So far

Well, I'm losing weight. Not a tonnage, but enough. So I tried a recipe for cauliflower/potato mash. So good! Half the calories and lower carbs than mashed taters, but tastes better. MMMMM. A couple great 100 calorie finds - Yoplait light thick & creamy and the Oreo candy bites. Yum.

Recap of my first week on SlimFast:
Weekly Goal - 2 lbs, lost 3 lbs!
Activity - 5 days
Cheated - Yes

Good job Betsy. Work on sticking with the program.

Well, I'm off to the gym.

Weekly goal: 2 pounds
Goal for today: Don't eat after 7
Activity: Half hour on treadclimber (400 calories)
Weight: 158/155/146

Correction!!

Okay - I'm a doofus. I said I was going to try Slim4Life, but I meant SlimFast. See how brainwashed I was!!! Anyhoo, I'm doing SlimFast. One for breakfast, one for lunch, oranges as snacks, and a "sensible" (stop snickering) dinner.

So far, my sensible dinners have been split. Thursday it was a LC mexican beans & rice with a bunch of lettuce and some Doritos to scoop. Pretty good, huh? Friday it was, um, well, best intentions and all, cucumber sushi, shiritaki noodles with peanut sauce, chicken breast and mango salsa (all very healthy, but a bit much) AND THEN handfuls of SunChips.

WTF, I have absolutely no willpower on Fridays (okay it ain't so great Sat-Thurs either). To top it off, I went out for a couple with the hubs. I also didn't exercise. What a slob. BUT, I didn't gain any weight. So if I'm good today, I can trick my body into forgetting about yesterday. Right??? Well, we bowl tonight, so I'll have to make sure I stick to diet cocktails.

Weekly goal: 2 pounds
Goal for today: Don't eat crap
Activity: Get an hour in at the gym
Weight: 158/156/146

Well that didn't work!

Okay - so now I'm up to 158! Yikes! Argh! Sh*t! And the worst part is that I'm going on vaca in Mexico in 4 weeks. Think I can lose 12 pounds by then? Well, I've been trying different things for months and I just can't get below this weight. I've gone down to 153, but that's as far as I can get. I've tried all manner of things - the 3 day S4L no carb thing, ww points, hoodia (so totally doesn't work at all whatsoever), and now I'm trying Slim4Life. We'll see how this goes. If it tanks, I'm off to TJ Maxx for size 12 everything. Hey, at least it's not 14 like a couple years ago. Here goes nothing!

Weekly goal: 2 pounds
Goal for today: Don't eat after 7
Activity: Get a half hour in at the gym
Weight: 158/158/146

Back in the fattle

I'm back and so's a bunch of the weight. Ultimately, I've found that I suck at maintenance. Just a few months ago I was 132 pounds. Now I'm back up to 147... and that's after being on Weight Watchers for a week (I started when I hit 150). Soooooo, here's my new journey with WW online. There are two plans with WW - Flex and Core. The one I'm on right now is the Flex Plan. The concept is that everything that I eat is assigned a point value based on its calorie, fat and fiber content, and my weight determines how many "points" I get to eat each day. The plan allows for extra points for exercising called "activity points" or AP and an extra 35 "flex points" FP per week to use however I want (all at once, 5 a day, whatever). A little tool called a tracker allows me to look up foods and get their point value. It really helps with journaling, which I totally suck at. They also have a great website that is filled with advice, recipe swaps, and a message board. I tried the message board, but it's too clicky (sp) for me, so here I am with my narcissistic blog that nobody reads. I'll be setting goals and reporting my weightloss 2 or 3 times a week and doing a recap at the end of the week. My official weigh in day is Wed. So let's go -

Weekly goal: Eat all of my veggies daily
Goal for today: Don't overeat because I have a few beers
Activity: Get a half hour in at the gym
Weight: 150/147/135

Done

Well, I made it to my goal last Friday and I weighed in yesterday and stayed at goal (after much celebrating over the weekend). Anyway, I said I would report whether or not it's been worth the huge cost. I would have to say yes for me. I lost the weight that I've been holding on to for more than ten years. I'm at 135 fully clothed - about 132.5 nekked!

After my fourth baby was born I got down to 135 for a trip to Hawaii. He's now 12. I hovered around 140 for a few years and slowly made my way up to a comfortable 150-ish. After trying WW several times and ways, I managed to get back down to 145 at the lowest before I quit. Why? Too damn slow. The old "it took a long time to gain, it'll take a long time to lose" is b.s. The weight packed on quick and came off slow.

Anyway, I figure for 30 pounds, 13 weeks of stuff, I spent about $2500. I didn't buy all of the supplements that I was supposed to, but I also bought stuff that I didn't use, so I guess that's about what a person who needs to lose 30 pounds, following the plan exactly, would spend. The cost covered twice weekly visits with a "counselor," S4L vitamins, and S4L supplements (bars, shakes, snacks). Counselor visits were not worth the cost. They don't know jack and they're all on the plan. Many are just kids. The vitamins are reasonably priced and they seem to help - I only took the once daily and the EFAs. Vitamins are expensive wherever you go. I never took the recommended 9 a day of the EFAs because I can't justify that a 200 lb man and a 150 lb woman need the same amount. Simple math - I took the lowest amount, 6. The supplements are a bit overpriced, but not by much. Protien bars at 2 bucks a bar is pretty competetive with Luna or Pria. And you can get deals if you buy in bulk. You can also get deals for any of the products online with a simple google search.

Would I recommend it? If you have the money, are really committed this time, and don't have a lot of weight to lose, then I'd say yes. I just can't see someone who's 100 lbs overweight sticking to it, however. The counselors simply don't have the knowledge or skills to help with that. I'm now on maintenance which, after all of this depravation, seems like huge amounts of food. I'll check back in now and again to report on my progress.

Stats: 165/135/135

Horseshoes and hand grenades

Well, weigh in was yesterday and I'm a quarter pound away. The counselor weighing me announced it to the other counselors and Leslie told me to get back into the scale room and take something off! I told her I'd get it off by Friday. Then I went home and ate my way through a bag of ginger snaps. Self sabotaging. That's me.

Today they had a pizza party at work. It smelled sooooo good, but when I went through the line and looked at the greasy slabs of fatty pie it actually turned my stomach. I can't believe it. One of the women I work with - a lovely gal who happens to be from another country - kept asking me why I couldn't eat pizza and I had to explain to her about eighty five times how I could eat whatever I want, I just didn't want to eat pizza. "What you can't eat?" Well, dairy, onions, carbs. "Oh, you on carb diet. That's good for you." Well, no, it's carbs, fat, and calories that I'm cutting. "Oh, so you can just eat cheese? Is good for you." No, it's full of fat and oily. "No oil, just cheese." AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I almost choked a peice down just to make her stop. She's sweet, but...

Stats: 165/135.4/135

Last half pound

Well who knew. My weigh-in was last Friday and I'm a half pound from goal. I wasn't as excited as I thought I'd be. Oh, well. I'm a little blue all around. My husband, aka Mr. Critical, came back from his hunting trip and life is back to normal.

Last night at bowling one of the guys asked me how much I'd lost. I told him and he congratulated me and asked me if I was going to keep going. I sort of looked at him like he was mental and said, "No I don't think so." And he said, "Yeah, you probably should give it a rest for a while." What a shithead. Like it's up to him to decide when I'm thin enough. Oh, please mister man, can I be done starving myself? Do I look good enough yet? What a shithead.

Stats: 165/135.8/135