This is what transformation looks like

This first week, I heard often from Julie, Natalie and Courtney about how much they missed their routines. Every one of them said, “This is really hard because I'm a planner.”

All of them moms, they crave the predictability of a routine telling them what they need to do and when, their lives organized to the brim with the general demands of family life.

It was just a scramble, this first week. We grocery shopped morning and night to replenish our protein supplies, dropped everything in the middle of the day to eat one of our six meals/snacks, fought off cravings, tried to adjust our palates to this new combination of food, and struggled to break old habits (I kept expecting dessert after my meals, which is, of course, prohibited during Phase I).

The pilot group for the State of Slim met for the first time last Monday night. I think we were all excited, but also felt overwhelmed from the start, when the State of Slim entourage escorted us into a conference room lined with cameras from Extreme Weight Loss (the ABC show is filming their fourth season at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center; one of their participants gave us a motivational speech that night).

Dr. Wyatt at one end of the table, Dr. Hill at the other, they ping-ponged inspiration, encouragement and hard truths at us: this diet would change our lives forever, but first we would have to change the way we thought about things; losing weight would only be half the battle because we must transform many areas of our lives to make a permanent change.  

We learned about the diet as a whole and then they laid out the next two weeks: we would restrict our diet to only the foods they said we could eat, in specific combinations (more about that in my next post). This included the leanest proteins, low-density veggie carbs, “reignite carbs,” and healthy fats.

Class let out at 8 p.m. – commence the diet. We went our ways, each overwhelmed by the task at hand, and pretty hungry. Immediately, we had to go to the grocery store and buy lots of unfamiliar food (e.g. whey protein powder, steel cut oats, PB2).

“All I wanted to do when I left that class was stop at Taco Bell,” Julie told me. She didn’t, of course, but it would take three full days before she could share a healthy meal with her family.

On Tuesday, she battled a migraine (she hadn’t had one in 13 years), which made food and the gym unappealing. Despite that, and with the added challenge of cooking for three children and a husband, and working late several nights, she still made herself eat six times a day, and exercised.

“I just went slow.” Then she laughed, and quoted the doctors: “This is all about keeping my promises.”

From the outset, it’s pretty clear that the Colorado Diet is not about substituting this for that, maybe skipping dessert and that extra beer. After hearing Julie, Natalie and Courtney’s stories of last-minute adjustments, and given my own challenges, I’ve begun to understand what this first part of the diet is really about: turning our lives upside down, shaking them out and reorganizing them in a whole new way.

At first, I wondered if the others were frustrated or mad, or thought the whole thing ridiculous. Were they asking too much of us? None of the four of us was super psyched about the food we had to eat, and I could feel their exhaustion, the kind that comes from reacting to unpredictable circumstances.

But then, I quickly reminded myself: this is what a transformation looks like.

New routines will come soon enough. 

Your body is a bathtub

If you haven’t heard anything about the Colorado Diet, you’re probably wondering what’s so different about it.

Drs. Hill and Wyatt’s philosophy is that one of the biggest barriers to keeping weight off once you lose it is that with most diets, your metabolism (how effectively your body burns fuel) either doesn’t change or slows way down. They created the Colorado Diet with the goal of changing your inflexible metabolism to a flexible metabolism.

That vocabulary didn't resonate with me much, and I guess it didn't with a lot of other people, either. So in the book and in class, Drs. Hill and Wyatt explain it this way: your body is a bathtub, the water is food and the drain is your metabolism.

When you are overweight or obese, your drain is so small almost no water gets through; your faucet is on so high that the bathtub not only fills up, it begins to overflow (i.e. your intake is so high and your metabolism is so low that instead of burning food for fuel, your body stores it as fat).

In the three-phase Colorado Diet, they first have you turn your faucet down low (drastically reduce your calories for a short time). This quickly brings the water level down. In Phase II, they allow you to turn your faucet up a little bit (allowing some more food in), but you must work on widening the drain (through exercise). This way, water going in is a little less than water going out. Finally, in Phase III, you widen the drain to its maximum (by exercising at least 70 minutes a day, six days a week) and turn the faucet to a normal level.

By the time you are done with the diet and move into maintenance mode, your body’s metabolism will be so flexible and efficient, your diet will be more flexible too. (It’s unlikely you’ll be able to eat pizza and donuts every day, but if you indulge every now and then, it won’t go straight to your hips. Also, you’ll never have to count calories on this diet – hooray!).

So, in the end, it seems to me that the long-term plan to achieve a State of Slim is not as much about the food (although that is important) as it is about making exercise a part of your everyday life, so you can keep your drain as big as possible.

If you'd like to learn about other weight loss programs from the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, visit their weight management website.

No really, this time it's different

A couple months ago, we Children’s Colorado employees saw a notice in our newsletter asking for participants in a pilot diet program at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

This program – called the Colorado Diet, which is part of the book State of Slim by Drs. Holly Wyatt and James Hill  – would last 16 weeks and promised weight loss of up to 20 pounds in eight weeks. It also promised (if the participant does his/her work) that those who achieve a State of Slim will be able to keep it off for good. Those who were chosen for this one-time pilot program wouldn’t need to pay anything, but they would have to be spokespeople for the State of Slim.

A lot of people thought this sounded pretty good, and a bunch of Children’s Colorado employees sent in the required video audition. In the end, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center chose three Children’s Colorado employees and seven other participants from around campus (I’m blogging the experience as an add-on participant).

They chose Natalie Goldstein, a pre-menopausal single mother of two, and media relations manager; Courtney McClellan (BSN, RN), a 37-year old mother of two boys, Transfusion Safety Specialist; and Julie Bianco (BSN, RN, CPEN), a 40-year old mother of three, and clinical coordinator of department education for the Emergency Department.

And now that the commitment is before us, it’s obvious that over the next 16 weeks, we’re going to get very close, as we struggle and triumph.

So: 20 pounds in eight weeks? That’s a big promise to anyone who’s struggled with weight loss.  And the promise of keeping it off forever? That’s like a marriage proposal.

In the week leading up to our first class, Natalie, Courtney and Julie displayed varying anticipation for what’s about to happen. They were eager and nervous and excited and hopeful, a million questions nudging them in the direction of change: Will this finally end the struggle? Will this finally help them become the person they’ve always wanted to be? What exactly will they have to give up? Just how much of a commitment are we talking about?

Anybody who’s ever dieted knows the erratic emotions leading up to the first day: the naïve hope that this time will be different, that we’ll become the perfect person we’ve always dreamed of. Then panic settles in when we wonder, from somewhere deep inside, if this is who we are – are any of us the person who can deprive herself of pasta and bacon and birthday cake for the rest of her life? Then there’s dread when we reach for confidence and find it’s not there, imagining how we will feel when we either fail to lose the weight, or gain it all back. (Although the Colorado Diet is quite different, fear and doubt are still there before we begin).

We can all change ourselves temporarily – take a vacation to some other way of life – but the hard part, and what’s different about the Colorado Diet, is that if you want your body to change for good, things can never be the same. The State of Slim doesn’t promise an easy fix and there’s no question, at least in my mind, of how hard it will be to change. (Thankfully, though, the Colorado Diet is based not on long-term deprivation, but on long-term lifestyle changes that focus heavily on exercise).

When I met with Courtney, she spoke candidly about the fear not just of change in general, but of becoming someone she didn’t recognize. Courtney had grown so accustomed to her weight defining her – “I was always the fat, funny girl” – that to lose the weight would be to lose one of the characteristics that, until now, she held in her very core.

That’s a lot to ask of someone, but after having read some of the book, I do believe Drs. Hill and Wyatt have designed a program that can actually deliver on its big promises. But, as they have pointed out repeatedly, that can only happen if you honor the commitment you made to yourself.

Stay tuned to find out what happens, to learn more about the specifics of the diet, and to cheer on Natalie, Courtney and Julie. They’re making a huge, life-changing commitment and are more likely to succeed with your encouragement. (Add your email at the bottom of the page to receive new posts in your inbox).