First of all, I want to thank Annette and Melinda: the two people that I know for sure are reading this blog. It makes it much easier to write here knowing someone (beside Tom and me) is actually reading it. This cartoon sums up rather well what I was fearing would happen:

As Tom already posted, the last week was nutty and we ended up doing what is called “Four Plus One” — four shakes and one meal a day. Except Sunday became “Three Plus Two”, but that’s another story. We got talking and with the cruise coming up, this strategy makes sense. We discussed our plan with Karen Schnell who is the head of the Nutri-Med diet program at St. Luke Hospitals and she agreed. I ended up being down just one pound this week and Tom was the same (which isn’t too surprising since he lost five last week).

It was time for blood work again and I decided to try the lab at St. Luke West since Tom had had such good luck there last time. Still no luck getting blood from either arm, but this time, when they pulled it from my hand, I didn’t almost pass out! Let’s hear it for small victories!

Official Weight (after seven weeks): 257.0 lb – loss of 24.0 pounds
Home Scale (after seven weeks): 255.4 lb – loss of 22.6 pounds

Carla

Remember me? I used to post here a while back. We have to leave for weigh in in a couple of minutes, but here are some random thoughts:

1. I am incredibly aware of anything that goes in my mouth. Not in an eating disorder way, but in a good way. “Is this really worth it?”
2. The pool at the Y is closed for maintenance. Which sucks because any other workout just doesn’t satisfy.
3. We have a loop around the apartment complex that we’ve walked on and off over the years. Maybe a bit over a mile if we walk up to a local shopping center. It’s a nice benchmark in that this morning we got up and walked it and (a) I didn’t have to stop at all and (b) we were well within the mile range before I had to slow my pace a little. It’s no marathon or anything, but it’s a step in right direction. My endurance is definitely better.
4. I miss exercise if I don’t get it in the morning. Weirdest thing I ever said.

Not expecting much loss this week. Have been anything BUT compliant this week, but my intestinal tract will appreciate it next week as we take the cruise to Alaska and have real, but reasonable, food.

My apologies for the long pauses sometimes between posts. As my friend and former UTM colleague Barb Malinauskas used to say, life is too much with me. I’m doing lots of advising hours at school this week since one of our advisors is on her honeymoon, tonight is the second game in our last six game home stand with the Freedom and Disney keeps releasing discount codes that add to my travel agent workload. And yet, Tom and I continue to get up at 6:00 am to go to the Y to work out 45 minutes before work each day. The workouts are paying off. As you can see from the Loss-O-Meter, Tom lost five more pounds this week and I lost another 1.4 pounds. I just can’t wait for the ball games to be over and to be able to get to sleep a decent time.

Official Weight (after six weeks): 258.0 lb – loss of 23.0 pounds
Home Scale (after six weeks): 256.2 lb – loss of 21.8 pounds

Carla

From Sunday, August 12, 2007

Now that we’ve been on the liquid diet for over five weeks, our bodies are getting really picky about the non-NutriMed foods we put in them. We had two times this week that our food choices came back to haunt us. I have to admit that those incidents have made making wise food choices easier.

On the positive side, working out has been a joy since we joined the Y. We were too tired Thursday and Friday to get up in time to work out (baseball games the nights before didn’t help). Instead, we went both Saturday and Sunday. I can definitely see us working up to working out seven days a week. Now, the indoor pool is going to be down from August 19th until we leave for the cruise so we’re going to try out the fitness room those days. It actually should be good since we won’t be able to do water aerobics on the cruise either.

Official Weight (after five weeks): 259.4 lb – loss of 21.6 pounds
Home Scale (after five weeks and four days): 257.0 lb – loss of 22.0 pounds

Carla

Our first poster (Thanks Melinda!) asked for some photos and we realized that our in-blog photos are only available in the July archive now. So I created a photo log page with our weight loss photos to date. It’s at http://www.tomandcarla.com/weightlossphotos.html or you can just click the link to the right. I promised new photos soon!

Carla

Let’s hear it for the YMCA! Working out this week has easily offset any extra food we had. Since Tom’s been so busy, I will let you know that he is officially below 400 pounds now and I’m below 260. What a great feeling! And I think it’s time to reach into the spare closet and try on some of the pants that are a size smaller. And now the home scale and the official scale have exactly the same weight loss.

Official Weight (after five weeks): 259.4 lb – loss of 21.6 pounds
Home Scale (after five weeks): 257.4 lb – loss of 21.6 pounds

“Hello, hello, hello
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?”

So Tom and I have been posting here since July 3rd. I know some folks are reading the blog, but sometimes you wonder. So how about a prize for the first person who posts and correctly identifies the song and artist for the lyrics posted above? Yep, you can tell I’m an old radio type.

Official Weight (after four weeks): 262.0 lb – loss of 19 pounds
Home Scale (after four weeks and six days): 258.8 lb – loss of 19.2 pounds

Carla

This past weekend was my parents’ 50th anniversary party… at a German restaurant. There’s no such thing as light German food. And, to make matters worse, I had gone up a bit Friday morning compared to earlier in the week. So Tom and I somehow got through the weekend without pigging out completely (okay, there were two giant beers at the restaurant – each). Surprise, surprise! I was down .8 of a pound this morning compared to Friday morning! (Of course, it’s only .2 down from Wednesday.) Because the other thing that changed since Wednesday is that we’ve been working out at the Y. Today was our third time going and we’ve been averaging about 45 minutes of water aerobics and other exercises in the water. I really think that’s what made the difference. The scale the next few days should be very interesting…

Official Weight (after four weeks): 262.0 lb – loss of 19 pounds
Home Scale (after four weeks and five days): 260.2 lb – loss of 17.8 pounds

Carla

P.S. No one said anything about us losing weight, but the focus really was on Mom and Dad.

So, today was our fourth week of weigh-ins and something strange happened. For the first time, my official weight loss is more than my unofficial (at home) numbers. Not sure what caused it, but I’m not going to argue with it either!

And to keep the numbers going down, we joined our local Y today. It helps that we weigh in there every Wednesday morning. We’ll just go earlier and work out before we weigh in plus go at least two other days. We think we’re going to start by just walking in the water (one of my favorite ways to exercise).

On the down side, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed that nobody at school has said anything about me losing weight (19 pounds at this point). Lots of people at the ball park have mentioned it so I thought at least one person would mention it at school. Oh well… I’ll just have to keep on plugging at it. We’re going to my hometown this weekend for my parents’ 50th anniversary party. Only my dad knows we’re on the liquid diet again. I wonder if anyone will notice anything there.

Official Weight (after four weeks): 262.0 lb – loss of 19 pounds
Home Scale (after four weeks): 260.4 lb – loss of 17.6 pounds