Losing Weight Prolongs your Life

I was inspired to write this blog entry after a couple of things that happened yesterday. I had a “physical” in order to get life insurance. The insurance company sent a nurse to our house to conduct a physical. She took our medical histories, blood, urine, weighed and measured us. In talking with the nurse I was reminded me of how much weight plays a role in our overall health. Later that day, I saw the Dr Oz show. His show not only focused on his personal journey with a colonoscopy but at the end of the show he talked about our increasing the years of our lives and 5 key life-saving numbers we need to know for our overall health. Those were blood pressure, weight, waist measurement, cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose. For women, weight under 175 is considered good and a waist under 35 inches is good. Blood pressure number to watch out for is the top number or systolic number being 140 or below. I was thinking to myself, well thank goodness I lost the weight. I am now below 175 pounds and my waist size has shrunk to 31 inches. A third thing that makes me aware that losing weight is good for your health is my work. I have been a medical transcriptionist for 11-1/2 years and over that time, I have noticed the trend in the role weight plays on someone’s health. When I start typing on someone who has diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, depression, etc, invariably that person is overweight or obese. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that being overweight contributes greatly to these conditions. In speaking with the visiting nurse during my physical yesterday and mentioning about my gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Steven 12 years ago, I was reminded at the huge step I took to maintaining my health by losing the weight. I remember reading years ago that women with gestational diabetes stand a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes within 10 years. Had I not lost the weight, I feel I would have developed diabetes. My blood pressure has never been an issue for me thank goodness. It has always run low even at my highest weight. A nurse once told me it was the blood pressure of a teenager. I have been lucky in that regard. Losing the weight will help me continue to have good blood pressure readings. Now we await the blood work to return. I had the blood work drawn last December when I started the Medi Weight-Loss Program and my numbers were all within the normal range then so I look forward to seeing if they have even improved somewhat to the lower end of the normal range. So if you have issues with your weight and are fighting with yourself to get motivated to get it off, I encourage you to do so for your health. If you have any issues now with elevated blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc, it can be reversible with diet and exercise. I am not a doctor or a nurse but my experience with transcribing medical reports over the years shows me that with a reduction in your weight, you can be healthier.

Also, get a colonoscopy when you reach 50 – Here is a link to Dr. Oz's web page about his colonoscopy: http://www.doctoroz.com/colonoscopy-videos/screening-colonoscopy It changed my mind about the procedure. If you catch a precancerous polyp early, it will avoid you having real issues in the future.

Maintaining and Loving Summer

Key Largo, FL
August 2010
Outside on the deck at Snapper's Tiki Bar before dinner.

I don't know if anyone is following this blog any more. I haven't posted in so long. I have been maintaining and even survived vacation. It was finally nice to be on vacation and not feel like a blimp. I had so many new cute clothes to pack and wear on the trip. I felt so good despite the wickedly hot weather. I ate a lot of broiled fish, peel n' eat shrimp, fruit, and veggies. I tried hogfish and yellow tail snapper (both wonderfully mild white fish) and one night had 1/2 pound broiled lobster. I also ate a Medi Weight-Loss bar every morning for breakfast with coffee as the lodge we stayed at had a continental breakfast and since I am staying away from wheat products, I could not partake in the danish, cakes, and bagels and I'm also keeping things low carb so I did not eat the yogurt and a lot of fruit either so bringing my bars was a very good thing for me to do and I always started out my day right. I did save my carbs for the wine and I did partake in some Key Lime pie (no crust) that Stan and I shared a couple of nights for desert (we were in the "Keys". How could I not). French fries snuck in there to up the carb count one day (hey it was hot and I sweated a lot, I must have needed the salt). Being able to pick and choose what carbs I have is so nice and helping me maintain when I feel I want to splurge. I try not to do everything at once and if I am bad one meal, I watch the next 2 meals and if I have a bad day, I watch it the next 2 days. So that is what I did and when we got back, I immediately went back to my "new" way of eating. I weigh in again next Wednesday and I definitely to not want to show a gain. So I will be behaving myself from now until then.

Key Largo, FL
August 2010
Outside Jimmy Johnson's Big Chill where we had dinner inside and
watched a beautiful sunset. 

Wellness Phase

I am in the Wellness phase of the Medi Weight Loss Program...So I have held my weight loss for a month and now I am on wellness. What does that mean? That means I'm on my own with my eating and they are going to monitor me monthly and I go from paying $80/week to $35/month. More disposable income to spend on clothes now. I am to still watch my calories, fat and carb intake and they will keep tabs on my weight to make sure I am not gaining. I don't intend on gaining because I do not intend on going back to my old eating habits. I am a changed eater. I have changed my thinking about food and I am very happy about that. Anybody going on a diet needs to know that to lose weight you cannot eat the way you did that got you fat to begin with and you should not expect to go back to eating that way after you take the weight off. I do not look at the wellness phase of the program as my license to go back to old eating habits. There isn't anything that I am thinking about ... oh hey I'm on wellness I can eat such and such. I'm not thinking that way. My plan is to continue to eat the things that I have been eating to lose weight and maybe add things like a few grains and a little more fruit in the mix. Although because of an issue with gluten intolerance, I am not planning on going back to eating wheat-based products so no pasta, breads, cookies, cakes, crackers, etc. I will occasionally have some nonwheat-based breads and crackers but those will be limited. I do not intend on eating rice, white potatoes, or nonwheat-based pastas either. Those have entirely too many carbs for me. I need to keep my daily carb allowance around 50 per day to keep the weight off and 40 carbs for a serving of quinoa pasta is not going to help me do that. Meat, vegetables, and fruit will continue to be the mainstay of my diet. I am feeling so good and love being a smaller size. I also plan on exercising more and hope to start tennis soon. I am enjoying exercising in the pool with swimming laps and other water exercises. I feel I'm toning up slightly and will start incorporating other methods of exercise as the summer goes along.

Two Weeks and Maintaining

Two weeks on short-term maintenance and I've been doing okay. I did gain 2 pounds the first week for some reason but this week lost one that I gained. According to the plan, I can go up to 1000 calories a day. I add another 100 calories of protein and add a second serving of starch. I am not doing wheat because I am suspicious I have a gluten intolerance so I got some rice bread and I am also trying some tapioca bread. I didn't intend on going on processed foods but it is nice to have something else to eat besides meat and vegetables. About every other day for breakfast I have been having a slice of the bread toasted with a little smear of peanut butter. I did meet some friends out for dinner the other night and ordered steak with shrimp. I had a side salad for my vegetable and baked potato for my starch. I only ate maybe 1/4 of the potato (no butter or sour cream) and took such small nibbles out of the potato because it was hard to get used to eating it. I felt like I was cheating. I think the hardest thing about adding foods back in is getting used to not feeling like you are cheating. I am trying to keep a good food diary this week because I have gotten away from it the last couple of weeks this way if my weight is up for any reason, the counselor can see what I have been eating. I don't think I'm going to gain though unless I totally blow it. I have been swimming about 3 days a week for exercise and it has been a fun way to do something with Steven. He gets me moving when we are in the pool because he wants to race and I pull him around while he holds on to the noodle. The water provides good resistance and I definitely feel it in my muscles.

THANK YOU MEDI-WEIGHTLOSS! 40 Pounds Gone

Okay my friends. Here they are -- my before and after side by side. I am down 40 pounds and working on maintenance. I'm so glad that I have the professionals at Medi to guide me through this. I am so afraid of eating more food at this point. I am adding back in calories slowly and tapering off of medication. I will go back to the clinic weekly for monitoring for the next 4 weeks. I know I will be as committed to keeping this weight off as I was in losing this weight. Stay tuned for how this is going. I want to thank you all again for following me through this process for the last 6 months. I also want to thank my friends and family for all their support and encouragement. Stan and the kids have been great as have my mom and dad and brother and sister-in-law. I am so lucky to have a loving, understanding family. They loved me through everything and I am blessed.

The Melancholy Baby and the Prom Queen

I was a big melancholy baby Saturday. My daughter went to her first prom and is seeming so grown up. She looked beautiful in her dress, with the hair curled. My little tom boy all dressed up with heels and everything. I helped her with some of the preparations including sitting at the salon while she had her hair done. We took pictures outside and when she finally left with her boyfriend to go off to his house for pictures, I was so deep in a blue state of mind. I swallowed all my feelings along with the need to swallow some chocolate. I had laughed earlier at a friend who posted on facebook that after helping her duaghter with all the preparations for prom, she was going to need a few cocktails. I thought how bad can it be. Well, I did finally understand where she was coming from. After Carrie and Camil left, I took off to the grocery store to pick up groceries for the week as well as the things for our son's 12th birthday party on Sunday. I walked around the store in a daze and all I could think about was that I needed chocolate. I was doing pretty good until the end and went back and grabbed a couple of large bags of M&Ms (for the party, of course) and checked out. When I got to the car, I grabbed a bag of the M&Ms (peanut butter kind) and ripped them open and starting popping them like pills on the way home from the store. "Medicating" myself with food is the old me. I could not control the emotions I was feeling and thus couldn't control my hand to mouth action. I did stop myself but not until the damage was done and it was not the last time because I did dig into them a little bit later in the evening when I felt the wave of emotions coming over me as she was going to an after party and staying the night at a friends house. Thank goodness this happened as I am at goal and not in the midst of the acute phase of the program. I got right back on track Sunday morning and did not touch an M&M or any of the fudge-iced brownie cake that I got for Steven's birthday cake (okay, aside from the one little lick of icing off my finger after I served the cake to the boys). So the new me on a diet is back and atoning for the bad Saturday but it just really goes to show how food is tied to emotion and up until that point, I had dealt well with other emotions but was not prepared to deal with the one that I felt on Saturday. I will have to make sure I am prepared next time because I'm sure with the kids getting older, it is not going to be the last.

Short Term Maintenance Begins

My brother Jeff has been a great sounding board for me throughout the years and with all my false starts and stops at weight loss he hung in their with me listened to me, offered advice and never chastised me. He always was honest with me about my downfalls whenever I was on a diet. And on starting Medi in December, he gave me some great advice on how to be successful and told me not to be ashamed because I needed medication to help lose the weight. "They have medication to help people stop smoking and to stop drinking" he said. "Why not take medication to help you lose weight if it is available."

So now for the news of the week:

My counselor today at my weigh-in appointment told me to wear something spiffy next week because they are going to take my AFTER picture. I can't tell you how awesome that feels. As I am typing this I am actually welling up with tears because finally after 12 years I have attained a weight loss goal. This is a very emotional for me. I have lost 39 pounds since December 29, 2009, almost 5 months ago. Today, Yancy told me to make sure I get my 500 calories of protein a day and add a fruit serving along with my 2 servings of vegetables. I now will slowly start adding food back into my diet until I get to my calorie requirements for maintenance. She said I can expect to still lose while I am making this transition. This will be fine with me. I actually would love to lose about 5 more so I can use 135-140 as my range. I thank all of you for following this blog and supporting me throughout this process. The blog and talking about it was part of my strategy for being successful.

You have to see this news item. http://www.newscentralga.com/news/local/93626474.html It is about Medi-Weightloss Clinics. I echo the sentiments of the 2 patients featured in the item.

Being overweight is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a medical problem and can be treated with a medical program. It takes a team of doctors, nurses, dietitians and counselors along with the right support of medication and nutritional supplements. Just like any other medical problem. Because I have lost the weight, my health risks for diabetes and coronary disease are greatly reduced. If I had continued at the weight I was I could have ended up with diabetes especially since I was already a high risk factor being that I was gestational diabetic when I was pregnant with Steven. If I would have ended up with diabetes, I would have had to take medication and watch my diet and see doctors, nurses, and dietitians so I decided to use those resources for weight loss instead. I have the angel on my right shoulder to thank for my success. When the devil on my left shoulder would whisper in my ear to eat something not so good for me, I had the angel whispering in the other ear "that's not you." and "You are better than that." Self-talk was a big component. Being accountable was the other component. Knowing I would be going to the clinic visits, writing this blog and talking to my friends and family, kept me accountable for my actions. Another big factor I think is that I saw results quickly. I loved to see the results each week. It always spurred me on to maintaining myself 100% on the program each week. Now that I will be having my after picture taken, I am going to have the same commitment to maintenance as I did with the weight loss portion. This took me too long and I worked to hard to gain it all back.