Long and rambling in case there's somebody else over three spins who might benefit....
The last seven months 2019 was a completely waste for me after February. I went up nearly 20 pounds total, and more disturbingly, my blood sugar went from a 5.6 to a 7.5 from the lack of exercise. But plantar fascitis followed by two blood clots in the lung and two in the leg will do that to you.
And I started off 2019 with 15 days of prednisone for a bronchial viral thing that my dad, half my office, and I all have, and that still hasn't cleared. Fuck.
But I am down in NC for three weeks at Duke Diet and Fitness Center, where I've been a couple of times before, for a hard reset. For any of you who have the financial and work flexibility to do it, and who are way up there weight-wise, this is a fantastic program to get back on track. The fitness side is tailored to your skill set and has seen people less healthy than you as well as retired NFL linemen trying to reset, so I'm doing NuStep (recumbent rower), treadmill, pool aerobics, and starting next week flexibility/core stretching and strengthening exercises for my thigh muscles, which have been damaged over the years. I can't do too much treadmill because of the bronchial stuff, but everything else is good. I've been around several guys here before who are over 400, and there was one guy who had just gone below 600 when I was there. There are often are here because they need to lose weight for surgery like knee or hip replacements. Most of the guys here right now are between 270 and 400.
The rest of the program integrates medical, behavioral, and nutrition. They make you three meals a weekday and breakfast and lunch on the weekend, you customize from the choices each day for either a low-fat or a low-carb diet. The low fat diet is about 1600 calories per day. Both diets are very low sodium, so the first week you lose about 3% of your body weight in excess water. A typical day is two lectures, two exercise sessions, one 1-on-1 check in for 15 minutes, and three meals.
This is really meant for getting set up to take the plan home with you. Minimum stay for new folks is 2 weeks, 4 is recommended although they'll let you do 2 then take a couple of weeks off to deal with work/family and then do 2 more. Returning folks like me come by the week. Only thing is the program is expensive, it's $5750 for new people for 2 weeks or $8815 for 4. Once you do 4 weeks, the returning weeks are $1100 each, which is what I'm paying. So this isn't just going to XSport....
Anyway.... if you need to lose 50, 100, 150 pounds and you are disgusted and you can afford to get away for a few weeks, seriously consider this option. I hit 381 late in 2013 and made the decision to go in 2014. I lost 65 pounds after that, and only put a bunch of it back on after other health challenges. I walked in at 359 on Monday, up from 336 when I had my open heart surgery 16 months ago. My goal is to walk out of here closer to 340, and get back down to 336 by the end of February, then go from there.
_________________ "When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal
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