, 12 minutes for pictures to watch my little isotopes running around.  Then head over to the treadmill where I had to keep my target heart rate up for six minutes (wheezing, panting, and wishing for Armageddon) they shoot you up with more isotopes while your moving and make you go one more minutes. Done, you go back to the waiting room (at this point I finally get my "breakfast"), I mix two packages of chocolate with water and coconut flavoring and a sprinkle of Stevia (ok, not bad).  After another 45 minutes I head back to the table and get 12 more minutes of pictures.  All done, remove IV, walk me to the door.  Total time - 4 hours. (sigh) The rest of the day was filled with moments of "oh yeah you can't have that"...

October 31, 2013 On Friday, November 1st at 6:30 am, I made my way to Pennington Biomedical Research Center.  It was dark as I arrived. I signed in and made my way to the waiting room.  At 7:07 (never has a medical facility been so timely) I made my way to one of the back screening rooms.  The next four and a half hours consisted of being weighed (314.8 lbs, it looked better in kg.), measure, physical exams from head to toe, mental evaluations, lab work, (pee and blood), verbal question, after verbal question, and a walk from one side of a hall way to the other (10 laps around the cones).    I was sent home with 5 boxes of liquid diet (2-chocolate, 1-vanilla, 1-strawberry, and 1-potato soup) that's a total of two weeks, the exact amount of time until my next appointment (EXPLICIT instructions).  DO NOT start the diet before I am contacted by PBRC.  DO NOT consume more or less than 5 packets a day.  And I MUST keep a food journal of ev...