Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Debating Medically Supervised Weight Loss

Although I'm pleased with my current weight loss progress as far as it goes, I have to admit to giving some thought to joining a medically-supervised weight loss program for at least a little while to jump start my progress. I've been doing pretty well, but I wonder if I might feel better about my overall progress if I went on one of the supervised VLCD (very low calorie diet) programs for a while.

Although I should be happy with what I've lost, I'm still feeling a bit discouraged. I wonder if dropping a big chunk quickly (say maybe 30% of what I need to lose) would boost my motivation. At the rate things are going, it will be more than a year before I'm at my goal weight and that's just pretty darn discouraging to think about. If I joined a medically-supervised VLCD, I could drop 30-40 pounds in a relatively short amount of time, and then the total time to my goal would be a lot less.

Of course I recognize that there are a lot of disadvantages to that approach. First off, VLCDs, even the protein-sparing diets, have the big disadvantage of lowering your metabolism after a period of time. When you go back to eating regular food, it's very easy to put the weight back on. The biggest disadvantage, though, is the cost. I talked to the folks at the weight loss center at our local health clinic, and they tell me that their basic food program costs $87/week. That's their basic program -- the lady said she'd have to call me back with information for their VLCD program because they only administer that program to their heaviest patients the fattest of the fat.

$377/month is a lot of coin to spend on special diet food for one person, especially when you still have to buy your own fresh fruit and vegetables along with it. I've already blogged about the high cost of dieting, and the more I research it, the more I realize there's no inexpensive way to do it.

I realize that a medically-supervised VLCD isn't going to be a quick fix. I'm still going to have to stick to a diet and (blah) exercise program over the long term. I just wonder if getting a quick boost might be a way to improve my attitude towards the entire process.

A lot will depend on what they say about costs. The idea of drinking meal replacement shakes for weeks or months on end sounds pretty unappealing, but maybe the results might be worth it. We'll see what they have to say, I guess.

1 comment:

Naturally Blessed said...

i looked into this as well (supervised weight loss) and was quite discouraged by the costs...the local metabolic center wanted initially $300 the first month...and that did not include all the shakes and whatnot i would need.

one of the reasons i picked the plan that i ended up getting on sunday (aside from the peaceful feeling) was that its goal is to speed up your metabolism. it doesn't seem to trick your body into some unstable state of ketosis or anything like that. so once again i am hopeful...

i originally wanted that jumpstart....just something to encourage me to keep going...but i find that repeating how much i weigh to myself over and over during cravings helps.....its a reminder for me to deal with the hard cold facts of reality....and the reality is that i wont gt closer to my goal if i demolish the entire pint of Dove chocolate ice-cream...regardless of how sinfully delightful it is.