The First Meeting

Leading up to yesterday there were a few signature events for this new journey. The first was the orientation session. I was sold when I went out the door. The second was blood labs and EKG. Turns out I'm a really healthy hefty dude. I then had my meeting with the Dr. that I'll meet with every three weeks. She confirmed my healthy heft and we discussed why I was doing this program. She then shared a few things:

• I won't be able to eat the packaged soup right away - too much sodium for my high BP.
• The plan calls for six Meal Replacements (RMs) a day but given my larger size/BMI, I'll be starting on seven. That's right folks, get jealous, I'm getting one extra tiny nutrition bar (or 160 calories)!!!
• Time to load up on the Metamucil - apparently this program can back you up a bit.
• We'll have a general wellness check each week (weight and BP check) but every 3-4 weeks we'll have blood work done and do a full scale consult with the Program's assigned MD. 

Now for the meat of this post - The First Meeting
Yesterday was the start of the group sessions. MRs will not start until next week, but week one is group meeting number one. I will be on this journey with 23 others in a cohort format. Since this started over 10 years ago we are the 57th cohort. Would've been cool if we were the 59th cohort - that was my football number. I will be with this group at least for the first 30-ish weeks. While I have a lot of excitement for this process, i'll be honest, the first day didn't sit well with me. The meeting room is built for 12-15 comfortably, 16-18 if you are pushing it. Yo, this is a bunch of people trying to lose weight. We ain't small. Everyone is on their own journey, and not all are as big as I am, but come on. Also, folks need to stop buying chairs with arm rests for conference rooms (or any public place). The meetings was also very unorganized. There are two key figures for this program. The first is the Program Manager who manages the day to day. This person makes the copies, collects our payments, keeps track of our food orders, etc. They were there but were kind of all over the place and definitely were not "managing" the meeting or the space. The second person is the health educator. They shared they have been leading groups for this program for about a year, but they didn't seem comfortable with the information. They also lacked some connection with the group and spent most of the time reading from slides - like, directly reading slides. We also spent 15 minutes reading, verbatim, a two page program description and terms of condition. Keep in mind, this is a form most of us already signed and turned in when we first checked in.

Alright, enough ranting. On the whole, I'm excited. I do love the cohort/group model. Wish we would've spent more time getting to know folks instead of spending time reading from a PowerPoint slide but that may come in time. The little I did get to know about the group I see some folks that I know I will vibe with. The size of the group is great. If it is much smaller you risk the chance of not finding someone(s) to connect with. Much bigger and it becomes unwieldy to manage (plus we definitely would not fit in the room we have - sorry, I digress). I do like the accountability of weighing in and getting your BP once a week. Definitely something I can do at home, but having it done in the presence of a medical professional adds some extra ooommpppfff. I hope we get opportunities to share stories, but I do believe there is a solid curriculum that will guide us through the journey. For some, something like that will be a shock to the system as they might be looking for a counseling group (see: chitty-chat session). We also got some information on the products we will be ordering for MRs. The good thing is there are a lot of different flavor options and we can mix and match all we want. It does give an element of control which is important when making such a drastic lifestyle change.

Now the waiting game begins. Since we don't start MRs until next Wednesday I get to spend the next week working to track my current schedule and habits. I also can start visualizing and strategizing my success path. I feel like it will be fairly easy when I rip off the band-aid but I know it will have its challenges.