My first five weeks.

I weighed myself on Tuesday December 1st. I was concerned that I would have lost very little, nothing or even gained because of the Thanksgiving Hoilday. I say this because during the Holiday week I split a large Nachos and Cheese Sticks at Denny's, I ate a whole large tub of popcorn with butter at the movies with my wife, I ate out at Fire Mountain for Thanksgiving Dinner which included turkey, gravy, chicken, stuffing, green beans w/bacon, roll w/honey butter and ham. I have to admit that I made a few trips to the buffet as well. The friday after Thanksgiving my Mother in Law made her traditional Thanksgiving dinner so I had turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and jello cake for dessert. Now you know why I was concerned.
Imagine how amazed I was that I had lost another 7 pounds. So my total weight loss in 35 days was 30 pounds. Obviously had I made different choices I would have lost more weight. My wife Tasha has been piggybacking on the program with me and even with eating almost the same things as me, some worse and some better, she lost an additional 1.5 pounds to bring her total to 13.5 pounds.

What I am finding with this eating program is that you can cheat off of it and still be able to have a net weight loss over almost a two week period. I don't reccomend that somebody who is trying to use this program for weight loss purposes go out and eat all the same things I did though. In all honesty this has been the easiest 30 pounds that I have ever lost in my life. Interestingly, some foods that I used to eat no longer appeal to me now after eating this way for 30 days. After eating the nachos and cheese sticks I felt like I could throw up I was so ill. The popcorn tasted good and didn't bother me. I also tried a Reese's Peanut Butter cup on Thanksgiving because they used to be my favorite candy and I wanted a treat. Big mistake, it tasted so sugary and sweet it was all I could do to finish the two cups in the package. I told Tasha about it and she was a little surprised that it would taste that bad. She decided to try one over the weekend and could only finish one cup and gave the other one away. Needless to say the ones that are in our pantry will be going in Christmas stockings for other people to eat.

Becasue this weight loss has been so easy, I decided to enlist the help of a couple people to see how the program would work for them. I contatcted my mother and my best friend from high school Aaron Falvey. My mother is going to follow the guidelines and see how it affects her weight and her overall health. Aaron is in the process of looking over the approved foods list that I sent and is seeing if it will fit in with his natural food approach to eating that he has been following. I think it will because the program builds on eating natural foods and then goes a step farther by employing only low glycemic load foods in your diet.

My next weigh in will be at the 45 day mark next friday 12/11/09. I want to see how much weight I will be able to lose during the initial phase of this program. After the first phase is complete, I am going to add in 30 minutes of everyday walking over the next 45 days to see how this affects the amount of weight I am losing as well. I have always believed that exercise is a very important component of any weight loss program, but when dealing with people who are morbidly obese, like myself, it is good to get some weight off initially and boost their energy level before starting them off on an exercise program. It is also helpful for those who are extremely overweight to have the emotional pick up that losing a good bit of weight with out exercising brings. After the second phase, I intend to incorporate light weight training into the third 45 day phase to stimulate muscle growth, toning and better absorption of blood sugars by the body.

What I want to do with this program is be able to present it to those people who are extremely overweight like myself and have them be able to follow a step by step guide to help them lose the weight. Once a person reaches 400 pounds, the odds of them losing weight is very small. This really bothers me because 368 pounds wasn't all that far from the 400 pound threshold. It is my personal belief that if you have the mind set that you really want to lose weight than this program can work for anybody no matter how large they are. Losing 30 pounds in just over a month with no exercise is a God send to me. It has helped me to feel better, have more energy and be in a better mood. All of these things will help to contribute to my continued success on the program. The other part of this program that I am excited about, is the fact that there is a lot of back ground information as to why you need to eat the things you are eating. Most people who lose weight and talk about it always emphasize how they had to work out all the time and that they ate smaller portions and just ate healthier. What the heck does that all mean. How can I look at that statement and apply it to my life. What I wanted was a set of guidelines to follow and by doing a ton of research I think I have finally found it.

I will continue to keep everyone posted on my successes and my failures. When you try to lose weight it is important to realize you didnt get where you are overnight. Nobody snapped their fingers and suddenly you weighed 368 pounds. Undoing that process takes time. My ultimate goal is to see where I am after 6 months in the program. So after 4 phases of 45 days, where will I be.