After years and years of eating out more than cooking at home, preparing semi-homemade meals at home, using highly processed foods and lots of oils and butter, consuming portion sizes way larger than needed to satisfy basic nutritional requirements, and fighting weight gain sporadically with a variety of “magic bullet” diets, fasts and other desperate measures, this year Brian and I decided to get serious.

We watched our friend Troy drop some serious weight in a short amount of time. Brian watched this happen on a daily basis, since he sees Troy at work. I see him much more occasionally and my experience was much more dramatic: one day I saw him as he began the program, and then I saw him a few weeks later, many very noticeable pounds lighter. I didn’t know he’d even started a program to lose weight, so the difference was a shock!

Since I was at an all time low (or high?) in my lifelong battle with food and weight, I was envious, frankly, of how successful he’d been and the short period of time he’d needed to make a very significant impact. He had lost 50 pounds over 3-4 months or so! Seemed like a program worth investigating, so investigate I did.

At first, the program seemed daunting: five 100-calorie “meal replacements” per day and one small “Lean and Green” meal that you cook at home. Troy assured me I could do it; the program was designed to keep you from getting hungry and packing all the nutrients you need into the reduced daily caloric intake. In fact, he told me, “you’ll be eating six times per day!”

Troy referred me to his health coach. After chatting with her and reviewing the program materials and some soul searching, I decided I wanted to pursue this program. Of course, Brian was supportive. In fact, he went so far as to commit to following the program with me, despite needing to lose much less weight than I. His support has been critical to my success — our success.