I’m not going to blog about every week on HMR – those who are insanely curious can follow the hilarity over DailyBurn. This is just a recap of my impressions.
First, the good news. According to my scale this morning after 1 week on the diet I am down 13.2 pounds. (HMR weighs in the evening and their scale said 12 pounds, but I’m going with my home scale for now.) I tend to post huge results on the first week of any diet, and I’m sure a lot of that is water weight, so while it’s a good number I will wait and see what next week brings before I get too excited.
Now, the not-so-good news. I got blood work done this week and I’m a little concerned about my uric acid level. In December, during the screening, I was at 6.6mg/dL. This week I was 7.2mg/dL. And the reference range is 2.6 – 7.2. *sigh* Unfortunately for the folks at HMR I got my test results via the Sutter/PAMF online system before I went in, so I knew something was up and was prepared to discuss it. While technically this isn’t hyperuricemia it is going in that direction and I wanted to know what I could do other than trying to drink more water. I was told this was not unexpected – when you’re on a low calorie diet it’s like being on a high purine diet. This number could go up, fluctuate, or does who knows what. Clearly I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
As far as the actual diet program itself that hasn’t been too bad. The shakes are ok, and I am more than happy with my fancy new
Blendtec blender. The instructions for the shakes say to add water and powder, blend on low for a bit, add the ice one cube at a time, blend on low for 90 seconds, etc. Well screw that. I put everything in the jar, and hit the “smoothie” button. 25 seconds later I have a very smooth shake. (And the cats are hiding somewhere.) Yay Blendtec. However, as far as making shakes on the road the recommended
BlenderBottle is just kinda meh. Not a tasty shake. I will need to work on figuring that out.
The real surprise has been the entrees. They are rather tasty. There is a strong tendency towards tomato-based stuff as far as sauces, but so far they are pretty good. They’re on the small size, of course, but 60 seconds in the microwave and they’re done. If I’m really hungry and it’s time to practice “More Is Better™” then I’m more likely to grab one of them than a shake. Except for the risotto. I traded my leftover one back in.
The bars are good, and I’m trying to limit myself to no more than 2 a day although they are “in the box”. They taste very familiar – I know I’ve had the same exact product under a different label.
The last two things I tried were the cereal and the “chicken soup”. Firstly, yes, the Blendtec will heat soup. That’s crazy, and I will not do it again because it was insanely loud. The blender runs at full speed for 90 seconds. No, I’ll just use the stove. The soup itself was kinda nasty. I’m gonna try adding some bullion to it and seeing if that improves it. As far as the cereal goes – it’s nice, just incredibly bland. I had to hit it with some Splenda/Stevia to get some flavor. I will also try adding salt and cinnamon.
So far the first week was pretty easy, but then it always is. Now we’ll really start to see how things go – it’s not so new anymore, and I’ll also start to get an idea of how much weight I can really lose. Also, at this point, I haven’t tested myself on the diet. I didn’t leave my apartment last weekend. I got home on Friday night and didn’t leave until Monday morning. At some point I’ll need to be able to go out into the real world but for now I’m just trying to get up to a good solid start in order to get some motivation.