In the Midst of Week One...and the ER

This post is going to be LOOOOONG, because I’m going to fill you in on all of the details. As much as I remember while typing, anyway. For those of you with just a little bit of time, I’ll bold the most important parts so you can just skim through!


While I said that I was going to jump in with both feet on Friday, I really didn’t until Saturday.

I had my consultation with Medi on Friday at 10:15AM. Have I mentioned that I am TERRIFIED of needles? As in, deathly afraid of them? Well, I am.



The first thing I did was pee in a cup. Which was a good thing, because I really had to go after all the coffee I’d had that morning. Little did I know, that was my last cup of warm, creamy coffee…


After that we took blood pressure, measured my waist (I can’t remember what that was)…and then I got on the scale.



Is that really ever fun for people? I suppose it might eventually be fun, if I lose weight. Starting out, not so happy.



Here are my current stats (wow, I’m brave for posting this! Or just dumb…):



Weight: 163.5 (holy geez!)
BMI: 33 (seriously?!)
Fat %: 39.8% (honestly, this thing MUST be broken…)
Fat Mass: 65.01 (oh, my word…)

And the desirable range? My fat percentage should be somewhere between 21-33% (I was 22% pre-pregnancy) and my fat mass should be 26.0-48.5. I have no idea what mine was pre-pregnancy.


Then…we moved on to the needle portion. The MA, Lauren, drew blood for testing (I’ll get those results at my follow up visit). I didn’t look. She laughed at me. I was okay with that. She was, however, impressed that for as scared as I professed to be, I didn’t faint.



Fainting is too dramatic. I’m not dramatic at all.

Moving on…

After drawing blood, we did the injections. One was in the back of my arm; I think that’s the MIC injection, the one with all the vitamins and minerals. I honestly didn’t even feel that one. The other one according to Lauren had the potential to burn. Some patients report a slight burning sensation down their leg afterwards. I didn’t care about that; I cared about the needle! I told her as long as she would tell me when the needle was out, I’d be fine. And I was! I almost didn’t feel that one either and I didn’t really feel a burning sensation. I did the injections! I can do them!

The doctor came in and did a physical, after which I got out of the hospital gown, back into my own clothes and we went into another room to discuss the program.

So here’s the deal: week one of Medi consists of no less than 500 calories from lean protein only. Do you have ANY idea how difficult that is for a vegetarian?! I can’t have nuts, beans, cheese, veggies or fruits. It’s pretty sad, actually. The dr. said that if I go over the 500 calories, that’s not a big deal; he’d prefer we go over than under. What can I eat? Well, I bought their chocolate protein shake. Which isn’t horrible but oh my word, is it expensive! I have to find a cheaper option with comparable nutrition somewhere else. In my situation, I can have two shakes per day as opposed to the one that they normally recommend for most people who DO eat meat.


We also have four pills to take: a multi-vitamin once a day, a calcium pill twice per day, an appetite suppressant three times per day and a fat-burner three times per day.


I think that appetite suppressant might be my saving grace right now.

My diet on Saturday was a shake and an egg white (which I could barely choke down – I don’t think I’m going to try that one again) for breakfast, 3oz of chicken breast (a bit more tolerable and I kept it down) and fat free cottage cheese for lunch, then another shake for dinner. The grand total for that day was 386 calories. I know, I know, I was supposed to get at least 500 and overshoot rather than undershoot. We’ll get into the reasons why later.


That was my Medi appointment on Friday morning. That evening was my first session with James Taylor (yes, that’s his real name – stop laughing), the personal trainer.

I think he was trying to kill me.

He’s a really nice guy. Until he makes me do more reps. I guess then he’s still a nice guy, it’s just my attitude that changes. Whatever.

He runs a private, one-on-one personal training gym. There is a waiting area behind a closed door, so you don’t have to worry about people watching you while you’re working out. Great for self-conscious people like me! I got on each of the machines and did as many reps as I could. Only once or twice did he have to take some of the weight off, but once or twice he also had to add weight.

He has a machine to stretch your legs out afterwards, but I also did some additional glute stretching because one of the other girls said that she had a hard time…um…sitting to use the potty because her muscles were so sore. Not good when you’re drinking 65-132 ounces of water each day and peeing every other minute! We didn’t stretch my arms after the session, so I did some of that on my own too. Apparently I didn’t do it well enough, because my arms were still pretty sore. Even today, Monday, my pec muscles are still very, very sore. The rest of my muscles have repaired and the soreness has subsided but for some reason, it feels like my pec muscles have gotten more sore. I have got to remember to stretch better next time!


James specifically says that he wants to take care of working the muscles. It’s great if I want to do cardio several times a week but in order for my muscles to get the rest that they need, I should only work them during my training sessions and not do any other weight-lifting on my own.

Like that would be a problem. You’re telling me to limit my exercise? OKAY!


So Saturday is when I hit the ground running. Figuratively speaking, of course. I don't run.

I told you about my Saturday menu. We spent the morning at Wal-Mart picking up some things I need (water, Smart Water, benefiber packets, cottage cheese, crystal light packets…). When we came home, we had lunch then put our daughter down for her nap. Our plan was to wait for her to wake up and then drive out to the Reebok outlet to meet Janice (one of the other winners) to get some new sneakers and workout clothes.

About 3:50PM, my mom called. She asked what we were doing and if we had plans, I told her we’d just finished shopping and were just waiting for The Princess to wake up so we could go meet Janice and then we were probably going to hit Publix to look for Morningstar Farms things that I can eat. I asked if she had any plans in mind or if she wanted to do something.

She says, “Well, I think I may have messed up my wrist.”

What do you mean, you think you might have messed up your wrist?

“Well, I was taking a nap because I have a cold and haven’t been feeling well. My phone rang and startled me. When I stood up to answer it, I got dizzy and put my hand down on the bed to steady myself, but my hand slipped and I fell.”

Are you okay, do you need to go to CentraCare?

“That’s kind of why I was calling…I need someone to take me.”

My dad was out of town this weekend, so of course we woke the baby up, threw my shake together and stuck it in a cooler, got in the car, picked up my mom and headed to CentraCare. We got there at 5PM, just before they locked the doors.

An hour later, they sent us to the ER with an xray and diagnosis of “fracture in undisclosed location.”

Huh. Interesting.

We went to the ER. We sat in the waiting room for a while until they called her back. I went with her while Pat and our girl stayed in the waiting room. They put us in “Room 47.” Which was actually a bed in the hallway. Nice room. It didn’t seem all that busy either, we couldn’t quite figure out why we couldn’t have an actual room, but whatever.

The PA came over, took a look at the xrays and said, “So why’d they send you here?”

Uh…I dunno.

He was pretty amusing though. He came up with a much better story about her injury. He decided that what happened was Mom was driving along her merry way and saw a car on the side of the road, burning, with screaming children inside. She rushed over to help them as the fearless hero she is, but the car fell on top of her wrist.

Yep. That’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.

They took another set of xrays because their system was digital and able to be sent electronically to an ortho to review immediately, rather than waiting for him to come in. It took forever to get the xrays done though.

Around 8:30PM, Pat took the baby girl home so she could go to bed. My mom’s brother Art and his wife Karen came up to the hospital around 10ish.

Finally, around 11PM, the PA shows us her xray and informs her that she clearly does not do anything halfway. She has multiple fractures. It will more than likely require surgery, but they need the swelling to go down before they can really tell. The gave her a script for some pains meds and sent us on our way.

After searching for a 24-hour pharmacy then getting food for Mom, we didn’t get back to her house until midnight or 12:30 and I didn’t get home until about 1AM.

I was exhausted. And since we were at the hospital all night, I didn’t have anything else approved to eat so I didn’t. Hence the reason I only ate 386 calories that day.

I did really well on Sunday. I had a shake and cottage cheese for breakfast, then after church we went to Publix for fake meat and brought subs to my mom and my cousin, George. We found fake chicken scaloppini! It wasn’t bad – not as flavorful as I’d hoped, didn’t really taste like lemon at all, but it was edible! That was my lunch, just one piece of that.



The girls from our church were getting together for a girls’ night out at the movies and dinner, so Pat helped me put together a cooler filled with everything I’d need. I drank my shake when the movie started and didn’t buy anything at the theatre.



Afterwards, we went to Café TuTu Tango for dinner. I pulled out my bottles of water, my chicken and my cottage cheese. I stuck to it! Didn’t order anything at the restaurant! I figured I was with a large enough group of girls giving them plenty of business so they couldn’t really get upset that just one person wasn’t ordering anything.


I did, however, make the girls get a Chocolate Calzone for dessert, just so I could see it and watch them eat it. I’m an instigator, I know.

My total calories for Sunday was 563. Total carbs was 25.1. I was a little disappointed that my carbs were so high, but I’m getting over that. The highest in carbs was the cottage cheese, at 7 grams per serving. We bought a different brand that’s lower in carbs (2.5 grams) so that’s helping.



Today my total calories will be 538 and my carbs will end up at 14.1. I’m making a grand attempt to eat chicken because it doesn’t have any carbs and it’s nearly impossible to do this without eating meat. So far I’ve been able to keep all the chicken down.



AND – I exercised even more today! I ate my chicken and cottage cheese lunch at my desk, then took my actual 30 minute lunch break to get on the treadmill at the Fitness Center. I walked for 25 minutes at 3.0 mph, then went down to 2.4 mph for a five-minute cool down. I got a little bit sweaty which is kind of gross since I have to work the rest of the day (and we have Financial Peace tonight), but hey, you can’t have everything, right? Just don’t stand too close to me.



Tomorrow night I have my second session with James after work. Thankfully he’s open late enough – if I’m allowed to leave work just a little bit earlier on Tuesdays and make it up later in the week.



Wednesday night I go back to Medi for a quick booster injection.
Thursday night we’re holding a home rehearsal with some fellow carolers.
Friday morning I’ll go back to Medi at 9:15AM for my weekly follow up appointment. That’s when I’ll weigh in again, get measured, get the two weekly injections and learn what’s next for week two.
Friday night I have my third training session with James, and then we’re going to my parents’ house to celebrate my dad’s birthday!

My goal is to post again on Friday after my Medi appointment, so that I can update you all on my stats.  Melissa (one of us three) weighed in today after just five days rather than the full week, but she's already lost six pounds and 1 1/2 inches from her waist!  I am SO proud of her because she's not even taking the appetite suppressant!  I can't wait to hear Janice's results too!

I really hope this will work for me. I’ve been trying for the past two years to get this weight off to no avail. This is a much more drastic approach so it has to work, right?

Yes. Right. This WILL work.