So in early May, I came across a Groupon for a one month enrollment in "Biovive Medical Weight Loss." This included 4 weeks of nutrition counseling, supplements, appetite suppressants (if necessary), and the final most important tool--access to their fancy scale.
Their nutrition plan is rather paleo-friendly. It is a complete elimination of starchy carbs (already doing that), but it discourages most fats (fatty meats, avocados, olives, fat-free dairy, etc), and tons of veggies (already doing that, too). They informed me of portions, and allotted me a certain portion value of protein (10 boxes to tick off, each portion should not exceed Xg of fat or carbs, etc.), and carbs (4 boxes, net carbs should not exceed X value per portion). I get a dairy box as well as a few other boxes to tick off which help you remember to drink 125oz water a day, take a multivitamin, calcium supplement, and an excercise box.
I passed on the appetite suppressants, which I'm glad to have done. I feel like it's a crutch that I don't want to rely on. So, if you keep your portions at their recommended sizes, tick off all your boxes for food allotment, this is a roughly 1000-1200 calorie/day plan. Based on my paleo choices, I eat roughly 1400-1600 calories/day.
I still work out a heckuva lot more than I think the Biovive people expect their patients to do. I'm up to running for 20 minutes straight in my C25K program. I'm improving my lifts steadily (although I took a hiatus from lifting for a bit due to some muscle strain). They ask their clients to squeak in 3-4 20-30 minute sessions of light-to-moderate intesity exercise a week. This includes brisk walking, light weight lifting, and house cleaning or someshit.
Puh-LEEZE. Thier goal here is to not over-exert people on such a low calorie plan. Too much exertion makes the body break down muscle for energy. Muscle is a quicker access to energy when broken down than fat. Fat is VERY energy-dense, but it takes longer to break down for energy. Thus, when the body is over-exerted and starved, muscle comes first.
So...I don't want to drop my exercise. I love it, and I love keeping it as a habitual part of my life. I don't want to slack off of on C25K until the weight comes off, which is what they'd want me to do. They re-incorporate heavier exercise after the "weight loss phase" is over. In general, I think that's smart, but not quite for me.
I hate to sound like an "I-know-better-than-you" bitch, but I tweaked their "tried and tested" plan (which is obviously actually not a bad one, just not QUITE what I want to do). I follow their daily allotments generally--but I incorporate more fat, as per my paleo regimen. The carb boxes aren't hard to stick to, even with all the vegetables I eat. The Biovive guide has a few "zero box" foods which, when eaten in appropriate portions do not count as boxes (kale, broccoli, things with lots of fiber like celery, etc.). However, on days when I work out hard, I give myself an extra box or two on "Protein" which I tend to cound as "Protein and Fat."
This week, while watching my weight on the gym scale hover around 176-178 (and even up to 180 for a day), I wasn't too concerned--with a single exception.
I knew that on Wednesday, June 27 at 8:30am, I would be weighing in at Biovive and talking with a nutrition counselor to see how I was doing.
Now it's time to discuss their scale. They use an InBody (520, I think?) bioimpedance scale. It measures your weight (I weighed in with them on my first day, clothed, at 181.2lbs), and body fat percentage. It reports actual muscle mass for the right and left arms and legs, and for the trunk. It also measures body water content and calculates the ration of ECW (extracellular water) to ICF (intracellular water). It's really very cool and supposed be the most accurate bioimpedance method (and very nearly reflects the numbers for water submersion tests).
So my weigh-in. 181.2lbs. Not so scary. My body fat percentage was really high. Alarmingly high. It was 43.7%. I had 79.2lbs of fat on me.
But! this meant I had 102lbs of muscle. According to the "target values" for my height and age, I was in the tippy top percentiles of "normal" for trunk and legs and I was just a pip above "over" for my arms. OVER?!? I thought my arms were the weakest thing about me. Maybe they are, but I'm still stronger than the average lady. WOO!!!! Also, with my musclitude, this put my basal metabolic rate at 1369cal/day (this is the calories my body would burn on a totally sedentary day).
So when I saw that, I decided I didn't mind if my weight increased or stayed the same, so long as my fat pounds went down and my muscle pounds went up up up!!!
So, what I was worried about this week was:
a) What if I gained fat?!?! Oh lawd, that would be terrible.
b) Even worse, what if I lost muscle?!?
c) What sort of talking to would I get if I either gained weight or didn't lose any weight?
I weighed in at 181. My body fat% was 41.7. TWO PERCENT DIFFERENCE! I lost 3.7lbs of fat and have 75.5lbs. I gained 3.5lbs of muscle!! IN A WEEK!!!! 105.5lbs, baby. ALL of my body categories (trunk, legs, arms) are now in the "over" percentile of muscle. I also have increased my hydration levels and increased my BMR to 1404 calories/day. And I didn't get a talking to! The lady was HAPPY for me and told me to keep it up. She said that it's really frequent for people like me to see a weight loss stall and even some gains, but that eventually, the BMR catches up and the fat just comes right off.
SO! What does all this mean? Well, sometimes, when you are doing all the right things (eating well, exercising) and don't see the scale moving, when you can't tell for sure if those jeans feel tighter or if they're just loosened from wear, it's hard to convince yourself that the non-scale victories are really worth your hard work--this magical $7000 scale QUANTIFIES it. I'm still secretely worried that it's a bit hoax-y, but seeing those numbers today really made me feel good. I still have two weeks of Biovive left. Their client subscription seems pretty steep, but I'm secretly debating if it's worth it to stay with them, if ONLY for that scale.
We shall see, but it's a good god-damn day.
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