Lose 50 BZ

One of the questions I’ve been asked many times when starting the program was, “Why Now?” Good question. I was so against any sort of help or guidance from anyone other than a magazine or blog article. My mentality focused upon the fact that I’ve been able to do it before, on my own. Back in ’99 I started a program called, “Body of Life,” and had great results – losing a total of 30lbs and dropping my body fat percentage by 10%. I ended up doing the program with my girlfriend at the time, and a couple of friends.

Over the years, I’ve done a couple other diets but was never able to achieve the same results as I did with the first program. After two weeks into the program, I’m sure I know what I was missing all these years – accountability.

Who’s watching you?
Like I said before, I was able to lose 10-15 lbs by myself with no issues but it never seemed to stay off. Many of my workout regime’s revolved around upcoming events (i.e. weddings, trips) and after the events were over I ran back to my usual antics of eating whatever whenever.

I’d start up another diet/workout program but I didn’t have anyone watching me, making me accountable for my progress. That’s what this program provides you, lots and lots of accountability. You meet with your Trainer 3 times a week, and you’re responsible for 2 workouts on your own. You also have to meet with a dietitian and attend a group therapy session every week for 12 weeks.

What’s your end goal?
Obviously lose 50 lbs of fat. But I have other things that would really make this program more worth it.

1. Using a belt as an accessory rather than a functional piece
2. Get rid of all my fat boy clothes
3. Wear the new clothes I purposely bought at a smaller size
4. Help our Flag Football team reach the Championship
5. Get Healthy
6. Permanently learn a new way to eat
7. Maintain my goal weight for 5+ years
8. Six Pack – I don’t expect this to come after the program but it’ll be a nice surprise
9. Buy a nice suit
10. Go surfing in Hawaii

On the Program’s Diet…
I started the “real” diet on Dec. 8th given that’s when I got the plan from my Dietitian. Basically the week consisted of 4x 20/20 Protein Shakes with 1/2 cup of Berries, and Protein for Lunch and Dinner. For the first 2 days I wanted to keep it simple and did just 6 oz. of Chicken and 2 tbsp of Low Fat Asian dressing – that got old really fast.

Myra and I went over the “allowed” list and saw most of the foods were from PCC, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s which happen to be pretty close by to where we live. After talking with my Dietitian she mentioned that all the foods on the list are allowed but to watch the sodium. Unfortunately, many of the foods that are ready-made have a huge amount of sodium in them. My blood pressure is a little high so she mentioned that cooking at home may help lower my numbers faster along with losing the weight.

It does get a little confusing when you try to match Protein vs. Serving size and I’ll get to more on that later.

I didn’t cheat at all last week, but my cravings have increased dramatically. I’m wishing for burgers, steak, and fries anything other than chicken or fish.

On the Cravings…
Unfortunately the cravings haven’t stopped. I constantly want to bite into a Double Whopper, chow on some Chicken Tenders, or get down with some Cheesy Nachos from Taco Bell. The roommate isn’t down with the weight loss diet and is grabbing all the delicious food and eating it right in front of me. It’s all good, at least I get to smell it….mmmm.

I do; however, have a couple of wins regarding the cravings. Initially I had massive headaches because I quit my usual coffee fix in the morning cold turkey. The headaches lasted for the entire week but have since subsided. At this point I’ve ceased to have any craving for my coffee fix in the morning.

Another win is regarding my soa pop fix. I didn’t drink pop often, usually on the weekends at my Parent’s house, but when I did it was a disaster. I’d always drink at least 2-3 in one sitting. Horrible. Ever since I’ve started the diet I no longer have a craving for Coke/Diet Coke/Pepsi/Mountain Dew.

Let hope that lasts

On the Workouts….
I had a total of 3 workouts last week (Tues, Thurs, Fri) and I didn’t feel too sore. The initial soreness was there but was due to my 3 week absence from the gym and nothing that I really did exercise wise.

The first 30-35 minutes of my workout is on a treadmill with a 10% incline at a very slow pace (2.7-3.0) nothing drastic. But do not underestimate this low impact exercise – this easily got my heart rate bumping up to 160 bpm in 5 minutes and held steady until my 35 minutes was over. Obviously we’re training my heart right now to get used to exercise, in a couple weeks my heart rate will need more to get it pumping faster.

My trainer noticed that I am “athletically” inclined and wanted to know if I wanted to do more strength training. “Sure”. So he suggested I get in 15 minutes earlier and start my cardio workout without him. That way when I’m done we get an extra 15 minutes to do some strength training.

On the Weight Loss…
Exactly one week from when I started I lost approximately 7.5 lbs bringing me down from 240.5 to 233.  So you may ask why am I not celebrating? It’s because after I came back from Vegas I weighed in at 233lbs. So the weight I lost was actually gained from my Last Supper episodes prior to joining the 20/20 Program.

I’ll actually be more elated when I hit below this weight which I hope will happen by the end of this week.

Dietian
I met with my Dietitian this past Monday and it was pretty quick and easy. She laid out the foods I’m able to eat this week, mainly Protein and the Protein Shakes. Myra has been gracious enough to cook/steam the chicken for me for my Lunch/Dinner.

I’m allowed a certain range of foods every week, and every week a new ingredient/food group gets introduced back into my system. The goal of this exercise is to determine how the foods react to your body [i.e. does this food make me hungry or keep me full]

I’m on Day 2 of my diet and I’m surviving so far. Ask me again 4-5 weeks from now.

I meet with her every week for the next 12 weeks, going over any challenges I had during the week and to talk about how my diet will change for the upcoming week. After the initial 12 I’ll meet with her for another 6 sessions – basically every other week for the remaining weeks. Luckily I meet with her every Monday so it’ll be a good start for the week.

Personal Trainer
I met with my Trainer on Tuesday and he’s a really cool guy. I was totally against getting a Trainer for my workouts, I had the mentality that putting together a workout isn’t so hard – back/bi’s | chest – tri’s | legs but I think the real kicker to success is accountability. That’s the biggest factor missing when I was working out on my own. If I don’t show up to an appointment, he’s going to call me and “nicely” bitch me out. If I don’t show up to workout on my own – who cared, right? That’s where I think I’ll succeed in the program because I’ll have someone watching my every move, doing measurements, and tracking my progress. Problem I may face is after my training is done, what do I need to do to keep up that accountability.

So during the workout we did 2 sets of a prescribed set of exercises – he wanted to gauge where my strengths were and use it to tailor my program going forward.  Luckily my Trainer understands that I sorta know what I’m doing and isn’t pushing me on those girly machines and put me straight to the free weights. I also made sure that he understands my goals for the program [i.e. kick ass in flag football, do more than one pathetic pull-up, and run more 5K's] The only thing I might have a problem with is coming up with stuff to talk about while I’m on the Treadmill since he’s right there watching me.

For the first few weeks of the program we’re going to do massive amounts of cardio and some strength training to assist with the weight loss. Then later on in the program he’s going to target some of the exercises to the sports that I want to play which is pretty cool. I’ll be ending the “intense” portion of the program right around when Spring Flag Football season begins.

I meet with him three times a week for the next 12 weeks then it goes to two times a week for the remaining 12 weeks.

I mentioned to my Physician at my appointment last Friday that I’ve taken the advice from people that were in the 20/20 program to eat all the foods that I love before I actually start the program. He laughed and said he advised against it; he called it the “Last Supper Syndrome.”  But he said, you’re an adult and you can do whatever you want – so I did – after my appointment I went to McDonald’s to get some breakfast What he said made sense tho – it’ll be harder to stick to the diet if I’m used to the “good” foods and go to a strict diet.

The picture above is my “Last Supper” on Saturday, we went over to Burger King to get 2 Whoppers, 8 piece Chicken Tenders, Fries and a Sprite!

The last few weeks while I was going through the preliminary work for the 20/20 program – I didn’t pay attention to my diet and actually gained 8 lbs. I weighed 232lbs before the Vegas Trip and I’m now at a cool 240lbs.

My first dietitian appointment is today at noon so that’s when I’m officially on the program and eating right.

Last week was a busy week full of appointments – I already covered my first appointment in my last post; the other appointments I went to were:

• Initial Assessment
• 1st Group Session
• Physician Appointment

Initial Assessment
This appointment consisted of  getting two things done, an assessment of my current fitness state and my signing of the 20/20 contract program. The assessment consisted of getting my initial measurements, a body fat test, and a few exercises to test my physical strength. This went by pretty quick, from the other people I talked to I had a feeling it would have taken a little bit longer. The contract signing was pretty straightforward as well. Basically you choose the program you want to pursue [I signed up for the 12 week intense, 12 week maintenance] and sign your life away; after which you put down the required deposit down [at the time it was $750] and set yourself up for the financing.

That was pretty much it, the Personal Trainer that did my assessment isn’t the same one I’m signed up for. Very nice guy; he went through all the specifics and was clear about what was required from the participant during the program.

You also get a little pedometer to measure your steps during the day, they want you to get 5,000 steps daily for the days you work out and 10,000 for the days you don’t.

Group Session
I got to the ProClub about 5:50pm and my appointment was at 6:00pm, I got to the boardroom where we are supposed to meet and saw there was a full room already. “Shit, am I late?” I walk right in and walked into the previous group session. “Oops”. So I wait about ten minutes to wait for my session to begin.

The main goal of this session was to get to know one another and open up to what each and everyone of the members wanted to get out of the program. The session is held by one of the counselors from the same location I went to earlier in the week.

Overall I think I’ll do well with this group, I feel that I’m one of the more social guys in the group and will be able to voice my experiences and opinions whenever we meet.

Physician Appointment
I met with the Doctor earlier Friday morning and he’s a really nice gentleman. I was very candid with him, basically telling him what I want to get out of the program and how I plan to accomplish it. He had a packet of my blood results and a profile of my results according to the program they use.

My blood pressure reading was way off because I had coffee right before I had the bp test. ugh. So the results of the profile were based on someone with high blood pressure. He mentioned that I’ll be working directly with my Trainer to work on getting that number down regardless of how high it was showing.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings
The 20/20 program requires the participant to attend three mandatory meetings before they can start the program. The first three are:

• Counseling
• Fitness Assesment / Contract Signing
• Initial Physician Appointment

First Appointment – Let’s get started!
While I haven’t started any dieting, or working out yet I have officially started the 20/20 program. I had my first counseling appointment yesterday during lunch.

Initial Reaction
The counselors are not located at the ProClub, they are contracted by the ProClub for the program. As I was driving up to the building I started to get a little nervous; the other people I talked to that have gone through the program said it was nothing – but I still had my reservations.

After getting lost for a few minutes I finally found the door I was supposed to go through. I open the door and there’s two gentlemen standing there talking. No receptionist; just a little generic sign on a small table that said, “Please have a seat, the counselor will be with you shortly.” So I do and proceed to go though my emails / apps on the iPhone.

12:33PM
My appointment was scheduled for 12:30 and I arrived 15 minutes early (which is a first). Another person joined me in the waiting area and for some reason I thought it was my counselor “testing” me to see if I was friendly and would start talking to her. Weird thoughts go through your mind while you’re waiting in a counselor’s office. I got up and started to walk near the receptionist desk to see if anyone was around to ask about my appointment.

As I got closer, I saw a small purple clipboard with a few forms with a yellow post-it note with my name on it. I took a double-take and was like oh, would have been nice if someone told me to fill these out instead of leaving it on a desk. Anyways, I go and sit down to fill out the forms. Nothing special just the usual HIPPA forms and I needed to fill out a little Avery sticker with my name and date on it. I found out later that it was used by the ProClub to verify I made it to my appointments.

My couselor came out while I was filling out the forms and said she was running a little late.

Interrogation
Not really, actually it went okay. According to the counselor, the first appointment is used by the doctors and folks over at the ProClub to do some initial assesments on  your well being. Basically to find out if there are any things they need to really focus on during the program.

I won’t really get into all the questions but I will share a few things she asked me to get a feel of how the appointment went.

She started off with asking me why and what prompted me to join the program, then the questions evolved to asking me about my lifestyle (i.e. am I more social, or more of a loner, do I drink alot) what are my stress factors, and then ended with the typical depression type questions to see if there may be something they need to work on.

The appointment went by pretty fast, and at times I felt that I was just rambling on with what’s currently going on with my life and she needed to speed up the questions and I had to drop some one word answers.

There’s are a total of four appointments with a counselor, so 1 down – 3 more to go!