Week 5 recap

I'm coming to the end of my fifth week on the 20/20 program, and time is just flying. It seems like I just started and I'm already 1/3 of the way through phase one.

Today I met with both my 20/20 doctor and my nutritionist. My trainer, J., took updated measurements on Monday and gave the results to my doctor to discuss with me. Since I already went one size down in pants, I had a pretty good idea that things were going in the right direction, but it was nice to see it on paper. Here are the results:
* Weight: lost 16.5 pounds
* Blood pressure: went from 134/88 to 124/80
* Chest girth: lost 1.75"
* Waist girth: lost 1.4"
* Hip girth: lost 2.25"
* Bicep girth: lost .75"
* Thigh girth: 1.75"
* Body Mass Index: went from 33.7 to 31.6

I felt so excited when I walked out of that appointment. I wandered into the women's workout room, and hopped on the elliptical machine with a newfound happiness. After a half an hour, I went back to the locker room and took a shower before meeting with my nutritionist. Let me tell you - it feels unbelievably wonderful to actually have the whole gym towel fit around my body. When I started, the towel was pretty wee but now I can actually get it all the way around and fasten it. Wahoo!

When I met with my nutritionist, C., she was ecstatic about my progress. I weighed in and I've lost five pounds over the last week. When she looked back through my diet log, she gave me props for really working hard on getting more protein into my diet. As she looked through each day, she commented on how I'd really done a good job at eating the right combinations of food at the right times in the day. She didn't even worry about my one "bad" day on Saturday where I went over my fat range - I'm allowed 30-45 grams and messed up because I was trying to get a lot of extra protein in my diet so got 54 grams that day. She said that the typical American eats 150 grams of fat a day, so my one day mistake wasn't even a big deal in the big picture. So, that was cool.

This week I get back dairy products. Because of my cow-dairy allergy, that means that I get soy-based and rice-based dairy products. I'm so excited to get soy milk back. That means I'll be able to have a cup of Chai tea with vanilla soy milk for a treat. I can also have soy yogurt, which is usually pretty gross but there is one brand that is so good and I just need to find it at Whole Foods or PCC. And I can still eat my wonderful high-protein Greek yogurt, which is cow-dairy based but because of the amount of bacteria in it, it doesn't bother me like cow cheese or milk.

I'm definitely on my way!