OptiFast week 6 - day 1

Went with mom to pulmonary rehab today - did two 25 minutes sessions on the treadmill and a 15 minute session on the rowboat/pulley/thingy machine. also about 20 minutes of group arm exercises with 5 lb. weights. next time I will go for the 2 or 3 pounders. it was rough. but good. 

as for intake - not much to say - shakes are shakes. i think i'll start blending with ice again now that my tooth problem is well past. that should liven things up a bit. not. lol. 

I'm glad our group leader continues to weave the importance of exercise thread through our meetings. She says the OptiFast is like the handle on a bathtub faucet, since we have turned it off (or to a drip essentially) all those extra calories are not pouring in, so we are bound to reduce in weight. but, she says, the magic happens when we add exercise to the mix, that way we are also able to widen the drain, so to speak, and let the water (which i guess is fat) run out. i don't want anything clogging up my drain, so i'll be back at it again. if not tomorrow, Friday - i'm scheduled for another meal service at St. Anthony's.

We talked in group last night about this language around diets. If we stray from the plan we tend to say things like "I cheated" or "I was bad" which tends to reinforce the negative self-talk that many people with eating issues already struggle with. Instead, she says, we are always making choices. and sometimes we need to be really choosy about how we spend our daily calorie allotment. 

Another group member asked what others did when they "slipped up" on a diet - do they then go completely off or work extra hard the next day at staying on plan or put in more exercise? One answer that I like was someone who said she tended not to give the incident any more power or punish herself by being extra good after a "slip up" but to just see it as such, as an isolated incident and move on with the plan. She used an egg metaphor, if you drop an egg on the floor and it breaks, do you then smash the others down? something like that, anyway. heh. mmmm, i love poached eggs. guess it's time for a shake.

WEIGHT UPDATE: 
Highest weight 313.0
OptiFast start weight 306.2
Current weight 290.6