Finished the Detox - On to the Diet

Ok, so I know this blog is dragging on, but there is so much to tell....

Anyway, I headed back to my appt. with the Nutritionist after completing the 28 day cleanse/detox.

Needless to say I was pretty pumped to get started on the new diet, I was actually looking forward to losing weight and getting started, but most of all even thought the detox was easy, I was ready to start eating something other than fish!!

First things first, the Juliane hooked me back up the the BioImpedance machine to do the body analysis again. Here were the results:

Visit #2  - 12/6/2012

• Weight - 246 lbs
• Cell mass - 89.7 lbs or 36.5%
• Extracellular mass - 79.3 lbs or 32.3%
• Lean body mass - 169 lbs or 68.7%
• Fat mass 77 lbs or 31.3%
• BMI - 36.9 (morbidly obese)
• Basal metabolic rate - 2393 calories
• Total body water - 58.1 liters

Yep, I lost 28 lbs on the detox - which completely floored the nutritionist. Since she has been doing these, the best she has seen was 8 lbs. The detox is not meant to have people lose weight just remove crap from their body....Apparently - YES I WAS FULL OF CRAP!

So this was an exciting day, my body was making the necessary adjustments on its own, using the detox, to get ready to lost weight....next on to the First Line Therapy Diet!.

After celebrating for a few minutes it was time to get down to the nitty gritty...the goal for the diet  - 2200 calories per day. The nutritionist used something called a core food plan - which was a color coded spreadsheet with the following groups and colors abd the recommended servings:

Yellow - Fat and Oils = 6 servings per day

Orange/Yellow - Nuts & Seeds = 8 servings per day

Red - Proteins = 11 servings per day

Green 1 - NonStarchy Vegetables = 5+ servings per day

Green 2  - Starchy Vegetables = 2 servings per day

Green 3 - Fruits (no sugar added) = 3 servings per day

Green 4 - Grains = 3 servings per day

Orange/Green 1 - Legumes = 3 servings per day

Orange/Green 2 - Dairy & Alternatives = 3 servings per day

After seeing all of these foods and the servings per day, the one thing I remember saying was that there was no way I could eat all this food during a day...the response from Juliane  - I was eating all of the calories and mode from these foods in one meal before I came to her. The challenge now, eating the right foods in the right servings and spreading out the calories throughout the day to kick start my metabolism and change the way my body processed food.

Here is how we broke out all these servings into daily meals:

Breakfast = 3 proteins, 1 fat, 1 fruit, 1 dairy/alternative

Morning snack = 1 protein, 1/4 cup nuts & seeds, 1 fruit

Lunch = 4 proteins, 2 fats, 2 non-startchy vegetables, 1 fruit, 1 starchy vegetable, 3 legumes, 1 dairy/alternative, 1 grain

Afternoon snack = 1/4 cup nuts & seeds, 

Dinner = 3 proteins, 3 fats, 3 non-starchy vegetables, 2 starchy vegetables, 1 dairy/alternative, 1 grain

That it for now. In my next blog I will share what each of these servings consisted of and how I was able to mix things up.

Part 1 Continued - The Cleanse....

January 5, 2012 The day I chose to start the cleanse and detox (had to wait until Christmas was over and New Years as well....lots of food to be eaten) - So, there I was, starting my Clear Change cleanse...following the program. Sure enough about 4 - 5 days in, just as the nutritionist had predicted, the detox headache kicked in. The good news, it was not a migraine type headache, just this sort of dull...foggy headache where your head just feels really heavy and has a slight pain, like when you hit your funny bone. By day 7, the headache was gone and I was kicking into full detox mode. Breakfast was the detox medical food shake plus the AdvaClear detox supplement. Mid morning snack was usually an apple and blackberries or carrots or broccoli. Lunch was a mixed green salad with cold pressed virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (which I made at me desk daily), mixed into the salad was broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers. Mid day snack was usually an apple. Dinner was usually steamed broccoli, cauliflower, mixed with garlic, and then either fresh haddock, fresh trout (when available), fresh sole, or fresh cod. I would try and stop by the fish market and get 2 days worth of fresh fish - had to be fresh - nothing farm raised or nothing that was fed antibiotics.

Here is the funny thing....on the cleanse, I could actually eat as much of the foods listed on the menu as I wanted - No caloric restrictions. This went on for 28 days...and during that time the program also requests that you do not perform any exercise - so my only activity was coaching Ice hockey for Matthew's (my son) team. Which, by the way, I never really broke a sweat at...

Now, here is where some people may get a little agitated....during the 28 day detox/cleanse....IT WAS EASY - At least for me. I know different people go into things with different expectations and different driving factors and commitment levels - but for me the whole thing was easy. My wife and son did their normal thing and I, when I got home from work at whatever time that was - did my thing: cooked my own dinner, prepared my own snacks, whatever the cleanse and detox called for, I did it. As they say, I was in it to win it....nothing was going to stop me. And I do have to say, for the entire 28 days I did not deviate from the menu even once....I followed the program to a T.

At the end of the 28 days, I could not really tell a difference in my weight (remember, the goal of the detox was not to lose weight but get the body ready to lose weight). I definitely felt a little better though....I felt like I was not as bloated as I was before the cleanse.

At this point, it was time to head back to the nutritionist and begin Phase 2 - The Diet and Weight Loss plan.....

Dealing with the Food Allergies and Setting up the Diet

So as it turns out...having a food allergy in my case was not so much that I was having an allergic reaction to certain foods, like hives, rashes, etc. In my case the allergy was internal, and had everything to do with proteins within those foods. Who knew?

Take bread for instance, which I loved! Every sub roll, piece of bread, sandwich wrap etc. that I ate was taking weeks to be digested. Apparently my body was not digesting a number of these foods properly, and the food was literally molding inside my stomach. One of the biggest offenders of this, PASTA....which I could eat every meal of every day...but now, I have to avoid it like the plague.

So after my first meeting with the Nutritionist, we started to put a plan together for how I was going to reset my body and get it ready to start losing weight. For those interested, my nutritionist can be found at this link: http://www.visionshealthcare.com/author/jgoicoecheavisionsmedical-com/.

Part 1 of Project - Get Healthy
The first part of the plan the nutritionist identified for me was to do a full body cleanse/detox. The program used by Julianne was from a company called Metagenics and the Cleanse information can be found at this link: http://www.metagenics.com/lifestyle-medicine-programs/clear-change.

The detox program, called ClearChange was available in 2 different flavors - 10 day or a 28 day. With the condition I was in, I had no choice, I had to do the 28 day cleanse. Having never done a cleanse before, I was a little worried as my body has been so conditioned to eating so much crap I was worried about what I would be eating on the program.

The cleanse involved taking a supplement in the form of a  liquid shake mixed with water, a pill supplement called AdvaClear and a Probiotic. For the record, up to this point, the only vitamins I have ever taken were a Metagenics multivitamin and Magnesium (both recommended by my chiropractor).
During the cleanse, it was recommended that I stop taking the other supplements. In addition, because I was taking Dexilant to address my acid reflux, the Dr and Nutritionist both recommended stopping that as well.

If anyone is interested, you can actually download the program guide for the 28 day program here: http://www.metagenics.com/sites/default/files/resources/met1899_clearchange_28_day_program_guide_0.pdf

So, after reviewing the Detox program with Julianne, I was ready to begin the journey. One of the biggest challenges I faced with this program was the very limited food choices allowed during the 28 day program. For the most part, the only protein I was able to eat was Fish. Which I actually like. The issue  - No one else in the family did! That meant during the detox, I was on my own for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner....for basically a month. But, I made the decision this was needed for me to get healthy, so I was committed to do whatever it took.

After setting up my first week menu with the Nutritionist, she informed me that during the first week I would most definitely feel like crap, have headaches, and just feel really miserable as the toxins within my body were gradually removed. She also informed me that during the program, most people lost between 4 - 8 lbs, and not to be disappointed about weight loss during the detox - The goal of the detox was to get my body ready to lose weight - Not to actually do it!

So, I headed out of her office, stopped at the front desk to pick up my supplements, and headed home with a week one menu in hand and ready to begin....

My Journey continued...

Catching back up with my story.....I had blood work done to establish whether or not I had food allergies. This was something I had never actually had done before in my life and I am 43! The results blew my mind...here are my allergies (BTW, almost everything on this list I was eating!!!)

• Almonds - severe
• Barley - moderate
• Green Beans - moderate
• Cheeses (Cheddar, cottage, swiss) - severe
• Egg Yolk (never ate these anyway) - moderate
• Gluten - severe
• Malt - severe
• Cows milk - severe
• Mushrooms - moderate
• Peanuts - moderate
• Pineapple - moderate
• Rye - moderate
• Wheat - severe
• Brewers yeast - severe
• Bakers yeast - severe
• Yogurt - severe

This list blew my mind....but it is what it is. So once we established this, we went on to find out what was happening in my blood....which was a disaster. It turns out I was pre-diabetic....my bad cholesterol was ok but my good cholesterol was way too low. My triglycerides were through the roof (thanks Monster energy drinks)! We also found out I has a genetic marker in my blood which says I am predisposed to heart disease...but we will get to that one later on. All in all, the news was not good! I was heading down a dangerous path and needed to make a change, and make it fast. 

After this appointment, Dr Byrne suggested I meet with the staff Nutritionist and Dietician, Juliane Giocoechea. Here is a link to her profile if anyone is interested...Click Here.

Thus begins part 2 of my weight loss journey. Now that I was working with my primary care Dr to figure what was going on in my body, I was meeting with the Nutritionist to take corrective actions to put me on the right path to getting healthy....

And now for some scary numbers:

First visit with Juliane and she does a full Bio-Impedance workup on my physical makeup:

Visit #1  - 12/6/2012

• Weight - 274 lbs
• Cell mass - 95.5 lbs or 35.5%
• Extracellular mass - 86.6 lbs or 32.3%
• Lean body mass - 182.1 lbs or 67.7%
• Fat mass 91.9 lbs or 33.3%
• BMI - 40.3 (morbidly obese)
• Basal metabolic rate - 2577 calories
• Total body water - 65.2 liters

In short, I was fat and unhealthy....

The beginning!

Ok, so this is my first blog post.....ever!!! A few people have been asking me to post about what I did recently in order to lose weight (75 pounds to be exact!). So I figured I would go ahead and get started, and then start blogging about some of the things I want to do now that I have this new body, as well as how I plan on keeping myself healthy. So here goes....

Towards the end of 2012, I was feeling like crap, all the time, every day. My body hurt, my stomach hurt, I was coughing up phlegm after every meal I ate. I had acid reflux and was on Dexilant to control it, coughed all the time, was sick about every 6-8 weeks with either a cold, flu, whatever...The bottom line.....I just felt like crap all the time. My weight was a whopping 274lbs, and my BMI index had me listed as Severely Obese. I was not in a good place. At night sometimes I would actually wake up with stomach fluid in my mouth and it ended up burning my esophagus.

Right about this time, my primary care Dr. decided she was leaving our practice, so this was the catalyst I needed to seek out a new Doctor and get a fresh start. A family friend had recommended I check out Visions Health Care in Wellesley and Dedham, MA. The office and the Doctors practice functional medicine. So you may ask, what is functional medicine....well...

According to the Institute for Functional Medicine, it is “personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease.”

 

You can check out the Visions Health Care site here!

I called the office and ended up choosing a new Dr, Sarah Byrne, and then made my first appointment. My initial appointment was in the Wellesley office, however now Dr Byrne is in Dedham. Once I arrived at the office, I was greeted by Dr Byrne when it was time for my appointment and we went directly to her office. At that point, we talked....and talked....and talked.... We ended up talking about how I felt, what bothered me, pretty much Dr Byrne listened to everything I said. Then she suggested we do some blood work to establish a baseline for what was going on inside my body as well as doing a full blown blood-based allergy test.

I will leave off here for now...stay tuned for more..