Ah, Saturday, HMR day 10 - hot shakes, my new favorite! And soup...

I don't know about anywhere else, but pollen is super-high here in my state of Missouri.  As a result, my system is totally haywire and I've the driest cough that just won't stop.  It probably hasn't helped matters that I took a marathon walk last night (a marathon for me, is probably reasonable to many people). 

We walked from our house all the way to Qdoba (of course we did not stop, but the smells...) and back. 
In the future, if I choose to have Qdoba, I'm going to try and remember to walk there - two reasons:

1. I will have to want it badly, because it is about 1.7 miles from my house and -
2. If I eat it, I really will need a long walk.

Ok, back to hot shakes, my original reason for writing this post.  I mentioned that I have this cough and my throat is wonky, so I thought, hmm... a hot shake (like hot chocolate for instance) might be nice. 
I have tried the hot shakes a number of ways so far and I like them all.

1. Hot water plus HMR 500 chocolate plus a small amount of SF Jello chocolate pudding.  Blend this up and pour into a glass.  I've been using about 10 ounces of water
2. Hot water plus HMR 500 vanilla, plus about a 1 tsp of SF Jello chocolate pudding.  Again, blend this up and pour into your favorite glass or mug.  This one is not as chocolatey, but it is still good.

I'm not sure that the shakes are as filling since I'm using more water, but I still like them.  Oh, and for me, I really like the taste of cooked chocolate pudding so I'm not sure the instant style SF chocolate pudding would do it for me. Jello has two varieties that are SF, the kind you cook and the kind you just mix up.

I tried my first HMR Chicken Soup Wednesday evening after the HMR class.  I had decided I was totally sick of the cold stuff and needed something hot.  I blended the HMR soup up with about a 1/2 cup of cooked broccoli and put it in the microwave.  I think the jury is still out on the soup for me.  I really wanted to add salt to it.  Instead I ended up adding some pepper and some hot sauce.  The soup gave me terrible gas, but I suspect that is because I blended it up and it had broccoli in it.  I will give it another try at some point since I have an entire box of it on my counter.  :-)

Final note for this post, even though I'm on the HMR Decision Free Diet, I have still tried a few of the hot entrees.

1. HMR Turkey Chili - I liked this entree, though it gave me just a bit of indigestion.
2. HMR Basil and Cheese Ravioli - I did not like this entree. The cheese was gross to me.
3. HMR Mushroom Risotto - I really like this entree, but wasn't sure when I first tried it.

First Official HMR Weigh-in Tonight (April 27, 2011)

I have lost 13.6 lbs.  

About half of the weight lost was fat and the other half was water. 

HMR is using the starting weight of 300.2 taken at their office on April 11, 2011.

My current weight is 286.6 lbs!

Let me just say that this week started out on the rough side.  I had a cardiac stress-echo test at the hospital on Monday.  The test goes something like this:

1. You are taken to room and hooked to an ekg/ecg.
2. The nurse records your vitals (bp, heart rate, etc).
3. They do a baseline ekg/ecg while laying down.  I think they did one standing up as well.
4.  The echo tech (I do not know the proper name) does what looks like an ultrasound of your heart.
5. You get on a treadmill, and in my case, walk until your heart rate hits 180 bpm.  The treadmill increases the incline every 3 minutes or so.  It didn't take too long for my heart rate to reach 180.  They also take your blood pressure periodically.
6. As soon my heart hit 180 bpm, I got off of the treadmill and very quickly got back on the table and laid on my left side.  The echo tech does an ultrasound of your heart again and then arranges the images from before and after with the cardiologist.

The cardiologist said several things during the test that made me feel better -- such as, "your ekg/ecg looks perfect, no problems" and after looking at the ultrasound pictures from before the treadmill and after, said, "everything looks normal, no problems".

I was so relieved, you don't even know.  I didn't realize how stressed out I was from the whole thing until I was leaving and burst out bawling in the hall while they were walking me out.  I could feel the tears coming on when I was trying to say thank you to the staff.  I started crying again in the car and I must have looked ridiculous. However, I felt 1000 percent better and have been in a much better mood ever since.

On... sugar free Jello pudding and gelatins

First: The HMR shakes are tasty, but they definitely require you to be creative, otherwise you are going to burn out on just chocolate and vanilla flavors.  The HMR recipe guide has a number of recipes that use sugar free pudding and gelatin.  So far, I have tried a number of add-ins (both puddings and jello) and I will blog more about that at a later date.  Suffice it to say, the addition of other flavors will help me be successful on the HMR program.

Second: I have my eye on you, Schnucks, Dierbergs and Shop-n-Save!
Your stores have a terrible selection of Jello sugar free pudding and gelatin products.  Each store consistently had cherry gelatin, chocolate pudding, vanilla pudding, but few other flavors listed on the Kraft website.  Granted, I did not check each and every one of your locations, who has that kind of time? Strangely enough, Target had almost as large of a Jello selection as any of the grocery stores and I was able to obtain the sugar free cheesecake pudding.

Need Jello?  Internet to the rescue!  I first checked Amazon.com, but tell me... really, who needs a case of any one flavor?  Me either.  So for my Jello fix, I have turned to netgrocer.com.  I purchased approximately $10 worth of Kraft Jello products with a $9.99 shipping charge.
$20 bucks for Jello products, but at least I'm not going to be driving all over town and I'll have the flavors I want.

Fortunately, I shouldn't need to buy any more Jello products as the HMR shakes require a miniscule amount for flavor.

Hoppy Easter - HMR Weight Loss - My First Photo

Oh boy! You can now see my first photo on the Photo Progression page.

I have eaten all of my HMR shakes today and since I stayed home, I did not have to deal with the temptation of Easter dinner.  :-)

HMR Day 3 (2 and 1) Update

As a recap, my HMR diet is currently a modified decision free diet program.  This program consists of 5 shakes per day and I am adding fruit to each shake to bring the calories up to 1000 for the day.  I also take two multi-vitamins each day and drink lots of water.  I'm not sure I've been getting 1000 calories, but I have been trying.

The program that I will be switching to next week is a 500 calorie per day program (once I have been medically cleared by the Dr at my local HMR program).

Day 1: I had 3 shakes, plus 1 HMR Turkey Chili entree.  I ate the entree because I didn't space out the time between my shakes properly, so I would have had to drink a double-shake or two individual shakes to get the appropriate calories in for the day.  I didn't think I could do any more shakes for the day, I would rather have just not eaten if I didn't have the entree.

Anastasia Beaverhausen

My physical activity for the day was walking.  I walked 42 minutes on a parkway trail near my house.  It looked like it was going to storm so I tried to hurry it up a bit.   I saw a beaver on my walk, but it wasn't super friendly and didn't have time to pose for a proper photo.  I am so out of shape and the walk left me very sore.



Day 2: I had 4 shakes with fruit, plus a chocolate benefit bar.  The benefit bar is basically a candy bar with 160 calories.  Actually, I'm sure that it is healthier than a candy bar or otherwise it wouldn't be on the program.  The benefit bar is not a substitute for a shake, so I missed a shake for day 2.  I didn't do any structured physical activity, but I did go to Costco and Target, so there was some walking around.  I bought a new cuff blood pressure monitor at Costco because my Dr. said the wrist monitors are not accurate.  I also had a Groupon for a nursery so we went and picked out some plants.  One of my friends was shaky and wanted to stop at Taco Bell on the way back home.  It was kind-of hard not to order something, but I did deny the urge.  Oddly enough, I don't even care for Taco Bell (sorry Taco Bell) that much so I'm sure that my urge to eat it was all mental. 

Day 3: (April 23) So far I have had 2 shakes plus fruit.  My first shake was chocolate and banana and my second was vanilla with raspberries.  So I like raspberries well enough, but really, can they make them without seeds, please?  I really don't like the seeds so I know I will not be using raspberries very much.  I am planning to go to the mall later today and walk and then maybe see a movie.  I have a Groupon for the movie theater, but nothing currently at the theater really jumps out at me.  The day is rainy and boring so I'm just looking for something to do that doesn't revolve around food.
It won't be a problem getting all of my HMR shakes in today.
Day 3 Update:  I did get all of my HMR shakes in for the day, though I had to eat a double shake around dinner time to do it.  Progress!

First HMR Meeting (April 20, 2011)

Ok, so I attended a double-meeting last night, making up the first class I missed and continuing on with the second.  The meeting went something like this:  the educator/trainer/counselor asked everyone for negatives and positives to place on the white board.
Some people did well on the program and "stayed in the box" and others did OK, but maybe didn't stay in the box 100% of the time.
Some people have trouble preparing the shakes at work because of the type of job they have or they are afraid of what their co-workers might think of the blending noise (for shakes).

During the meeting, the program nurse also calls each individual back for weight and other vitals.  I believe you also have blood drawn if necessary.  I was not called back, but I asked to be weighed so I could update my spreadsheet.

Staying in the box means that you are compliant with the particular HMR program prescription.  It means that you take in the appropriate calories for your program and that you meet the PA (physical activity) requirement.  The PA requirement is 2000 calories per week.  I am not sure if that increases as the program goes on or not.  You also check-in weekly with the program educator by email or telephone.


So my HMR program is sort-of delayed again.  The Dr. was in a car accident and could not meet with me last night.  Because the HMR decision free diet (DFD) is very low-calorie (500 calories per day), you must meet with the Dr. before you can officially start the diet.  By the way, I'm going to be using the words diet and program interchangeably on this blog.  Fortunately, the Dr. was not hurt in the accident and I will be able to meet with him next Wednesday to officially begin the program.  For now, I am still on the program, but my calories have been increased by including fruits and vegetables in addition to the HMR shakes.  Basically, I'm going to be mixing in bananas, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in with the choclolate or vanilla shakes.

This morning I had my first shake for breakfast.  I made a chocolate shake with 1/2 of a banana.  The HMR 500 shakes come in individual packets.  You mix the shake with 4-6 oz of water (I used 6 oz), 4 or 5 ice cubes and blend.  In my case, I also cut up 1/2 of a banana to blend in with the ice, water and shake mix.  The resulting shake was surprisingly good.  I hope that I do not become dependent on adding the fruit to the shakes because that will be a no-no when the office decision free diet program starts next Wednesday.  The Magic Bullet mixer/blender has worked well so far.  I bought mine at Costco.

Oh, almost forgot, you also have to take two horse-pill vitamins on this program.  They really were not that bad, but I don't really care for large pills, they are just weird for me to swallow.  That should be no surprise really, at least for my mom, because I *chewed* pills until I was like 13.  Finally the nasty taste of chewing non-baby aspirin made me learn how to swallow pills.  Just a little trivia for you.  :-)

I should mention that all typos here are my own.  I am not really doing any extensive proof-reading, otherwise I will end up rewriting the posts.  So if I have two but but in a row or misuse some punctuation, you should still get the general idea.

One, two three, (me & HMR) redux

Last week was a big week for me, weight-wise for certain, but also because I had planned to start HMR.   

"The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry"

Instead of starting the HMR program I ended up making my way to the emergency room.  My HMR appointment was scheduled for early evening and I decided that it might be nice to take a short nap.  Almost as soon as I started to nap, my chest began to feel "funny" - by this I mean, my heart was beating fast, I felt nauseous and the oddest thing of all... I felt like I could pass out if I closed my eyes.  The experience was very strange and made me totally uncomfortable.  I considered calling 911, but did not.  Instead I decided to take a shower and then drive to my HMR appointment.  My thought process went something like this -- I'll drive to HMR and if I still feel funky, then I'll just go to the ER.

So I arrived at the hospital, still felt strange, and made my way to the ER check-in instead of the HMR class.  At the ER I was given an EKG/ECG and sent back to the lobby to wait for a triage nurse.  While waiting for triage, I saw at least 4 other people in the waiting area and overheard them talking about "chest pain" as the reason for their visit.  I will not forget the woman on the phone telling someone "she was at the ER because her son had chest pain and couldn't seem to breathe properly"; I won't forget her because when I saw her son, he was at least 450 lbs and could not have been any older than 14.  All of the people having chest pains were overweight, at least the ones I could see and hear.  That made me sad on so many levels.

Back to me:  The ER Dr. (Wilson) instructed the nurses to come get me and see me "sooner rather than later" because my BP was high and my heart rate was consistently high, approx. ~125-130 beats.  The medical staff took blood, hooked me up to EKG/ECG, bp monitor, pulse ox, dropped an IV line (fluids) and took an x-ray.  All of my blood tests were normal, my EKG/ECG was normal, the x-ray was normal, but my bp and heart rate were NOT normal.  I was given a nitroglycerin patch - did not help.  I was given a beta blocker and a Xanax (took a bit, but everything seemed better after that).  My heart rate and bp became more normal and I started to feel much better.  I have never had a panic attack before (that I know of), but I am pretty certain that part of my problem was related to having one.  I could not get my mind off of my how abnormal I felt and it stressed me out to the nth degree.

It is now April 19 and so far so good.  :-)

Of course I have follow-up appointments with my Dr. to see if I need BP medicine and to go over the issue with him.  Getting the weight off is one of the best things I can do, I think for my physical as well as my mental health. 

As far HRM - I'm all set to start class on April 20 and start the program on April 21.  Wish me luck. :-)

Today will forever be known as... my fattest day ever!

My appointment with the HMR nurse was scheduled for 10:00 AM today (Monday, April 11).  Since I could not sleep at all last night (not exaggerating) I should have been early for the appointment, however, "early" wasn't really in the cards this morning.  I was about 5 minutes late all thanks to a little dog who decided to poop on my bed.  I did not realize that Mr. Man or Little Man (affectionate names for the lil' guy) had an accident or I wouldn't have set my t-shirt down in the mess.  I smelled something poopy as I was putting the t-shirt on, fortunately for me it was only on the the t-shirt and a blanket on my bed.  I would not have been happy to have walked out of the house with poop on my t-shirt -- who would, right?

In the little guy's defense, I think he might have been stressed out from the thunderstorms we had last night.  He is not big enough to jump up and down from my bed, otherwise I'm sure he would have tried to make it to the door to do his business outside.

Last thing I will say on this topic -- onions and poop have equally bad smells.  Onions are probably worse, though I certainly do not enjoy smelling the latter either.

Why I titled this post as ... "my fattest day ever!"...
I was pretty surprised to find that my weight has now reached 300.2 lbs.  My highest weight had been 297 lbs.  Hopefully I have found this HMR program just in time.  I was also not super thrilled to find out that my waist is a massive 55 inches.  Both of those numbers are accurate, I'm sure, but wow, they seem like pure nonsense to me. The HMR nurse also took blood pressure measurements - 3 times in fact.  The first time was with an automated blood pressure monitor, which wasn't working right as it said my blood pressure was l50/110.  He manually took readings from my right and left arms with results of 136/84 and 144/86.   Not the greatest numbers, but certainly better than 150/110 (that's crazy).

If I had to guess, I would say that the 1/2 tub of Costco Kirkland Signature Sea Salt Caramels eaten over the past few days have pushed me into the 300 lb range.  Have you ever tried Sea Salt Caramels?  They are delicious and totally fattening.  I can recommend them if you want to gain weight, assuming you are unable to eat them in moderation, which many people cannot do.  So au revoir delicious Kirkland Signature Sea Salt Caramels as I would rather weigh less than 300 lbs and have a waist less than 55 inches.  Ya think?

Health Stats

To make it easier for people to find (assuming anyone follows this blog), I have created a static page that displays some of my basic health stats. You can either click  Health Stats or the labeled tab above to view the information.

3 days 'til "D" (diet) day

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Thursday (April 14) my diet begins.  I am calling it "D" day, but that is really just to make this blog more interesting.  Did it work?

Note to readers:  (updated April 18)
My HMR diet will actually start on April 21. I ended up in the emergency room on April 13 and was not able to begin the program as planned.  Fingers crossed for April 21!

The diet or plan I will be following is HMR (Health Management Resources).  It is a medically supervised plan because it is super-low calorie and involves drinking your meals.  I am ok with that though.  To save money, I arranged a physical with my primary care physician (who is a great by the way) and requested blood and other tests required by HMR.  HMR is not covered by my health insurance plan so doing the tests in advance means I do not have to pay out of pocket for it.

Later today (Monday, April 11), two days prior to "D" day I will be meeting with HMR medical staff to review my current health, take measurements, go over blood tests and look at my EKG/ECG results.

For reference, I am male, 5'9", 37, and my weight on March 29 was 295 lbs.  I will update this information later today after I meet with the HMR medical staff.

The Million Dollar Question: Do onions make you fat?

Answer: Onions alone do not make you fat (in case you really needed me to tell you that).

But, I bet, eating loads of French Onion soup could probably make you fat.  It might even clog your arteries with all of that ooey-gooey cheese. Truthfully -- I wouldn't know about the nutritional value of any onion-type dish because I absolutely despise onions and refuse to eat them.

Raw onions make most people cry!  Me... they make me gag!  You will not find an onion ally here, nor will you find an ally of onions.

And yes, if you are in the food service industry, I am THAT customer who can tell if an onion has touched my plate or was just picked off of the sandwich or out of the salad.  A tip: do not use the "onion knife" to slice the strawberries that you place on top of the cheesecake.  Yes, I'm looking at you Mangia Italia.  (¬_¬)