The Pills, Oh The Pills

This morning was my intake appointment for the medical weight loss study. They drew more blood (I got stuck three times – the first two resulted in either NO blood flow or very little. The third one was the winner and the tech asked me to remind her of “that vein” next time I come in. *lol*)

I had to fill out this long questionnaire so they’d knew my general mental status at the start of the study.

Then I got the pills – oh so many pills. This week I’ll be taking one a day. Next week I’ll take two a day. The following week it’ll be three a day, and finally in week four I’ll take two pills in the morning and two at night, preferably 12 hours apart from each other. Thereafter I’ll continue to take 4 pills a day for the remainder of the 12-month study.

Some minor side effects I may have – headaches, nausea, dizziness. She said that once my body is used to the four pills a day they should subside. The pills are not super-huge, and the one I took at the office went down easily enough.

I also met with their “dietician” who I secretly believe is anorexic. No, that’s not a joke. The woman looked like Karen Carpenter just before she died. No, that’s not a joke either. So I found it VERY hard to trust this woman’s outlook on food, and even less her recommendation that I only eat 1,300 calories a day. Seriously – 1,300 calories a day? Geez, ANYONE can lose weight on 1300 calories a day. I was a bit pissed off, and told her as much. I said, “1,300 calories is for someone who is 120 pounds – not for someone my size.” She said, “You want to lose weight, right?” I said, “Yes, but I don’t want to be miserable doing it.”

I’m still angry about it. My whole 30-day commitment idea was specifically so that I wouldn’t have to go on a hardcore diet. And it’s working – see the ten pounds I’ve already lost. So I’m a bit angry that this study is requiring me to do the exact that I KNOW I CAN’T DO. There’s no way – there’s NO WAY I can only eat 1,300 calories a day. It’s just not in me. I’ve tried that before, and IT HAS NEVER WORKED IN THE LONG TERM.

So today I’m going to add up my calories and see how much is my general “average” caloric intake And from there I’ll figure out for myself how many calories I want to reduce in that number. If I’m eating 2,000 calories a day, I’ll go down to 1,600. That’ll still result in weight loss, but my food restriction won’t be so extreme. As I said – I find it difficult to believe an anorexic has a truly healthy outlook on how much food *I* should be eating.

Okay, I just found an online calorie calculator that takes my stats and then asks what my goal weight and goal weight date are. I plugged in my stats – my personal goal is to lose 54 pounds between TODAY and February 27, 2009. I put in that my activity level is SEDENTARY and even *IT* says I should have 1,580 calories a day. The 1,300 calorie diet this woman wants me on will have me losing 80 pounds by February 27, 2009. And while YES, I would like to lose 80 pounds (actually, I’m hoping to lose about 95 pounds TOTAL when all is said and done), I also don’t feel I *have* to lose that much in the next 12 months.

Am I wrong here? I think I’m wise to be a bit less stringent, knowing that historically I am NOT good on drastic diet restrictions. Thoughts?