I’m Not a Leg Man

Yesterday was the continuation of another annual event at my house: The End of Summer Poolside BBQ with Riparian Entertainments. (God bless all of you KEEPING UP APPEARANCES fans for getting that reference!)

It isn’t the same day every year but somewhere near the end of August a small group of friends and family gather for food, swimming, games, etc.

Yesterday’s gathering was pretty great. The weather was beyond fabulous. It was the kind of day that sells Hawaii as a tourist destination worldwide. It gave new meaning to the word ‘balmy”.

I had gotten up extra early as I normally do on weekends to get down to the pool before it officially opens. The guards let me get my swimming in before the crowds show up. I look forward to those swimming sessions, usually. Lately on Sundays I haven’t been alone in the pool and yesterday was no exception. For some reason they only seem to show up on Sundays and for that I am grateful. The “they” of which I speak are dead frogs. Gross, huh? Think how I feel swimming through them and often swallowing the same water in which they float!

The poor little critters are often missing a leg so I envision them first being snatched up by a bird elsewhere then wriggling itself into a frenzy causing the leg to come off and they plummet into the pool below. For some reason I only see them on Sunday so they must whoop it up on Saturday nights and the birds know this.

In a way I am thankful I haven’t come across one that is still alive as there couldn’t be anything I could do for it.

I am waiting to get diagnosed with some parasite that us only contracted by being around or near legless dead frogs. Chlorine kills all the germs though right? RIGHT?

So I had my swim (52 laps!) and I was ready for the party.

The food would be catered this year so no one would even have to cook. Yippee!
We had the typical “local style” food: sushi, yakisoba (fried noodles), teri beef, furikake salmon (grilled salmon with sesame seed and nori crust), fried chicken nuggets, and Chinese chicken salad. I would partake of it all but knew I would concentrate mainly on the salmon and salad. I’m telling you tastes really do change after Medifast.

Oh but one of the things I was looking forward to most on the menu was the pickles! I love the Japanese style pickles they call “namasu”. The namasu a combo of cucumbers, carrots, celery (maybe), and onions…all thinly sliced. It is delicious with this kind of food and is a very precious commodity. It tends to be expensive and a “serving” is quite tiny.

For the party yesterday we ordered a “bowl” of namasu and as this was a Japanese restaurant doing the catering it was sure to be great! Fresh namasu, big servings, I am there!
Imagine the horror (yes friends, HORROR!) when the large container of namasu was opened. There before me was the usual assortment of veggies floating in their briny goodness…but wait. There was more. No. Dear lord that could not possibly be what I think it is.

I picked up a spoon and stirred it a little. Surely it just LOOKED like the abomination I thought it was. Still not sure I stirred some more. It wasn’t looking good. My heart sank. How could they do this to me? To my dear namasu? And I knew if my suspicions were correct, no one at the party would eat this. So I gave it one more stir and asked the question aloud that I knew I didn’t want answered, “Is there octopus in the namasu?!”

A calm voice of resignation answered mine with a sigh, “yes.”

I knew it. Those tiny purplish legs with the innumerable suckers all over them, it could be nothing else. And the legs were tiny. Someone is slaughtering baby octopuses (octopi? octopodes?), ripping off their legs and sticking them in pickles.

Maybe somewhere there is a batch of namasu with all of the tiny missing frogs legs torn from the cadavers in the pool? A French version of namasu perhaps?

My stomach is still turning from that association. Sigh.

So I am back on my Medifast 5+1 today. I’m looking forward to my salmon and salad lean & green this evening. I love the refuge of the Medifast plan. It is such a great way to detox after a day of too much food…and stuff.

Friday Chuckle: The Story of My Life?

see more Engrish

Define Willpower (Pt 2)

That explanation sounds good in my head but doesn’t quite make sense on paper.

What I mean is, that now I see I do not have to “hate” food and drink. Quite the contrary. I can still love it all. The difference is, I DON’T HAVE TO EAT IT.

Wow! What a revelation.

Fried chicken, hamburgers, pastries, everything! I can still think it smells good, looks good, and I can still imagine how great it tastes but it can end there.

I first realized this when I was confident enough to once again join people for lunch.

On my diet I stayed by myself at lunchtime. All I was having was a Medifast meal which takes all of 5 minutes to eat. Spending an hour at a table with people indulging was something I did not want to deal with. Especially sitting there smelling the food that I was trying so hard to hate.

Slowly though I noticed that the sites and sounds of lunch really weren’t bothering me much anymore and I found me hanging around the lunch table more and more. As I did so, I found that I could be perfectly comfortable sitting there while others ate….but it was those who were eating that would often be the uncomfortable ones. I was often bombarded with pleas for me to eat what everyone else was eating.

I could now simply smile and say “No thanks. I already ate.”

That was often met with, “But it is soooooo gooooood.”, as they jammed more food in their mouth. I’d be chuckling to myself because if they thought that was somehow supposed to make that look good, they’d be wrong.

After a number of these episodes I found myself responding, “No one says it isn’t good.”

That’s when I started hearing the “w” word. Willpower.

“You have so much willpower”.

Do I? I don’t think I do.

And that’s what got me thinking about the definition of the term.

To my mind having willpower implies some type of internal struggle. You are forcibly overcoming your negative impulses with your sheer will.

Magically though, I wasn’t struggling with this. Yes that fried chicken and chili looks great, I just don’t want any. Really! No struggle here. I’ll pass.

That’s not to say I will never eat it. Maybe I’ll have some on my free day. Maybe I’ll have a lot of it on my free day. I just don’t want any now.

Is that willpower?

Doesn’t there need to be some sort of inner conflict going on to be considered “willpower”?

If I really don’t want something, am I simply using “willpower” to resist it?

Part of me wants to argue the point because I want people to know they can have a change of heart towards food. I’ve had a change of heart towards food!

The other part just wants to accept the compliment and call it a day.

How do you define “willpower”?

Define Willpower (Pt 1)

One of the first things you notice when you go on a diet is how much junk every one eats. For all the talk of healthy eating, no one actually does it…well at least the people I see anyway. There will be an occasionally piece of fish for lunch, but on the whole people tend to treat themselves very “well” at lunch time. Your sudden deprivation is what is making you notice and you tend to curse your fate for not being able to enjoy lunch the way everyone else gets to.

If you stick to you game plan, eventually your lunch time desperation recedes and you find it hard to believe that peoples’ dining habits and food used to actually make you feel miserable.

I feel bad when I read people blogging about how they “know” they must “force” themselves to change and basically think healthier thoughts. That is one tough row to hoe; forcing yourself to think a certain way. MAYBE you can do that for a short period of time but that is not a plan for a lifetime.

I worried about it for a while. I thought the same way. I had to make myself hate food, going out to eat, drinking, all the little pleasures of life now had to be scorned if I was to get and stay skinny. That was a tall order but it seemed logical. I was fat because I was lazy and indulgent it would be discipline and willpower that would now carry the day. I will make myself be that new person I wanted to be!

As you could imagine it didn’t seem to be working very well.

It is like saying, “I want to be smart so I will just force myself to be smart.”

Good luck with that.

I was lucky as this change for me was just part of a natural progression. As my body detoxed through my diet, my attitudes just seem to naturally change. Thank God! I certainly couldn’t have willed myself to get over it. My diet became habit, and I was feeling so good, I just didn’t care about all the stuff I was “missing”. I wasn’t missing a thing! I saw the benefits of the low carb, high protein lifestyle and was feeling them too.

But here’s what really amazes me about my attitude adjustment; how absolute it is yet without becoming exclusionary.

Say what?

To be continued…..

Just Human

If it doesn’t make you mad it should.

Fat people are pathetic, don’t you know?

They are ugly, filthy, riddled with disease, and if new studies are accurate, they all have shrinkage of the brain. Why that would make them retarded in a way wouldn’t it?

Why do we tolerate them?!

Man’s inhumanity to man comes as no surprise, but the unrelenting demonization of overweight people in our society never ceases to floor me.

They are today’s scapegoats. Want to openly hate someone? Hate a fat person. Everyone will understand.

Smokers can breath a sigh of relief (if their filthy stinking black lungs can still inhale…D’OH!). The pressure is off a little. Fat is the new whipping boy.

You won’t get an argument from me on the benefits of NOT being fat. They are many.

But why is there the need to turn the overweight into something less than human? If that seems too harsh then ok. Why make them seem like a human failure?

Of course the fact that estimates show our society to be incredibly overweight just makes the whole thing more galling.

Some point at the few TV shows revolving around the zaftig as proof society has compassion. Pish posh. First of all, TV on its face is MAKE BELIEVE people! It is not real. Not any of it. It is all carefully scripted and produced for your viewing pleasure (even the “news” but that’s another topic entirely!).

One such show comes to us from our friends in the UK. Overweight people are trotted out in all of their overeating glory to face how disgusting and gross they are…something that will shock them into wanting to lose weight. The food they normally eat for a week is all aggregated and laid out before them. The tables groan with the greasy, salty, fried load. For shame fat person!

Maybe I am a tad touchy having been humiliated and ridiculed from the moment I started packing on the pounds somewhere in the 4^th grade? Maybe when I grew up and saw how I could be dismissed out of hand as not having anything worthwhile to contribute since I was fat, has made me a wee bit skittish? Perhaps it was the realization that I could not get decent medical treatment because every doctor I saw decided that there wasn’t a thing they could do for me because after all I was fat? Yes, yes, and yes.

How dare they dehumanize me simply based on the way I looked!

And now that I see the constant drumming in the media encouraging this vile behavior, I get mad.

I may not have the body size I once did, but I have never changed. And having never changed, I will always be that fat person. Others may not see it, but that weight is there. It is a part of me and has molded me into who I am today.

No better or worse than you.

Just human.

The Pause That Refreshes

I don’t particular like Mondays, but new beginnings are good. And after a weekend of more liberal eating, that’s what Mondays can be, a new beginning.

Consider the almost one month of torture I had starting Medifast a year ago last July, I am always amazed about how fast NOW I seemingly bounce back into (to use a little Medifast jargon)  the fat burning state. It is almost like a learned response by my body. At least that’s how it seems. I get that odd kind of “off” feeling for an hour or two than I taste “the taste”.  And so it is this Monday.

This past weekend was a carb rich weekend for me. Very unusual but delicious. I first went to a celebration on Friday night with a wonderful buffet and then to a “Farmer’s Market” on Saturday where there were many culinary wonders to explore. When times like that arise, it is my philosophy just to enjoy to any extent that you are comfortable with. If none of it is of particular interest then just enjoy the walking and fresh air. If, however, the fresh baked bread-fresh churned butter-fresh from the hive honey-beckons you to a once in a blue moon treat, than have at it. Tomorrow discipline can reign.

Hey this may not be the fastest road to weight loss, but for some it is the best way to maintain ones sanity. And just who decided it is a race anyway?

I started with my momentary diversions into letting my dieting guard down in November of 2008. I was 100% on Medifast plan since early July and Thanksgiving was fast approaching. The idea of taking a break from dieting was not mine. I took it from Bill Philips’ book EATING FOR LIFE. His regimen of diet and exercise discipline 6 days a week and taking the 7^th day off just made so much sense to me. He made allowances for Birthdays, and Anniversaries, and Holiday in general. To me it seemed like a workable healthy eating plan that made allowances for life. You just needed to be disciplined enough to diet and exercise for the six days you were “on”. Just what I was looking for in the long term.

I had no idea if it would work for me, but I wanted it to so I needed to try it out. I still had a huge amount of weight to lose so I didn’t want to test the full plan but I was willing to see if taking off on a holiday meant my diet was over, or was simply a brief interruption. I was successfully working out 6 days a week but handling food was another matter.

I was scared that Thanksgiving. I did not know what to expect.

Happily I was not much the worse for wear after that weekend and simply began my diet again that Sunday. During that week my body took care of the indiscretions of the Holiday weekend and then some. Spurred by the success I had with Thanksgiving I made the decision to ease my discipline for the coming Christmas/New Year blitz. On January 2 I began being 100% on plan again and couldn’t have been happier.

Yes folks who stayed on planned through the Holidays were zipping by me in weight loss, but I needed to do what I needed to do. I have no regrets (so far) in those choices I made. I gained something so much more important to my long term health that rapid weight loss. I gained confidence. Those moments of starting/stopping/starting have given me much confidence in my ability to manage my food intake. I really CAN be disciplined when I need to be. I was never quite sure if I could. I’ve learned differently.

Once I reached my goal of no longer being obese, merely overweight, I allowed myself to try my 6 + 1 way of eating for the week and it has really worked out well. I love being able to resist temptation during the week, knowing that on Sunday I can eat whatever I want. In fact I wouldn’t even call it resisting temptation. There is no temptation. Yes that Tuesday pizza everyone is eating smells great but I just don’t care. If I want pizza I’ll have it on Sunday!

It isn’t all rainbows and puppies, however. Sometimes I do allow my one day off to become two or three. That is usually due to a special event or celebration and in and of itself I can handle it. What does become worrisome is the frequency with which these special events and celebrations start to occur. Also, it still isn’t easy for me to turn it on and off during one day. I am a morbidly obese over eater no matter what the scales may say at the moment. So bouncing back from, say, an indulgent brunch usually means waiting until the next day, but I am working on it.

I’ve taken to referring to August as a “lost cause”. There are simply too many birthdays, etc. Every few days there is another reason to let your guard down and indulge. I am managing but as far as losing weight this month goes, it is a lost cause. I am happy with just maintaining.

So far today I have had a breakfast of kefir, cottage cheese, figs and protein powder and the rest of my meals at the office will be protein bars. Dinner will be roasted chicken breast and a green salad with tomato eaten after 35 minutes of Pilates.

As August draws to a close, I have two celebrations to manage this week followed by the Labor Day weekend which brings two more.

I’ve promised myself I will make the most of the lull between Labor Day and Thanksgiving and see what I can do to drop the last 20 pounds I want to shed. That’s a very attainable goal; I’m just not sure what that will entail. Wherever that path leads me, I’ll be sure to post it here!

What Can You Trust?

I touched on it in my last blog and I wanted to expand on it here.

I wondered if others found the frustration in trying to find definitive weight loss/health/exercise information?

Personally I have come to the conclusion that there is none. Oh there is plenty of information and opinions but I can safely say none of it is definitive. For every opinion there is an equal and opposite. Often complete with equal and opposite scientific proof of said opinion.

Of course part of the issue is the multi-billion dollar industry that is weight loss and exercise in America. All those dollars mean a lot of axes to grind and with human nature, such as it is, it wouldn’t be hard to find an expert who will back up any opinion as long as the price is right. But you would think there would be set answers too with all of the money spent on research.

How much is a person supposed to weigh?

How many calories is a person supposed to eat?

How much exercise do you have to do?

What are the best kinds of exercise?

It’s all up for grabs as far as I can tell. The more I read the more I find things that should be no brainer definitive aren’t.

Try to get a grip on what a “healthy” blood pressure is. Go on. I dare ya.

120/80 you say?

Some say yes some say no.

Which diet is best?

Hooboy there’s a whooper!

Science is so advanced yet cannot tell us what an optimal human diet is.

I think diet science last got it right with the “calories in/calories out” thing.

With the exercise question there are multiple ways of determining an optimal heart rate, optimal intensity, optimal time. Argh!

Frankly I am happy with my success so far and look forward to continuing it for the rest of my lifetime BUT…..when I read about how much I am supposed to weigh and how much I am supposed to exercise, I just want to throw in the towel.  Doggone it! I am still about 40 pounds away from where some say I should be and I should be working out an additional 2 or 3 hours a week and I already workout about 4.25 hours a week! According to those experts I still should be a 300+ pound couch potato.

No wonder half the population doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to diet and exercise.

Ultimately a huge reason for all of this conflicting information is simply from the fact; everyone is different. What works for one does not work for the other. For every successful Medifaster there are three who will never follow the plan and never be successful at it. For every Weight Watcher losing there will be a Weight Watcher gaining.

So I am frustrated in trying to find answers for myself and equally frustrated when people come to me for tips. I wish I could rattle off “Do A, B, & C and you’ll be fine.”

Instead I have to hit them with the trite, “You need to find what works for you”.

Trite but true!

If you are an overweight person who wants to succeed at shedding that weight and keeping it off, you need to be ever vigilant and self aware. Vigilant in educating yourself on the hows and whys of where you are, sort through the myriad of solutions that may present themselves, and judge the results to for yourself. It is not easy. It can be fun, but even if it is not, it is still worthwhile. Try to think of it as a big unending jigsaw puzzle.

Collect all the pieces you can and just start matching them up.

It’ll sure keep you busy!

And in the long run you’ll have one heck of a beautiful tableau to look back on.

I just can’t guarantee that you will have any definitive answers.

Have a great weekend everybody!

The Yogurt Exception

Call me obsessed, if you will. I guess I am. I’m determined that this was the last time I would put myself through losing so much weight. Now that it is off, I want to keep it off and I’ll go to great lengths to make sure that happens. That means a lot of research and trying to figure out what works for me. At this point I am convinced of the huge benefits reaped by limiting one’s carbs. When I was young, it seemed common wisdom. Don’t eat potatoes, bread, or pasta and you’ll keep the weight down. Then what happened? Was it the 70’s or 80’s? Suddenly carbs were in! If you don’t eat fat, you can’t be fat! Everyone embraced it and the collective obesity rate went through the roof. I was just as guilty as everyone else. It seemed to make sense. Eat fat, be fat. In the here and now it all seems so stupid, ignoring basic human physiology and the way we convert food into energy. Calories matter too people! LOL. The past is the past and we can now consider ourselves enlightened. It may take a detox period to wean yourself off of a high carb diet but once you get through that phase, its benefits become obvious. You suddenly have more energy, your hunger is greatly reduced, and the weight does come off. So I read a lot of information on reduced carb and low carb diets. In doing so I ran across a piece of information that I really had never heard of before. Perhaps it will be news to you too. It is something called “The Yogurt Exception”.  No it is not the newest Matt Damon movie. The exception being that the carbs on the nutritional label aren’t really the carbs that are in there. Milk products contain lactose; milk sugar. The reason dairy products are restricted in low carb eating plans. With cultured milk products (yogurt, kefir, some cottage cheese), the bacteria that is added to the milk to get the final products actually digests the lactose and in doing so turns it into lactic acid, no longer a sugar. Apparently some studies have been done on these products containing active cultures and they have determined that all the lactose that would remain in a half cup serving would be two grams, no matter what the label said. The label having been generated on the non-inoculated milk product. Whether I believe the exactness of these numbers is still up in the air. I will say that I have added yogurt and kefir back into my diet and if the telltale taste of ketosis in my mouth is any indicator, they haven’t negatively impacted my diet at all. To hedge my bets I do stick to Greek yogurt which has much of the whey (aka lactose) drained away anyway and kefir just seems naturally low to begin with. When selecting a Greek yogurt, do check the labels. I notice some simply add thickeners like gelatin to simulate the consistency of Greek yogurt. A brand like Fage actually drains the whey off to achieve the desired thickness. You can of course get a strainer and drain the whey from any yogurt. But that is pretty close to cooking as far as I’m concerned and, well, let’s just say cooking (and cleaning) are not my favorite activities. What’s your take on the “Yogurt Exception”? Have you ever heard of it before? Do you believe it?

And Whiskers on Kittens

Deep in the Medfifast discussion forums is a thread about Medifast food wannabees. Substitutions folks are using to help defray the cost of Medifast and/or just food that is more readily available. I found it of interest because I knew I’d probably be including things like this in my life long plan of thinness.

So I read that thread, and knowing what I know about Medifast meal nutritional profiles, I set out to try some stuff I could incorporate into my daily menus and not ruin all of my hard work. Then my lovely friend Chris left a comment mentioning some of the foods she has been using and I thought it would make a great blog telling you about some of the things that are working for me.

And voila!

 Just a few of my favorite things:

 

Shakes:

Right Light Nutrition Shakes – a Bill Philips product that is fabulous. The vanilla is great with a shot of espresso and the chocolate is fine outta the box. Mixes easily in a shaker jar and a few times a year they have a two for one sale.

 

Protein:

Right Protein Plus – Vanilla flavored whey. I usually mix a packet in my morning yogurt but you can even use it as a shake! Another Bill Philips product that also has the BOGO every so often.

 

Bars:

Pure Protein High Protein Bars – These puppies are mmm mmm good! Especially the Chocolate Peanut Butter. A little higher in calories that Medifast and higher in carbs too but they are working great for me. A lot of the carbs are sugar alcohols and I LUCKILY have no issues with them YMMV.

 

Yogurt:

FAGE 0% Plain Greek Yogurt – This stuff is heaven sent. Thick, creamy, and delish. Packed with protein and no fat! 120 calories in a cup! I squealed when I saw my Costco was now carrying this (at half the cost of Whole Foods).

 

Kefir:

Lifeway Low Fat Organic Plain Kefir – This mouthful is SOME MOUTHFUL. Smooth, cool, creamy and delicious. Like the best yogurt smoothie but right out of the bottle. With 10 active cultures. That’s more than most neighborhoods!

 

Grocery Store:

Costco – Home of all things life sustaining (in bulk yet). I cannot do without my prewashed leaf lettuce and spring mix. Did I mention they are PREWASHED?

Bulk berries, sweet peppers, asparagus, broccoli, baby spinach, tomatoes, figs et al.

Flat Out Flat Bread, Cold Cut Turkey & Roast Beef, cheeses of all kinds, fresh & frozen salmon, shrimp, even single serve hummus.  Also home to the lazy man’s delight and Medifast friendly lean & green: Rotisserie Chicken & Spinach Salad. And now they carry my favorite yogurt. It just keeps getting better.

*TIED WITH*

 

 

Whole Foods – It’s not for nothing the snarky among us refer to it as “Whole Paycheck” but I love it just the same. Food shopping is a chore for this fat man, but I’ll always jump at a trip to Whole Foods. Their entire fish department is cook to order for pete’s sake. Fresh pan roasted Hawaiian caught swordfish with spicy cilantro marinade:YUM! Their Wildwood brand of tofu is the best tasting and firmest I have ever had. From the deli I always get Broccoli Crunch (when they have it). They smoke their own meats and have prepared food as far as the eyes can see. My dear cat even became addicted to their cat food when he was alive. Whole Foods entrances all species.

 

Exercise:

Swimming – The breaststroke to be specific. Nothing has given me the results or endorphin buzz that swimming has. I started modestly and have now worked my way up to about 50 minutes. I calculated I swim a little over 2 miles a week. I cannot wait for school to start so I can have more kid free afternoon swims.

 

*TIED WITH*

 

Pilates – The workout routine that is actually fun to me. Who knew I had core muscles? Some days it hurts, some days it feels like a massage. It is always challenging. In 35 minutes I go through 56 movements and my body thanks me. I think it is the perfect compliment to swimming.

 

What are some of your favorites things?

What is it, Exactly, You Are Doing Now?

Sometimes you need an outside source to slap you back to reality. That totally objective party who from out of the blue can crystallize an issue for you. That issue that you may have been struggling with, but if truth be told, were more ignoring than anything else.

Such was the case the other day when I was in a meeting with a lovely friend of mine and the subject of lunch came up. I said I was hungry and looking forward to it.

At which point she leaned in and asked, “What is it, exactly, you are doing now?”

“With what?”

“With your eating. I see those Medifast bars and things around. Are you still doing Medifast?”

Talk about a bolt from the blue. The funny part was, I wasn’t too sure what I have been doing eating-wise.

All I could answer was, “kinda sorta.”

Since my early days of Medifast, I had been doing research on what to do after. And there would be an after…after the packets, and the puddings, and shakes, and soups, and the bars. An after filled with real food and real food choices. A scary time off there in the foggy horizon.

I read the “South Beach Diet”, the “Sonoma Diet” (drink wine, lose weight!), the “Shagri-la Diet” (drink oil and sugar water – lose weight!), and many others.

I just wanted a basic eating plan that helped you make the best food choices while keeping the weight off and giving you enough energy to be as active as you want to be.

The two that always stuck with me as being a pretty darn sensible method of weight management were the old work horse “Weight Watchers” and a fairly new one called “Eating for Life”.

I’ve known people who have had tremendous success with Weight Watchers as a weight loss program, but I knew it was not for me. It always seems to me a much better way to help you monitor your food for maintenance rather than for weight loss. In a nutshell the program helps you identify food with points. You are allocated so many points in a day (and some extra points for the week) and you can eat anything as long as you stay within your point allowance. Theoretically, I suppose, you could have a slice of cheesecake (high points) or about 12 large salads (low points). As a rational human you are then supposed to naturally make the better choice….queue Jeopardy theme.

“Eating for Life” is the diet that was developed for the “Body for Life” program. Both the brainchild of Bill Philips, an affable chap who has inspired many, many folks to get off their butts and change their lives for the better. This appealed to me on several levels. First off it is pretty radical. Lots of intense exercise, and restricted eating. It encouraged high protein and restricted carbs, eating six times a day, working out six days a week, and the clincher for a man deep in the throes of Medifast; a free day once a week! The free day was a day where you are allowed to eat (or not eat) whatever you want, in the quantity you want. It was also to be used for holidays and special occasions and it seemed very doable to me…heck I’d be skinny and drinking bourbon!

After reading and rereading and researching I thought that it really wouldn’t be out of the question to try to establish a lifestyle that incorporated both of these methods. They seemed very complimentary in fact.

I could work real food back into my diet in small amounts, still eat six times a day (two meals of which could be the now familiar and convenient protein shake or bar), eschew mega doses of carbs which Medifast had shown me are my enemy, have enough energy for my six day work outs, and keep track of it all with Weight Watchers so I know when I start going overboard. And Bill Phillips was not only showing me what to eat, he gave me the recipes. When the time came, I would be ready.

Oddly enough even with all my planning and research, there never came a moment when I consciously transitioned from one plan to the other. Except for embracing the one day off a week thing, I continued pretty much doing what I was doing. Eating lots of protein bars and shakes and having one meal of protein and veggies once (or twice) a day. This way of life was serving me well but it still wasn’t real life. I was still embracing the tried and true simplicity of the Medifast plan but I was not really on Medifast anymore.

So there I sat I my friend’s office facing a very rational question and frankly I didn’t have an answer. Just what the heck was I doing? I had reached that horizon and the fog still surrounded me.

I was doing fine maintaining my weight, but a lifestyle of powdered protein six days a week and carbo loading on the seventh is, on its face, an unhealthy lifestyle. I needed to face food and start eating some.

And that gentle reader is where you find me today. Gently dipping my toe into the pool and testing the waters.

Today my meals have consisted of yogurt/cottage cheese blend with blueberries, a chicken wrap with lettuce and tomato, and two fresh figs with a small serving of hummus. FOOD! In between I had a couple of protein shakes and for dinner I will be having a large chicken salad.

It sure is scary, but I have to start again somewhere.

I know through my experiences on my free days that I am still a gaping maw capable of devouring enormous quantities of food and drink for no other reason than it is there. Discipline is the key.

And water. Lots of water.

Anyone know how many points in a fig?