I'm a Howard Stern listener - I feel like I have to preface that for those that aren't aware. I've been listening since I was kid because my parents were avid listeners. I stopped here and there when I didn't get a good radio signal in the 90's or my lifestyle didn't mesh with getting up early. Or when I had to had to get up at a ridiculous hour to get into NYC and all I had was an iPod. Since the Covid lock down though, I've become a listen-to-the-whole-show-in-order kind of person. I'm perpetually behind but I'm pretty OCD about listening to the whole show. I listen from my phone and I just pick up where I left off.
Howard loves to talk about the TV show My 600 lb Life and the doctor on the show- Dr Nowzaradan - who is just known to all as Dr Now. One of the Stern staffers, Chris Wilding does an impression of Dr Now- I'd never actually seen the show until last week, but the main idea of the impression is that Dr Now tells the people how they're not doing the work. He tells them very matter of fact how they gained weight, they shouldn't have gained weight, and they're not following directions.
I just wanted to give a little explanation so you can really imagine my experience with a new doctor recently. I hadn't been going to a regular internist for years because it seemed redundant. I had been going to my gynocologist for everything. He did blood work, meds, sent me for tests. Even for just a regular cold, he'd deal with that too. He would do my yearly physical, order the blood work, go over it, etc, so it seemed weird to go to an internist for essentially the same thing. Plus, we had criminally high insurance premiums for self-employed people, yet, we had a ton of rules as to what doctors were in-network and high co-pays. It was a fifty dollar co-pay to go to the doctor! I didn't want to go to any extra doctors. I have a relationship with my Gynocologist so I didn't want to go anywhere else.
All these years though, people kept recommending this local female doctor. She hadn't been in-network for me though. Then, B took a new job and we got brandy-new really great health insurance. All of a sudden, this woman doctor was in my network. I was thrilled. Copay cost is like ten or fifteen dollars to go see someone. I started making appointments. I made an appointment with this woman.
I can say this- she was thorough. I think I was there for over an hour. They did blood work in the office instead of me having to find a Labcorp and make an appointment at a later date. However, I felt like I was talking to Dr Now. She told me that I could lose twenty pounds and I'd still be overweight, but it's okay because I have big bones. I wasn't sure I heard her correctly.
Have I gained weight? Sure. Oddly, I lost weight in the Covid lockdown. When everyone was baking breads and eating them, or drinking alcohol or whatever they were doing to gain weight, I wasn't eating. I don't know why. I just wasn't. I was no longer in my same routine so it changed my eating habits. Plus, I guess not going to the supermarket helped. If we didn't have it, we just didn't have it in the house. I would've had to prepare food and I don't like to prepare food.
Somehow though, in the time since we've been let out, I don't know what's happened. I was one of those people who yo-yo dieted, took the Kelly Taylor over-the-counter diet pills in the 80's and 90's, and took prescription diet pills. I probably ruined my metabolism that way, plus it's the mix of my predisposed body and nearing the age of fifty. I was never one of those people who had a fast metabolism, just losing weight easily. I know people like that. People who DO eat but they eat to live, not live to eat, and they are just naturally thin no matter what.
I also used to go on the treadmill every single morning for anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes. Sometimes I did more. I wasn't always running but by the end of any given day I'd have eighteen thousand to twenty-one thousand steps.
During the Covid lock down, B and I started walking every night. Our main route is about three and a quarter miles that we finish in about an hour and twenty minutes. I started going on the treadmill less and less because I had work to do and I felt like I was going to be getting the steps in anyway.
I think I probably started gaining little by little as we were let out back into the wild. We were going back out to restaurants. I also love sweets. Cake, candy, you name it. I can't say I haven't been eating cake or candy. I just don't think I was eating more of it than usual. I don't know. I wasn't stress eating. It just happens. I seem to have different mirrors than other people. A lot of people look in the mirror and think they look terrible. I look and think I look fine. Then I see a photo and I'm like, wow, what's going on there??
I left Female Dr. Now's office in a panic. I literally got in my car and looked up Noom. I have had friends who have used it that they've said it worked for them. It was the first thing that came to mind. Well, actually Jenny Craig came to mind, because I did it for like ten years and was successful. I really liked the food. They moved their location though, where I had to pick up the food, and now it's just REALLY inconvenient. So I joined Noom in the parking lot and then went home to look up food delivery services.
I can't be responsible for preparing healthy meals. I need someone to do it for me. Jenny Craig worked for me because it was quick and easy. I'm on the go all the time. I need to just throw something in the toaster oven or microwave and move on. I started reading reviews and looking at prices of meals that are delivered to your home. I remembered a million years ago that stars like Jennifer Aniston and such were having meals brought to them and there have been all kinds of services that have come out since.
What I found with most of the plans is that you have to pay before you pick your food. You can see a sample of the menu if you poke around, but you have to pay, then you put the meals in your cart. I found BistroMD and it was fine. I really liked the breakfasts, but I didn't love everything else. I also didn't realize it would be frozen instead of fresh. There's nothing wrong with frozen but I wanted to see if I could find one that wasn't frozen.
I found Factor which says the food is refrigerated. I got the eighteen meal plan because it was a really good deal for the first order. The only thing I didn't understand is that breakfast in their plan is considered an add on. So I paid for eighteen meals and none are breakfast. They have a different menu each week so there's always different items. I did have to order doubles of a lot of stuff because I am extremely picky and have the palate of a first grader. A lot of diet food is spicy because I think that's supposed to suppress your appetite or something but I really loathe spicy food. It's not even the taste, but it hurts. I don't want my food to hurt. Also, I like simple. Companies are always trying to make diet food more interesting and I guess more like regular food. So they try to get all exotic. I don't want exotic.
I didn't get the Factor food yet so I can't say how it tastes. I'm optimistic. It should be here this week sometime, so I'll update once I've eaten a few of the meals. If you use my link for Factor, you get $150 off the cost. My first box with the eighteen meals cost me less than one hundred dollars. I thought that was pretty good. It cost me way more plus membership for Jenny Craig. Neither BistroMD or Factor require any kind of membership and you can cancel at any time. I already skipped my second delivery of Factor because I haven't even gotten the first one.
Of course B got a foot injury, pretty much around the same time I went to the doctor. We haven't been able to walk at all so I am back on the treadmill. It's definitely harder than walking the three miles around town.
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