Day #182 - A Change in Plans

In my last couple of posts I talked about a major mental shift where I wanted to stop focusing on diet and instead focus more on just living a healthy lifestyle.  I could almost feel the eye rolling from the blogging world as I published that post.  Well here I am a few weeks later and I'm happy to say that those weeks were not a disaster.  I stuck to my new plan and truly enjoyed it.

I've been doing well, eating reasonably healthy with a few splurges here and there.  My mental state has been strong.  I didn't get that job in Wilmington and I actually felt a little relieved that we didn't have to move again so quickly.  All in all it was a pretty good 3 weeks.  The only problem... I didn't lose any weight.

I knew that going away from dieting and instead just trying to be mindful and make good choices would slow my weight loss down.  I kind of thought that maybe I would lose about 0.5 pounds each week and it would slowly creep down over the next couple years, but after a month, I went from 337 to 337, exactly 0 pounds lost. 

Not losing any weight was a little surprising, but that alone wouldn't be enough to get me to change my mind, I'm as happy now as I've been in a long time so what if I'm not losing weight.  However, a trip to my new doctor helped me change my mind...

2 weeks ago I went for my first physical in this new area.  I found a great doctor to be my physician and when we met, I also found out he specializes in bariatric medicine.  I got my cursory physical, but we really spent a lot of time talking about the history of my weight.  I told him everything about my successes and failures all the way up to my current mode of just trying to be healthy and keeping a strong mental focus and awareness.  Although he didn't really roll his eyes, I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to.

The doctor told me that he likes someone that's a little overweight to lose weight slowly over time in order to reduce the risk of just putting it back on.  It made sense to me.  "However", he continued, "you are not just a little overweight, you are SEVERELY overweight."  He told me that I needed to start seriously dropping pounds and he was giving me 6 months to show some serious progress.  He told me that my best approach would be an Atkins style of eating; no sugar and highly restrictive on carbs.  After that, if I didn't get anywhere he said the next step would be to talk about weight loss medications, and failing that, we would next discuss weight loss surgery options.  It was a little dis-heartening to have someone shoot down your plan, but I pride myself on not dismissing other people's opinions just because they are different from mine.

I went home and spent the next couple days thinking about what the doctor had said.  Atkins? That is one diet that I never tried.  Back in the 90's I remember a guy at work who was doing Atkins and I can remember him sitting down at break end just eating nothing but 10 slices of bacon.  I remember telling myself that Atkins had to be the most unhealthy diets in the world and that I would never do that.  It's funny how certain events can mold your perception because up until now I've never really considered Atkins to be a healthy choice for weight loss.

I thought about my current plan and situation more, and then it came to me... There's nothing wrong with my mindset, it's just the timing is off.  The mindset I've been carrying around for a while now is the mindset I will need to have AFTER I lose all this weight.  Once the weight is gone I need to practice mindful eating and won't need to weigh myself all the time.  After I lose the weight I need to stop worrying about counting things and instead just focus on being healthy.  My current mode is that of someone who is on a maintenance plan!

So I got the Atkins book out at the library.  I don't particularly like the book, but the science behind it seems reasonable, so 6 days ago Mrs. FogDog and I started the Atkins Phase I plan.  This first week was brutal, I had headaches, I was tired, and at times felt a little nauseous from cutting sugar and carbs from my diet.  Fortunately, and as the book promised, that has now gone away and I feel much better.  Tomorrow is my first weigh-in and I am hoping to see a really good number.

So now my plans have changed and I find myself back at putting a serious focus on dropping pounds.  At the start of the year I made a goal to drop 100 pounds.  That's probably not going to happen given that it is now July, but my goal is to go back to the doctor in 6 months 50 pounds lighter. 

I'll keep blogging periodically to show my progress; wish me luck.

Stay Strong!