265

I don't understand my body.

A recently as Monday I was pushing 270. I was depressed, frustrated with my lack of progress and positive motivation. The whole "inability to afford the direct assistance from a trainer" thing was a much more crushing blow than I had expected -- and combined with other things going on in my world put me in a place where reuben sandwiches and take out pizza seemed like my best comfort.

But then something interesting happened -- one of my coworkers started to disappear.

A while back this guy had come to me and started talking up this meal plan his brother was on -- one that had helped said brother to lose over 100 pounds.

I suppose I should have listened, especially given the results the brother was getting -- but I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who's been approached with suggestions of ways to lose weight -- which I'm sure are given with good intentions, but frequently feel like people are saying, "Hey, you're fat -- you'll be interested in this."

Meal plan diets have been around for a while, and they seem to be pretty effective -- but like so many of the other things I've tried to get involved with lately the cost of the thing was a problem.

I couldn't afford to help myself. It felt like a money scam, and I had no proof it was actually effective (how did I know the brother wasn't a workout fiend or had a dormant high metabolism?). So I let it go.

But then the coworker began to radically lose weight. His head literally looked smaller. This was a big guy, and shit was working for him.

So I asked for deeper details -- the cost is still high, but the basic idea was the same. Limit calorie intake (pretty radically -- only 1100 calories allowed a day) and balance this change out with vitamin and mineral supplements. Meals were sent to you in the mail to prepare, and someone called every week to check progress and lend assistance. Sounds pretty cool, if you can pay for it.

Still, the idea seemed pretty solid. Limit calories to a specific number.

Add this to my friend James getting me hooked up with Loseit.com (despite a few problems getting the smartphone app to work) and I'm off.

Tracking calories with the site is easy enough, and it's led to some interesting revelations (soup = good, steak n' shake = beyond horrible for me) -- but four days of tracking numbers and eating more soup should in no way had led to almost 6 pounds of weight lost.

I'll take the number, but I have no idea where it came from.