New here! I need serious help!

Hello,

I came across this site while searching obesity! I am excited to find a message board to post on with others who are going through the same thing and will hopefully not judge.

I have been overweight since having my first soon over 5 years ago. Before I got preggo with him I was 135 pounds (and I am 5'7). After having him I would go between 207-212. Than, I got preggo again had now can't seem to get out of the 220's!!! Last March (wow, I can't believe it's been a year) my doc let me try Phentermine. I started at 228 and got down to 202. Well, here I am in...a year later weighed 221! So frustrating!

I recently had an insurance change and had to get a new doctor. I met with her the other day and I begged and pleaded to be put back on Phentermine; she of course said NO! Instead, she wants to me use some resource they have...something about preventative medicine and they will meet with me weekly...I don't know. I am going to give it a try. She also mentioned that I might qualify for lap band and she will put in an order to have it discussed as an option. My BMI is 39.6 and she said because it's almost 40 I will probably qualify.

Anyway, I have been trying so hard to diet and have been exercising about 4 times a week for 1-2 hours each time. I gained 3 pounds last week!! I can't seem to stop gaining weight. I feel like something is seriously wrong.

The main reason why I eat is because I cannot get full. For example, right now I just ate 8 piece of peanut butter toast!!! As you can tell, I stopped my diet as of last night. I was so depressed about gaining and not even losing an ounce after how hard I have tried. I finally just said "screw it".

I am addicted to food and can eat an embarrassing amount of it!

Thanks for reading! Hope this place helps!

Back in Nov 2005 the National Institute of Health (NIH) changed the guidelines for qualifying for WLS from BMI of 40 to BMI 35 with comorbidities.  A comorbidity is something like high blood pressure, sleep apnea, diabetis - in other words any weight related malady.  Without a comorbidity, you must have a BMI of  40.   There are other WLS options besides lapband.  If your insurance covers lapband, they must also cover these others -  RNY, DS or VSG.  You can read up on all of thse on this site.  If you decide on WLS, make sure you investigate the diffferent types of surgeries and select the one that fits your cir****tances and lifestyle (perhaps this is a decision best left to you and not your doctor - all the surgeries work but are only as effective as the individual effort involved).  Also if your insurance company doesn't cover you,  there are self-pay options from surgeons who advertise on this site who will do WLS for under $10,000 here in the USA. 

As for your non-stop eating issue, carbohydrates will make most of us hungry - eight slices of toast is certainly a carb overload!  If you have a carbohydrate rich diet, you will be hungry all the time.  I was.  Now, I never eat a carb without balancing it against protein.  And I almost always eat protein first.  

There are also psyche issues with overeating for most of us -  comfort, stress, depression,etc.  Think about what triggers your eating.  For me, it was stress.  I worked hard to control stress which helped control my eating.

Your doctor is right about the phentermine.  That's just treating the symptoms, not the cause.  You may lose a few pounds initially but over time you build a tolerance to the drug and it becomes ineffective - take it from someone who knows.  And as soon as you go off the drug, your appetite returns. 

If you decide on WLS, you will have to embrace a whole lot of lifestyle changes to live with this surgery.  Your exercise effort shows that you are willing to change.  Good luck.   

 

This is a great source for support, advice, and UNDERSTANDING.  No judgements here...we know the struggle you are going through.  I don't post much over on the non-op board anymore, however, I began here when I found OH.  When I read your post, I wanted to reply and give you a little insight and maybe some food for thought.

The first thing I noticed was your new dr. mentioned lapband surgery.  Do you want WLS?  You didn't say what your thoughts are on that.  If you do, please also check out the lapband forum to hear their experiences.  I can't tell you how comforting it was to learn more about the experiences my fellow VSGers had.  The saying is so true, "knowledge is power." Now for me in the beginning I didn't want WLS.  I wanted to see if I could lose weight on my own, however, I did find I needed that extra "tool" to help.  I will say even with WLS, it still takes changing your eating habits to make it work.  Do I fall of the wagon?  Oh heck yes...I'm human and didn't get to 376 lbs without having a food addiction.  I will say it's so much easier to get back on track now because of this handy dandy "tool" I've got and I know in my heart that without it I couldn't have gotten down to the low 200's. 

Now something I'm going to suggest and hopefully you can do it...stay off the scale.  Weigh yourself as of today and take down all of your measurements.  After that, stay off the scale and only get on it periodically.  As you just found out, looking at the scale and seeing you are up can be damaging to your self esteem and make you feel like a failure and cause you to fall off the wagon.  Now understand this, YOU AREN'T a failure at all...there are many reasons you could have gained weight - from that time of the month, to possibly the new addition of exercise as a cause, etc. etc. etc.  I can fluctuate and gain 3 pounds in a day without going overboard on food.  I know I haven't done anything wrong OR I find if I am starting back to exercising after having not done it in awhile, then I may gain weight the next couple of days. 

As for why you haven't lost anymore and gotten to one a certain weight and gotten stuck...could you have a thyroid problem?  Might be a good thing to check out.

A little handy tip for you that I didn't know before looking into WLS - it takes your body a 1/2 hour to get a signal to your brain that you are full.  Even now with my tiny stomach, it does take that long.  What might help is to eat very slowly.  I can't tell you how surprised I was to really see how fast I used to eat.  I see it now in my DB and family members.  Being more aware of your food at meals really helps to slow things down.  

I'm also a food addict and used to be able to eat an embarrassing amount as well.  I wish I had been more aware of how long it takes your brain to get the signal that a person is full.  I can't tell you how many times I'd think, "goodness I'm not even full."  Thing is, I've learned you don't have to eat to the full point.  Now that I measure out my food, I eat what is required for my protein first, then veggies, etc.  I ask myself, am I satisfied and if the answer is yes then I can stop.  I've suggested to my DB that he use the "proper" portion for food and after he's done waiting a half-hour.  If he's still hungry I told him to then go and get something else. 

Good luck on your journey.

Melinda

Hey Jessmom!  Welcome!!!

I know I have so been where you are! I can second what Big City said...cut out all grains for a while, even three days and eat all the meat, dressings, veggies that you want. I don't really know why, but Drs Peeke and Northrup both say that many older women (you are NOT as old as me, by any means but maybe your body is starting early!) just cannot efficiently process grains any longer. My body started in in my late 30's! I am 52 now.

I can eat some, but not much. I try to stick to 1-3 servings - by that I mean 15g each serving. Keep in mind most slices of bread at the store are more like 2.5 servings - ONE slice.

I have been able to pack away a hideous amount of food at times in my life, too.  No more, but now I need so little food it is scary. It is EASY to over eat when you only need about 1600 cals daily. To lose, i should eat 1200-1400. Not easy...i can do alright for a short time, but over time, the calories begin to creep up.

I just got off phendimetrazine - the kissin cuz of phentermine. I miss it, i really did have good hunger fighting effects from it. But it was not really helping *that much* me any longer, i have to admit. I'm at a place where I would have to take more dosage and I really do not want to do that.

Anyway...welcome!!!!

ETA:  I also agree with making yourself WAIT after eating.  I have known for a long time that I have abroken "appetstat" - it takes a while to register for me. I plate up one plate and walk away, telling myself if I really want more food in 30 minutes, i will eat soemthing. But not before that time period is up. Many times, I am fine - even feel too full after waiting.

You may want to try a gluten-free diet for a while and see what happens.  I have been amazed at our family's results over the past 10 months.  Best of all, it doesn't "feel" like a diet at all!  Some people who have excess weight have Celiac Disease and don't know it.  There is a blood test that can be run, but if you don't have any other health issues, it is possible that you are just gluten sensitive.

The reality is that SO many more people are Gluten-Sensitive than have actual CD, but a person has to have a CD screen run first to determine if they do, indeed, have it.  Only 3% of people who have CD actually know that they have it, yet almost 1% of the general population is believed to have it.  That's a LOT of undiagnosed Celiacs!

If you go to www.celiac.com , there is a link there which lists all of the health conditions which are known and suspected to be associated with untreated Celiac Disease.  If you have 2 or more of those conditions, you are more likely to have CD.  Many people have their blood tests come back negative for CD, yet they still have problems, so they try a Gluten-Free diet.  If their symptoms clear up, they can safely assume that they are gluten sensitive.

The best thing about the GF diet is that we have been able to eat ALL of the foods that we love - REAL ranch dressing, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, and cheese, Snickers bars, ice cream, chicken-fried steak with gravy, etc. - the only difference is that the flours that we use when cooking are gluten free (you can find these in many different stores or online).  We have been eating "full" fat foods (real butter, sour cream, cheese, etc.) and have actually lost weight and seen our bloodwork numbers come down significantly.  My doctor (PCP) was skeptical, but the results don't lie, and now she is looking into the GF lifestyle as "the way to go" for all of her patients!

I don't know where you live, but chances are that you have a Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG) chapter nearby.  They can be a wonderful source of information, and most GIG's offer a Restaurant Guide that tells you what is "safe" at various restaurants.  Now, be aware that if you want to have the same results as we have, you CANNOT eat any gluten whatsoever - there is no such thing as "gluten lite"......

My suggestion would be to request your doctor to run a Celiac Screen for you, and then do a "trial" GF diet.  You will want to do it for at least a couple of weeks, preferably for a month.  Don't be discouraged if your weight "yo-yos", because what will be happening is that your body will be converting fat cells into muscle, and muscle mass weighs more.  The weight loss will be slow, but it will be steady over time.  I have "lost" 5 pounds, then "regained" it over and over due to this process, but the net result has been a 37 pound loss over a period of 10 months.  I would probably have lost more, but I like to drink Cokes, and I don't like to exercise.......

My husband told me that if I DID quit the Cokes and started exercising, I could probably lose weight faster, but I told him that I am "conducting a scientific experiment", and I can only have one variable.  Nobody believes me when I tell them that I am losing weight simply by eliminating gluten, so I am going to see how far this takes me.  So far, so good!  I am confident that I will be able to lose most, if not all, of my excess weight - it may take 3 or 4 years (maybe 5 or 6), but I figure it took me a while to put it on, so I can be patient.

Also, my skin isn't sagging like you see in so many people who lose weight so quickly on WLS.  Since I am eating so much dietary fat, my skin is actually kind of glowing now, and my face is nice and soft.  Plus, some of the complications that I have read about several years after surgery sound EXACTLY like the conditions that are seen in people with untreated CD - it can't be a coincidence that both situations involve malabsorption.  The main difference is that one of them (CD) is very treatable.  Even with a reversal, someone who has had WLS will NEVER get all of their intestinal tract back, so there will always be some form of malabsorption - not something I want to do at all......

One other website that you may want to check out is www.junkfoodscience.com - a whole lot of food myths are debunked there, including the one about dietary fat causing heart disease.  There are LOTS of interesting articles on that site that you may find very interesting; I know I did!

Good luck, and please keep me updated!  I am always available to answer questions.  PM me, and I will send you my contact information -

Teresa Koch
Fort Worth, Texas 

(Incidentally, I weighed 275 pounds in May, 2008, and today I weigh 237 pounds!   Yes, the weight loss is slow, but it is steady, and I know that it is going to STAY off )