Dieting

Dwayne and I started a diet several weeks ago (March 27). We are definitely losing weight, and inches, but, at times I think it is about to kill me - I am cooking a full meal (or at least meat and vegetables) nearly every day!!! For those who know me... this is NOT me!

In some ways I am enjoying it - I am being very deliberate about what meats and vegetables I select to purchase, and I really think that I am preparing them in a more healthy way than I would have done before, but, it is exhausting! I have a lot more appreciation for folks who cook meals for their families every day. I have also been spending a lot more money on groceries - I figure it isn't any more than we would pay for a meal eaten out, but it is expensive to get good cuts of meat that are leaner.

We are on Medifast. During the weight loss phase, you eat 5 "program" meals (their pre-packaged foods) and 1 "Lean & Green" meal. Yes, 6 meals a day. You are supposed to eat every 2-3 hours. Initially I was trying to spread them out 3 hours apart - that's 15 hours from first "fueling" to last fueling. The first "fueling" is supposed to happen within 1 hour of getting up. We were staying up later and later to try to get all our fuelings in! Now we try to do more like 2 hours 15 minutes between fuelings. It is still challenging and we had to really think about it when we were away from the bus working at the house (where there was no refrigerator and no microwave) every day.

There have been times I got so frustrated with the planning that Dwayne encouraged me to just forget about it... we'll start again later when we don't have so many things going on... but I really want us both to get healthier, and I am hoping that this program will help with that.

We do grill meats often, and Dwayne takes the responsibility for that which helps a LOT! He also helps with other things when I ask him, but it is challenging for two people to work in our kitchen - who am I kidding? It is challenging for ONE person to work in our kitchen! My prep space is also the covers over the stove top, so it gets difficult when I need to chop AND cook!

We both have seen our primary care physicians while we were in the Dallas area (about 3 weeks into the diet), and they were both supportive of us losing some weight. It was too early to really see any impact on the bloodwork we had done.

As of now, we're 7 weeks in and we've each lost a little over 20 pounds. More exciting to me is that I can bend over and reach things on the floor without feeling like the fat around my middle will keep me from breathing. Dwayne is wearing smaller waist-size jeans and we're both cinching our belts tighter.