Day 69 - A visit to the Nutritionist

I saw the nutritionist on Monday, who said that I'm doing fine. My official weigh in that day was 365lbs, for a loss of 68lbs. that's a rate of a pound per day for over two months, which is frankly pretty fast. The nutritionist on both follow ups, and the doctor the one time both appeared very surprised at my progress. I thought it was weird when I enjoyed the results they predicted, but as many people have pointed out, they weren't surprised at the results. They were surprised that I actually stuck to the plan.

One thing I wonder about is how much of my success on this diet is due to internal factor such as drive, discipline, or self control; and how much is simply due to the PSMF being an ideal diet for me. With the appetite suppressant aspect, the ability to eat tons of grilled meat, and an almost spartan simplicity, the PSMF is a very easy diet to follow. Obviously, I'm committed to the process and I'm exerting some self control, but I really am getting a huge boost from the program. As I've said before, the "cold turkey" aspect also helps a great deal. I don't have to worry about how many slices of pizza I can eat, I simply can't eat pizza.

It's the complete abstinence from certain foods that also helps me in some ways. When I'm at an event or party with pizza or other taboo foods, I don't try to explain to people that I'm on a diet and shouldn't eat it, I simply say "I can't eat pizza." If they want to know why, I explain. I'm a big believer in the idea that if you say something enough times, it starts to become try, particularly something you say about yourself. When I say "I can't eat pizza," I become more and more committed to the idea that I really can't, in fact, eat pizza. The worry about what would happen to me if I were to go off the wagon and actually eat pizza is a different, but related aspect to my ability to abstain.

I had some minor questions for the nutritionist, whose overwhelming response was "whatever you are doing is working!" I'm sure the screws will tighten as I get closer to my goal weight, but for now I'm going to stay the course.

The idea of a goal weight is very common among the professionals I spoke to, and frankly I found it interesting that they solely want to know what I want to weight instead of telling me what I should try to reach. So, it's good that they're focusing on my goals and where I'd like to see myself. On the other hand, it's hard for me to simply pick a number and run with it as a goal. I had a lot of goals at the beginning: lose the magical 10% to help my cholesterol and blood pressure, get under 400lbs, be able to shop for clothes at a mainstream store, and reach roughly 250lbs. At one point, I jokingly said that my goal was to go from "morbidly obese to just regular obese," which shakes out to about 285lbs.

At the beginning of the diet, 250lbs meant a loss of 180lbs, which meant months of dieting and seems nearly impossible. Now, after 10 weeks of the program and nearly 70lbs lost, 250lbs is only another 110lbs and probably 5 1/2 months. That's still a lot of weight and a long time, but that's only 1.5 times the weight I've already lost, and just over twice the time I've already spent on the diet. In other words, I'm already a third of the way there!

The plan for the year has developed to the point where I feel pretty comfortable, after briefing the nutritionist, to plan on cycling off the PSMF at the beginning of November. At my current rate of roughly 5lbs a week, that should result in roughly 110lbs lost by then, getting me pretty close to my goal weight. It will take a month or two to cycle off, and I'm not exactly going to go back to 4000 calories a day when I stop the diet. I'm not going to throw away momentum when I'm doing great, but it would be nice to enjoy the holidays with all the food. In some ways, that's an additional motivating factor to stay on the diet and exercise more: if I can show that I have great work out habits by then, and I've lost enough weight, I can go off the diet and be able to eat a cookie or slice of pie!

All in all, the meeting was short, positive, and mostly affirmed that I was doing everything correctly. While I felt that it was a bit of a waste of time and money, it was pointed out to me that any meeting with a health professional that says "all clear" is never a bad thing.