Get Fit, Stark! Week 8 - "Cross between Jillian Michaels and Satan"

Eight weeks in so far and our team is really kicking butt. I am really pumped about it and I couldn’t be prouder of everyone! I think a lot of it has to do with our support team at Aultman – Lindsay Milano and Sarah Leffler.


Lindsay is our fitness trainer. She is pretty much a cross between Jillian Michaels and Satan. That’s all I can say. She makes you work. But on the plus side of that, I am now able to jog 15 of the 30 minutes I am on the treadmill. Once I reach my goal weight, I can start lifting again and I am a little worried about what she has in store for me. To make it worse, I am so weak from this diet that my son can now out-lift me! Not Cool.

Sarah teaches our classes and leads our Tuesday meetings. She really does a great job. Her humor keeps it interesting and she does an excellent job of helping us understand the balance of protein, carbs, and fat we should be eating and how our bodies burn fat and calories. My outlook on food has completely changed. She’s helped me realize that losing it isn’t the hard part – keeping it off is. According to Sarah, if you go back to your old eating habits you’d have to workout 10 times more to keep the weight off. It really makes me think twice about what I used to eat.

My only complaint about Sarah stems from last night. On my way to last night’s class, I was pulled over for speeding and I got a speeding ticket. I asked Sarah very nicely if she would pick up the cost of my $120 ticket and she said no! Can you believe it?

I have been so busy the last two weeks that I don’t even have time to think about food. Usually my busy schedule forces me to eat fast food or whatever is available. Now, I plan ahead and bring my own water to make my shakes and puddings with so don’t have to waiver from my diet. I have been enjoying dinner with my family and actually getting to eat food again. I sit down with them, have 3 ounces of meat, a salad without ranch dressing (who knew lettuce had flavor?), and one of my shakes. I am still having a hard time drinking all of the water I am supposed to. It’s just so bland.

I did indulge myself and had half of a soft pretzel at the OSU game over the weekend. It tasted so good I could have eaten 10! But my restraint surprised me last night. I was up until 2 am watching four different basketball games (yes, all at once). Normally I would have made myself a ham and cheese sandwich, had some cheese puffs and chips and a whole thing of French onion dip. Instead I had A grape.

It’s hard to believe we are two months into it already. I am at the lowest weight I’ve been since 1990. I am sleeping better. My triglycerides and cholesterol are now at normal levels, as opposed to the high risk levels they were at before. I feel great and I’m depending on that to help keep me going through the next four months!

Get Fit, Stark! Week 6 - Kinda Bored

It’s week 6 and I’m bored with the diet. It doesn’t feel new and fun and challenging anymore. Maybe it’s because I have been fortunate enough to lose so much weight so quickly or maybe it’s because most of my meals do not consist of actual food. Either way, it is just starting to get monotonous and I find myself wondering how this can go on for another four and a half months.


I guess my boredom comes from the lack of feeling challenged. In the beginning, staying on the diet and making healthy choices was very challenging. But in the last 6 weeks, I have conquered my habitual eating. I even passed out Halloween candy and only had one piece-a crunch bar, my favorite! In fact, even though I am allowed to eat meat now, I rarely ever actually do. I can’t believe how fast my habits changed. And that’s why it doesn’t feel challenging anymore.
They tell me I probably only have 2 weeks left on the liquid diet. After that, it will be all about portion control and making healthy food choices. It will probably be hard to go back on a regular diet and still resist the things I know I shouldn’t eat, but I know I can handle it. I believe that if I stopped the program right now, I would continue making healthy choices and would not gain back the weight I have lost so far.

On the plus side, working out has definitely helped improve my fitness. When I started, I could only jog for 2 of the 20 minutes I was on the treadmill. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that seeing that I work in a recreation center with fitness equipment right there. That being said, I can now run for 12 of the 20 minutes. It’s awesome. I will be doing a combination of cardio and weights and hope that I can build muscle mass and level my weight out around 260-265 once I am working out eating regular food.

Maybe I have already started building muscle, or maybe I’m closing in on my weight loss plateau. Either way, this was my smallest weight loss yet. I only lost 3.2 pounds and was not the biggest loser on my Get Fit, Stark! team. No one guessed my weight loss correctly in the contest at the Recreation Center, so the 50/50 pot just keeps growing! I feel like I should let someone in on what I think I’ve lost just so there can be a winner!

I would also like to say that I am very proud of all of my Aultman teammates, the work they have put in to their diets and the results they have achieved. Their stories should be inspirational to anyone looking to get fit and healthy!