Weeks 3 and 4

I didn't post last week because I was just too freaking busy.  I lost 1.8 pounds - a disappointment to be sure.  I know that nearly 2 pounds is fair weight loss for most people, but when you're in the 250's, it just seems infinitesimal.
This last weekend I went on my first trip since I've started TSFL.  I was at a conference.  I had paid for a meal plan before going, so staying on plan was an extra bit of a challenge.  I had only paid for lunches, so I decided lunch time would be when I had my "lean and green" meal.  I had to improvise with the somewhat shady buffet items, but I think I did ok.  I was very good about drinking enough water, but missed a few of my meal replacements.
I missed meal replacements because I was busy and I'm no longer feeling very hungry when it's time to eat.  A friend of mine who did TSFL had this experience as well - where she never really felt hungry on the plan.  I was hoping that as I adjusted to the program this would happen and it has!  Now I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to eat because I know that eating enough is part of what makes the program work.
I had a much better weight loss this week.  I lost 3.6 pounds.  I would really like to be losing between 3 and 4 pounds a week while I'm still weighing in the mid-200's, so I'm happy with this number.  I'm already anxious to see how I'll do next week.

Week 2 Recap

It's a great relief to have completed my second week on TSFL.  I feel like, if I can do it for 2 weeks, I can do it for a month, right?
I lost 4.4 pounds this week bringing my weight loss total to 10.4 pounds and putting me at 253 pounds. I won't lie.  I don't feel any different.  I'm taking progress pictures and they certainly don't look any different.  I have been trying on the same pair of tight jeans every few days and I don't know if they're fitting better or if I've just stretched them out from constantly forcing them on.  So, all that to say I really look forward to the next 10 pounds.  I feel like at 20 pounds lost I'll be fitting into some things and looking a little bit different.
I'm getting used to the weird Medifast food.  It really doesn't bother me anymore and there are a few things that I like pretty well.  I have to order next month's food this week and it will be tough to decide whether to order the 3 or 4 things I really like or whether I should have some more things just for variety, even if they aren't my favorites.

Week 1 Recap

Yesterday I finished my first week of the Take Shape for Life program.  I lost 6 pounds.  On the one hand - wow - that is great.  6 pounds is a fair amount of weight.  On the other hand, weighing myself and looking at my goals just reminds me how darn far I have to go.  It's overwhelming to say the least.  Still, I'm trying to celebrate this victory.  I followed the plan to a T this week and that is a victory.  I lost 6 pounds and that is a victory.  The plan is getting easier to follow every day and that is a victory.

Here are my impressions of the Take Shape for Life plan after one week of carefully following the "5 and 1" weight loss plan.

- Eating 6 times a day is a lot of times to eat.

- The appropriate size meal for eating 6 times a day is very small (at least on a calorie restricted diet like this).

- I sleep better on this plan than I was sleeping before.

- Sleep is a good way to avoid end of the day hunger.

- Medifast chocolate pudding is my favorite Medifast meal.

- Medifast strawberry shakes are nasty and the only thing I have deemed necessary to return.  I shipped it back to Medifast on Tuesday.

- For a prepared food diet, I spend a lot of time mixing, cooking, microwaving, etc.

- My kids can not be convinced not to beg for my food, no matter how strange it may smell.

So that's my first week, folks.  I'll be updating weekly from this point forward unless I have something notable to record midweek.

Mom's Night Out

Every month I go out for wine and appetizers with 3 of my mom friends.  We all have kids about the same ages so we have lots to talk about.  They're really great women.  One of them was VERY  successful on Take Shape For Life and is a health coach for the program.  I look forward to this night out every month as it is a great chance to drink some wine, complain about the long school days that keep our children away from us, and laugh a lot.  I'm not a huge wine drinker, so it wasn't that hard for me to pass up the wine in favor of a bottle of sparkling water, but the desserts and appetizers were very tempting.  It was a great night out, as always, and I stayed on plan.  So that's one hurdle jumped.

Day 6

I got up at 6 today.  I've been sleeping better.  It's been less than a week, so it's hard to say if it has anything to do with the program.  I've read that some people sleep more "on program" than they did before and also that adequate sleep is important for weight loss, especially on a low calorie diet like this one.  Anyway, I slept from about 10pm to 6am last night without waking up at all that I know of.  For me this is nearly unheard of.  I usually at least wake up to pee once or twice and I frequently am up for an hour or more in the middle of the night.  It is not at all uncommon for me to wake up at about 2 and not be able to get back to sleep until 5:30 or so.  The alarm goes off at 6:30, so that kind of sucks.  Anyway, I may be sleeping better on plan.  That seems good.
I'm currently having a Medifast chocolate shake.  It's not bad.  The strawberry shake was intolerably awful and I will be utilizing Take Shape For Life's return policy to exchange it for another item.  Seriously.  It was gross.

The Tea Update

I keep forgetting to update about the tea situation.  Tea is very important to me.  I used to drink, oh, about 5 or so cups a day.  I had it with milk (about 2 Tbsp?) and sugar (about 1-2 tsp).  I cut out the sugar about a month ago and started cutting back the milk last week.  Now I'm having it with 1 Tbsp of milk and a half a packet of splenda.  The trouble with this is that it uses up 1 1/2 of my 3 allotted condiments.  I'm seriously considering not counting the splenda as a half condiment.  It wouldn't count if it was in a diet soda, so why should it count in my tea?  The milk is another story.  I considered replacing cow's milk with almond milk (you can have a cup of Silk Unsweetened for 1 condiment), but tea and nutty do not go together, so I'm sacrificing my condiments and cutting back to 1 or 2 cups of tea per day.
I did try the almond milk in some coffee and it was fine.  That will be nice for my occasional cup of coffee.  I haven't had any since I've been "on program".  I think that the caffeine in my tea (and the couple of iced teas I've had since I've started) is affecting me way more than it used to, so I'm afraid coffee might send me through the roof.

Day 5

Well, I didn't update again yesterday as I had promised to because the day really flew by.  I studied, I went to the beach with my family, I made dinner for everyone.  We had "lean and green" chicken fajita bake.  The family had brown rice with it and I had a side of cucumbers since the recipe didn't include enough veggies to make my "green" for the day.
I would say yesterday was easier than Saturday.  I was definitely hungry at eating time and I was _definitely_ watching the clock for my next meal, but it was not with the kind of desperation I was feeling on Saturday.
Today I'm feeling a bit better even still.  I have a meal coming in 15 minutes and I'm a bit hungry, but not feeling at all ill or weak.  I'm hopeful that I'm through the hard part and ready to start the work of losing some weight and making some good habit changes.

Day 4 - Morning Impressions

Today I tried the chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.  I definitely liked them better than the regular pancakes.  The "chocolate" masks the weird MedifastSweet taste.
We went to church this morning.  Our church services are kind of epicly long (at least for me) so we're there for two hours.  I brought some of the dry cereal in the car so I'd be able to eat on the way home.  Surprisingly, I didn't feel like I was going to pass out in church or anything, though I'll admit that communion seemed tastier than usual.
I'm now an hour from my next meal and definitely hungry, but not feeling crappy or anything - just hungry.  Many people say day 4 is the worst, so I'll be sure to update again later.  I'd love to not be feeling hungry all of the time.

Day 3

Today started with me finally successfully making the pancakes.  The little packet of protein-y stuff yields about 2 1/2 tiny pancakes (about 3/16" thick and about 3 1/2" in diameter).  I'm still not excited about the taste of them.  They're kind of. . . weird.  I don't know.  Maybe they're too sweet.  Anyway, the keys to successful pancakeness is using the appropriate amount of water (1/4 cup) and a tiny spritz of Pam on the pan.

Today has been the hardest day so far.  I am hungry.  My stomach is growling and I feel weak and slow.  Sometimes the hunger grows and I get sweaty and shakey.  This has only happened a couple of times today.  I napped my way through one spurt of it and watched Grey's Anatomy through another.  In general I've been trying to stay occupied and not think about food, but it's hard with this constant gnawing feeling in my gut.

Hopefully it gets better soon!

Day 2 and Not Dead Yet

I expected today to be bad.  I guess it's good to set your expectations low sometimes, because I'm feeling ok and pretty happy about that.
This morning I tried to make the pancakes again.  I managed to put in the correct amount of water, but then I burned them.  Oh well.  They were still way better than yesterday's pile of mush.  I only gagged a little bit eating them.
Later in the morning I had some kind of cinnamon cereal.  I had it dry.  It was pretty good.  I'm wondering if I'm starting to lose my mind, because a lot of the stuff doesn't seem to have the awful aftertaste I was experiencing yesterday.  Could my taste be changing that fast or am I just choosing better foods today?
I just had the chocolate pudding.  It was suprisingly good.  It was a bit glumpy, but other than that, fine.
By the time it's time for me to eat I feel quite hungry and sometimes weak and overall not very well.  It always goes away pretty quickly after eating.  I'm hoping that I'll get to a point where I just feel hungry and not crappy and hungry.
Talked to my health coach last night.  I should say a word about her.  We'll call her H.  H is a registered dietician in addition to being a Take Shape for Life coach.  This is nice because I think she'll be really well equipped to help us transition from me being on the program to my whole family eating a similar, healthier diet.  Anyway, H reminded me that I'll possibly get very very hungry over the next few days, but that I could use that hunger as sign that I was literally hours away from burning fat from my body.  I'm reminding myself of that every time I feel like I'm hungry, though I don't think I've experienced the starvation type hunger that I may be facing in the next few days.

Halfway Through Day One

I had my 1 "lean and green" meal for lunch.  I george foreman'd a chicken breast and made a simple salad from romaine lettuce, cucumber, and bell pepper.  I have never been quite so grateful for real food as I was for this particular meal.  Good stuff.
I'm feeling ok so far.  This morning I felt really weak for about 15 minutes before it was time to eat and it lasted another 30 minutes or so after I ate.  I was glad it passed.  Other than that I'm doing well.
I'm a tea drinker and have always put a fair bit of milk (2 tablespoons probably) in my tea.  I am trying to figure out if I can replace that with almond milk (which I can have a cup of in exchange for one of my "condiments").  So far I'm not loving it, but maybe I'll get over it.

Pancakes

It's officially day 1.  I weighed in at 263.4 so that will be my official starting weight.  I woke up at 4 AM excited to start.  I dozed on and off until 6 when I got up to try some Medifast Pancakes.  The instructions say to add 1/4 cup of water to the powder and shake it in the nifty little shaker cup that came with my package yesterday.  Well, my 6AM eyes read "1/2 cup" instead so my batter was way too watery.  I ended up with a very thin pancake which stuck to the pan.  I tried to flip it but ended up just kind of "scrambling" it.  I felt like I had to eat it (as opposed to just opening up something else) so I gagged it down.  The taste was, well, not good.  It was weirdly sweet and had an odd flavor to it I could not quite recognize.
So begins day 1.  I'm feeling fine now and it's almost time for another meal.  I think I'll go with cold cereal this time!

My Food Came Today

Today two boxes arrived from Medifast/Take Shape For Life.  Either tomorrow or Friday I will start the Take Shape For Life program.
I weigh 265 pounds and am too short for that number to be anywhere near reasonable.  I am a woman.  I am a mother.  That's all that you really need to know about me.  If you're here to learn more about Take Shape For Life from someone who is new to the program and knows very little herself, stay tuned.