The Power Of Protein - A New Day Has Dawned

This blog post is a continuation of my previous four  blog post. If you did not read the last four blog post:   What Does Protein Have To Do With Anything?”   "A Lesson In Nutrtition 101", "Meeting With The Mystery Nutritionist", and  "Just When I Thought I Had It Figured Out..." please stop reading this blog entry and catch yourself up. I will pick up the story where I last left off.

The next day I began to wonder if this was really the answer?  What would getting 105 grams of protein do for me?  Would I lose weight?  Would I feel different?  Well this blog post is about my week and what changes I made and the first week’s weigh-in.

The day after that first meeting with my nutritionist was a Friday.  Normally this would be my “let’s don’t’ take my journey to a new me so serious and get ready to enjoy the weekend.”  Which means I would go out to lunch with my friends and have a nice dinner out with my husband.  But instead I woke up with a new found desire to see if either a.)  The nutritionist has it all figured out.  Or b.) This is a bunch of junk and there is no way that protein can make that much difference.

Just like with everything else that I have done on my journey to a new me, I decided to really test the waters first before declaring to other’s “Hey follow me as I define my 1400 calories in an attempt to start the scale moving back down.”  There was no written guarantee that this was going to work and I made a decision on Day One of this path that I would do everything in my power to hit the targets of 105 g. of protein, 140 g. carbs, 40 g. fat, and 1700 mg sodium and stay at 1400  calories.  The only tool that I knew that I could trust to help me do this was my favorite, my fitness pal.com

My normal routine in the morning is to get up and start my day on the elliptical trainer, but if I was going to place my trust in the “protein thing” I decided to just change my eating for this first week.  That was probably the hardest decision that I had made so far.  Exercise has become a very important part of my day and to not exercise was going to be strange.  But to be honest I was excited to see if the nutritionist was right in her assessment. 
I kept my daily food journal with all of my meals and I drank two protein shakes that I had purchased from her at my first meeting.  I began to look forward to those chocolate drinks as a treat.  She had told me that it is important to keep my metabolism moving and about every three hours I need to put something in my system.  (I knew she was not talking about a Snickers Bar here)  So I ate breakfast and 3 hours later I had my protein shake then when lunch time rolled around I had to make myself eat because I was not really that hungry.  And I found that when I wasn’t really that hungry I ate less than I normally would and by the end of the day after eating three healthy meals getting in the ratios that she had advised I often had calories left over!!!!  Now that was amazing to me.  Remember my concerns about having to give up 260 calories because she wante me to drink those two 130 calorie protein drinks?   Well I did not miss those 260 calories!  The protein shakes were a great investment of calories and so healthy too!

The next week my husband had to meet with his client (my new nutritionist) and deliver some artwork.  She asked him how I was doing and he said "She is doing great!"  My wife said she is really doing it and she feels like she is losing weight and she is not even exercising!  With that the nutritionist said, “What?  What do you mean she’s not exercising?”  He said  "I don’t know, you will have to ask her tomorrow when she comes back to her next appointment."

The next evening I arrived at my appointment and eagerly told her about my week.  We looked at my food entries and she said that the only problem area seemed to be the sodium.  Because even though I was not adding salt to any of my food that I was eating, most foods that you eat at a restaurant is prepared with some sort of sodium or sodium product.  So that is something that I will still need to be more aware of.

Then came the fun part!  She pulled out her trusty measuring tape and took all of my measurements quickly moving from one area of my body to the next.  Stopping only to write down the results on the log sheet that she had started the week before.  So with everything else behind me it was time to face “Mr. Iron Man Scale”.  With butterflies in my stomach I waited for her to program in my height and age before I stepped onto the platform.  The numbers started flashing and making their calculations and it was with great surprise that my nutritionist made the big announcement.  "Kathy you’ve lost 11 pounds in one week!”  You could have knocked me off the scale with a feather.  I couldn’t believe it!  I knew that I had lost weight, I could feel it, but to hear her say it and the big loss at that was so unbelievable!!  Then she said something that came as almost just as big of a surprise, and she stated "You’ve lost 5% body fat!

My response?  "Holy Cow!"  I said “Wow, that is incredible!”  and she replied, no you’re the one that is incredible!   I was so happy with both of those results from the scale that I did ot even think about all of those body measurements and she then showed me that I had lost several inches as well.  I was so glad that I had not messed myself up by not exercising and I promised her that this week I would make good protein rich food choices to meet my new nutrition goals but I would also add my exercise back to my daily routine.

With permission from my nutritionist I will be sharing more details and information about the "Be Fit Program" and the “Why” and "How" this formula is working for me.

I go back to my nutritionist on Thursday and I can’t wait to see what this week’s results will be.  I am not so unrealistic that I think that every week will result in an eleven pound weight loss, but with this new strategy in place the results will at least be moving in the right direction.