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This is a written run-down on the experience so you don't have to ask me about it, but you can if you want.
The program that has been offered by our state employee benefits group is responsible. I have taken away many useful strategies and recommend anyone interested to try this. But be forewarned: it's annoying. Well, I found it annoying. You have to watch these videos each week and they are presented by people who have clearly never had a weight issue in their lives. Perhaps they think they did, but I doubt it.
They also gesticulate in an annoying way and their "enthusiasm" and plastic smiles grated on my nerves. I got around this by just listening while doing an online jigsaw puzzle so I could flit back and forth in case there was some graph or visual other than a presenter that might be useful. I grew to hate the clothes, jewelry, make-up jobs, hairstyles, and lacquered fingernails. And augh! the scenes with the actors - head-bangingly over-the-top. Here, this will make you stop nagging me to eat faster; I'll cram food in my face!
Other annoyances:
They recommended a 7:1 ratio of water and orange juice to sip on all day, which, oj lover that I am, I found disgusting and call "agent orange." They call it H2Orange or something. I continue to drink decaf chai tea without sugar.
The chips and peanuts exercise in the beginning was eye-rollingly silly. I consider potato chips to be a waste of my time - unless they can shovel yummy dips into my face. And I hate dry-roasted nuts. Give me regular oily roasted peanuts.
But a lot of what they say is useful, if reminiscent of what I've read about the behavior of people with anorexia: cutting your food into smaller pieces, eating slowly, pausing between bites, longer pauses during meals. When you're eating one taco, it's really hard to eat half of it for 10 minutes, pause for 5, and finish the rest lingeringly over another 10 minutes. Amazingly, I feel full even though I'm eating less.
The hardest part of this for me has been not snacking. Other than that, as long as you stay away from sugar you can eat what you really enjoy - and they want you to enjoy what you eat. This has led me to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to think of something I really want to eat. So, I still eat pizza (slowly) and other tasty things one ordinarily thinks of as fattening. Just less.
It was hard to not eat Missy's cake or any of the goodies people brought in over the holidays (and I love to bake and make things, so I brought them in and made you all eat them - hoping, no doubt, to make me look smaller by comparison. Sorry!), but I had pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas and the Christmas bread I make every year, toasted ... with butter all over it and still didn't derail the weight loss.
So, if you're interested, the link is below. It's free. All I can say is that I'm feeling better and have more energy. My pants slipping down is getting to be a nuisance, but in a good way - I guess.
https://www.naturallyslim.com/2018_Corporate_Landing?s=PEBA
Update May 2020 - I have lost 87 lbs. and, as I predicted, I'm a saggy sack of wrinkled skin ... in places. But I'm still working at it. I'll give it the full two years, but have slowed my weight loss to less than a lb. a week.
