MediFast

This blog is to serve as my accountability partner. Get ready to know more about me than ever.

Before I start though, I do want to include a disclaimer: this whole thing is for me and my body type. I will not say anything with the intent to insult or offend anyone else. I am not going to judge anyone, and I expect you, my readers, NOT to compare yourselves to me. This is MY journey to feeling better about myself and getting healthy. You do what you gotta do to be happy and if that's nothing, then by all means, mega kudos to you! =)

Ok, down to business.

Today I started a new diet to lose 32 pounds by November. Now, before you freak out, let me explain the background story to this decision.

I am 5'4" tall and currently weigh 171 pounds. Most people say they can't tell from looking because *somehow* I carry it "well." For my own sake, I don't want to carry the extra baggage at all. It makes me tired, and it makes me feel bad about myself and by any means, we cannot have that. Not over something silly and fixable like being overweight. So here's my story and how I'm going to reverse it:

When I was in high school, I ended my sophomore year weighing 165 pounds. At that point, it was the heaviest I had ever been. So, over the summer I joined swim team and literally worked off 20 pounds over 2 months. I was so proud of myself for sticking to it and showing up to practice for 2 hours every morning before work! I even had to buy a new swimsuit because the original one was almost hanging off of me---talk about encouraging! In mid-July, I developed bronchitis (because at that point no-one had any idea that I had asthma), which turned into pneumonia and I was basically bedridden for 3 weeks. My illness dropped my weight to 128, and just in time for school to start back up.

I went back for my junior year nearly 40 pounds lighter expecting to hear "Wow, you look great!" and instead got, "Wow... are you sick? You look really skinny..." Ouch. Ok, I thought, 128 is too thin. The weird part was that I felt better than I had ever felt in my life. I was energetic, excited about being active (rather than dreading marching band rehearsals), confident, and overall positive about most things in my life.

By my senior year I had gradually gained back 12 pounds. This was a comfortable weight. 140. I wasn't AS peppy as before, but I think I looked better. My collar bone didn't stick out but I could still find my hip bones...and wear clothes from the Junior section, rather than the grown-up misses section.

Since then, I've gained over 40 pounds. I'm 24 years old and I have back fat. There's no logical reason for this.

I wanted to buy shorts for the summer... went to Kohl's and realized (rather rudely) that the only size that sort of fit me was an 18. Ridiculous. For someone who apparently looks smaller than she is, it sure is hard to find clothes that not only fit by size, but also by style.

So, in May (at 177 pounds) I joined a gym. I thought, "I'll just start working out again, get back into shape, and work off the extra weight the hard way." I even hired a trainer and met with him twice a week. I will admit, my thighs aren't AS chunky looking, but in 3 months I worked my butt off and somehow it's still there. My clothes are still tight, my scale hasn't changed since the beginning of June, and I'm just tired all the time. Working out has helped me with my activity level--I can honestly say I am capable of doing 30 straight minutes of cardio--but I want to see and feel physical results and it's just not happening.

So, now we're up to date. I started a program called MediFast today and I'm kind of excited about it. It's a medical diet program (kind of like nutrisystem) designed to boost your metabolism and help you burn off the extra fat in your body quickly, followed by a stabilization phase where they gradually introduce you back to your regular food, which is then followed by a year-long maintenance phase to be sure you'll keep the weight you lost off. They made me do lab work to make sure there isn't anything wrong with me (thyroid, glucose, diabetes, etc.) and I'll find out on Tuesday what the results were. I also have to meet with my counselor twice a week to go over my body's changes and my food journal (yes, I have to write down EVERYTHING I consume) and they will help me track my progress and keep me motivated.

They tested my body's "composition" and I found out that I have 97.7 pounds of lean body mass (that's good--probably from working out so much), 73.8 pounds of body fat mass, and included in some of both of those are 44.8 pounds of intercellular water (inside organs) and 26.6 pounds of extracellular water (skin and such).

My BMI is 29.4 and 43% of me is fat. Nearly half of me is unnecessary. So here's the plan:

I am to eat 6 meals a day--5 of them are MediFast meals, and one is a "Lean Green" meal where I can have meat and veggies. I've already had three--the Lemon Merangue bar (not so good), the Parmesean Cheese Puffs (absolutely disgusting), and a caramel nut bar (not bad compared to the first two!). I'm supposed to eat every 2-3 hours and drink 8 glasses of water each day. Eeek. I am not a big water-drinker. But, if it will help me lose this weight, I'm up for the challenge.

I have 77 days to reach my goal. I promise not to post any more novels. The first one is always the longest.

I'll leave you with a quote from my counselor:

"We look forward to seeing less of you!"