Our Kaiser MWM cohort met again tonight after two weeks; it was exciting to see that several people are definitely looking thinner. We are going into our sixth week on product and we've only lost a couple of cohort members*. Most of the group is sticking with the program.
I did my weigh-in, and I'm down 6.1 pounds from two weeks ago. I'm very, very pleased about that. I've lost just over 15 pounds in five weeks on product, averaging about three pounds per week.
The hypertension is decreasing (143/104 today) so the doctor doesn't think I need blood pressure meds as long as I keep losing weight. All of my labs look good, so they say I'm doing fine on the program.
Our facilitator, N, talked about the importance of monitoring our food and exercise. Monitoring=Journaling. We are supposed to keep a journal what we eat, when we eat, and where. N collects our journal pages and looks them over before returning them to us. We are also given the choice of using FitBit or one of the websites like MyFitnessPal to log our food and exercise, as long as there is some sort of printing option.
Since we are eating Optifast only at this stage, it's not too difficult to just write "Chicken Soup" or "Vanilla Shake" in the little boxes. When we start eating "regular" food, and -gasp- MAKING CHOICES! calorie counting can get complicated, so one of those programs will be useful.
So far N hasn't specifically asked us to turn in exercise logs, but I know myself that when I was journaling all my exercise and steps a couple of weeks ago, I was doing pretty well. Last meeting Kaiser had run out of blank exercise log pages, so that was my excuse to slack off and not exercise as much. Bad me! I made sure to grab some extra log pages tonight, and will make photocopies if I run out.
I'm certain that at some point we will be asked to turn in our exercise pages, and as I'm a good little do-bee, I'll have to make sure my homework gets done. :)
Journaling is a very effective tool. I don't want to see a "cheat" on my journal sheet, so I'd better stick to the program! It's nice to see a line of seven days of consistent exercise, so I'd better do my workouts and write them down! I can make all kinds of excuses and justify my behavior ('Oh, man, the sciatica is killing me!'), but if I want this to be the last "diet" in my lifetime, I've got to develop habits that will stick with me forever.
N told us the top two habits of dieters who are ultimately successful (don't gain back the weight):
1. Eating breakfast every day
2. Food journaling
And since I am going to be in the successful group, I'll have to make sure those habits are ingrained into my body and mind.
*Note: We've lost a couple of cohorters to quitting the program, not death! It occurred to me how that must sound!
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