Update and Admission

I’ve gotten some emails asking how I have been doing in maintaining my weightloss over the past year.  I’ve here to give you an update and add a few recommendations if you have started the Medi-weightloss program. 

First of all, I am thankful that I went to the Medi-weightloss clinic when I did over a year and a half ago, because I was depressed and not feeling very hopeful.  But, once on the program my mood lifted as those pounds melted away!  My weight loss reached an amazing 40 pounds when I stopped going to the clinic.

I had about 2 weeks diet pills left so I continued to follow the program’s guidelines until the pills ran out and then much of my willpower vanished.  During those two weeks following my departure, I lost another 2 pounds and I was still flying high at a total of 42 pounds lost….but then….over time I gained back 20 pounds!

Here’s how it went:

I tried to stick with the routine I had developed, but once I didn’t have the diet pills to lean on, I cheated a little here and a lot there.  The holidays came and went.  I saw a ten pound gain and went back to the clinic for help. 

I was disappointed at their reception.  I told them I had fallen off the wagon and wanted to get back on track.  But instead of hearing what I had expected, which might have gone like this: “This happens sometimes and we have a restart program,” or “We are glad you came back before this got out of hand, here’s what we can do,” I faced shrugged shoulders.  Seriously!  In fact, I was told that it’s not easy to lose weight like the first time and that maybe I was just at the weight my body wanted to be at. Then the RN added, “But if you want to try, we can do it, but I don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work, and I don’t want you to waste your money.”

In spite of the ambivilance I had faced, I paid $75.00, got a vitamin B shot, and a week’s worth of diet pills, leaving humiliated. This is not what I had expected from the team that had celebrated my initial weightloss with me. I was not given any diet advice other than go back to the first phase of the diet.  Logically, I should have been able to figure this out on my own, right? But, I think I was expecting something more than what I got, and I went home feeling defeated and alone, and cancelled the appointment I had set up for the next week.  I decided that this clinic was too expensive for the support I had gotten that day.

Over the next few months, the scale went up slowly as I vascillated between eating right and blowing it completely.  The holidays were hard, birthdays were hard and almost all my bad habits came back.  When I had gained back 20 pounds, I went to my doctor for my annual physical and found out that my cholesteral was slightly elevated.  He and I talked about the fact that I had gained back the weight and he agreed to prescribe phendametrazine for me so I could regain control. 

I thought this plan would be better since I only had to pay my doctor’s fees and the cost of a $20 prescription each month, cutting the costs by 3/4′s! That was last fall and over two months I had lost 7 pounds…not as impressive as when I was going to Medi, but at least I was headed back down. 

The week between Christmas and the New Year, I starting seeing Dr. Mike Moreno on shows like The Doctors, Dr. Oz, and Dr. Phil talking about his new diet, the 17 Day Diet.  All the doctors recommended it highly and there were people claiming to have lost weight quickly on this plan.  Maybe it was the time of year (New Year’s resolution time!) or maybe some divine intervention…I don’t know…but I glommed onto the TV screen and decided that I was going to start this diet in 2011!

I started the 17 Day Diet on January 2, 2011 and as of this post, I have lost 13 more pounds, which means that I have lost that 20 pounds I gained back after I stopped Medi-weightloss.  And the best part is that I am enjoying the food on this diet, and losing weight WITHOUT diet pills! I know it may sound like a fad diet, but it actually is a great roadmap for getting off the extra weight quickly and transitioning back into mainstream eating as you progress through each 17-day cycle.

This is my last post on this blog, because I feel I have found a better (and less costly) method to lose weight and am hopeful I will maintain it.  I don’t want to discourage you if you are losing weight with Medi….keep it up.  But if you fell off the Medi wagon like I did, or have been worried about how you’ll maintain the weight loss (since Medi doesn’t actually provide a maintainence diet plan), come join me on the 17 Day diet once you’re off their program.  I’ve started a 17 Day Diet Tips Blog and plan to journal regularly how I am doing and provide helpful tips there.  I’m feeling energetic, sleeping well and extrememly positive about this plan!

Whatever plan you follow, make your health top priority, and don’t give up!  If one diet doesn’t work, find another.  And don’t overpay to lose weight.  Switching over to the 17 Day diet will cost you around $25 for the book or around $50 if you buy the exercise DVD too. That’s a big savings over the $1200 I paid for Medi.

Good luck…let’s find a way to lose weight that we can maintain for life…that’s the goal we must keep in sight.

This post has been reposted on the 17 Day Diet Tips blog also:

17 Day Diet Tips: http://17daydiettips.blogspot.com/

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