Orientation and my first medical visit

It's been a few days since I wrote last.  I went to the UAMS weight loss program orientation last Thursday.  There were about 10-12 people there.  They went over the program costs, what it consists of etc and at the end we signed up for classes and got our medical office visit date.   I went in for fasting labs the following morning which is always good times.  I start classes w/ Kristen on Wednesday.  She's a registered dietitian.   I met w/ her today as well before the medical office visit.  She went over the program a little more before I saw Dr. Agarwal.  Kristen charted my weight, height, BMI, percentage of body fat (which I think said 47% or something RIDICULOUS!), blood pressure, and heart rate.  Then Dr. Agarwal came in within a minute and first thing we went over were my fasting labs from last week.  I was dreading this part.  But actually all of my labs were within normal range w/ the exception of my cholesterol.  I say everything else was normal, because she said it was within range.  But if you look at the some of the numbers, they are toward the upper range of normal.  Here's my numbers:
Glucose - 96.  This is fasting blood sugar.  Anything below 99 is normal.  That's getting up there!!
Cholesterol - 187.  They like it under 200.
HDL (good cholesterol) - 47.  They like it >60.
LDL (bad cholesterol) - 109.  They like it to be <70.
Triglycerides - 155.  They like it to be <150.
Oh and my blood pressure was like 140 something over 90 something maybe- higher than normal.  It's usually 130s/80s.  yikes!  My pulse was 104- fast.  I've been told in the past that it was fast.  One doctor even mentioned starting me on some kind of medicine that slowed it down.
Hoping all of these numbers improve.  Especially my fasting sugar, and my blood pressure.
I also picked up my food today.  Apparently b/c of my current weight I will be doing 6 meal replacements instead of 5 at the beginning.  That's 960 calories/day.  Then as I lose weight they will decrease it back to 5.  Fun.  I got to pick up my first boxes of meal replacement today.  I got 2 boxes of chocolate and 1 box of potato soup.  You can make chips out of the potato soup kind.  We tried them at orientation and they weren't so bad!  My first class is Wednesday and I start the replacements on Thursday.  I wish it was tomorrow because I am ready now but just waiting...
Someone asked me yesterday what I would miss the most.  My first thought was Mexican food.  White cheese dip in particular.  I could eat that stuff by the gallon...  Then I thought of sushi.  Today I thought of another thing.  Ice Cream.  I thought of it as I was driving home w/ Ben w/ my cookie dough blizzard thing from TCBY.  Sigh.
So tomorrow is my birthday (WOOO!!!).  I'll be 29.  I'll be celebrating w/ food.  Just because I can.  One last time.  I really am ready to make permanent changes.  I want to look at food differently.  I want to look at Ben and Jerry's pints and then pick up a fruit sorbet instead.  And then I want to only eat 1 portion size instead of the whole pint.   I know I can get there.  I know I can do it.  One reason I know I can is because I really do love healthy food too.  I love salad, lettuce, raw veggies, any veggies really.  I love fruit.   Pretty much any fruit but blue berries.  I love lean meats like chicken/fish/turkey.  I already don't eat much red meat or fatty meats (sausage, bacon etc) anyways and can do w/o those easily.  I hardly ever eat salty snacks like potato chips or anything like that.  The hardest thing for me will be sweets.  Cupcakes, cookies, ice cream.  The sweet stuff is what kills me.  The sweet stuff is WHY I am so overweight.  But I know with the help of this program, the dietitians etc that I can work through that and that makes me excited.
So it starts soon. For good.  For the last time.  And blogging about my progress will be so much more exciting.
:)