maconusmile

So my wife and I have decided to start this medically monitored very low calorie diet (VLCD). We are very excited to start this new program as we will be losing about 100 pounds each, and hopefully I will be able to get off of my insulin pump and all other medications as well as my cpap machine. My wife is not diabetic but I am T2. I had my full blood lab work and urinalysis done three days ago, got weighed in at 283 pounds. I went to meet with my "Life Coach" today and we discussed my target weight and came up with around 180 pounds since I am 5'11" and my BMI is 41.7 and considered morbidly obese. This VLCD consists of (4) 200 calorie meal replacements per day and the only real food besides that you can eat is celery and (2) pickles a day. I need to ask but she said you cannot have coffee but are allowed a small amount of decaf tea and all the crystal light and sugar free jello you want. This is going to be a really tough diet to get used to but she sad after the first week it is not that bad as it puts your body into ketosis that switches your carbohydrate metabolism over to fat burning metabolism to burn the years of accumulated fat off very quickly. She said the first two weeks her clients usually lose about 20 pounds for the men and 12 pounds for the women and then about 3 to 5 pounds per week after that until you get to you "plateau" and she said you must introduce some heavier exercise into the mix. She said I should be around my target weight of 180 pounds in about 5 months then we go into the transition phase of the program where the diaticians will start introducing you to healthy foods again. It seems like a well organized/ structured program as we have to attend coaching classes at least once per week and they do urinalysis to check ketones and blood work every other week to check organ functions since it is such a low calorie diet. There is three phases to the program. The first phase is called "reducing" which is just mainly the meal replacements. The second part is called "transitions" which is one or two meals and then a 200 calorie meal replacement that is controlled with the diaticians and behaviorists. The third and final part is called "balance" and that is just basically eating healthy and exercising regularly and keeping your weight under control. My life coach also stated that the "balance" part of the program is the hardest part of the program as this is where you are changing the way you think about life/ food and cannot slip back into your old eating habits. They have a doctor on staff that looks over all the labs and she said he would be working closely with my endo especially in the beginning of this whole thing until I am completely off of insulin. We are very excited to get this show on the road but we don't start until 2/16/12