It's been a while since the last update--since April 29th, in fact, when I finally cracked the 220 barrier for the first time. Or maybe that should be, hit 220, then bounced.

Here's the tale:
On May 5th, we left for our Panama Canal cruise, returning on May 26th.
On May 27th, I went in for another weigh-in: 228.2. OK, not too bad . . . 8.4 pounds up over a cruise. Not good, but could have been worse.

June 3: 227.9.

And then, today, June 10th: 220.2 pounds, within 0.4 pounds of my all-time low. And what's better, the nutritionist said I could start eating lean meats and low-calorie veggies for supper, instead of the meal replacements. YAY! So I've spent the last hour and a half or so washing and chopping vegetables for a pork stir fry tonight.

Actually, it's 59.2 pounds, but I'm under 220, weighing in this morning at 219.8, down from 279 when I began this in August, 2009.

I got the 60-pound ribbon anyway. Snookums likes my ribbons.

It's green. I like it better than pink, anyway.

It's been a while since the last update--since October 28th, to be exact. Since then, Snookums and I have been on a long cruise, we've gotten through the holidays, and survived Super Bowl Sunday. The tale:

October 28: 228 pounds.

This past Wednesday, February 10th, at the official clinic visit: 224.2 pounds.

That's good.

Dr. Tague (yes, we actually met the doctor again this time) adjusted my supplements a bit, but overall was pretty happy. We talked about an ultimate weight-loss goal. I had been thinking about an even 200, but he said that with my particular body type, that would be really hard to do, and suggested 210 or 212, somewhere in there. I'm ok with that, too. So that's the goal! We'll call it 210.

That's 14.2 pounds to go. Two weeks? Three weeks? Four weeks? I don't know. But it's nice to be so close!

Yes, at the last weekly weigh-in for a while (I'm going on a two-month holiday hiatus) I clocked in at 228 pounds.

I made weight!

I was shooting for 230 by Halloween, and I made it. That also makes it 51 pounds lost since this adventure began back in August, at 279 pounds.

The short-term goal for now is to basically maintain about where I am (although I wouldn't mind shedding a pound or two more) as the holiday season begins. That means not going crazy, of course, but the rules get relaxed a bit--like a "real-food" meal or two every day, and the occasional glass of wine, perhaps.

I also found out this week that I fit into 36-inch jeans. All of those 38-inch-waist shorts I bought recently are a bit loose. Oh, well.

It's gooood.

That's more like it. After a three-week stall, I weighed in today with a 10.5 pound loss for the week. 231.3 pounds. Since my first initial visit with Dr. Tague at the Center for Nutrition, I've lost 47.7 pounds from the 279 pounds I started with.

Woo. And Hoo. And I did the math correctly this week, too.

I was getting a little nervous about making 230 by Halloween. I think I've got a pretty good shot at it, now. I'm off all of the blood pressure medications for now--we'll see how that goes, but I'm hopeful that I'm off of them for good--or at least for a good long while.

Anyway, I had my third "body composition analysis" this week. The numbers are really, really good:

	Today, October 24th	August 11th	Difference
Weight:	231.3 lbs	274.5 lbs **	-43.2
Lean body mass	167.6 lbs	177.0 lbs	-9.4
Body fat mass	63.7 lbs	97.5 lbs	-33.8
Body mass index (BMI)	31.1	36.9	-5.8
Percent body fat	27.5%	35.4%	-7.9%

** Yes, I gained 5.5 pounds in the week from my first Body Composition Analysis (274.5 pounds) to my first visit with the doctor (279.0 pounds). A last fling, of sorts.

Oh, yeah. I got another ribbon--my 40-pound ribbon. (Snookums likes the ribbons.)

The weight loss resumes! Yay!

A respectable 6.9 (UPDATE: 2.3, not 6.9--I can't subtract today) pounds lost in the past week, after two weeks of mild setbacks, weight-wise. 241.8 pounds, and 17 days to go before Halloween. (Actually, the official weigh-in will be on Wednesday, Oct. 28, so that's just thirteen short days from last Thurday's clinic weigh-in.

The best guess for the two-week stall is a combination of a bit more water retention after stopping the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide, plus perhaps adding a bit of muscle mass from working out and walking a bit more. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Speaking of walking a bit more, here are some pictures of what I've started to call the Deer Walk . . . it's about a 55-minute course around the next subdivision over from ours, the growth of which has been pretty much stalled by the current economy. And, since my particular neighborhood is right next to a county park anywhere, it's crawling with white-tailed deer--or "jumbo squirrels" as I've occasionally referred to them.

See after the "read more" for pictures of the Deer Walk . . .

Bacon and cheese (flavor) omlet

I'm going backwards again--on the scale, at least. After last week's 0.7 pound weight gain, I clocked in again with another 0.7 pounds gained. At least I'm consistent.

But, there are other indicators of progress besides the scale. My new belt, which I started at the very last hole, is now tighter by two holes. And I visited my regular doctor on Monday to update her on my weight loss progress. She responded by reducing two of my prescriptions by half--Vytorin (cholesterol) and lisinopril (blood pressure), and stopping two others--hydrochlorothiazide (blood pressure) and gemfibrozil (triglicerides).

That makes me quite happy, as you can imagine.

Still, I'm sitting at 244.1 pounds, with my Halloween goal of 230 14.1 pounds and only 24 days away. The pressure is on!

Pancake topped with vanilla pudding

We have house guests this weekend, so as usual the challenge will be to stick to the diet and exercise while being a proper host. Speaking of which, I need to go clean up the downstairs and scrub some toilets.

Observant readers will notice that on the scale I went backwards over the past week--to the tune of 0.7 pounds from last week's report. BUT, but, but--for last week's clinic visit, I was fasting for some lab work (no oatmeal or pancakes for breakfast), and I was weighed without shoes last week, while this week I had breakfast, and had shoes on, so there you go. Hey, come on, it makes a difference.

The labs?

YES!

Blood serum glucose is down to 80 mg/dL. That's really, really, really good! When I started, that number was consistently just over 100--which is the cutoff number between "normal" and "pre-diabetic." I didn't like being pre-diabetic, and my family doctor didn't like it either. That's why she put me on metformin. I go talk with her next week, to update her on what's happening and (maybe?) get off a prescription drug or two. A guy can hope. My blood pressure today was 112/70, so maybe eventually I'll get off the blood pressure meds, too.

Things are good.

I'd have liked to have seen more weight loss this week, but after the torrid pace of the first five weeks, maybe a bit of a slowdown in the rate of loss was about due. I'm still shooting for 230 or less by Halloween, and that's less than 16 pounds and 30 days away. A half-pound a day? No problem!

Another week, another 7.3 pounds lost. 36 days, 36.3 pounds. 242.7 pounds, according to the fancy-schmancy scale at the weight loss clinic. At this rate, I'm looking at 205 by Halloween--and my actual target weight is 209.

The new shipment of meal replacements

That's the good news. The bad news is that my body composition analysis done last week was screwed up--the dietician entered my height wrong--6'3" instead of 6"0.3". Big oops. That messed up a lot of the numbers and made it look a lot better than it was, causing the nearly miraculous numbers that I had last week. This week, it was back down to Earth a bit.

My real numbers are 242.7 total pounds of which 162.5 was lean muscle mass, 119.1 was water, and 80.2 pounds of fat. The difference of those numbers from the first body composition analysis are: -36.3 pounds total, -14.5 pounds lean muscle, -10.8 pounds of water, and -17.3 pounds of fat. Still really good numbers, but not fantastic. And, I had a bit more muscle loss than the physician assistant I saw today wanted to see, so I get to hit the weights a bit more in the gym. More reps, not more weight, don't ya know.

At this rate, I just might be within shouting distance of my goal weight by the end of October. I said last week I was shooting for 230 by Halloween--that's only 12.7 pounds away, now. And I'm over half way to my overall goal of 209--that's only 33.7 pounds away.

I think I'll make it, but I'm gonna need a whole closet full of new clothes.

That's exactly a pound a day, since the diet started 29 days ago. 7.7 pounds in the last week. I guess political activism agrees with me.

It helps that--aided by the 25,000 steps in the three full days we spent in Washington--I averaged something over 6,000 steps a day. Add to that the three-times-weekly workouts with our personal trainer, and I'm a fat-burning machine.

But what's even better than the weight loss (and that's pretty good, don'tcha think?) is the results of another "body composition analysis" I had at the weight loss clinic today. The first analysis, which was done a week before I actually started the diet, showed that I weighed 274.5 pounds, of which 177.0 was lean body mass--muscle and water--and 97.5 pounds was body fat.

Well. Today, the numbers were 250.0 pounds total, 185.4 lean body mass, and 64.6 pounds of body fat. I've lost 32.9 pounds of fat, and actually gained "dry lean mass" (that is, muscle weight) of 2.3 pounds--from 47.1 to 49.4 pounds.

People aren't supposed to gain muscle mass when they're on one of these diets. The doctor and the nutritionists stress over and over how you're supposed to exercise (and eat all of your protein meal replacements) in order to avoid losing too much muscle. The dietitian I talked to said my numbers were just about the best she'd ever seen.

So, I'm doing it right.

I've got 41 days to go before Halloween, when I plan to go into a bit of a maintenance mode for the holiday season. My personal goal for that is to get down to 230 pounds. Considering that that means another 20 pounds in 41 days, that seems like a very reachable goal.

Now if you excuse me, I've got to go out and walk for an hour. Halloween is right around the corner!

I went in yesterday for my weekly check-in at the weight loss doctor's clinic. Another good result--257.7 pounds, blood pressure 110/68.

I'm 36% of my way to my goal!

My heel/ankle, on the mend from the achilles tendon repair surgery, is almost recovered--I only walk with a slight limp now. I got in over 7,000 steps yesterday alone, and my target number is 4,000.

I'm pretty excited, in my Nordic stoic Norwegian way. Snookums is really happy, too.

I got a ribbon. Yay.

Fifteen days, actually. Going smoothly, even with a trip to Chicago to visit Snookums' best bud Linda and see Steely Dan in concert.

I had real food, too--three times! Three dinners in Chicago--all some variation of whitefish (broiled preferably) and steamed broccoli, with an iceberg lettuce wedge or salad with red wine vinegar. It's a good thing that I like whitefish and broccoli, isn't it?

When we got home from Chicago, I had a big box of meal replacements from DietDirect.com waiting for me at our front door. Mmm, mushroom soup and a variety of new shake/pudding flavors get added into the menu.

At the Center for Nutrition today, the dietitian weighed me in at 261.9 pounds, and then took my blood pressure.

Want to know what it was?

Really?

I'm teasing, now.



102/70.

That's below normal. Low blood pressure is good--at least as long as it doesn't go too low, I'm told. The Mayo Clinic web site says 90/60 is considered low.

I doubt that I'll keep losing over a pound a day, but 230 lbs by Halloween is within reach, I think. 220 would be nice, but that would be close to that pound-a-day thing. I'm not sure my joints would stand up to the amount of exercise I'd need to do to make that by Halloween. Maybe by New Year's Day?

I'm pretty happy.

I've been on the doctor-monitored weight loss program for a week now. One week. 10.3 pounds lost.

10.3 pounds. One week.

Wow.

Breakfast: Oatmeal and pills

More at the "read more."

No pictures in this post, sorry. They'll be forthcoming--at least of some of the various pre-packaged diet foods which now constitute my diet for the next couple of months.

I got started on the diet on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 18th, with a sumptious supper of cream of chicken soup, roasted & salted soy nuts, a mixed-fruit-flavor fiber drink, and the supper medications and supplements: zonisamide as an appetite suppressant, three "Ultra Prevention" multivitamins, one green tea extract and one chromium supplement. Yum, yum! The soup was surprisingly good, the soy nuts are OK as well (although I think I've driven Snookums crazy with my comment that "one bag is about all I want to eat at one time." She seems to think that means I don't like them, but I do. I just don't want to snarf down three or four bags worth at one sitting.) The fiber drink tastes exactly like a Crystal Light sort of drink, so that's cool, too.

(I need to remember to take pictures of some of my daily feasts going forward, don't I?)

I need to drink at least 64 ounces of non-caffeinated beverages daily. I took care of that easily in my big KU cup, filled to the brim with cherry sugar-free Kool-Aid(TM) (I'd use a cup with the South Dakota State jackrabbit on it, if only they made one!)

Evening snack was a bag of chili soy snacks--small peanut-sized things with the approximate texture of puffed Cheetos. They're actually pretty good. Bedtime, and time for my evening pills and supplements: Vytorin for cholesterol, gemfibrozil for triglycerides, and 3 calcium/magnesium supplements. One of the goals of the weight loss project is to get off of the hideously expensive Vytorin, and the astonishingly cheap gemfibrozil.

After the jump (hit Read More!): Sleep! Sickness! Pickles!

A couple of weeks of food.

It has begun!

Regular readers of Medary.com probably realize that I don't really write a lot about my personal life. Scandanivian reticence, perhaps, or maybe I'm just a really, really, really private person. Maybe those two things are the same thing. Anyway, much of what I write about is external to me--things that are happening in the world around me, and not so much what is happening to me personally.

Well, let's shift gears for a little while.

I'm overweight. Obese, actually. Not the kind of spherical obese on display at the low-rent buffet restaurants, as I've been blessed with a rather large skeletal frame. People are always amazed that I weigh as much as I do--279 pounds at last official measurement. That's too much, by about 70 pounds, according to the doctor.

I've finally had enough of carrying around that extra 70 pounds. I've got one really bad knee and another that complains on occasion. I've snapped one achilles tendon, and have had bunion surgeries on both feet. My wheels are hurtin'.

This February, I promised to my Snookums that I'd get down to 230 lbs by her next birthday in February, 2010. With the shoulder surgery (rotator cuff) and the achilles surgery I've had this year, that's been on hold for too long.

I finally decided I needed some professional guidance. On the KCMO Morning Show, host Chris Stigall sings the praises of a place called the Center for Nutrition, a short drive away in Lenexa, Kansas. The stars came into alignment, my promise to my wife intersected with my determination to--this time--lose the weight and make it stick--so I called and made an appointment.

They sent me an extensive questionnaire about my health history, which I dutifully filled in before my first meeting. The first meeting features a body composition analysis--one of those devices that sends a low-level electrical current through your body and measures your fat vs. lean body content, and from that, figures out your basal metabolic rate--the number of calories your body should run on.

Well, I'm fat. I knew that. But I also have lots and lots of lean muscle mass. Underneath all the blubber, I'm a studly guy! Woo-hoo! My basal metabolic rate is 2107 kcal, and my current target weight, according the the machine, is 209 lbs. The nutritionist at the first meeting utterly failed to scare me off--not that she tried all that hard, so I came back a couple of days letter for the blood draw for the medical lab tests, plus an EKG (NOT an EEG--that was a typo that I just fixed!). Other than the half-hour drive to and from the clinic, no problems, so far.

A week after the first meeting, Snookums and I are back in the office, talking to Dr. Rick Tague, the Guy behind the Center for Nutrition. Again, no big surprises. My labs are generally good, but show that I have a Vitamin D deficiency (I guess that's actually pretty common), I've got Metabolic Syndrome (otherwise known as insulin resistance--basically a pre-diabetic condition), and a possibly slightly underactive thyroid. My white blood cell count--the neutrophils, to be specific, are also a touch on the low side.

Dr. Tague's basic message is: "we can fix that!" I get the "Rapid Reduction Weight Loss Phase" right off the bat. That's the picture you see up at the top of this article. Special low-carbohydrate, low-fat foods (if you do the verbal math there, you figure out that it's a protein diet) and lots and lots of supplements to make up the nutritional difference between the diet foods and what humans are really supposed to eat--whatever that is. Anyway, my target weight loss goal is 3-5 pounds per week, until I get down within shouting range of 220 pounds.

In order to do that, my goal is to take in about 1,100 calories a day--about 142 grams of protein daily. AND, up the exercise level, to get in at least 4,000 steps per day as measured by a pedometer, in addition to 20-35 minutes 4-5 times a week of getting my heart rate up into the 94-129 beat per minute range. Lots of numbers.

I can do this.

But kids, don't try this at home without medical supervision. It can mess you up. Srsly.

Next time: The journey begins.