A mostly Medifast transition day!

So, I weighed in at 255 this morning, just over low, and have decided to do an 'almost not Medifast' day.

Breakfast (replacing: Medifast Shake)
2/3 cup egg whites
1 Laughing Cow wedge
4 slices turkey bacon

• 202 Calories, 4g carbs, 8g fat, 26g protein

vs Medifast:
90 calories, 13g carbs, 2g fat, 11g protein

2x the calories, lower carb. This breakfast fills me up much better than Medifast ever did.

Morning Snack (replacing: Medifast Bar)
5.3 oz Strawberry Cheesecake Greek Yogurt
1/4 cup Bear Naked Chocolate Granola

• 230 calories, 33g carb, 4g fat, 15g protein

vs Medifast:
110 calories, 13g carbs, 4g fat, 11g protein

I actually used too much granola today, and can probably cut the amount in half, saving 65 calories, 10g carbs, 3g fat, and only losing 1.5g protein. I really, really like this as a snack. The last time I tried Greek yogurt, I did not like it, texture-wise and flavor-wise it just didn't work. However, the cheesecake flavor masks the 'weird' flavor, and the crunchy granola mix-in really fixes the texture problem. This stuff is really good, and I will be trying more flavors as I go. The stuff I'm eating now has sucralose in it, and I'd like to not be eating much of that.

Lunch (replacing: Medifast Hearty Meal with Cheese and Chicken)
Quest Bar - Cookies and Cream

• 180 calories, 22g carbs, 7g fat, 21g protein

vs Medifast with add-ins
263 calories, 15g carbs, 11g fat, 29g protein

I really, really liked the Quest Bar. It was very dense, nicely sweet and cookie-like. It's got good macronutrients. Again, we've got Sucralose and Stevia in it, which isn't ideal. However it is more ideal than a candy bar and bag of chips. These guys are pretty expensive, but I think I'll keep eating them if they hold up. Which means I need to find a place to buy them in bulk for cheap.

Afternoon Snack (no change)
Medifast Pretzel sticks.

• 110 calories, 14g carbs, 2g fat, 11g protein.

I'm not changing this up today, but eventually I'll want something non-Medifast here that is higher protein and lower carb. I can easily see this ending up being canned tuna regularly, since it's protein-dense carb free. I'm one of those weird people that like canned tuna plain, so I can get away with that, I don't need crackers and mayo with it.

Dinner (no real change)
Tonight I'm going to make a turkey burger in a portobello cap bun, add cheese, and eat a few tater tots. Other than the tater tots and cheese, this is basically the same meal I'd normally eat.

• 413 calories, 23g carbs, 9g fat, 53g protein

Dessert (replacing Medifast SoftBake Smoothie)
1 Scoop Isoflex PB/Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate
.5 oz Neufchatel Cheese
1 Tbsp No-sugar added Quik

• 168 calories, 6g carbs, 4g fat, 29g protein

vs Medifast with add-ins
190 calories, 21g carbs, 6g fat, 21g protein

I'm going to end my day (presumably, if I don't snack extra) at:

• 1303 Calories
• 102g carbs
• 34g fat
• 155g protein

I'm also hitting 2433 mg sodium and 29 g fiber.

My 'IIFYM' targets for today (including my gym trip) would have me eat another 1200 calories, 59 carbs, 68 fats, 70 protein, and 31 fiber. I'm not yet to that point though, as I'm still transitioning. That said, I'm very happy to be eating different food, even if it is from the supplement store and not the grocery store. I think doing things this way will give me a much greater chance of success, because I can keep up my habits, shift away from them slowly, and not be tied to big shipments of Medifast.

So far so good! I'll keep cranking up my calorie intake, adjusting my macros, adding more foods, and see what happens!

Transitioning off Medifast soon!

I'm at 255 (+/- 1 lb) and while I did not hit my goal weight of 240 yet, we've decided to start the transition off of Medifast towards more 'real' foods. To that end, we've made a few purchases that should help things moving forward.

Now though, I'm going to talk a bit about meals and snacks and how things used to work, how they work now, and how they'll hopefully be working in the future.

Breakfast, before Medifast:
Skipped it many days, sometimes had a big bowl of sugary cereal (1.5 cups) with 2% milk. Lots of days I had a gas station hot dog or biscuit, or 2 McDonald's burritos or a sausage biscuit, or a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit. (0-600+ calories)

Breakfast, on Medifast:
A Medifast shake or 3/4 cup Medifast cereal and 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. (90-140 calories)

Breakfast plans now:
Kashi GoLean High Protein cereal or Fiber One Chocolate cereal and unsweetened vanilla almond milk, or egg whites with cheese and mushrooms, or a protein shake. (100-200 calories).

Biggest takeaway: Breakfast every day is critical to not over-snacking later, and almond milk is amazing.

Morning Snack, before Medifast:
Vendo-bot food, candy bars, potato chips, cookies, pop tarts. (200-500 calories)

Morning snack, on Medifast:
Medifast Crunch Bar, Almonds (85-110 calories)

Morning Snack plans now:
High protein meal replacement bars, Almonds (85-200 calories)

Biggest takeaway: Make sure you have reasonable healthy snacks at work. However, don't bring bags and boxes of them to work, since the work day is the place I'm most likely to graze. Bring exactly enough snacks for each day.

Lunch, before Medifast:
Fast food value meals, Subway, Qdoba Take Two menu, Indian buffet, Chinese buffet, deli soup and sandwiches, one large can of chunky soup. (400-2000 calories)

Lunch, on Medifast:
Macaroni and cheese, sometimes with extra cheese and chicken. (100-200 calories)

Lunch plans now:
Continuing to eat Medifast Mac and Cheese, but will look into frozen dinners, canned soups, and other options, as well as bringing leftovers for lunches. (100-500 calories)

Biggest takeaway: I simply can't go eat buffet/fast food 3-5 times a week at work. I need to make sure I bring a lunch every single day and have lunch outings at work limited to social events with friends a couple times a month.

Afternoon snacks, before Medifast:
Very rare, actually. This is likely due to the fact that most of my lunches were massive 1000-2000 calorie piles of sodium and fat. If I skipped lunch then this would be Vendo-bot, though. (0 calories or 250-500 calories)

Afternoon snacks, on Medifast:
One of a variety of crispy Medifast snacks (90-110 calories)

Afternoon snack plans now:
Protein bars, nuts, yogurt and granola, or some other reasonable snack. (100-300 calories)

Biggest takeaway: Afternoon snacks are critical to balancing out the day. Eating three small meals works much better than one large one, so I need to make sure I've got this covered with things brought from home so that I'm  not hitting the Vendo-bot for a candy bar and chips.

Dinner, before Medifast:
While I made many home cooked meals, and a lot of them were actually relatively healthy, portion sizes were a little out of control. Tons of rice, tons of pasta, breads, etc. However, many nights, especially right before Medifast meant lots of fast food. We were going out to eat 4-6 nights a week, with planned meals out after workout class two nights, and then the other nights were pizza, or Mexican, or a sit-down restaurant, or fast food. (800-2500 calories)

Dinner, on Medifast:
6-9 ounces of lean protein, 1.5 cups of mushrooms, sauces. (400-600 calories)

Dinner plans now:
4-8 ounces of lean protein, more vegetables, including adding back in grains, and reasonable bread/pasta and sauces. (500-1000 calories)

Biggest takeaway: Cook every night. Don't come to the dinner table starving because you ate crap all day at lunch. Have a stocked pantry and refrigerator, and get fresh meats and veggies regularly. Going out to eat should be a special treat and not the default. When you do go out to eat, have reasonable servings.

Post-Dinner snack, before Medifast:
Chocolate chip cookies, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, Sonic Blasts, McFlurries, frozen yogurt, frozen custard concretes with mix-ins. (200-800 calories)

Post Dinner snack, on Medifast:
Medifast smoothie with a soft-bake mix, cream cheese, and PB2 (120-150 calories)

Post-dinner snack plans now:
More Medifast smoothies, and possibly coming up with other smoothie recipes using protein powders, real peanut butter, and other ingredients. (120-250 calories)

Biggest takeaway: While I really do want something dessert-like every night, I need to make sure that the high-calorie choices are very rare treats and not daily occurrences. This is where we are most likely to keep buying Medifast products for the foreseeable future, as well.

Before Medifast, I was consuming anywhere from 1600-6000 or so calories a day, and gaining weight when I wasn't tracking. I doubt I had many 6,000 calorie days, but I am sure I had more 4,000 calorie days than I would have ever expected.

Now, though, I want to take my average Medifast day (1100-1300 calories) and transition into a more reasonable 2000-2500 calorie diet. I'm not planning on jumping directly up to 2500, obviously, but this is the overall goal, to get myself to a place where my normal day is at a calorie level that should make it easy to lose about 1 lb a week if I exercise, and maintain if I don't.

To do this, I just need to keep weighing, keep tracking, and keep bringing food to work and cooking at home. I got my kickstart. Now it's time to lock it in.

Further organization!

We added another shelf to our Elfa unit and I just spent some time filling it! Here's a quick picture!

Prepping for PAX East

It's two weeks until I go to PAX East and it's time to plan out my attack so that I can stay on my Medifast plan as much as possible while in a convention center.

The first part is relatively easy, my Medifast meals. Unfortunately, I'm not going to have easy access to a microwave, so that is going to limit some of my choices. In addition there's no mini fridge, either, so that limits a few more choices.

So I plan to bring a selection of meals that don't require that type of prep. This means crunchy and chewy bars, shake powders, crunchy snacks, and that sort of thing.

So, we're looking at a standard day as being:

• 1 bag of cereal (without milk)
• 1 crunch bar
• 1 bag of pretzels
• 1 Bag of bites/puffs
• 1 chewy bar

For Thursday I'll get to have a couple meals prior to my flight, so I can get a normal shake and a Hearty Meal in, and I'll be home Sunday night at 9:45 (after a stupidly long layover) but I'll likely plan to eat a smoothie when I get home.

So that means I need to pack with me 17 meals for the 4 days:

• 3 bags of cereal
• 4 crunch bars
• 3 bags of pretzels
• 4 bags of bites/puffs
• 3 chewy bars 

That will cover all four days of meals and will work whether or not I'm in a terminal, on a plane, in a cab, in the hotel, or on the convention floor. That's actually better than my normal convention food schedule, and this stuff all fits nicely inside a Bag of Holding or my leather satchel, as well.

I don't have a picture of my Bag of Holding, apparently.

So that leaves Lean and Green. If I'm lucky, there will be a reasonably priced or even free breakfast where I can get egg whites, low fat cheese, mushrooms, and lean chicken in an omelet. While I'm eating that I'll wave at the flying pigs that sail past, as well. In reality, I'm likely going to be stuck with sub-standard convention food and will be lucky to find something that even resembles healthy.

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what my other options will be until I'm there, I have no idea how easy it will be to move around and what will be within walking distance. On the plus side, I should burn tons of calories with all of the walking, so that will help, but in the end I'm just going to have to do my best. Maybe I'll end up eating a salad. That would be a first.

Back in the Kitchen!

After eating out two days in a row (oh, the luxury!), I was surprised to see I'd lost weight again! But, we can't keep eating out every day, so I hit the grocery store and spent some time in the kitchen tonight.

Today was a stay home and clean house day for most of the day, doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, organizing some board games for Geekway to the West, cleaning the kitchen, putting away boxes, that sort of thing, but I did get out this weekend to buy groceries and go to The Container Store and Target.

The Container Store allowed me to pick up an extra shelf for our Elfa unit that is now 'Medifast central'. It also let me pick up a dozen little containers perfect for Medifast-sized almond snacks. We re-organized the unit and got more cereal and crunchy snacks in there, and have a lot of ready-to-go almond containers as well.

Target, I got two new pairs of jeans in a smaller size... they should end up being too big, but they were on sale so they will do for now. We also picked up a bunch of plastic shoe boxes to try to increase our organization some.

But, this blog post is about getting back in the kitchen! I made Ginger Orange Chicken with peppers, seasoned white mushrooms, and baked Medifast Reese's Cup Brownies.

The mushrooms were tossed into a pan with water, rice vinegar, hot mustard, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and soy sauce and boiled until they were well seasoned.

The chicken, I diced it and tossed it in a large bowl with soy sauce, ground ginger, orange peel, and green bell pepper, and then stir-fried it in olive oil with a dash of sesame oil

While it was missing rice, dumplings, and eggrolls, it was still excellent. I baked the brownies in the oven while cooking and let them chill in the fridge for a couple hours.

At some point I'm going to have to start taking pictures when I cook, so I've got something interesting to show on the blog posts!

Finally, tonight I made some edits to my blog layout... I added my HabitRPG character (just an image capture for now, I'll have to manually update it until I find a way to automate it). I also edited my World of Warcraft banners so that if you click them it takes you to their Armory pages. Now you can see just how much I ignore my poor Horde Druid compared to my Alliance Warlock.

Medifast at work

One of the nicest things about Medifast by far, is how easy it is to plan your meals and get out the door. One of the pitfalls I had pre-Medifast was skipping breakfast, not bringing lunch or snacks, and ending up getting chips and candy bars out of the vendo-bot and eating fast food or Chinese or Indian buffets for lunch.

Needless to say, a diet of buffet food and vending machine trash is not good for your waist.

Medifast fixes all of that, as long as you stay on plan. I have a small lunch bag, and every morning I grab a shake or cereal, a bar, a macaroni, a bag of pretzels, and throw in a Laughing Cow and an ounce or two of leftover protein from the night before.

So I get to work, I've already had breakfast, my lunch and two snacks are planned out, and everything is pretty easy to deal with! And if I do this long enough, I don't see why I can't do the same thing once I'm through with transition. A bowl of cereal (with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, that won't change!) or a protein shake, a couple of reasonable snacks and a simple lunch should work out great. I'm tempted to start plotting out possible menus, but that's insane, as it would just torment me a little when I'm doing well not thinking about it.

Luckily for me, I'm able to deal with very similar meals over time. While I do change out what bar I eat, and occasionally my pretzels are different flavors, or I swap out a BBQ Bites or something, most of the time my diet is very similar. And I like it that way. If you needed more variety, you could do it, but I prefer to keep things simple and only 'cook' one Medifast meal at work.

Today's Menu? Here you go!

Breakfast:	Dutch Chocolate Ready to Drink Shake (in the car at 7:45 a.m.)
Snack #1:	Peanut Butter Crunch Bar (at 10:15 a.m.)
Gym:	Can of tuna right before workout, then EFX for 46 minutes while I watched Breaking Bad (at 11:30 a.m.)
Lunch:	Mac and Cheese, 25 calorie Aldi's Laughing Cow knock-off, 2 oz grilled chicken (at 12:30 p.m.)
Snack #2:	BBQ bites (soon, probably at 3:30 p.m.)
Lean and Green:	Not sure yet, other than I know I'm going to use the last of the fresh mushrooms. But it could be ground turkey, chicken breast, shrimp, flounder, or tilapia as the protein. (around 6:30 p.m.)
Dessert:	Brownie baked in a ramekin with a PB2 filling. Or maybe a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Smoothie if we pick up some more cream cheese. (around 8:30 p.m)

This is a pretty representative day for me at this point, and it is working out well. I'm actually getting used to the portion sizes now, and they no longer seem tiny! A Medifast Crunch Bar looks pathetically small the first time you have one, especially when you've been known to eat Met-RX Colossal 100 bars as snacks before! Now though, it's just normal. And... it's teaching me something very valuable, and that is that I can be very hungry, eat a bar and still be hungry, but 15 minutes later be fine. This is something I inherently knew my entire life, but having it work in reality is a completely different thing.

Exercise class and 'eating extra'

I have an advantage when it comes to Medifast, and that is that I'm big, and muscular. I burn a ton more calories than a 'normal' person, and a lot more calories than most overweight people.

This means that while I'm on Medifast, I should probably be losing 6 pounds a week, or more, based on calorie deficits from diet and exercise if I was perfectly on plan.

However, there's another side to this, and that's that I am exercising a lot. If I don't eat extra protein, at a minimum, on heavy workout days, I feel awful. So... I get to cheat a little. Low sodium turkey jerky, cans of tuna, extra protein with my lean and green, a cheese stick, that sort of thing.

I think as long as I'm still losing at a solid rate, I'll keep doing what has worked so far.

Anyway, I've kicked my exercising up a notch, and this seems a good time to talk about exercising in general, since I've not been talking about it recently!

Friday

I worked out twice this day, once at work and once after. The strength training was relatively heavy for me, and I ate a couple of leftover chicken nuggets after I got back (after stripping off the breading) as my post-workout protein.

Cardio:

• 32 minutes EFX at lunchtime, set on level 13
• 3 minutes EFX prior to weight training as a warm up at level 10

Strength:

• Bench Press, Barbell, 3 sets of 5, 115 lbs each rep
• Seated Row, cable machine, 3 sets of 8, 165 lbs each rep
• T-bar row, 2 sets of 8, 70 lbs each rep
• Squat, Barbell, 3 sets of 5, 145 lbs each rep
• Reverse Incline pull ups, 3 sets of 5
• Leg Press, machine, 3 sets of 15, 315 lbs each rep

'Extra' food

• 1 oz Ground Turkey and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+60 calories)
• 3.5 ozTrader Joes Tempura chicken, breading removed (+245 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Saturday

Saturday was a weird day. We had Lauren's party, so I was running around all morning, baking, cleaning, shopping. I got a ton of extra calories off my FitBit. I had an early L&G of tilapia but it was not filling at all, and I ended up eating some egg beaters later in the day.

Cardio:

• 25 minutes EFX at level 15

'Extra' food:

• 1.5 oz chicken breast and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+82 calories)
• 2 oz tilapia (+12 calories)
• 9 tbsp egg beaters (+75 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Sunday

I did a heavy cardio day today, and had some extra chicken prior to the workout, and an oz of jerky after.

Cardio:

• 46 minutes EFX at level 13

'Extra' food:

• 3.5 oz chicken breast and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+134 calories)
• 1 oz Pork Jerky (+90 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Monday

Today was my workout class day, and I ate the rest of my jerky prior to workout, and had a Medidfast shake after. I plan to have some extra turkey with lunch (about 1.5 oz) and may have a can of tuna in water if I feel like I need it.

Workout

Warmup (repeat 3x)

• TRX Squat-into-pullup, 1 minute
• Kettlebell swings, 30 lbs, 45 seconds
• Walking lunge with a twist, down and back (about 45 seconds)

Circuit (repeat twice)

• Heavy rope pulls, 1 minute
• Moutain climbers on glides, 1 minute (no mats!)
• Speed walking with the chains, 1 minute
• Abs - various mat exercises, 2.5 minutes

Circuit (repeat once)

• Staggered farmer walk (35 lbs each hand, 30 lbs each hand, 25 lbs each hand), 1 minute
• Wall squat holding a medicine ball between the knees, 1 minute
• TRX Pushups, 1 minute

Cooldown

• Various foam roller stretches

'Extra' food:

• 2 oz Pork Jerky  (+180 calories)

Vacation update! Traveling on Medifast

It's time for a detailed blog post on the past few days.

We set out from St. Louis to the Gulf Coast to visit my family for Mardi Gras. We had two parades to attend, a Ball, and a Fun Run. We needed to navigate all of this while staying on plan!

On Thursday afternoon, we packed our bags and our Medifast meals. We needed 10 meals a day for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as a couple more each for the Thursday portion of our trip. My wife picked out 30 meals for us, and then added about 10 more assorted ones, as well. The goal here was to have enough food options that we would have some variety. Also, Medifast meals aren't exactly large, so we had plenty of room in the food bag.

We decided to do Lean and Green at 3 pm, right before we left town, and to do Medifast in the car, and have a Macaroni and Cheese once we stopped in Corinth for the night and got through the day on plan!

We arrived in Corinth and checked in to the Hampton. I went to the workout room and did a brief elliptical session and then went to sleep for the night.

In the morning, I got up and did another stint on the elliptical and some weight lifting, had a couple of pieces of bacon from the buffet, and we checked out. We ate bars and pretzels in the car, and had macaroni and cheese as soon as we made it to Fairhope. Dinner that night was taco turkey, mushrooms, and salad, so we stayed on plan! I went to the grocery store and grabbed some almond milk and more mushrooms for Saturday's dinner, as well.

Friday night we went to the Maids of Jubilee parade in downtown Fairhope. NSV? Why yes! I didn't bring a light jacket and it was a chilly night, so I ended up wearing one of my Dad's sweatshirts, and it fit!

Squid hat!

The parade was hugely fun. We took the kids to Mr. Gene's Beans for hot chocolate, shopped in a couple of stores and then the parade started. We caught tons of beads, doubloons, a few stuffed animals, and lots of moon pies. My wife and I each decided we'd take one bite of a Chocolate Peanut Butter moon pie and then give the rest to Alex. That worked out well! We then went home and ate our last Medifast meal of the day.

Catching beads at the parade!

Saturday morning we woke up and went to Daphne for a 1-mile Fun Run with my sister, Amanda. We got there, got registered and got our shirts and numbers. Christy and Amanda ran the mile, while I speed-walked at my pace, and Alex and Lauren stuck together. I was in the lead with my speed walking when Amanda and Christy passed me in the first 100 yards. A little later Alex and Lauren ran past me. Eventually I caught up to them as they stopped running. At the end, Christy had a 13-minute mile, I ended up at just over 14 minutes, and Alex and Lauren came in at just over 15. Not bad! I really hope that my Achilles tendon magically repairs itself so I can actually start doing more running soon.

Just before the fun run!

We then went home and started prepping for Saturday's parade... the Krewe of Mullet Mates parade from Mullet Point to Pelican Point along the coast. We rode for 5 miles and threw thousands of beads, hundreds of stuffed animals, and 4 cases of moon pies to the people that came out. this was where the Medifast plan broke down a little, as I had a lot of cheese and meat during the day that wasn't exactly on plan. On the other hand, I was out and about and exercising more than normal, as well. We got home and did chicken, green beans, and mushrooms for dinner. Then I rested while all the girls got dressed up and went to the Shadow Barons ball. I kinda wish I had gone to the Ball too, but the rest of the guys stayed home so I did as well.

Prepping the float... zip-tying the dolphin to the front!

The 'float' for the KOMM parade!

Sunday we expected to drive straight home but an ice storm in Tennessee had other plans. We ended up staying the night in North Alabama, with my in-laws. I cooked dinner again (more chicken, green beans, and mushrooms), and we hung out with them. Monday morning I woke up and put in an hour of cardio on the EFX in their workout room and we waited around until 11:00 to get ready to go, hoping the roads would be clear.

...and they mostly were, until Dyer County, TN

We stopped for gas and I ended up eating Perky Turkey Jerky for a snack, since we were on the dregs of our Medifast meals, having had to stretch them out an extra day.

Overall, I was very happy how it went. We stayed on plan, had 'real' Lean and Green meals every night. We had an Atkins shake and an off-plan snack on Monday, but I got home after driving through crappy weather and went to the grocery store and cooked again. I think overall it was a success, with the biggest issue coming with hydration... I know I wasn't able to keep water in me as much as I'd like with all the traveling. I managed to keep up with my cardio, but didn't get a good weightlifting session in, but that's ok. Over the entire weekend, I ended up with a net gain of .6 lbs, but I'm drinking my water today to see what happens once I'm hydrated and get a full night's sleep. I think I'll be ok for the week!

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

Traveling on Medifast!

We successfully navigated two travel days on Medifast. Thursday, we ate out L&G right before we left, and had Medifast meals on the road. Friday morning, we ate Medifast meals and drove the other half of the trip, and had L&G when we got in to Fairhope.

We spent the day prepping the float for a parade tomorrow, and then went to a parade. We caught tons of throws, had a bite of a moonpie (uh oh!) and I got about 4,000 steps on my FitBit.

I don't think I'll have any major blog posts while I'm here, not much time to hop on a computer... but I'll make sure to at least check in!

Organizing our Medifast meals

When doing Medifast for two people, you have a lot of food on hand. For Christy and me, the bulk of our daily food is in our first 4 meals, and we're taking these with us to work, so we need to have a system to manage all the different things we eat.

Inside our Pantry Door

First off are the ready to drink shakes... these are easy, they get placed on a shelf in the fridge. Spares are put in the pantry shelving.

Second there's the 'extra' boxes. We go through a LOT of pretzels, cereal, and mac and cheese. The extra boxes of these get put into our pantry shelving. In addition our 5th medifast meal (Brownies, Puddings, Chocolate Chip Cookies) all get placed into a large bin in the shelving unit.

But then there's the stuff we eat every day. We have a Pantry Door organizer that we got from the Container Store, it's a White Elfa Over the Door Rack unit. I'm considering adding a couple more shelf units now that it has gone from 'general storage' to 'almost everything we eat'. Especially since it's clear we have room for 1 if not two more and that would make things a little easier.

The top row is cereal, Cinnamon Crunch and Mixed Berry. We eat 1-2 of these a day (I prefer shakes in the morning, but cereal is a nice change of pace, while my wife prefers the cereal).

The second row is lesser-used items. Crunch Bites, Puffs, Sloppy Joe and Chili. We never have a ton of this stuff and they aren't daily items, but it's nice to keep an eye on them for potential re-orders.

Next up is Bars... Organized mostly by type, but there's some overlap... currently it's holding Caramel Crunch, S'Mores, Chocolate, Chocolate Mint, Cinnamon Roll, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Crunch Bars, as well as Chocolate Peanut Butter and Cookie Dough Chewy Bars. The bars are one of our favorite things, and we really like the variety, so we have a ton of these on hand. We use at least 2 and up to 4 of these a day.

Finally, in the bottom, we've got pretzels and Mac and Cheese. We eat both type of pretzel, cinnamon and honey mustard, so those are on either side of about a week's worth of Mac and Cheese. Both of us greatly prefer these to the other hearty meals and crunchy snacks, so we generally eat 4 of these a day between us.

By having this system it's really easy to grab your 4 meals for the work day, and it lets us keep track of what we're running out of, so we know what to make sure to order more of on our next order.

Heavy workout day!

With my Monday morning Goalbusters class canceled due to the holiday, my wife and I made plans to go to the gym last night and workout. I was working from home due to the school closings and it ended up being a very hungry day for me overall, and I ate quite a bit of extra food in preparation for the gym that night.

DIET

Medifast Meal 1: 

• 1 Medifast Ready to Drink Dutch Chocolate Shake

Medifast Meal 2:

• 1 Medifast Caramel Crunch Bar (heated in the microwave for 10 seconds and rolled in some sea salt)

Medifast Meal 3:

• 1 Medifast Vegetable Chili (that had been soaking all morning to soften the beans)
• 2 oz of taco-seasoned 99% fat free ground turkey (leftovers)
• 1 tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning

'Snack':

• 10 Papa Johns Chicken Poppers 

Medifast Meal 4:

• 1 Medifast Blueberry Muffin Soft Bake
• 1 Laughing Cow Original Swiss Wedge

Snack:

• 15 Trader Joe's dry-roasted Wasabi Almonds

*workout*

Lean and Green:

• 6 oz of boneless skinless chicken breast
• 1 cup of no-salt added canned mushrooms
• 1 tbsp House of Tsang Mandarin Marinade
• 1 tbsp Ground ginger
• 1 tsp Lemon Peel
• 1 tsp Mirin
• 2 tsp Sriacha
• .5 tbsp Olive Oil

Medifast Meal 5:

• 1 Medifast Soft-bake Brownie
• 2 tbsp PB2

So, if you look at this menu I had the following add-ons:

2 oz ground turkey, 1 laughing cow wedge, 15 almonds, 2tbsp PB2, and TEN FAST FOOD CHICKEN NUGGETS. Now, I ordered the chicken along with my daughter's pizza (she's not on Medifast with us and we hadn't ordered pizza in over a month... and she was home from school, I splurged) but I checked them ahead of time. The order of 10 was 200 calories and 4 grams of carbs... so I went with it.

Even with the add-ons, I hit just over 1200 calories pre-condiments. I rarely track the condiments I add, even though I know they are full of calories and sodium, it's just too much of a pain in the butt to get all that into MFP every single day, and I don't measure them religiously when cooking, it's a dash or a splash or 'enough to coat', or what have you. If I wasn't losing weight at all I might be convinced to get anal about it every day.

WORKOUT

Cardio

• 20 minutes Elliptical - level 9
• 10 minutes Elliptical - level 15

Weights

• Bench Press, barbell - 3 sets of 5 repetitions, 95 lbs
• Seated Row, machine - 2 sets of 10 repetitions, 135 lbs
• Seated Row, machine - 1 set of 8 repetitions, 150 lbs
• Squat, barbell - 3 sets of 5 repetitions, 95 lbs
• Deadlift, barbell - 3 sets of 5 repetitions, 135 lbs
• Seated Tricep Extensions, dumbbell - 2 sets of 5 repetitions, 60 lbs
• Seated Biceps Curl, dumbell - 2 sets of 5 repetitions each arm, 35 lbs
• Leg Press, machine - 3 sets of 10 repetitions, 300 lbs

Around 7 pm we went to the gym for our workout. I had planned to finish watching an episode of Breaking Bad on the elliptical, and then go lift weights. Unfortunately, though, Netflix was having issues on my phone so I ended up using the TV built into the elliptical and watched an episode of Family Guy. 

I did 20 minutes at level 9, and then the last 10 at level 15 to try and get a good sweat working, my heart rate topped out at 130! Two months ago it would have been yelling at me to decrease my effort to keep my heart rate down. I kept my hands on the HRM the entire workout and had entered  my weight and age, so I trusted the machine when it came back with a burn of 433 calories. 

After that I did a decent circuit, hitting arms chest and back with bench presses and rows, then legs with squats and deadlifts, back to arms for biceps and triceps, then finished off with leg presses. I did a lot more leg work than I have been doing, and the squats felt good, so I should incorporate those in more often.

I'm going to consider going back to Stronglifts 5x5, as well, although I can't do those at work, I have to go to the 'real gym' to get those workouts in. We'll see!

Another Snow Day...

My Monday morning workout class was canceled due to the holiday, but would have been canceled anyway since we have ANOTHER snow day. I'm going to go to the gym tonight and do cardio and weightlifting, though.

My weight finally dropped below 300 and stuck there for a day, so hooray! We had D&D last night, and I avoided the chocolates and the brownies, and we ate our Medifast meals while everyone else had chili. We've been doing this long enough now that it doesn't even really bother me anymore, although I am looking froward to getting into transition!

I got compliments on my weight loss last night, which was great!

We also just put in our next order of Medifast foods. We're pretty clearly getting into this... cereal, mac and cheese, crunch bars, chewy bars, pretzels, brownie bakes and pudding are our staples, and both of us are still happy with our system. I threw in some BBQ bites to see if I like them, but I still haven't found a savory crunchy snack better than the pretzels yet.

I need to be drinking more water, I did well Saturday, but Sunday and now Monday I've been slacking. I also haven't been walking enough the past two days! I need to step it up so I have a good loss this week!

Medifast Menu Choices

As we continue our Medifast diet, the options as to what we eat are settling in, and I definitely have some preferences starting to get 'hard coded' as to what I prefer to eat, and when.

Meal 1 - Breakfast: For this meal I always want one of three things... a Ready to Drink Chocolate Shake, or Cinnamon or Mixed Berry Cereal with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. I strongly associate shakes and cereal with breakfast and these are by far my favorite choices.  

Failed to make the cut: Pancakes, Blueberry Muffins. While both of these are ok, they aren't a go-to choice. I'm not sure how many of either of these I'll be ordering in the future... having a box of one or the other on hand is probably a good idea for variety, but they won't be a common choice.

Meal 2 - Snack: For this I almost always want a Crunch Bar. My favorite crunch bar is the chocolate peanut butter, followed up with Lemon Meringue and Cinnamon Roll. Caramel Crunch is ok but not great, but I'm hoping the application of some sea salt will transform this. I'll be trying that today. I also like the Chewy bars (Cookie Dough and Chocolate Peanut Butter), but they aren't as satisfying as the crunch bars.

Failed to make the cut: Chocolate Mint Crunch Bar. Not a fan. 

Meal 3 - Lunch: This is where I want something hot with more preparation. My go to here is by far the Macaroni and Cheese. Chili and Cream of Chicken soup are also good options. All three of these choices need to be doctored for me to enjoy them... 

• Mac  & Cheese: Add a Laughing Cow wedge and a dash of Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning
• Chili: Add an ounce of ground turkey and a lot of chili powder.
• Cream of chicken soup: add a drop of bullion and Cajun Seasoning, plus an ounce of finely diced chicken breast.

Because of the pain in adding an ounce of lean protein to the chili and the soup, they are less common.

Failed to make the cut: Sloppy Joe. This is far too tomato-y, and just didn't have a good flavor. I had to doctor it a lot to get it to where I liked it. Once I had, it was ok, but this will not be a staple, ever. 

Meal 4 - Snack: Here, the Honey Mustard Pretzel Bites are the clear winner. Cinnamon Pretzels are good too, but I prefer something more savory. Chili Nacho Puffs are a good change of pace. I want to try the BBQ bites next order, though.

Failed to make the cut: Parmesan Puffs and Cheese Pizza Bites. Neither of these have a flavor I really like. Both are inoffensive and edible, but why bother when I like the pretzels? 

Meal 5 - Dessert: Number one choice is the Soft Bake Brownie... once we learned how to make it awesome. Second choice is chocolate pudding. Finally, we just learned a new way to use the Chocolate Chip soft bake as well. When made in their 'normal' way, none of these really did it for me, but doctored? Oh man, these are good...

• Brownie: mix a bit of extra water, pour half into a ramekin, drop 2 TBSP of PB2 onto the brownie mix, cover with remaining batter, bake at 350 for 15 minutes and then chill for 1-2 hours.
• Chocolate Pudding: mix in a Ninja blender with 1 cup of ice, 1/2 cup of water, and some PB2 and Cocoa Powder for a dark chocolate peanut butter frosty.
• Chocolate Chip: mix in the Ninja with water and ice, plus an ounce of cream cheese and a bit of cocoa powder for a cookie dough smoothie. 

  Failed to make the cut: Preparing any of these desserts by the directions!

Things we haven't tried yet:

There are still a lot of bars we haven't ordered, and most of those will likely get a one-box order now and then to add them.

I'm not interested in the other puddings or shakes, or the soft serves at all... I feel like the options I have now are sufficient, but it's possible we'll try them later.

Oatmeal and Eggs are both iffy. I'd rather use Egg Beaters than powdered eggs, and I've never liked oatmeal unless it was piled high with sugar.

The hot drinks hold absolutely no interest for me, either.

A couple of the other hearty choices (Ziti, Soups) are potential pick ups, but not until I start getting sick of Mac and Cheese.

Twenty days on Medifast!

After settling into the routine, I'm pretty sure that I can stick with this plan for the next few months and hit my goals. I don't have anything specific I want to go over today, so this will be stream-of-consciousness and just chatting about general thoughts so far now that I've got three weeks to look back.

First... the Medifast food. When I started I would look at my tiny portion of mac and cheese, or that tiny little crunch bar and go 'this is not enough food for anyone, much less a 330 lb guy'. But after the first few days something downright magical happened... the food was 'enough'. 8 oz shake? Enough. One crunch bar? Enough. Packet of Parmesan Puffs? Lasted 30 minutes to an hour. This carried over to my lean and green, as well... 7 oz of turkey and 1.5 cups of vegetables is a lot. Sometimes it is too much!

Secondly... my exercise. I was a little worried about the exercise, but after the first week back, it's fine. I eat extra protein on those days and don't worry about it, and I focus on form a little more than number of reps. I feel great on exercise days.

Thirdly... sleeping. Prior to being on Medifast, I had some insomnia. Now, I'm sleeping a lot better. I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom fairly often, because I'm finally drinking enough water, but I go right back to sleep. I wake up rested as well.

Fourthly... energy levels. I feel great. I have enough energy to get through the day and the 4 PM loginess doesn't hit me very often at all. 

Fifthly... cravings. Some days seeing my daughter eat a peanut butter-on-Hawaiian-bread sandwich or a pizza is pretty tough, but only in the 'I really want that' way and not 'now I must eat that'.  Also, going to the grocery store hungry is still a bad idea. If I'm having a really hungry time and it's not time for a Medifast meal, I tend to have a laughing cow wedge, some turkey or chicken, or some almonds. I don't stress it if I need the snack, I just grab it. As long as I'm losing 3+ lbs/week, I'm going to continue to not worry the snacks as long as they are sticking to plan. A couple of times I've eaten turkey jerky as a snack, and the sodium content is tanking me a bit, but I know it's just water. I've been tempted by things like deli counter dry-rub pub wings and pizza but manage to stick to things on plan.

Sixthly... food cost. Medifast looks and feels expensive, but I'm no longer spending $30-50 a week on lunch at work. We're not going out to 3+ dinners out a week, either. We're spending less money on groceries overall, since even though fresh meat and vegetables are expensive, we're not adding on cookies, chips, candy, freezer foods, etc. We haven't analyzed yet, but I think Medifast is probably saving us money.

Finally... worries? I'm worried I'm losing a little bit too fast, that I might be losing muscle mass. But honestly, if I have to lose some muscle to lose all this fat, then that's ok. Muscle can come back once I'm at a healthy weight.

And I'll leave you with a Medifast tip of the day... the Ready to Drink shakes make a horrid slurping sound when you stop sipping. Resolve this by poking a tiny hole in the top of the container after you've put the straw in. That hole will let air come in as you drink and you'll no longer get the gurgling slurp as air rushes in through the straw. 

Trying something new!

A very short blog post today, as I've got a ton to do and with the snow coming in possibly not a ton of time to do it all in.

First off, I'm up a tiny bit today... 0.3 lbs. Yet again, I had some Jerky as a protein-based snack and worked out before a gain. Not sure if the workout or the jerky is more to blame, but I woke up with my ring tight. I'll hit my water today and skip the jerky and resolve it.

Secondly,  I forgot to eat breakfast this morning. I got gas this morning and went inside and got a high-protein, low carb bar.  It's more calories and carbs than I'm supposed to have, but I felt it was better than skipping.

Thirdly, tonight I'm making spaghetti squash for the first time! I'm going to roast it with a touch of olive oil, some salt, pepper, and garlic, and serve it with Italian seasoned turkey breast. A month ago I wouldn't have even tried it, but I ate green beans and salad, some squash is nothing.

I hope it's good. Mushrooms are fine and all, but some variety in my 'green' will be nice. 

Detailed Analysis

One of the things I did when starting Medifast was to agree with myself that I would track every day. Exercise, food, weight. I tell myself these things a lot, but this time, to keep myself honest, I started two things other than just tracking.

 The first is this blog. By telling myself I'm going to write every day, I know I'll come to the site. And if I'm at the site, then I'll track. It doesn't hurt that tracking is so easy on Medifast, either.

The second thing I did was make myself a fancy spreadsheet that will track my weight, BMI, daily loss, weekly loss, average losses.  

 This has helped fairly immensely in my day to day... I had a workout night that I didn't drink anywhere near enough water, and I was up 1.1 lbs. I ate Turkey Jerky (off plan, but low carb and high protein!) and the sodium bloated me and I was up .1 lbs.

I drank a crazy amount of water and peed like a racehorse after one bloated weigh-in and lost 4 lbs the next day (after waking up 2x that night to pee). The next time I worked out I ate lower sodium, drank more water and high a mild loss after workout and then dumped the water the next day, and was down a little more.

In addition, I took initial measurements of Neck, Biceps (relaxed/flexed), Belly, and Thigh. I'll be tracking those numbers every two weeks.

All of this detail is probably overkill for some people, but I'm using it to organize and analyze and these things are keeping me on track much better than I would have expected. I'm also hoping that by holding myself accountable like this, that when I see a plateau or a gain, I'll be able to recognize why it happened and deal with it much more quickly.

Once I'm off Medifast and into transition and beyond, I think I'll continue to weigh and measure, if nothing else just to make sure I'm maintaining status quo and not starting to backslide. 

Thoughts about Special Occasions

After my birthday, I realized it was a little depressing to have a special occasion and miss out on say, Birthday Cake. Skipping the Friday bagels and donuts at work is one thing, but a birthday coming and going without that treat was pretty annoying.

Now, the problem with Birthday Cakes is that they are giant cakes. If you make a cake that serves 24 or 36 and then three people eat it, that's a lot of cake.

Also, on this diet, you really have to watch the carbs, or you'll knock your carbs over 100g and stop losing weight as well.

With Valentine's Day coming up, how do you prevent this? There won't be a box of Godiva Chocolates this year. So, I think I'm going to go with a couple of homemade, dark-chocolate dipped strawberries for my wife and me.

1 oz of dark chocolate is 13g of carbs

1 large strawberry is 1 gram of carbs

 Each strawberry should take between .5 to .75 oz of chocolate. Thats 7-10g of carbs per strawberry. One of those will be able to be worked into a lean and green meal without tanking the day.

So yes, I know both fruit and chocolate are not on the Medifast approved list, but one strawberry, on one day, when you plan for it seems perfectly reasonable, and will seem more 'special' than just calling a Medifast brownie our dessert.

With Mother's Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, and other events, I'll try to come up with other 7-10g of carb 'treats'. But if all I can manage is dark chocolate strawberries, that will work too! 

Made it to day 10!

Not much to say today. We had a short grocery run and bought veggies and lean meats, spices, sugar free coffee creamer, PB2, and some Trader Joe's tempura chicken for my daughter. The grocery store wasn't a big pile of temptation either.

We experimented some more with different recipes... our brownies became 'peanut butter cup cupcakes' filled/frosted with PB2 and were really good.

I had my second cup of cream of chicken soup, the first was horrid... I'd avoided it since then. But this time, with a drop of bouillon, a little grilled chicken, and Tony's seasoning, it was actually good.

Our second order is on it's way, we waited a little too long to order so we're basically going to be out of Medifast meals when it arrives. Which means some of the things that aren't getting much 'love' (Chili, Cream of Chicken Soup, Pancakes) are all going to get eaten, some of them daily, and other things like crunchy/chewy bars are about to be knocked out of rotation for a day or two unless the order gets here early.

 This isn't a terrible thing, but it will remind us to re-order a little sooner in the future. Several new things are being added to our favorites this order, so that's nice to have coming.

This week is looking to be a pretty easy one.  We've got the RED Ball this weekend, and historically they have provided a relatively healthy meal for us, so I'm pretty sure as long as I don't eat the bread and potatoes/rice that it will qualify for Lean and Green. Honestly I think the harder meal will be breakfast the next morning, when I'll be having a Medifast shake and not an omelette and crepes.

Medifast thoughts, how'd that social dinner go?

So, I ate my Lean and Green meal before going to Old Spaghetti Factory, and had a 'bulky' meal (lots of eggs and protein). When we got to the restaurant there was cheesy bread and t-rav on the table. It looked good, but there was no compelling urge to have a bite.

 I ordered my glass of tea and proceeded to have a great 'dinner'. I wasn't ever really tempted by any of the entrees I saw. The fresh bread and butter looked good, but it was Not Allowed so I was able to ignore it. All I thought about the bread was 'I'll need to keep an eye on how much of that I eat once I'm transitioning off this diet'.

Dinner ended and the conversation was great.

This is the first 'diet' I've ever been on. I've tracked my calories before, mind you, and was successful on Weight Watchers for a while. I think that this diet, which is a pretty brutal culture shock, will do more for me than 'just track!' ever did. Just tracking was frustrating for a number of reasons... I'd have Chinese food, or work out, and not drink enough water and the scale wouldn't move for days and days.

 Now I'm on a plan. The scale bumped up, but I'm on plan. I didn't drink enough water, and the scale slowed down. Then I pounded water yesterday, and shed a ton of water and I've got a big drop again.

 So what am I learning from this? How is this going to help when I'm off plan? Well, I know I need to hydrate more in general. I know I'm bad about that, and I just need to keep a bottle of water nearby and drink more. Not only will it keep me from retaining water, it really does help with hunger.

Also, I'm learning portion control. If I can be fine after eating a half cup of Macaroni and Cheese, then off plan I can eat a half cup of real mac and cheese, and not a plate full. If I can drink an 8 oz shake and be fine, I don't need a 16 or 24 oz shake. This is the first time I've ever stuck with a plan where portion control was actually monitored to this level.

Finally, I'm actually measuring and weighing. If I do that for a few months I'll get an accurate view in my head about how much food I'm eating. This will help immensely when going out to eat. 

 I really want to be one of the success stories that keeps the weight off after a diet. I can see how it would be easy to just say 'screw it' and go right back to bad habits instantly, so I'll have to actively work to avoid that.

In other news, the scale was good to me this morning, I finally dumped all the water weigh I held on to after working out.  

Medifast, Day 6 recap

Day 6 was an easier day.

 Work was pretty hectic so I actually forgot about eating twice, and was late on my Medifast meals.

My hardest moment was actually going to the store to buy more food for Lean and Green... I had eaten a bar at 3:45, and didn't go to the store until 5:30. At 2 hours after a bar, you're pretty hungry, and things like the hot wing bar, the doughnut and cookie cabinet, and the snack aisle all look pretty tempting.

Many times at the grocery store I would buy a snack... chocolate milk or OJ in a single serving container, maybe a chicken strip or a doughnut or a cookie. Not today. I looked longingly at the hot bar dry-rub pub wings, but skipped them. It was harder than expected, and I actually thought to myself 'how bad is one wing?'

But I managed through that and instead bought fresh kale and made kale chips. And then I ate them! I overcooked them and they were a little burnt tasting, but I ate them. I'd describe the flavor as 'smoky garlic' and the substance as 'non existent' but it was something other than mushrooms. I really need to expand my veggie options. Maybe tonight I'll try some lettuce and see if I can tolerate the flavor any better now that I've done this for a while.

On the scale... weighed last night after dinner and a couple big glasses of water, and was up 1.5 lbs from my a.m. weight, and sure enough I only lost .4 lbs this morning. I think that is indicative of a more 'natural' rate of weight loss now that I've shed all my excess glycogen. If I can average .4 lbs a day and lose 2.8 lbs a week, I'll be perfectly happy.