I went in yesterday for my weekly check-in at the weight loss doctor's clinic. Another good result--257.7 pounds, blood pressure 110/68.

I'm 36% of my way to my goal!

My heel/ankle, on the mend from the achilles tendon repair surgery, is almost recovered--I only walk with a slight limp now. I got in over 7,000 steps yesterday alone, and my target number is 4,000.

I'm pretty excited, in my Nordic stoic Norwegian way. Snookums is really happy, too.

I got a ribbon. Yay.

Fifteen days, actually. Going smoothly, even with a trip to Chicago to visit Snookums' best bud Linda and see Steely Dan in concert.

I had real food, too--three times! Three dinners in Chicago--all some variation of whitefish (broiled preferably) and steamed broccoli, with an iceberg lettuce wedge or salad with red wine vinegar. It's a good thing that I like whitefish and broccoli, isn't it?

When we got home from Chicago, I had a big box of meal replacements from DietDirect.com waiting for me at our front door. Mmm, mushroom soup and a variety of new shake/pudding flavors get added into the menu.

At the Center for Nutrition today, the dietitian weighed me in at 261.9 pounds, and then took my blood pressure.

Want to know what it was?

Really?

I'm teasing, now.



102/70.

That's below normal. Low blood pressure is good--at least as long as it doesn't go too low, I'm told. The Mayo Clinic web site says 90/60 is considered low.

I doubt that I'll keep losing over a pound a day, but 230 lbs by Halloween is within reach, I think. 220 would be nice, but that would be close to that pound-a-day thing. I'm not sure my joints would stand up to the amount of exercise I'd need to do to make that by Halloween. Maybe by New Year's Day?

I'm pretty happy.

I've been on the doctor-monitored weight loss program for a week now. One week. 10.3 pounds lost.

10.3 pounds. One week.

Wow.

Breakfast: Oatmeal and pills

More at the "read more."

No pictures in this post, sorry. They'll be forthcoming--at least of some of the various pre-packaged diet foods which now constitute my diet for the next couple of months.

I got started on the diet on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 18th, with a sumptious supper of cream of chicken soup, roasted & salted soy nuts, a mixed-fruit-flavor fiber drink, and the supper medications and supplements: zonisamide as an appetite suppressant, three "Ultra Prevention" multivitamins, one green tea extract and one chromium supplement. Yum, yum! The soup was surprisingly good, the soy nuts are OK as well (although I think I've driven Snookums crazy with my comment that "one bag is about all I want to eat at one time." She seems to think that means I don't like them, but I do. I just don't want to snarf down three or four bags worth at one sitting.) The fiber drink tastes exactly like a Crystal Light sort of drink, so that's cool, too.

(I need to remember to take pictures of some of my daily feasts going forward, don't I?)

I need to drink at least 64 ounces of non-caffeinated beverages daily. I took care of that easily in my big KU cup, filled to the brim with cherry sugar-free Kool-Aid(TM) (I'd use a cup with the South Dakota State jackrabbit on it, if only they made one!)

Evening snack was a bag of chili soy snacks--small peanut-sized things with the approximate texture of puffed Cheetos. They're actually pretty good. Bedtime, and time for my evening pills and supplements: Vytorin for cholesterol, gemfibrozil for triglycerides, and 3 calcium/magnesium supplements. One of the goals of the weight loss project is to get off of the hideously expensive Vytorin, and the astonishingly cheap gemfibrozil.

After the jump (hit Read More!): Sleep! Sickness! Pickles!

A couple of weeks of food.

It has begun!

Regular readers of Medary.com probably realize that I don't really write a lot about my personal life. Scandanivian reticence, perhaps, or maybe I'm just a really, really, really private person. Maybe those two things are the same thing. Anyway, much of what I write about is external to me--things that are happening in the world around me, and not so much what is happening to me personally.

Well, let's shift gears for a little while.

I'm overweight. Obese, actually. Not the kind of spherical obese on display at the low-rent buffet restaurants, as I've been blessed with a rather large skeletal frame. People are always amazed that I weigh as much as I do--279 pounds at last official measurement. That's too much, by about 70 pounds, according to the doctor.

I've finally had enough of carrying around that extra 70 pounds. I've got one really bad knee and another that complains on occasion. I've snapped one achilles tendon, and have had bunion surgeries on both feet. My wheels are hurtin'.

This February, I promised to my Snookums that I'd get down to 230 lbs by her next birthday in February, 2010. With the shoulder surgery (rotator cuff) and the achilles surgery I've had this year, that's been on hold for too long.

I finally decided I needed some professional guidance. On the KCMO Morning Show, host Chris Stigall sings the praises of a place called the Center for Nutrition, a short drive away in Lenexa, Kansas. The stars came into alignment, my promise to my wife intersected with my determination to--this time--lose the weight and make it stick--so I called and made an appointment.

They sent me an extensive questionnaire about my health history, which I dutifully filled in before my first meeting. The first meeting features a body composition analysis--one of those devices that sends a low-level electrical current through your body and measures your fat vs. lean body content, and from that, figures out your basal metabolic rate--the number of calories your body should run on.

Well, I'm fat. I knew that. But I also have lots and lots of lean muscle mass. Underneath all the blubber, I'm a studly guy! Woo-hoo! My basal metabolic rate is 2107 kcal, and my current target weight, according the the machine, is 209 lbs. The nutritionist at the first meeting utterly failed to scare me off--not that she tried all that hard, so I came back a couple of days letter for the blood draw for the medical lab tests, plus an EKG (NOT an EEG--that was a typo that I just fixed!). Other than the half-hour drive to and from the clinic, no problems, so far.

A week after the first meeting, Snookums and I are back in the office, talking to Dr. Rick Tague, the Guy behind the Center for Nutrition. Again, no big surprises. My labs are generally good, but show that I have a Vitamin D deficiency (I guess that's actually pretty common), I've got Metabolic Syndrome (otherwise known as insulin resistance--basically a pre-diabetic condition), and a possibly slightly underactive thyroid. My white blood cell count--the neutrophils, to be specific, are also a touch on the low side.

Dr. Tague's basic message is: "we can fix that!" I get the "Rapid Reduction Weight Loss Phase" right off the bat. That's the picture you see up at the top of this article. Special low-carbohydrate, low-fat foods (if you do the verbal math there, you figure out that it's a protein diet) and lots and lots of supplements to make up the nutritional difference between the diet foods and what humans are really supposed to eat--whatever that is. Anyway, my target weight loss goal is 3-5 pounds per week, until I get down within shouting range of 220 pounds.

In order to do that, my goal is to take in about 1,100 calories a day--about 142 grams of protein daily. AND, up the exercise level, to get in at least 4,000 steps per day as measured by a pedometer, in addition to 20-35 minutes 4-5 times a week of getting my heart rate up into the 94-129 beat per minute range. Lots of numbers.

I can do this.

But kids, don't try this at home without medical supervision. It can mess you up. Srsly.

Next time: The journey begins.