Contributed by: filbert Friday, August 21 2009 @ 03:49 PM CST
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[*1] as an appetite suppressant, three “Ultra Prevention” multivitamins, one green tea extract[*2] and one chromium[*3] 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[*4] for cholesterol, gemfibrozil[*5] for triglycerides, and 3 calcium[*6] /magnesium[*7] 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! My nose was a bit stuffed up, which is always a bit problematic when I go to bed because among the other health problems I hope will go away–or get better–with weight loss is obstructive sleep apnea[*8] , so I use a CPAP[*9] through which I breathe during the night–through my nose.
Well, one of the things that happens every once in a while, especially when I’m congested, is that I get a sinus headache when I wake up. The headaches can range from really nasty to just annoying, and fortunately, I had the just annoying kind, the morning of Thursday, August 20th.
I got up, looking forward to a ‘breakfast’ of a package of cocoa drink, and a package of cappuccino drink, mixed with my morning coffee. I also have a list of 28 different pills to take every morning.
That’s when the trouble began.
The pills include the prescription drugs lisinopril[*10] and hydrochlorthiazide[*11] , for blood pressure; another dose of the aforementioned gemfibrozil; budeprion[*12] for another appetite suppressant (I’ll eventually be taking one of the zonisamides for breakfast too, as well as at supper, but that’s a couple of days away yet). The supplements are (gird your loins, it’s a big list) three “Ultra Prevention” multivitamins, five vitamin D[*13] gel-tabs, 2 chromium[*3] tabs, 4 omega 3 fish oil[*14] geltabs (EPA and GLA, mainly), 1 green tea extract tab, 4 salt[*15] tablets, 1 glucosamine/chondroitin[*16] tab, one coenzyme Q-10[*17] tab, and 2 cinnamon[*18] pills. Whew.
I think it was a salt tab that got me.
I did try to space out all of those pills, but apparently I took them too fast. I was half way through my second cup of coffee–the cappuccino–when the previously imbibed cocoa-coffee mixture (which was the first cuppa the day) along with all 28 companion intended to make their way down into my digestive tract instead decided to make a u-turn.
Up they came. They did give me plenty of warning, so I got one of my big aluminum mixing bowls out, and stood over the sink as a backup. I’m pretty sure I got all of it into the mixing bowl. I woke up Snookums with my ralphing[*19] . My body, satisfied that it had removed whatever was offending its tender sensibilities, began to calm down, and I dumped my attempted breakfast into the toilet.
Well, that was a waste of time and money. But it pretty well set the tone for the entire day. A full KU-cup of Coke Zero (one of my favorite comfort “foods”) helped me along as the day went on. I gingerly approached my morning snack, sugar-free Jell-O (TM) and another serving of the fiber drink.
I don’t think I’ve explained the whole meal plan thing yet. Here’s how it works:
– Breakfast, with two meal units;
– Morning snack, one meal unit;
– Lunch, two meal units;
– Early afternoon snack, one meal unit;
– Late afternoon snack, one meal unit;
– Supper, two meal units;
– Evening snack, one meal unit, and finally
– Bedtime, pills and supplements only.
Daily, one of the meal units is supposed to be a package of soy nuts, so I get a bit of fat in my diet. (You die if you don’t eat at least a little fat, people!) Also, one or two of the soluble fiber drink supplements, to keep the digestive machinery moving, don’t ‘cha know.
A “meal unit” is what I’m calling any of the various pre-packaged foods I got from the doctor’s office. That includes the various drinks, soups, pre-made and powdered shakes, and other low-carb/low-fat protein food products which I’ll live on for basically the next two months or so.
I had a couple of packs of instant oatmeal for lunch–apple/cinnamon flavor, which were actually pretty good, and nice and easy for my seemingly fragile appetite to take the noon supplements with (those being 1 green tea, 4 salt, 1 coenzyme Q-10, 2 chromium, 1 glucosamine/chondroitin, and 2 cinnamon tablets–only 11 total! Cake!) I topped off the Coke Zero in the 60-ounce mug and contemplated an afternoon nap after my “morning” shower.
The first afternoon snack was my first taste of the pre-made vanilla diet shake, which was actually pretty good, washed down with 48 ounces of water. My sinus headache was getting a bit worse, so I took 2 Aleve and 2 loratadine (generic Claritin) and tried to take that afternoon nap. I maybe got in 15 or 20 minutes of dozing, before getting up again. It was now 3 pm, and I was starting to get hungry (seeing as how I basically didn’t have breakfast, remember?) Dill pickles are “free food” on this diet. I ate four. Sugar-free gelatin is also a free food, so I had some of that, too. Pickle juice isn’t specifically on the diet, but I also drank about four ounces of that, too. Like I said, I was starting to get hungry. But that weird combination took the edge off.
By now it was 4 pm and time for the late afternoon snack. I made three more (big) bowls of Jell-O for later, and made my first powdered shake–chocolate mint flavor. It was pretty good.
Supper consisted of beef-vegetable-flavor soup (with little in the way of beef or vegetable therein, but some teeny tiny noodles for a bit of texture), a pack of soy nuts, and a bag of chili soy puffs, which I dumped into the soup and made serviceable cracker-like thingies. Oh, yeah, there were pills! The meds consisted of a zonisamide (I’ll take a budeprion too, in a couple of days), while the supplements are 3 multivitamins, 1 green tea, and 1 chromium. Only six pills? That’s NUTHIN!
Attentive readers will note that I cheated a bit, having three meal units for supper. Well, I skipped the evening snack, so we’re even. I downed three more dill pickles and one of the supersized bowls of Jell-O before turning in for the night.
Next: Friday!
UPDATE: Yeah, Thursday was so hard on me that I had all of my days of the week mixed up. That’s why Snookums is my Proofreader for Life. (Everybody go “awwwww” now ’cause it’s kinda mushy that way.)