Let’s Do This.

My doctor was onboard, and with a blood test and physical, we set off on this year long journey to go from 264 to my ideal weight - which was TBD. The goal was to follow a low calorie diet (LCD), which was set at 1,200 calories each day - without taking count previously, I would dare to guess I was likely eating twice that, so this was going to take some serious effort on my part. Since I was young, I can’t remember ever thinking that I ate a healthy diet, or even thought about it at all, for that matter. I just ate what I wanted, and had no adults telling me to do anything differently. That translated heavily to my eating habits as an adult, but up until I got pregnant at 23 (with my first ‘born child’, which leads to a story for another time), I had remained thin, like 5’9” 120lbs thin. That changed very quickly, and hit me like a ton of bricks in those first 9 months of pregnancy, as I continued to eat the way I always had.

I went back into their office the next week to review my blood test results and create a plan. With the support of my amazing female doctor, Dr. Patel, and her wonderful nurse practitioner, Jane, we created a diet I would stick to, which ended up being more of a ‘no-no’ list than anything. Having specific guidelines, I knew I could do it, and just accepted the fact that it wouldn’t be fun (but knew the results would be worth it). We decided that a weekly weigh-in would be their part of helping me stay accountable, and off I went to start this new eating plan, at home, all by myself.

I knew I’d still have to make food and snacks for my kids and meals for my husband, and those were the times I’d ‘taste test’ everything, from bacon and pancakes in the morning to the fruit snacks and maybe a dino nugget or two at lunch, to possibly even a whole extra serving of dinner (when it came down to all of those extra bites I took as I prepared and finished what they didn’t eat). What, was that just me? It was good, and who wants to waste food? Not me, I wouldn’t have that in my house!

The reality set in that first evening, as I used MyFitnessPal for the first time, to accurately record everything I ate. And oh boy, to see how finishing their ‘left overs’ added up was a calorie overload, to say the least. Over the next few days, I saw how quickly those 1,200 calories were consumed, and I realized I was in for the challenge of a lifetime, which no one else in my life at the time understood, or really even cared about.