that I've given up

On the oatmeal that is. I would rather eat one of the foods I have twice in one day than have to eat that rank cat vomit again. I just really can't get past the smell. It was so warm that it smelled up my whole office and when I walked to the bathroom I could still smell it seeping from the kitchen.....3 hours later.

So because I've given up on the oatmeal I have 5 packets of it left over. When I was signing up for Medifast there was another woman in the office telling me if I didn't like something to just hold onto it and there is a basket in the back where people drop stuff they don't like and switch it out with something someone else left behind.

So today I am eating 2 peanut butter bars. Tomorrow I'll have 2 puddings, and Friday I'll have 2 chilies or 2 brownies. Friday is my next appointment so I'll be getting new food and weighing in.

You may be wondering how the plan works and thinking "it must be boring eating the same 5 things for a week!" Well that is really only the case for this week. When I signed up I got 7 days of free food. That is 5 boxes of Medifast food and each box has 7 packets in it. When I was in the office me and the woman (I don't know what to call her? Employee? Manager? Well she is the manager...) I'll call her clinician... we went through and picked out some meals. When I go back on Friday we may pick out 2 weeks of options. I don't want to pick out a month of food because I don't want to be stuck with things I don't like, so I'll go slow, trying a few new things at a time until I've tried all of it (excluding the other oatmeal flavors) and know what I want to keep getting.

You also may be wondering how long I will be doing this. I will be in the Medifast program for 81 weeks! So if you know there are 52 weeks in a year.. well yea... I'll be doing this for a long time.

I should be at my goal weight by Christmas, which will be 50 lbs lighter! I just hope my head doesn't look huge on a new smaller body. And yes, there will be a few road-blocks along the way... like my trip for work in September (luckily only one night away), my trip to Las Vegas for a girls week in October, a conference for work in November in New Orleans (and I've never been so I'm going to have to EAT some of the great things there), and of course the holidays. Surprisingly out of all of those things I'll have to deal with in the coming months, I am least worried about the holidays and Vegas. The holidays I'll be at home, I can sample a few things at thanksgiving, but I'm not that big on all the thanksgiving food anyways. And Vegas... we'll be in a time share which is pretty much a full condo w/ a kitchen, so I'll be able to bring a week of food, do some grocery shopping and then we'll probably eat out a couple of nights. I think I'll be okay.

Once I hit my goal (hopefully still around Christmas), I will go into stabilization which means I won't be trying to lose anymore weight. My calorie intake will slowly go up and I will start weening off the Medifast meals...slowly adding more veggies and fruit mostly. The stabilization will be about 8-12 weeks. It goes by how much weight you lost and I forget what she said for me.

After stabalization I'll be doing Maintenance!!! I love to clean.
No, not that kind of maintenance, but you knew that.
I won't be eating ANY Medifast foods. I will hopefully have trained myself to eat throughout the day, what I can and can not have, and worked myself into a regular exercise routine.

I'm excited.

Off to eat breakfast #2. Bye for now.