Thor and Tarzan in the same day!

That's our day today!  First Thor, then Tarzan!

We will be heading out around 9:45 this morning to go to the AMC theaters at Downtown Disney to see the new Thor movie in 3D and ETX sound.  Then after eating a packed lunch in the car as we drive back to this area, we are going to see a live stage presentation of the Disney musical, Tarzan, at Liberty High School.  Liberty is in Poinciana, just down the street.  It's only about six or seven years old and looks beautiful on the outside.  We have heard they do great productions and have a magnificent theater.  We never got to see this show on Broadway, and it never seemed to go on tour.  We were stunned when we saw it on the school's marquee!  Now we will finally get to see it. 

Yesterday I increased my weigh on some of the machines, so it was hard. I woke up with a bit of a backache this morning, in fact.  We also walked on the treadmill because it was raining.  I walked nearly 40 minutes, but I only walked at my usual pace of 2.5 miles per hour.  This is considered "slow" in my phone app, but it always feels pretty fast to me.  My calories came in at 1358.  I am the same weight this morning as yesterday, so I hope three days of behaving will push another pound off by Wednesday morning.  I'd love to report a two pound loss for the week!

There are just three more little articles from the Diabetic Living magazine to report.  Here's a brief for today.

Meal replacements are not effective in the fight against obesity.

FALSE!!

"Meals in a box (or in a can) are effective ways to make weight loss simple.  Mail-order programs, such as Jenny Craig and NutriSystem, and meal-replacement products, such as Slim-Fast and Special K shakes, combine portion control with convenience to take the guesswork out of your next meal.  Research clearly shows people stick to their weight loss plan with greater ease and better results by using meal replacement and plans, Casazza says."

That may all be true, but I have done Slim Fast and other plans like that in the past.  I found them very difficult to stick to over the long haul.  I think they are best for people who...
a. don't have a lot to lose,
b. don't know much about nutrition,
c. don't want to be bothered to cook, shop, or plan appropriate meals,
d. all of the above!

Back in the 1960s, when I was in high school, I spent my entire senior year of high school eating only Metracal almost every day.  Both my parents were overweight and wanted to lose weight using those products.  So our whole family did it, even my sister who did not need to lose weight.  I ate virtually nothing for breakfast, maybe a little bit of canned fruit, skipped lunch every school day by going to the library to study, and ate two cans of Metracal at home, one can of soup for dinner and one can, frozen, as "ice cream," in the evening as a snack.  The cans of Metracal had 250 calories each, so if you followed their plan of four cans a day, you had 1,000 calories a day.  I spent most days of the week eating under 600 calories a day, a starvation diet. I am sure I didn't always follow this on weekends or when I went to a friend's house, but I did drop about 20 pounds that year eating like that.  I graduated high school at 165 pounds, the lowest I ever was in my life, ever again!  That summer, I gained 30 pounds in two weeks on a summer vacation in August with my family.  I had already regained 8 pounds, back up to 173, between June graduation and mid-August. I came back from that vacation on Labor Day Weekend weighing 203!  It was the first time (sadly, not the last time) that I went over 200.  Crazy!  I was stunned and shocked!  I immediately went back on a starvation diet as I started college and lost those about 20 pounds by Thanksgiving.  That was the end of dieting in college.  I graduated college at 245 pounds.  Geez, talk about the Freshman 15!!  I had that and MORE!

Most of what I have read about those meal replacement plans is that people do regain the weight quickly once they start eating normal meals.  Those plans do not help you learn how to eat appropriately for the rest of your life.  The same thing happened to me when I tried the Slim Fast program decades later. I lost some weight, sure, but I regained it when I stopped doing it.

What really worked for me several times was Weight Watchers.  Of course, I failed at it many more times than I did it successfully, but that is not uncommon.  Still, I learned a lot about writing things down, planning, portion control, and nutrition.  These are skills I still use today.  These are things I must do the rest of my life.