Most of you know that I’m seriously overweight. At my worst, I tipped the scales at 300 lbs, easily 100 lbs more than I should be for my height; since then, I’ve hovered around 295.
In the wake of my pulmonary embolism episode (see here), my doctor basically read me the riot act—lose the weight or die before your time. Those kinds of words tend to get one’s attention. In my case, being somebody who goes quite unconscious around food, it took a while for that to sink in, and I’ve had only limited success in the past with weight loss efforts.
So I decided to try something new. I signed up with an outfit called Lean Chefs, a service that delivers a daily cooler bag of prepared meals right to your door overnight. Unlike programs that send frozen TV-dinner style meals, Lean Chefs’ meals are locally prepared and are either eaten cold (salads and the like) or heated up in a microwave. I can take the cooler bag with me if my schedule has me out of the house at lunch or dinner time, and at the end of the day I simply leave the empty bag outside my door for pickup.
The downside: they’re expensive. Signing up for a full month (which gives you the least expensive daily rate) costs a little over $1,000. This sounds worse then it really is, because normally I spend between $600 and $700 a month on groceries, dining out and other food-related expenses, so the true budgetary cost is more like $300-$400. That still stings, but what price do I put on good health?
So far, the program is working. I’m closing in on the end of the first month, and I’ve gone from about 295 lbs to 284 lbs. My ultimate goal is to get down to 200 lbs—still technically overweight for my height, but much more attainable and sustainable given my lifestyle.
Wish me luck!
