Living in Health-- Weight Loss

One way living in hope has impacted me is to allow me to look down the road and see a future full of possibility. Because of this, I decided to take my weight issues seriously, make an investment in ME and get to work! I signed up for Kaiser San Diego's Positive Choice full fasting weight loss program. In this post, I am going to talk about my program so when/if I refer to it in future posts, you will understand what I am referring too.

My program:
The program that I choose is the Full Fasting program. One of the major reasons I choose this program is because one of it's components in psychological related-- we discuss the reasons WHY we eat, and it can get pretty nitty gritty! I decided that if I am going to change my life and live in hope for the future, I needed to not only get serious about losing weight, but also about doing the psychological work needed to change my thinking and therefore change my way of relating to food.

In this program, you stop eating food and only take their supplement meal replacement shakes and soups. The brand of supplements is call Nutrimed and they are all tasty! I started on shakes on April 2, 2015. My weight at the beginning of the program was 215 lbs. Last Wednesday when I weighed in, the scale said 180.5 lbs! I am anticipating seeing around a 3 lb weight loss this week.

I thought I would post some pictures so you can see the difference. The older picture is not high quality because it was taken at my first weight loss appointment and printed on paper.

March 23- 215 lbs

May 20- 180.5 lbs

This diet has been changing my life- inside and outside! I have a much better understanding of WHY I struggle with my weight and this can only help me!

This diet is very low calorie and I am losing my weight very fast (at least until this point). This is a medically monitored weight loss program, which means that you have access to medical staff whenever needed.

This turned out great for me, because about 4 weeks ago I noticed that when I worked out I was getting light headed in the afternoon. I am terrified of passing out while holding a patient or while driving, so I immediately called and spoke to the P.A. As a result, I started taking an extra shake (from 5 shakes to 6 shakes).

After a few weeks, that wasn't cutting it and I was still feeling light headed. Blood tests were run to see if there might be other reasons I was feeling light headed, but it turns out I simply needed more calories (apparently this happens to taller patients that loose very quickly). So now I am able to eat 3 lean protein exchanges AND my 6 shakes. If you are interested in seeing what the exchanges are check out this link: NIH Food Exchange Lists.

This has been a great lesson for me-- in the past, as a result of my depressed and hopeless outlook I wouldn't have called and just "dealt" with the light headedness no matter the consequences. My outlook would have been "What's the use? They aren't going to take me seriously." Instead I thought "Why wouldn't I talk to them about it? They can tell me if it's something to worry about or not. If it's not great! If it is, then it will be addressed. If I don't speak up, it definitely won't be addressed!" The results speak for themselves-- not only was I taken seriously, but I got to eat more food as a result!

Since today was a holiday, I took pictures of my meals so you might be able to understand it better. I will have one more shake later on this evening. I doubled up at dinner because I had a late start today and didn't want to have my 6th shake at 11pm.

Breakfast 8am - 3 egg whites, 1 chocolate shake mix
 I used hot water to make Hot Chocolate- so yummy!

Lunch 11am- 2 oz seared scallops (no oil) and 1 Wildberry Shake

Afternoon snack 2pm- Bowl of Bouillon and Wildberry Shake
I only had the bouillon because we had just come back from a walk and I wanted something for hydration that wasn't a water, diet soda, or a shake.

Dinner 5pm- Bowl of Nutrimed Tomato Soup and "Chai Tea Latte"
(Chai Tea with the Vanilla Shake mix)

So far, not only has this program helped me lose weight, but it has brought me a better understanding of myself and encouraged me to look a deep issues. I think one of the most important lessons I've learned is to understand how I define success and to take a look at my definition of success and see if it makes sense. For so long I've held myself to impossible standards and felt unsuccessful despite having accomplished much. Changing the way I view success (mostly by lowering my unrealistic standards and acknowledging all I have accomplished) has not only helped me with this weight loss, but I can see it affecting my professional life as well! To God be the glory!

Living in Hope

Once upon a time there was a girl who looked at the world through depressed, hopeless eyes. Her life was changed when, after much individual counseling, group therapy, lots of reading, and much prayer and support, the depression lifted and she realized she not only had reason to hope, but could LIVE IN HOPE.

This girl, of course, was me. I have decided to write this blog to share the hope I live in. I was depressed from when I was 14 years old until last year-- I CANNOT express what a change having hope has had on my psyche, my physical being, my relationships, my work and my spiritual self. I have realized that THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE. I do not fool myself thinking that I will never have a hopeless moment or times I want to throw the towel in, but I know now I can come through it. I recognize that life continues to have difficulty, but I know now I can navigate it and will be blogging about that. Please join me!




Romans 5:3-5

3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.