Its Monday – I did this to myself…

Did what you ask? Well, I decided that I was going to work out 4 days this week but I skipped the weekend entirely. I have 2 days of workouts left. That means I have to work out this evening and tomorrow evening. Luckily my tennis lessons start tomorrow so that is one down. But I have to make sure I work out this evening for good measure. I really hope I can do it. I’ll keep you posted… Wish me luck :-)

Days 16 – 18

Day 16

I had a decent day. I stuck to my products and I tried to get in the right amount of water. I tried a Berry Crunch Bar today and it was good. I think I want to change my order for next week – I need more bars. I think I only have 2 on my order and I think I’d like 4 instead. I didn’t work out – I just haven’t felt up to it.

Day 17

Today was good. Slept a lot. I woke up for shakes and then laid back down. I think my workout from the other day drained me. I’m feeling the soreness in my arms and chest which is good! :-) I think I might start tracking and recording inches lost. I want to make sure that my arms are shrinking. Yeah, I know that’s random. Most people care about their waist or hips… I want more slender arms!

Day 18

One of the HARDEST days ever! My sister is having a baby so my other sister decided that we were going to have a mini celebration at pregnant sister’s house. Not pregnant sister said there would be tamales (she had to bring tamales because she found the baby Jesus in her cake on Dia de Los Reyes – google it lol) and cake. She just said cake. She didn’t specify what kind of cake so I went. I tried to stall so that they would be done with their tamales by the time I got there and they were… But the cake ended up being TWO cakes. One was a beautiful Tres Leches cake. And the second was my favorite – a large Red Velvet cake from Costco. How could they do this to me? Hm????? Lol!!! Luckily I had a chocolate shake so I inhaled it immediately and imagined it was cake. One other plus was that we were sitting outside and they moved the cakes inside and then I got immersed in great conversation and family/friends/dog time. So it turned out ok.

I got home and thought I was home free until my husband decided to cook dinner. He hasn’t really cooked this whole time – he’s been eating fast food, pizza, sandwiches, etc. But tonight he made grilled chicken and rice. It looked so good. I wanted some so bad. But I didn’t have any.

Today was a really tempting day and I am glad I made it through, if only barely.

Day 15

Today I had a Peppermint Crunch Bar. I had put it in the freezer last night like one of my friends in my group suggested. It was actually quite good. I was really shocked. It was really hard and I think my jaw got a workout but still it was good. Too bad I only got one of those. I guess I will be calling in to change my order once again. I also tried the Chicken soup. All I can say is thank God I only got two of those. I will be throwing the next one out if no one in the group wants it. I cannot believe how terrible it was! My husband was teasing me and wanted to know why exactly I picked the chicken over the tomato because in his opinion the idea of having a good tomato powder soup is less far-fetched than the idea of having a good chicken one lol. I’ve learned my lesson and will be calling on Monday to update my order.

I walked today at work. Instead of working through my breaks like I normally do, I actually walked the track a couple of times. A bit better than yesterday. :)

Day 14

It’s the two-week mark!!!! I’m so glad I have made it this far. I’m totally committed to sticking with this until the end. Today’s weigh-in was as expected. Not that much when compared to last week’s. I lost a whopping 2.2 pounds. But hey, at least it was a loss right? Anyway, it’s that time of the month so it’s ok. I hope for more than that next week.

I connected with another girl in my group today. We are close in age (and weight) and we got on real well so I’m excited to have someone who can relate to me. We’ve already made plans to workout in the future so I’m excited to hopefully be getting a few friends out of this process.

Lastly, we got our pedometers tonight and I racked up 1500 steps in our first 10 minutes of using them. I think that was a fluke lol but we’ll see.

This week my food order consists of soups and bars in addition to shakes. We’ll see how that goes. Until now I’ve only been on shakes so… Fingers crossed!

Days 10 – 13

Oh my gosh, I have been so lazy this week and so disinterested in the whole program. I have been drinking my shakes and immersing myself in Netflix, and OnDemand to get past the blah stage and I think I am good to go now. These last few days have been kind of hard just because (1) it was a long weekend and the weekends are just harder for me, and (2) I probably haven’t been drinking enough water. To rectify the whole water thing, I plan on drinking at LEAST 64 ounces of water a day religiously. When I just say that I’ll TRY to do it, I don’t. But when I PROMISE to do it, I do. So, after my weigh-in tonight and for the next week I PROMISE to drink at LEAST 64 ounces of water a day and work out at LEAST 4 days a week. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Other than that, the days were uneventful. So uneventful that they don’t even deserve their own individual posts :-). I have been measuring myself with my tape measure and I’ve lost a few inches so even if the weight loss isn’t that much, which I kinda expect, I will be perfectly fine.

Interesting fact – I went the whole 1st week consuming only Strawberry and Vanilla RTD shakes for the most part with a few Strawberry and Vanilla powder shakes for my workouts, emergencies, busy times, etc. This week, I added Chocolate RTD shakes to the mix and I liked them so much that yesterday I had to call the program to modify my order for this week. I changed 10 of the 12 Vanilla shakes that I had requested to Chocolate RTD shakes – that’s how much I like them! This week, in addition to Chocolate, Strawberry and a couple of Vanilla RTD’s I have also added 2 chicken soups and 4 bars. Let’s see how this goes!

I hope all is well with everyone in OptiLand. :-)

March Workout: Pick your poison

Before I forget, here are the March workouts courtesy of Ripped Goddess’ Facebook page. Pick which you would like – a month of burpees or burpees and squats. Since I HATE burpees, it will be burpees and squats. Here you are, enjoy! (Remember, click the image to get a bigger version). :-)

 

Days 8 & 9

Day 8

Felt good today. Everything went well. Deviated from my shake schedule just a little bit because I worked out at 6:30pm which is when I normally take my 5th shake. I ended up taking a Strawberry powder shake with me and mixed it up right after I got done with my Zumba class at 7:30. I took the last one at 10:15 and went to bed. I couldn’t stay up any later than that.

The Zumba class was alright. Not the most amazing and trust me, I’ve had AMAZING, but still it was probably for the best because I am just getting used to the shakes so the addition of physical activity, in my opinion, should be gradual and not exhausting. I also signed up for the 3 week adult tennis quick start program at the club. I took lessons for years and played a lot when I was a teenager but its been a while. I’m looking forward to the class and meeting new people who can hopefully potentially become my tennis buddies! :-)

Day 9

So far so good. I’m going to try to work out for a little while today. Nothing major. Probably treadmill or bike for maybe 30 minutes. Then my plan is to do a little something tomorrow morning as well. After that, I won’t be working out again until Tuesday evening when I start my tennis program. Just pacing myself and keeping it simple. This is a lifestyle change and I want it to stick.

Bye Bye Scale

Well, not forever. Just for the week. I decided that I wanted to see how I did without constantly weighing myself at home on my digital scale. I am kind of obsessive with it. I think I weighed in twice everyday during this past week. So…. last night I put it in the cabinet and hopefully I won’t bring it out until after next week. If I lose at least 5 pounds this week I’m sure I will be fine without the scale but if I don’t I think I might feel like not weighing had something to do with it. I know – its crazy and purely psychological. The first step is admitting that you have a problem right? Good luck to me! :-)

 

Day 7 – Goal!!!!

Today is the end of week 1! I made it! I had my first official weigh-in since I started on product last week and I am down…..10.2 pounds!!!!! I’m so excited. So motivated. So happy. Only 79.8 to go lol!!!! Anyway, I’m excited. If you noticed I added a page for my results and another one for milestones and stuff. I have updated the results page so all my stats will be there. On the Milestones and Rewards page I have outlined each goal that I have and a reward that I have committed to give myself. I have reached my first goal of 10 pounds so sometime between now and Saturday I will be rewarding myself with an eyebrow wax. I’m excited! It’s been a long day so I’m off to bed. Nite! :-)

Day 6

Hello Day 6! :) Yesterday wound down well. I had my shakes as planned and, more importantly I worked out as planned. I took a Hip-hop dance class at the racquet club. The class was not intense but it was good. It was actually funny as well because the instructor was very dramatic – but in a fun way. He would show us choreography for about 3 minutes then make us put it all together and do it over and over and over. We almost finished a whole routine yesterday lol. But it was good. I meant to wear my Polar heart rate monitor but I forgot. I will try to remember to do that next time. I’d be interested to see how many calories I burned in that class. If I had to guess, I’d say about 320. The workout was decent and probably the best thing I could’ve done to introduce physical activity to this adventure.

Today has been just the same as most – uneventful. I had Earl Grey tea which I didn’t realize was so caffeinated. I was hyper and hot for a good hour. No mas para mi! I’m sticking to water. And maybe Crystal Light sometimes.

I’m glad I’m able to stick with this so far. I’m excited! I’ve been trying to come up with some rewards for myself for sticking to it. I might create a new tab for goals, rewards, milestones….all that stuff.

I hope everyone else out there is doing good especially my other Optifast peeps! :-)

Day 5

Today is Day 5. Everything has been going well. I am going to actually make a very big attempt to work out this evening. I have been sticking to having a shake at 6:30am and every 3 hours after that like clockwork but today I am going to switch it up a bit because if I work out, I don’t want to be lightheaded or anything. So I have already had my 6:30am, 9:30am and 12:30pm shakes; and I will take the 3:30 at 3:30 but I am thinking of moving my 6:30pm to 5:30pm, going to the gym at 6:30pm for an hour and then taking the last one at 8pm when I get home. I have a Vanilla Powder mix and a shaker cup in my workout bag already just in case I ever need to eat in a hurry at the gym. I’d rather be safe than sorry and not have to worry about being unprepared in a hunger emergency.

Anyway, I will update tonight or post tomorrow about whether or not I actually make it to the gym lol! I think I will but you know how it is….AND its still only week 1.

Days 1 – 4

Today I have been on product for 3 days and I am two products into Day 4. I have decided to try to blog everyday in the beginning just to track things and to keep me motivated. So I will go back and give a recap of each day so far:

 

Day 1

Day 1 actually started out well which you would’ve read if you read the last post before this BUT I think I spoke to soon. My dad always said “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” and I guess I kinda did. I had been feeling so good all day. I had my meals in 3 hour intervals until the 4th meal. I was in a meeting and planned on leaving the meeting at 3:30 to grab a shake but when 3:30 came 2 other people had already left early and I didn’t want to seem rude so I stayed. I don’t know why i cared at all lol but I stayed. By 3:40 I was feeling lightheaded and by 4:00 I had a full-blown migraine. I left as soon as I could and drank a shake. I left work still feeling woozy so instead of dropping by the racquet club to start a new membership I drove home. I laid down for 2 minutes and then I had to race to the bathroom where I puked violently. Three long hard rounds later I was wiped out. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my whole stomach was empty. I had to call my program director at Kaiser who advised me to try some bread and broth. I decided only to have the broth. I felt better as soon as I was through drinking it. She also wanted me to wait to start again because she thought it was the stomachs flu. I thought it was the product or the shock that my body went into from not having the product on time or the shock of eating only product after the crazy eating spree I had been on since Valentine’s Day. Either way I wasn’t waiting because I felt much better. I went to bed at 10pm a little disappointed for having to break the fast but also determined to be ok the next morning.

 

Day 2

I woke up at 6:15 feeling perfect so I went back on product. All meals were on time. No headaches or anything. I actually felt quite great and was able to sign up at the Racquet Club after work. I’m excited about that. 

 

Day 3

Saturday was pretty good. All product on schedule. A little tempted when my husband brought home McDonalds for dinner but I didn’t have a single bite. I did however write “McDonalds fries” on the list of things I want when I can control myself and eat again. I think I would go insane without this list. It almost reminds me that the food will still be there when I’m done. I have made lists like this in the past but never actually eat all the things on the list. It’s more of a psychological thing.

 

Anyway, it was a good day. I had a small headache before bed so I took some of my migraine medicine and went to sleep. I think that headache was because I stayed up till like 11:45 which is way past my new 9:30 bedtime.

 

Day 4

Here we are at day 4. It’s not even 11am yet but I’m doing ok so far. I hope to have an uneventful day diet-wise. 

 

Hope everyone else on Opti is having a successful day and weekend. 

New habits already!!!!

So today I started my shakes. I had one at 6:30am and the other at 9:30am. I wasn’t even hungry when I took the second one but I know that I have to drink them all so I drank it. The first one was a Strawberry Ready to Drink (RTD) and the second was a Vanilla RTD. I had already planned what I would be consuming (can’t say eating haha) last night so I had placed 4 RTD shakes in the refrigerator and 2 powder shakes in my LOVE PINK bag that I take to work with me sometimes. I had an ice pack from when I had something delivered to me from Shari’s Berries so I just put the RTD one’s for work in a small insulated lunch bag that I have and put the ice pack on top of them. It worked well and the Vanilla shake I had at 9:30 was well chilled. They have a medicien-y after taste but it is very mild and goes away after a while.

Since I have to consume 6 products a day in 3 hour increments I have decided on a schedule of having them at 6:30am, 9:30am, 12:30pm, 3:30pm, 6:30pm and 9:30pm. I have alarms set on my phone to go off 5 minutes befrore each meal time so that I have time to get the shakes ready or get to wherever they are or whatever the situation might be. This means that I will be starting off with immediate changes to my behavior. In the past I would eat breakfast at maybe 8:45 at work, lunch at 12pm, if I ate lunch at all, and then a huge dinner at some point between 6 and 9pm. I also would stay up until midnight and sometimes after, and get up at 7am. With this schedule for mealtimes I have to go to bed between 9:30pm and 10pm so that I can feel rested when my alarm goes off at 6:15am. Last night I went to bed at 10pm but woke up at 5:50am by myself. I read my bible, something I haven’t done in the mornings in a LONG time, and then I had my first shake. It felt good to do that and I hope these changes stick throughout the whole program and even beyond!

Here’s to new healthy habits!

My alarms for my 6 meals…

Week 2 – Start Product Tomorrow!!!!

We start the Optifast800 products tomorrow. For me – that will be only shakes for the week. 6 of them. I went to my meeting tonight and I picked up my food. It was SOOOOOO heavy! I am super excited and can’t wait to start.

Optifast 21313

Its here – 21313. It came quite quickly actually; in spite of my impatience.

I had my first meeting this evening. I met the rest of my group and we got acquainted. I built easy rapport with the two people sitting beside me which was great. I think this will be a great group. There were obviously different personalities in the group but I think it will all balance out.

We ordered our product for next week. When the facilitator came by to collect my order form she looked at the form then back at me with a questioning look. I think it was because of my order. Everyone around me had mixed it up quite a but my order was for 15 ready to drink vanilla, 15 ready to drink strawberry and 12 powder vanilla shakes. No bars. No soups. Just shakes. I need it to feel like a liquid diet up front. Once I get used to it and/or tired of it (haha) I will switch it up. Right now I am trying to make it easy on myself.

We got homework too. Write down what you eat all week. Gulp. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Can I just write “Valentine’s Day Sweets” as one item? I know it’s not gonna be pretty otherwise lol. Have a Happy V-Day! :-)

Me and Physical Activity

I have fortunately been an avid gym-goer for the past 2 years. I lost 34.8 pounds between June and October of 2011 and kept most of it off by simply eating healthier and working out more UNTIL I dislocated my knee on March 16th last year. Now, I have gained some of it back but have been stalling at the most abnormal (for me) times. Optifast was a choice that I made because I want to start over from scratch. I want to get a large amount of weight off while incorporating physical activity into the mix gradually. Its like hitting the reset button. I don’t want to do Atkins, I don’t want to count points on Weight Watchers…I just want to start over with a fixed menu for a fixed amount of time. I am really good when it comes to being disciplined. I can stick to anything as long as I put my mind to it. Knowing that at the end of it all there will be a lot of rewards (slimmer, healthier, less weight on my knee, new relationship with food) is motivation, so hopefully I will do well on Optifast.

Currently, my main work out is just Cardio Dance at my gym. Cardio Dance is really just Zumba but with a few extras added (jumping jacks, squats, etc.). I only take one instructor’s classes and that usually ends up being 1 class on Mondays, 2 classes on Wednesdays, 2 classes on Thursdays and 3 classes on Saturday. The classes usually have a 5 to 55 minute gap in between them depending on what day. Lately though, I have been only going to 2 classes on Thursdays and 1 on Saturdays. This will all be coming to an end though because my instructor is leaving my gym permanently to pursue her own independent dance classes and I won’t know what her class schedule will be like until she comes back from vacation in March. This is kind of a good thing because I get to start the program without the crazy workouts that I’m used to. At the same time it sucks because (1) I will miss the camaraderie of the classes (2) I don’t have my “go to” exercises, and (3) I will have to figure out some new physical activity.

I’ve been trying to decide on what to do and so far I have come up with two things for sure: First, I will take up tennis. The racquet club that I’m a member of has a tennis class beginning March 4th. It will meet 3 times a week for 3 weeks, so that’s definitely going to be on the agenda for me and I am looking forward to starting. The second thing is following this schedule of ab workouts that I found on Ripped Goddess’ Facebook page. If you click the calendar it should open up larger in a separate window. I will start these tonight. She posts one every month and I just so happened to see the one from january last Friday which made me look out for February’s. Now I don’t want to get SUPER duper ripped – I just want to get SUPER duper toned. :-)

Courtesy of “Ripped Goddess” via Facebook.

I know I will have to come up with more but I like being able to start from scratch.

This is going to be an amazing journey and I am super excited.

Health Assessment

So I had my health assessment done on Thursday. I have positive and negative comments about this. I’ll do negative first. The Nurse Practitioner was new. She said she hadn’t been doing “this” that long. I was fine with that but then she didn’t get my body fat percentage nor did she calculate my metabolic so that we could compare it to my ending body fat and metabolic rate. When I asked her about this she said they were “optional” and when I asked about how to get these “options” she said she was new and not sure. I will call the program coordinator and find out more because for as much as I’m paying, this needs to be done right. I hate to be so anal about these things because it might rub some people the wrong way but this is my health and my weight and my life.

Now, on to the positives. Everything looks great! Well except my weight, lol! Obviously! I weighed in at 247.4 with shoes on too. Just about where I expected to be. My total cholesterol was 183 which was great and blood pressure was 116/63. Everything else was also normal and I’m really happy about that. 

I have to admit, I am SUPER excited to start! Can you tell? I have been putting together a plan for how I want to start my physical activity on the program. I don’t think I can jump in with the Zumba and Cardio Dance classes right off the bat. I will get some exercise in though. I do have a plan! :-) I am looking forward to so many things! I can’t wait to get rid of my clothes that are too big, I can’t wait to reward myself with a new wardrobe at my goal weight, I can’t wait to run my 5k this June, I can’t wait to start of the next year of my life at the lowest weight in a long, long, line of birthdays. I just can’t wait to feel amazing again. I feel great right now but I want AMAZING, and I will get it too!

I hope that somehow I am encouraging someone else to regain control of their weight. And if not, then I hope my blog is at least entertaining. :)

have a great evening!

Mimi

EKG & Labs: Check!

I had my lab work and EKG done this morning. It was totally painless! I was in and out so very quickly. Thank God for that because I am so restless in waiting rooms. And I didn’t have my iPad. And my cell phone didn’t pick up At&t service in the Kaiser building. So yeah. But anyway the lab was quick, just a little hiccup with finding me in the system due to two letters in my last name being transposed. No biggie – it was straightened out fairly quickly. And the EKG was over in less than 60 seconds once the electrode thingies were attached and I stopped tightening up my muscles lol. :-) 

Anyway, I meet with the doctor tomorrow to find out the results. I am interested to hear about my cholesterol levels and such. I’ve never had any health issues except for my migraines. Blood pressure, cholesterol, and all other things have always been great. 

On one hand I wish I was starting today but on the other, I’m glad I won’t be fasting on Valentine’s Day. 

One last observation that I have: last night, I finished dinner by about 7:15pm. I was instructed to fast for 12 hours for the tests I had this morning to be accurate. I only drank water after that time but at about 11:30pm, right before I went to bed, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed my shaker cup that I use for my protein shakes and without really thinking I filled it halfway with milk topped off with about 4 tablespoons of chocolate syrup. It was only while I was shaking the cup and trying to mix up the chocolate milk that I remembered that I was supposed to be fasting. I didn’t drink it and I am so glad I realized it before I drank it. But the whole thing was SO random! I haven’t prepared chocolate milk this way in several months plus I have no idea why I wanted it since I wasn’t hungry. 

I think it was pretty weird but hopefully I can straighten out such random impulses throughout the course of this program. 

Pre-Optifast

I have my lab and EKG appointments for tomorrow morning at 7am. I’m looking forward to getting that done since I have to fast for 12 hours. It’s not really a BIG deal because I normally don’t eat from 7pm to 7am anyway but you know how it goes…once you can’t have something…. :-)

Anyway, I’m really excited about starting in 2 weeks, 17 hours and 10 minutes. But who’s counting? :-)

I have no idea what to expect when I get my EKG done. Never had one before. I just hope that I don’t wrinkle my clothes since I have a bunch of work meetings right after.

Next on the preparation list is my health assessment where I meet with the doctor on Thursday at 5pm so that should be interesting. I wonder if that is where they tell me how many calories I can have or what my metabolic rate is. I have been reading so much stuff about Optifast that I am quite prepared in some ways but completely not prepared at all in other ways. Once these two appointments are out of the way then its just a count down for me. Luckily I have Valentine’s Day preparations to distract me.

Have a great night y’all!

Mimi

Getting ready for Optifast…

Today, I am writing to get in the blogging mode for my upcoming weight loss journey. I plan on blogging weekly, hopefully more often than that, when I begin the Optifast weight loss program offered through Kaiser officially on February 13th, 2013. You’re probably thinking “What? A day before Valentine’s Day?” Well not exactly. The 13th is the day that I meet the rest of the people embarking on the journey with me…. I will fondly call them my “Cohorts” since the thought of starting a weight loss program with a group of people reminds me of the group of people that I will be starting my MBA program with (whenever I decide on what date to start) which is also called a cohort.

Anyway, during this meeting I will sample all the products available for my meals and place an order which should be in by the next meeting on 2/20. This is when I will really start the fast and only consume the Optifast products which I believe are shakes, soups and bars.

I’m really excited. This week, I have to schedule my labs and EKG and then meet with the doctor for a health assessment on Thursday January 31st, 2013. I’m so excited! Not for the appointments but for the program to start. I’ve had many successes but when I dislocated my knee in a dance class last year, I gained a lot of weight back. This is my last time trying anything. I know it will work and I feel the success. I just can’t wait to start. 

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing my journey with you. Whether you’re starting too, or if you just want to observe, I’m glad to have you!

Mimi