D'Linda wanted to lose weight, she decided to do a diet program called "Take Shape For Life". A friend of hers had lost 80 lbs and kept it off for over a year. I have always felt that when one spouse goes on a diet the other one should do it too. D'Linda wanted to get down to 119, she was at 141. My weight has been creeping up for a few years since my knees have stopped me from running. I try to bike regularly, but I don't get as many miles in as I need to, especially when the weather turns cold and wet. I weighed in at 220, I could really lose 20 lbs, so I said let's do it.
The diet uses packaged food that you buy in monthly quantities, it costs about $300 a month per person, plus you add some salad and lean protein every day. The brand of food is called Medifast it is packaged in individual meals, that aren't big and some aren't that good. I usually put jalapenos and salsa in everything, and some onions too. The diet has you eating at least every three hours, so I never really got hungry.
As we got into the diet it wasn't that bad. When I was doing the diet right I was losing between one half and three quarters of a pound a day. We did complicate things with a trip to Ohio for two weeks to help our daughter move into a new house. We did pretty good there, but then we went to Mexico for two weeks and one of those weeks we were at an all inclusive resort. I did pretty good, but I did enjoy myself.
We read the literature with the diet and they had some good stuff, the goal is not to just lose weight, but actually end up healthier. The goal was to get to a BMI under 25, I have never thought that BMI was that good of a scale, but I decided to give it a try. for me to get under 25 I needed to get under 190. I graduated from high school at 185 and was over 200 within a few years. I have only been under 200 a few times in my adult life, and I have been as high as 254.
Once I got into the diet it was really easy, I never got hungry and I never ran out of energy. I rode 42 miles with the Palm Desert Cycling Club last Saturday and I was a little tired after the ride, but was able to do some projects after. I don't feel like I have lost any strength or stamina. I didn't have a set weight goal, but as it was pretty easy I decided to go for 40 lbs. I hit 179 this morning that gives me a BMI of 23.6. I wouldn't have thought it was possible when I began. I feel great, D'Linda says that I am too skinny, but I don't feel weak at all.
Now that we have reached our goals we need to transition to our new diet for the rest of our life. We will add more fruits and vegetables. We will stay away from processed foods and limit saturated fats. If I eat that way I should be able to have a calorie limit of 3200 a day according to the calculations in the diet book. That should be easy seeing we have been doing fine on about 1000. The test will be what I weigh in a year, but I just wanted to let you know how easy it has been.
