Losing Weight

Uhg, weight gain.

About three years ago I started seriously working out and dieting, and lost over 30 lbs. January of last year my doctor switched up my medications, and I ended up gaining those 30 lbs back in under 6 months. Now I've at least stopped gaining, but it's time to lose all the weight again.

This time last year I weighed 155, and now I'm just over 180. My goal is to lose at least 10 lbs before Thanksgiving. The problem is how to kick start. For the past month I've at least been losing a small amount, down three lbs since the beginning of October.

To start this week I'm trying a mix of cleanses. Most of the time I think they're bullshit as far as actual weight loss. Typically they just dehydrate you and you'll gain back whatever fat you lost pretty quickly. I do think they're good as far as discipline. For me, that's one of the hardest parts. I think if I can get through three days of sticking to a strict detox plan then I might have a better time with a diet plan afterwards. I also think it'll be good for cutting sugar out, so that during a diet the loss won't be noticed as much and cravings may go down. Hopefully. I guess we'll see!

I'm doing a mix of Jillian Michaels and Dr. Oz for this. I'm using Jillian's drink mix, which can be found here. It's pretty simple and no brand name products are used, so it seems at least a little more credible. I'm not sure if I'll be using the dandelion tea or another kind or a mix, I'll have to do some research on the dandelion tea and why it's recommended. Dr. Oz also recommends drinking just the tea, so I think there must be something special about it. If it's just for dehydration I might replace it with a ginger or other detox tea.

Along with drinking this throughout the day I'm using a diet plan based on Dr. Oz's Weekend Cleanse. There is a shopping list and recipies for breakfast, smoothie snacks, a lunch smoothie, and soup for dinner. I don't really like the idea for smoothies so I'll be making my own snacks and lunches out of veggies and soups, and possibly some lean protein. The breakfast recipe looks great though and should be pretty simple.

For breakfast, boil 1/2 cup quinoa, a pinch of nutmeg, and some grated ginger in one cup of water, and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in 1/3 cup chopped prunes (I might switch to raisins) and 1/4 cup rice milk, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add 1 tbps of flax seed oil and serve.

I like that the rice milk will sweeten it enough that it should be like an oatmeal or granola cereal type meal and be perfect for breakfast! I read some reviews and found that a lot of people found it filling.

For lunch I might have either some of the soup recipe that's for dinner or a Healthy Choice soup. I've been working my way through every flavor of the Healthy Choice soups and have not yet found one that's gross. My favorite is the Butternut Squash! They're typically 90-120 calories a serving and there are two servings per container. Most of them are 4 Weight Watchers Points Plus for the whole thing! If you don't do weight watchers you can figure out how many points you get per day here. I'm 5'6" and just over 180 lbs and I get 25 point per day, so 4 points for two cups of soup is fantastic! I just make sure to look for low sodium ones.

Sometimes though soup won't cut it, and I need something to bite into. This is where the protein comes in. I think I might take some lean chicken or salmon. Some diet recommend cod because it's typically lowest in calories, but it's also lowest in nutrition. Salmon is only about 10 calories more per fillet and has more nutrients and is particularly better for women. It's a natural intake of fish oil instead of getting supplements for it. Cod is okay, but salmon is tastier and better for you.

Dinner I think I'm going to go with Dr. Oz's soup recipe. I like it because it's a thin broth with lots of low calorie veggies. The exact recipe can be found here. I like this idea for a nighttime meal because it's low in carbs and protein and can be quickly digested so it's not sitting in you overnight. I might also try to make my own Butternut Squash soup as low calorie as possible to see if I can get below the 100/calories per cup that Healthy Choice does and lower the sodium as they're all about 390 mg of sodium, and I'm trying to stay at or under 1000. Reducing sodium helps with bloating and carb retention.

Okay, so that's the healthy diet part. I'm also doing some not-so-healthy things as far as diet pills. I'm taking Alli with each meal to eat up some more fat. I'm also going to start using a carb blocker for the same idea at Alli but with carbs instead of fat. From what I've heard this can block you up, so I'll probably be drinking a laxative tea to help combat this.

I'm aiming for a week of quinoa, salmon, and soup in addition to Jillian's drink mix throughout the day. Right now I'm about 183lbs and will hopefully check back and be 5 ish lbs lower in 7 days following this. I don't have much time to work out daily but I'm aiming to at least do a pilates type work out every day and as much cardio as I can fit in, but I'm not expecting to get more than three hours this week. Here's hoping for at least some weight loss!!