Thanksgiving....fortunately no fall from the wagon

Week: 4

Ok, let me get the nitty gritty out of the way first….. The Thanksgiving meal was 860 calories. About double a normal meal, but not too bad considering previous holiday meals.

On the menu was:

White Breast Turkey Meat (Appa Valley Farms Roasted from Trader Joes)
Chestnut Sausage Dressing (recipe provided by the 20/20 folks)
Caramelized Pearl Onions
Green Bean Casserole (reduced fat version)
Heinz Homestyle Turkey Gravy
Caesar Salad (romaine lettuce and Cardini’s lowfat dressing)
1 glorious slice of Pumpkin pie

Totals: 860 cals, 30 g fat, 40 g protein

I think the thing I missed most about this Thanksgiving was the grazing and snacking that goes on during the day and especially during meal preparation. A tradition at our house is to make Chex Mix, and not having it this year was somewhat of a let down. The other thing is there are no left-overs. We consciously threw everything away as soon as the meal was done to avoid the other traditions like late night snacking, or next-day hot turkey open-faced sandwiches.

As far as exercise goes, I did end up taking the day off. But Emily and I spent extra time in the morning on cardio where Friday morning I burned off over 900 calories with a combined 70 mins of work on the bike and elliptical.

The Videos

Week: 4

A component of the education process in 20/20 are the videos you watch at the start of each training session with your trainer. They run about 10 to 15 mins each. You get to warm-up on a recumbent bike

I've got mixed feelings on the videos. In some ways they do introduce some good information, but a lot of the time they come off as very repetitious and almost counter-productive.

During the first 3 or 4 videos (which is during the time in hell known as "week 1") they bombard you with these images of what you can't have. Over and over and over. There is one clip where a guy chows down on this HUGE cheeseburger, and tops it off with a cold pint of beer. The other recurring clip is of the same guy getting this Claimjumper sized chocolate cake. It really is hard to sit there and see these images a few inches from your face when you are barely tolerating the protein shakes.

Start of Week 4

Week: 4

Original Weight: 320lbs
Last Week: 304.8lbs
This Week: 302.2lbs
Total Lost: 17.8lbs

There is no denying that I'm disappointed in the small amount of weight loss this week. 2.6lbs. I was not able to stay above 1500 cals for this last week, so with this week I'm going to shoot for an average of about 1650 per day to see if this helps.

I did get one yogurt added to my diet. The recommended type is Cascade Fresh. I had my first one last night, "Green Apple Pie" flavored and must say it was damn good. They are fat free and only about 110 cal per serving. This is a good addition to the mix. To get my calories up I'm going to supplement the yogurt into my existing food plan instead of replacing a shake.

On the workout side things continue to go well. We added a fourth leg workout machine this week, and by the last rep on that fourth machine I felt like my legs were going to give out on me. It really made me appreciate the term "muscle fatigue". I swear had I had to walk even 15 steps after that machine I would have tumbled over.

I still despise the Superman's, but I do think my "U" is getting more pronounced.

Words you don't want to hear from your trainer: "Let's try going up a level"

Week: 3

Progression is good, but it can also be painful. As I mentioned earlier the Stairmaster machine is a spawn of the devil. I've been cruising along for the last two weeks on level 3. I'm was able to get through 20 mins of it without keeling over and without my heart-rate exceeding my training range. (My training range is from 147bpm to 167bpm)

My reward for this great progress of not dying while doing the Stairmaster is for my trainer take it up to level 4 on me. Here we go again. Back to more pain and effort to get 20 mins of it in before we get to jump onto another machine.

She's been doing this as well on the weightlifting. We do 6 or 7 different machines, with the goal of 1 set of 20 repetitions. I'm goal oriented so I work really hard to get in the full 20 reps. The problem of course is that if I can do 20 this time, she'll probably increase the weight a bit next time to get the count down. (Or I have to get stronger in the 48 hours between sessions to still get in the 20 reps). So far I think I've been doing the 'getting stronger' part, as we've only hit a few times when I couldn't get in all 20, even though each session she's always bumping up the weights.

It's not that I don't appreciate what she's doing. And I don't think she gets perverse pleasure from seeing me in pain. I do enjoy the progression and I'm glad she's there to push me, as I can see how easy it would be to shave a few minutes of time off during the cardio, or to keep the weights at an easier level if there wasn't someone watching over me.

I think the trainers have to walk a pretty gray line between pushing and punishing. Emily has been doing it well for me so far. This of course doesn't stop me from cringing when I hear her say "let's try going up a level" as I mount a machine for some cardio work.

Okay.... I've come to like the Shakes.

Week: 3

I never thought I'd be saying this but I no longer hate the shakes. As the weeks have gone by I've started to acquire a taste for them. My new favorite flavor is Chocolate with Strawberries. I know below I sung the praises of rasberries, and I still like the flavor of rasberries, but the damn little seeds get stuck on in my teeth and are generally just a pain in the butt.

I've also found a new mixture that works well.... Chocoloate Mocha. Here's my recipe for these:

1. 1 Packet of Chocolate Protein Mix
2. 1 Cup (8oz) of cold water
3. 1 Cup (8oz) of crushed ice
4. 1 tablespoon of instant coffee

Mix with a good blender and voila.... a rather tasty Chocolate Mocha.


The Instant Coffee does have some caffeine, and for some people this is not allowed, but I've put the foot down on giving up single shot espresso's and the occaisonal spoonful of instant coffee mix.

Big Bucks!

Week: 3

I asked recently about how many people are going through the program at any one time. I was told it varies (of course) between 300 and 400 people.

This program costs about $6000 to $7000 total. Those fortunate to be Microsoft Emplyees get 80% of that covered by our insurance. The rest pay out of pocket.

400 participants * $7000 = $2.8 MILLION every six months (assuming a 27 week schedule). That is a boat-load of money!

This does not factor in the many 'additional' expenses. Participants pay for their shakes out of pocket (first box is free) but subsequent boxes are $36 ea for 18 shakes. Vitamins, Fish Oil, etc are all additional as well beyond the first set they give you.

The ProClub must be making a fortune on this program. I'd love to see the financials of the 20/20 program alone.

1 on 1 Therapy

Week: 3

In addition to the group counseling which I mentioned below, 20/20 participants also go through individual therapy sessions with a counselor (I believe some are also licensed therapists).

The first one happens before you even start the program. In my own opinion, I think this one is geared more towards weeding out those who should not be signing up for a structured program like this. The counselors will probe on simple stuff like what stresses are in your life, where are you in your project cycle at work, what travel plans do you have. They also look for motivation on why you want to do this. I don't know if there are any 'wrong' answers on the motivation part but I was careful to make sure I provided 'reasonable' answers that I thought wouldn't raise any eyebrows. I didn't want to be denied entry at all.

Subsequent meetings occur on an every 3 or 4 week basis. I just had my 2nd session with my therapist Sara. The meeting was a bit ackward, as I tend to provide simple Yes/No, or short answers to her questions but I could feel her wanting me to express myself a lot more. I caved and actually had to work hard to provide more discussion on my part. She seemed happy with my answers.

It's not that I wanted to run counter to what she was asking. It's just that I felt like I was on-track from the three angles of the program (diet, excercise and group theraphy) so what more did I need to talk about? In the end we talked for about 35 or 40 mins of our hour meeting.

Surprise!......I don't hate working out.

Week: 3

It first happened a couple of days ago after my workout on Monday. I stepped out of the ProClub with a bit of a bounce in my step. I felt energized and looking forward to the rest of the day. Contrast this to the previous 11 workouts where I would exit the club wishing for an earthquake to occur which would level the place.

Today I woke up a few mins early (at 5:10 instead of 5:20) and without a thought of trying to grab those last ten minutes of sleep, I jumped out of bed and was looking forward to getting the workout in. I’m sure this will be a fleeting feeling, but either way it’s a good one to have right now.


The scale shows I’ve dropped a few more pounds already, but I’ll have to wait for the official weigh-in until next Wednesday. My dietician has pushed out our appointment a few days so I can weigh in right before Thanksgiving. Hopefully I’ll be at 299lbs or less by then.


Interesting fact:

According to LifeForm, the software I use to track my food and workouts:

Average Calories Intake: 1468/day
Average Calories Burned: 3815/day*

Difference == 2347 cal / day

*LifeForm’s has a builtin BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) calculator but you can compute your own here

The Start of Week 3

Week: 3

Original Weight: 320lbs
Last Week: 308.8
This Week: 304.8

I lost four more pounds this last week. After the 11lbs last week, it feels like a let down. My dietician told me that 'safely' people should not really lose more the 1% of their body weight per week, but I had done 'really good' losing 4lbs. I don't think she understood in one quick sentence she totally contradicted herself.

One small tweak 'authorized' to the meal plan for this week. I can now have unlimited vegetables. I've been having a hard time getting the 4 servings I'm suppose to be having so I don't think this will make a huge difference.

Also, in studying my meal-tracker she noticed a few spots where I didn't have my 5th shake for the day, which is keeping me below my 1500cal minimum. My goal for the week is to stomach all five shakes, keep my calls between 1600 and 1700 and see if I can lose another 4 lbs for next week. (Side goal, bust below 300 by the time Turkey day hits.)

Weekends are the hardest...

Week 2:

The ‘relative’ rigidity of the Mon through Fri schedule helps keep this diet and exercise program on track. At least for me, hitting the regular food intervals (8am, 10am, 3pm, 6pm) is pretty easy during the week. On the weekends all hell breaks loose.

It starts with the desire to actually get some decent sleep. If you sleep ‘in’ to 8:30 or so (which is 3 hours past normal) the whole schedule is already thrown off track. Throw in the extra activities that happen on the weekends, like our daughter’s 5th birthday party and Chuck’E Cheese’s this weekend and trying to hit a schedule is nearly impossible.

This weekend we tried to having a larger breakfast to get some early calories in the day and hoping this would hold us over to when we got in the rest of our food later in the day. I came up with a pretty tasting recipe for a breakfast scramble:

Sauté 1 cup of sliced mushrooms, 1 green onion, and 2 oz of roasted turkey breast meat with 1 tsp of olive oil, and some seasonings of choice (we used an Italian Seasoning Blend)
After the mushrooms are cooked, add in two scramble eggs and mix, mix, mix.
Serve hot and top with a tablespoon of fresh salsa.
(Optional) Serve with a few slices of tomatoes to ‘fill out the plate’.

Cal: 300, Fat: 17g, Protein, 23g
(using egg beaters would reduce the fat significantly.)


Sitting a couple of hours at a pizza joint (no matter how bad their pizza is) is pretty tough. The smells really trigger desires that both my wife and I were able to suppress, and fortunately there was enough chaos that no one noticed or made a big deal out of the fact we weren’t eating any of the cake, or pizza.

Sunday morning was tougher as we took the kids to Krispy Kreme to use the coupons they had gotten for Halloween. I sat there at the table munching on Might Mo Soy Nuts while my kids snarfed down 3 doughnuts each. I think this whole concept of being in ‘chemical balance’ has merit because I did not feel a super strong desire to have one, and again other then the smell reminding myself of eating them in the past I was able to let it go.

The Excercise Regime

Week: 2

 

Today was a tough workout session.  I managed to stay on the Stairmaster an entire 20 mins.  That was equal to 47 flights of stairs.  Damn I hate this machine with a passion, but I noticed that after 10 mins it stopped feeling awkward.  I slowly got into a rhythm and was able to keep it going.  Emily (my trainer) was impressed that I managed to do 20 mins.  I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, but she said some of her other clients had taken a very long time before they could do it.

 

We hit the Elliptical pretty hard afterwards to finish out the cardio. 

 

 

Strength Training

 

A key part of the workout program on 20/20 is building up lean muscle mass to supplement the cardio work.  Emily has me doing the following:

 

Leg Press

Leg Curls

Seated Row

Chest Press

Lat Pulldowns

Bicep Curls

Tricep Extensions

And the two that I hate: ab crunches and lower-back strengthening.

 

Today we did two sets of 20 of the ab crunches.  When I was done my stomach muscles were actually freaking out.  It was a little scary as I’ve never felt anything like that before. It was like they were spasming involuntarily, and were of course very weak, so sitting up was hard.

 

After my ab muscles settled down we did ‘supermans’.  I now hate Superman.  This damn exercise has tarnished the image of a pretty good guy.  Basically I lay on the floor like Superman, and lift up with my arms and legs to try and form a “U” shape.  When you’re as plump as I am, there is no “U” shape happening.  But I can feel the back muscles really working when we do these, so I’ll assume they are doing some good.

 

 

Group Therapy

Week: 2

Weekly group therapy is an integral part of the 20/20 Program. You go to these each week (8 total) for about 75mins. They are led by a counselor and each group has between 8 and 10 attendees.

I’ve just completed my second ‘group’ session. The biggest take away is that guys just don’t like to talk. I almost feel sorry for Bill our therapist, as it is often times like pulling teeth to get conversations going. In my first group, about 8 of us had all entered the room, sat down across and next to each other and didn’t say a single word until Bill showed up. I’m hoping that as the sessions go on we all open up some more.

The first session was spent with each of us going over the below items:

Yourself (name, what do you do)

Why now to start 20/20

Progress to date

Thoughts on the Shakes.

The second session went a little better, although there is still that reluctance to talk about ‘feelings’ and such within a room full of guys. We broke into two groups and went over the following:

Names

Progress

2 important things you’ve learned

Difficulties you’ve run into

Recipes

There is one guy in our group, who ended up in my breakout session who didn’t need to start on the meal-replacement program (meaning he doesn’t have to go through the Protein Shakes.) I believe it was because of a kidney problem that he has (which I feel bad for) but I can see the eyes of those around the table who vehemently detest his program as it is so different from ours. He’s talking about making sandwiches and stir-fry with rice, and all these other things which are 8 to 10 weeks down the road for most of us.

In our first session Bill told us to go ahead bring our dinners if this coincided with our meal times. So I got a "Grab and Go" Asian Chicken Salad (I still am excited about veggies) and brought it to class. Of course I was the only one with food, and most of the salad stuff was super-crunchy. I kept getting some of those evil-eyes in my direction as I munched down. They should be happy it wasn’t salmon or some other more aromatic food.

I Survived Week1

Week 2:

 

Today was my 2^nd meeting with my dietician.  Drum roll please……. 308.8lbs.  Net drop of 11.2 lbs in the last six days.  Yes I know this is not sustainable.  Yes I know this is mostly ‘water’ weight.  But damn it feels good to see the scale start to move in a different direction.  For the last few years I was convinced they were all programmed to go in one direction only.

 

After spending the last week eating lots of shakes (yuck) and protein, I can say two things.  1) I use to thing raspberries were all-that, but in fact strawberries are better.  The little tiny seeds that you get from raspberries really start to screw with you.  And 2) a real BBQ grill beats a George Forman hands down.  While the Forman grill is okay for grilling chicken or even salmon at times, it really does suck when it comes to beef.  The BBQ grill add flavor and texture to the meat which you just can’t beat.

 

Now I get to add Vegetables to my diet.  Holy-cow.  Two weeks ago I would never have been looking forward to veggies, but for the love of all that’s holy, getting some color into my meals is going to make a big difference. So today I’ll add some salad fixings during my lunch and I think I’ll even do some broccoli or peas for dinner.

 

 

A Daily Menu for week 1

Week: 1

My prescription (that is what they call the plan each of us is under) states that I will be on a ‘partial meal-replacement’ plan. What does this mean? It means I don’t eat regular meals, and in place of them I get to have those really groovy shakes.

My caloric goals are to take in between 1500 and 1675 calories. With about 50% of those coming from protein, 20 to 25% from fats and 20 to 25% from carbohydrates.
My fat gram goals are to have between 33 g and 53 grams.

This is what yesterday looked like:

Breakfast:

1 Chocolate Metabolic Nutrition Protein Shake (130 cals, 1 g fat, 17 g carbs, 14 g protein)
.5 Cups of Rasberries (30 cals, 0 g fat, 8 g carbs, 1 g protein)
1 tablespoon of peanutbutter (95 cals, 8 g fat, 3 g carbs, 4 g protein)

Totals: 248 Calories
9 g Fats
25 g Carbs
18 g Protein

Morning Snack
** it’s anything but a snack.

1 Chocolate Metabolic Nutrition Protein Shake (130 cals, 1 g fat, 17 g carbs, 14 g protein)
.5 Cups of Rasberries (30 cals, 0 g fat, 8 g carbs, 1 g protein)

Totals: 160 Calories
1 g Fats
25 g Carbs
15 g Protein


Lunch:

7 ozs Chicken breast, boneless, skinless, grilled. (327 cals, 7g fat, 0 carbs, 62 g protein)
1 Chocolate Metabolic Nutrition Protein Shake (130 cals, 1 g fat, 17 g carbs, 14 g protein)
8 oz of coffee (5 cals, 0 g fat, 1 g carbs, 0 g protein)
**note to self. Coffee and medicine shakes do not taste anything like a mocha. This was painful to stomach. Never try this in the future!

Totals: 462 Calories
8 g Fats
18 g Carbs
76 g Protein

Afternoon Snack

1 Chocolate Metabolic Nutrition Protein Shake (130 cals, 1 g fat, 17 g carbs, 14 g protein)
.5 Cups of Rasberries (30 cals, 0 g fat, 8 g carbs, 1 g protein)

Totals: 160 Calories
1 g Fats
25 g Carbs
15 g Protein


Dinner:

1 20/20 Chicken Soup Mix (140 cals, 3 g fat, 16 g carbs, 13 g protein)
6 ozs Chicken breast, boneless, skinless, grilled. (280 cals, 6g fat, 0 carbs, 53 g protein)
(I cut up the chicken and add it to the hot ‘chicken soup protein shake) so it can be eaten like chicken soup. This is actually not too bad.

TOTAL for DAY:

1545 Calories (100%)
36 g Fats (22%)
111 g Carbs (26%)
192 g Protein (52%)


Being on day 4 now, I’ve had 20 meal-replacement protein shakes so far. I haven’t come to like them, but unlike yesterday and the day before I’m not thinking as much about hurling when I make the next one. I’ll take this as a sign of progress.

(8 * 8oz h20) + (5 * 20oz protein shakes) == gotta go piddle every five minutes!

Week: 1

I think I've spent more time standing in front of the urinal this week then I have actually at my desk. It starts even before I get up, as these last three or four nights I end up having to get up at least two times a night to go pee.

All this water is suppose to be good for me. I'm just hoping my bladder will adjust to the new intake levels.

Worse case I buy some depends and start to wear them!

Daryl-Zilla is walking about

Week: 1

I've just hit day three. This is the day where my body has finally realized that something is up. The good times are long gone. I feel like the body is saying: "Where are all the good foods?" "What is with all this exercising?" "Hey where the hell are my sugars?"

Since my body isn't getting the answers it wants, I think every cell in my body is in open revolt. Here are just a few things going on:

• I can't think. Good grief getting two coherent sentences together takes a lot of effort.
• I feel cold. I'm usually never cold (with 320lbs I usually feel like I have a small Nuclear furnace under my skin.)
• I am super tired. I've almost dozed off 3 or 4 times in meetings today and along with this I'm only taking in probably 20% of what is being said.
• I am hungry. I think this started from this morning when I should've gotten a shake right after my workout. I've had this rolling hunger going on all day. I need to talk about this with my dietician.
• I am really sore. This I know is not sugar withdrawals but really an effect of exercising. But right now even going down stairs is tough. After my workout this morning, I had a hard time getting out of my car. It was so sad, that it bordered on being comical

I've been told that today is the absolute worst day by others who have gone through the program. That its part of the detox and it only gets better from here. I certainly hope so. A few more days like this and I'd really have to think hard about throwing in the towel.

The Stairmaster is obviously a spawn of the Devil

Week: 1

The excercise regiment on 20/20 is very structured. On Mon/Wed/Fri's I meet with my Personal Trainer (Emily Cripe scroll down) at 6:00am. On these days we work out for 90 mins, split between cardio and strength training about (50mins cardio, 40mins strength training). On the alternate days (Tues and Thurs) I do 60 mins of cardio on my own.

During this first week Emily has had me on the Stairmaster, which is actually called a "StepMill". This is an evil machine. Unlike traditional stair climbers where your feet depress and lift an arm (and you can cheat by taking small steps) the evil machine rolls around real sized stairs. When it says you've climbed 20 floors, you really have.

This machine makes me sweat. It makes my legs burn. And it makes me get angry at pretty much life, the universe and everything.

Fortunately we only spend 10 or 15 mins on this before switching to something more civilized, like the elipticals or treadmills.

Sometimes you need to lie to yourself and say "Yummm, this shake is groovy!"

Week: 1

I'm in week 1 right now which means I drink a lot of protein shakes. Five of them a day to be exact. These are not your typical protein shakes from EAS or other health food stores. These are from a company called Metabolic Nutrition Inc. You can’t buy them in a store, they are only sold to people under medical supervision.

I’ve tried the different flavors and the only ones I can stomach are Chocolate and Chicken Soup. I’ll get to the Chicken Soup flavor in a bit. The chocolate version sounds good, I mean who doesn’t love chocolate, but like with most diet stuff, ‘chocolate’ is an approximation of taste. With the scale between two extremes: “tastes like ass” to “tastes like medicine”.

The thing that makes these drinkable is we get to put in ½ a cup of berries. I’m learned to like the raspberries. That’s pretty much it. Mixing in blueberries with chocolate is instant puke time. Same goes for blackberries. Chocolate with raspberries is a nice combination, and I’m going to stick with this combination for as long as I can.

Making these things at work.

It is a royal pain in the ass to make this at home. Doing it at work is even more of a challenge. The packages say to mix content with “8 oz of water or ice”. If you put too much ice you get this icey-sledge mixture which is too hard to drink. Too little ice and it’s like a nasty reddish brown drink you have to swallow.

I tried making these at home, freezing them and bringing to work. This just doesn’t work. To stomach the shake, at least for me, it helps to be cold, at the right ice/slush level, and pre-freezing just makes it seem like a bad science experiment.

So now I have a Braun Hand Mixer which I use to make the shakes in my office. There was a lot of trial and error, but I’ve found success with the following recipe:

1) Orange Microsoft Cup with 4 Ice Cubes
2) Extra empty Orange Microsoft Cup
3) Fill the cup to the top.
4) Put water and ice in a 12 inch tall, 4 inch wide cylinder container.
5) Add ½ cup of berries
6) Insert Mixer and COVER THE TOP WITH YOUR HAND
7) Mix until the ice and berries are all crushed.
8) Take mixer out and put it into the extra empty cup.
9) Pour shake into the other cup and enjoy.
10) Make sure you wash everything within 30 mins or your office will start to smell.

Making these at work pretty much will guarantee your co-workers will want to know what the heck you’re doing. So if you wanted to ‘hide’ the fact you were doing 20/20 that’s not possible. Be sure to be ready to explain to people what it is you are doing.

Week1: 20/20

This week I've started my journey to hopefully a healthier lifestyle. I’ve realized in this first week I’ve had a lot of thoughts about what I’m doing and going through and it would be a good idea to jot some of them down.


Let me introduce myself:
Hi, I'm Daryl Welsh. I'm classified as morbidly obese. Some vital stats:

Age: 33
Weight: 320 lbs (good god it’s hard to even type that number)

Surprisingly I don’t have high blood pressure or a cholesterol problem. But I do have problems finding clothes to wear. I’m hoping this 20/20 Lifestyles Program helps me turn my life around. In six months I’d like to be able to drop into a store and pick a medium or large shirt off the rack that I know will fit. I hope to do the Seattle to Portland bike ride next July. And finally I hope to get out of any classification because of my BMI that says I’m obese.