I had posted this earlier, but due to some user error I accidently deleted it from my blog. Oops. So I’m going to try and recreate it as best I can.

So I went to the doctor a while back for a routine checkup and he told me much of the same things my doctor in Texas told me: You need to lose weight (about 100 lbs), otherwise you risk heart disease or Diabetes.

This time I finally took it to heart (no pun intended) and asked for a referral to a dietitian. He gave me one and I made an appointment to see her.

For three days before the appointment I had to keep a log of all the food I ate. When I gave this to her, she frowned at me a lot. When I showed her my blood test numbers, she was shocked to see that I had a very low LDL Cholesterol (the bad stuff). The part that scared her and my doctor was my low HDL Cholesterol (the good stuff) and high triglyceride count (about 3 times what is considered good). The only way to raise HDL and lower triglycerides is to lose weight and exercise.

So we talked for a while about the different things I should eat and the things I certainly should not eat. She put me on a 1800 calorie/day diet in which I am to avoid so called “empty calories”. This includes juices, which shocked me a bit. Basically I can drink water, skim milk, coffee, or tea. So I’ve mostly been drinking water and having to go to the bathroom every freaking hour.

I try to eat 500 calories at each meal and then have two snacks a day around 150 calories each.

So far, I’ve been doing pretty well. When I first went to my doctor, I weighed 276 lbs. Then about a week and a half after starting my diet, I weighed 260 on his scale, meaning I had lost 16 lbs in that short amount of time. Quite a feat. Since then, I think I’ve lost another 5-10 lbs. I’ll know more when I visit my dietitian next week.

I did get this kickass scale from Health-O-Meter that helps you track weight loss. It asks for your height and calculates your BMI based on your weight. You also put in your weight goal and it remembers the first time you weigh yourself and saves that weight. From then on, when you weigh yourself, the scale tells you how much you have lost (or gained) and how many pounds until your goal. It then offers to save that weight and have that be the weight it uses to show you how much you have lost. And as you lose the weight, for every 20% closer you get, it shows a star. So at 5 stars, you’re done.

I’m also working out 2 times a week to help move this along. I’m really committed to making this work. I’ll provide updates as I meet milestones.