Weeks 5 and 6-- real food and more weight loss!

Positive Choice Week 6 and 7 

I will start off with the news I’m sure all are waiting to hear with bated breath…..

I’ve lost 27.6 lbs in 35 days!

This last week my weight loss was 3 lbs (before it had been between 4.2-4.6 lbs), so it is slowing down, but still pretty good. It should be higher next week, but we shall see.

Real food!

I mentioned before I was instructed to add another shake to my day. That did great for a couple of weeks at making me feel full, but Feb 24-27 I was so hungry I started shaking and was light-headed most of the time. I called Positive Choice. The PA I spoke with instructed me to  add a meal each day. So now I get to have 6 shakes a day (which is 150% of the nutrients I need) and then 3 oz of lean protein, 1/2 cup of non-startchy vegetables, and a small salad. So far this has helped me and I haven’t been shaky or light headed.

I am a bit concerned because I had all those shaky feelings, etc on days that did not exercise. I am really wanting to exercise. In fact, I did all the work in the program work book as well as accompanying book they gave me to set up an appropriate exercise program. I hadn’t started it yet because I was afraid that if I shook and was light headed without exercising I might feel worse with exercise, even with the extra food. I spoke at length with a NP before my meeting last night. Basically, she said I should be fine as long as I stick to the guidelines from the program.

My theme for this year is “Happy, Healthy Kornoff’s!”. In that light, I have been trying to add health to my entire life- including my family life. This means that my hubby and I got a babysitter and went on a proper date! Wohoo! We went to a restaurant and then a coffee shop to spend time together. It was even extra fun because I actually got to eat at the restaurant we went to— 6 pieces of wonderful sashimi!! It was the best tasting food I have ever had. I mean, it was good sashimi, but having that fantastic texture in my mouth was so exciting!! And the ginger they had to eat with it was delicious! Who knew ginger could be so delectable? We have another date set for Saturday during the day and I am looking forward to it as well. 

My pile of clothes to donate

In terms of my mental health, I have been doing better and taking time for myself. I have been feeling pretty successful and happy with the progress I am making towards whole person health. I was able to get rid of almost all the clothes I have been wearing for the last 5 months! It’s so exciting! I feel pretty and can see a difference in my face from the weight loss. I also realized that I have lost all the weight I gained after giving birth. This means the rest of the weight I have to lose is from IVF medications and pregnancy. This is encouraging to me because I gained exactly the recommended weight during pregnancy and had no power over the weight the IVF drugs put on me. This has helped my perspective immensely as I look ahead feeling like there is still so far to go.

In terms of spiritual health, I have been experiencing such renewal of the my spirit and can sense a change in myself. I find that I am first turning to God with situations that in the past would have caused me extreme anxiety and then maybe a couple days later I would think about praying about the situation. I will go more into that later.

Have a wonderful day!

Spicy Hot Chocolate using Nutrimed Chocolate Meal Replacement Shake

I don't know about you, but I LOVE dark chocolate with chili pepper in it. The dark chocolatey goodness along with the kick of spice is to die for!

In attempt to make this diet have more variety, I have been playing around with a recipe to capture the goodness that is spicy chocolate. Unfortunately, the chocolate shake isn't dark chocolate (that would be SO delicious) but I can still add some flavor to it!

I've played around with different spices and amounts. I initially tried chili but it just didn't taste quite right. I ended up deciding that cayenne pepper is the way to go!

Here's what you need:
Click Here for Printable Version

1. 1 package Nutrimed Chocolate Meal Replacement mix
2. 1/16 tsp Cayenne pepper flakes or powder (I used powder because it was cheaper and came in a large bottle)
3. 1.5 cups of hot water (plus extra for topping off if desired)
4. Dissolvable fiber (optional if you still need fiber for your day)
5. Blender

Apparently a "smidgeon" is about 1/16 tsp

Instructions:

Step 1: Measure out your hot water and pour into blender.
Step 2: Measure out your cayenne pepper and dump into blender.
I actually don't have a 1/16 tsp measuring spoon so I use one we have marked "smidgeon", which when dumped into the 1/8 tsp is about half of it as you can see in the picture. I really recommend measuring the cayenne pepper because it is really easy to shake too much into the water if you simply shake the pepper into the water.
Step 3: Pour in chocolate shake mix and (optional) fiber. 
Be careful when you do this as it is really easy to accidentally spill half the packet on the counter if you aren't careful! Also, only put the fiber in if you need it for your day. While it does thicken up the hot chocolate a little bit, I don't find that it makes enough of a difference in texture to be better with or without the fiber.
Step 4: Blend! 

Topping off my spicy hot chocolate!

I find that when blending with hot water it is important to make sure the blender is sealed up. I use a old Ninja where you place the motor on top of the blender cup. When blending hot water I found that if I press down hard on the motor while blending, it does not smash. If you decided to make this using a blender bottle, you might want to practice shaking up hot water in the blender bottle before you try shaking up hot water with a mix. You can be successful shaking up hot water in a blender bottle, but it takes a bit of practice to make sure it doesn't spray everywhere or explode.
Step 5: Pour into you favorite mug and enjoy!
I like to top it off with some more hot water to fill the cup.

Print Recipe Here

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!