High on Protein

This past week I have been following the rules and restrictions of the diet placed on me by a weight loss surgeon and dietician.  I am not interested in weight loss surgery, he just happens to focus on both surgical and nonsurgical weight loss.  I was very skeptical when I received the diet I was supposed to follow for my first week.

Me:  “Wait, no fruits and vegetables?”

Dietician:  “Right!  I bet you never expected a nutrition expert to tell you that.”

Me:  “So… basically I am nawing at the legs of various animals for a week?”

Dietician:  “No, you have several options for lean protein blah-blah, blah-blah.”

Me: “Our relationship isn’t going to work if you do not understand my sarcasm.”

So I left the doctor’s office and spent the next week eating foods high in protein, low in carbs, and very low in calories.  Ridiculously low.  So low that if I told one of the many weight loss forums that I am only eating between 500 -750 calories, everyone would yell at me.

Thus began my week.

Still skeptical about not starving with such few calories, I began living the high protein life.  Here is an example of my daily food intake:

Breakfast: ¼ Cup egg whites and 2 slices of turkey bacon

Snack: Disgusting vanilla protein shake

Lunch:  3 pieces of lean roast beef and 1 low fat string cheese

Snack:  Babybell Mini Light Cheese

Dinner:  4 oz of ground turkey meat flavored with taco seasonings

Snack:  Chobani nonfat no flavor plain Greek yogurt.

64oz of water

Because I am eliminating all produce, I am also taking daily vitamin supplements to help with the vitamins I am now lacking.

So, how did it go?

The diet was actually surprisingly easy to follow.  I’ve been keeping a daily food journal and this first week was easy thanks to grocery shopping and preparing all meals myself.  I am currently on summer vacation so it is much easier to remain disciplined when it is the only thing I need to focus on. I was also surprised that I wasn’t hungry.  On most days I had to force myself to eat the final snack of the day because I felt full!

Today I went back to the dietician for a weekly check in and I was down 3 pounds.  I know that losing three pounds in a week is great, but I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated that it wasn’t more.  I mean, I’ve been following this diet and I had hoped that with as low as a calorie intake in addition to working out all week it would have been more.  A loss is a loss, and that is great but it was a little anticlimactic.  I keep trying to pep talk myself that my body is still adjusting and hopefully this next week with yield better results!

The high on protein life continues again this week, so hopefully my check in next week will yield better results.