Update

Well, I went down a little bit today and lost a total of 2.4 lbs since last Friday. The nurse said that I'm losing the average amount of weight that I'm supposed to be losing on this diet so she isn't sure why I'm concerned.   

I have decided to do maintanence for 8 weeks to give my body a break and so I can start exercising and toning up.  I am pretty sure that I can finish the rest myself.  I've always had fairly good eating habits and exercise habits so following the maintenance plan won't be hard. This will also give me a chance to save up my money so that if I feel the need to, I can do another month or 2 on the program to lose a bit more (should the maintanence and the exercise not help me get to my goal weight of 130 lbs faster).  It really is time for a break for me. I've been doing this diet for over 5 months now and although I've been very successful so far, my weight loss has slowed down and I just don't feel as good as I did before. All the signs are pointing to a "break" for me. 

I am still going to be blogging my experience on the maintenance plan and exercise program I'm creating for myself. 

My weight update is below.

Current weight as of June 4/10: 156.8
Starting weight as of Jan 5/10: 218.4
Total weight loss to date: 61.6 lbs

So what is going to happen on Monday for me?  I pay a small fee for the vitamin b-injections 1 X per week and still come in once/week to get weighed and keep track of my progress. I will start adding in some different foods. For instance, I can now eat extra lean ground beef (in a small quantity of course), I can add in 2 oz of hard low fat cheese, 1 cup of now fat plain yogurt, 1 cup of milk, 4 whole eggs per week (although I'm just going to stick to my egg whites as I love my egg white omelettes for breakfast), I go down to only 1 fruit a day (right now I have 2 fruits/day), I can now have low-fat dressings not allowed on the strict diet, margarine or butter (1 tbsp/day), almost all kinds of seafood (except for oysters, clams, mussels, and pickled fish), all forms of chicken and turkey.  In week 2, I introduce some more carbs back into the diet so I will keep you posted on that.  I am still taking my potassium 3 times per day and my multivitamin 1 time per day.  as well, I will increase my protein intake from 7 oz/day to 8-10 oz/day and can now have unlimited vegetables.

On Monday I also start my exercise regime. I am starting my running program again (on my own) and will be starting out slow (run 2min, walk 1min) and will hopefully be adding in some weight training a little ways down the road.  I think being 62 lbs lighter will make it much easier for me to run now (I'm hoping anyways!).