Is this a before and after picture? I can definitely see some similarities in the before.. I am probably a couple months away from transitioning off the Optifast diet back into regular food. It's up to the staff of Kaiser, but I expect that my transition diet will start in once I lose 23 more pounds and am ten pounds away from my goal weight of 190.
It's been quite a journey. You can see to the right, the picture of me when I started this program. I'd been overweight for over a decade, maybe closer to 15 years. And, to be honest, I'd started to give up faith in my ability to lose the weight on my own. Einstein reportedly said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results. If so, then I'd been plum loco for quite a while- never really trying an organized weight loss program outside of just personal training. I'd never really tried to tackle the problem of "too many burritos," as my doctor put it!
What really inspired me was the success of two of my closest friends who had tackled their life long obesity problems with surgery. Seeing them slim really made me think seriously about surgery. If they had done it, what was to stop me? I was still highly resistant to the idea (and, honestly, quite scared of going under the knife), but finally I broached the subject with my doctor. Instead of surgery, she sent me to Optifast: a very low calorie weight loss program. (see previous entries for details on Optifast). As I researched the Optifast program, I found an academic study on it that was very convincing- an average weight loss of 58 pounds in 20 weeks for those that stuck with the program. So, I told myself that I'd trust someone else's judgment over mine for once. I'm really glad that I did.
It will be a little while before I look like the guy in this picture again. (Though I think my wife would kill me if I returned to that hairstyle, lol.) But, I'll get there and hopefully do even better. Forty something is the new twenty, right? I hope so!
Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237
Week 18- 9/4/14 237.0 3.0 234
Week 19- 9/11/14 234 2.0 232
Week 20- 9/17/14 232 7.0 225
Week 21- 9/24/14 225 2.0 223
111.5 pounds lost!
