A WAKE-UP CALL......
on 9/11/09 10:19 pm - Rochester, NY
My 59 year old brother (I'm almost 63) had a stroke Thursday. Thank heavens it was a very slight one and the symptoms have mostly resolved on their own, but the fact is he had a stroke. Now you have to understand....my brother is about 6'1" and is very concious of his health. He takes no medications (or at least he didn't prior to this), very concious of eating a healthy diet and exercises regularly. He has never had a weight problem (other than maybe wanting to lose 10lb once a year or so after the holidays...and immediately changes his habits and does so). It really knocked the wind out of my sails....I'm the prime candidate for a stroke in this family. I'm almost having "survivor's guilt". They did a CT scan, MRI and echocardiogram, but found no evidence of a bleed or clot. It was surely some kind of blood clot which must have passed or dissolved on its own. They did keep him overnight in the hospital and sent him home on an aspirin/day, BP medication and cholesterol medication. His cholesterol was 190, which is acceptable in a person who hasn't had a stroke, but considered dangerously high in one who has. He was alone at the time it happened and experienced numbness on the entire left side of his body from his eye to his toes....very scary.
OK...so my diet has just been horrendous all summer long. I have been eating all the wrong things, maintaining around 280 (which is 10-20lb more than I was last summer) and just can't seem to get a handle on it. I have not been attending the Y for my water aerobics all summer either. Am I waiting for something like this to happen to me before I can do something about it? Is my addiction to food such that I'd rather choose a brownie or a cheeseburger over living an additional 10-20 years? How sick is that? Why does food have this power over me and why am I so unbearably out of control when it comes to my eating?
This is certainly a wake-up call and I am praying with all my might for the good Lord to help me turn the corner now before it's too late.
on 9/12/09 2:59 am
How you've eaten in the past is in the past, now is the time to make the change. I've been making a lot of changes in my food choices and have noticed some very interesting things. Now if I overeat I have such a stomach ache all evening and sometimes at night that I never over eat anymore - I never felt that way before and it's new and strange for me. I don't crave foods and I'm finding that I'm not eating mindlessly or out of control. I never would have believed I would change like this and I'm not sure why it's happening except it has to be from my food choices since I didn't have WLS. I wish I knew what exactly was causing these positive benefits because then I could tell you how to achieve them too. It might just be because I don't eat any refined food at all. I hope that you can find your way onto the wagon.
If I can help you in any way, just PM me.
Skylar
on 9/12/09 7:05 am - Rochester, NY
Awwe Sherrie, I am so sorry to hear about your brother but thank God he is in such good shape that he was able to handle it without a lot of damage. Sounds like God's way of trying to tell you something.
You're right, choosing to eat a brownie or a cheeseburger over living an additional 10-20 years IS sick. But in your defense, food is your addiction and there is a chemical process that your brain goes through each time you have a refined carb, the same way that a junky depends on his high from the chemicals in cocaine. So you eat the brownie and your body releases insulin to process the brownie. Your body didn't sense any nutrition so it releases MORE insulin to get some energy into your cells...still nothing. So your cells go into starving mode and they tell your brain to send more food because you are exhausted. Meantime, your cells have kicked the insulin into the fat bin cuz excess insulin turns to fat. The longer you let this happen, the more insulin resistant you become and the harder it is to get nutrition for your cells and the harder it becomes to lose weight. So you see, this process begets excess weight and the only way to stop it is to stop the refined carbs. Hard to do though when you are addicted to them.
So what are you getting from that brownie emotionally? Everyone is familiar with comfort foods and brownies are pretty darn high on the list! What I personally found that helped me was to find comfort in other things beside food...stay with me cuz this takes SERIOUS PRACTICE. First thing I did was find a low carb diet that had a list of foods I could eat. That took care of cravings because if it wasn't on the list, fugettaboutit, I wasn't going to eat it, I wasn't going to buy it at the grocery store, and I wasn't going to mindlessly put it in my mouth. I did however, use that list to come up with some good eatin' that I would allow...I think being able to cook foods that you really like is KEY to long term weight loss. I learned to visualize myself thin. "If you can see it, you can achieve it!" I never used to believe that crap about you have to love yourself to lose weight cuz it that were true, I was screwed...I hated myself. The good thing about closing my eyes and seeing myself thin in my mind's eye was that I was able to learn to love the thinner me who wasn't the fat chick in the mirror. By spending some time meditating on who she was if I would allow her to exist, I was able to love her enough to do the hard things that it would take for me to be her. I replaced being comforted by food with comforting myself. If I could just ride it out and not have that brownie I'd be one day closer to being the woman I liked who was trapped inside of the body that I had abused with trash food for so long.
I've said it before, the universe abhors a vacuum, so you need to replace what you are getting emotionally from food with something else. For me, it was investing my emotions in loving Mary. Once I turned my feelings to doing right by her, brownies were no longer my friend. They became the enemy that got me fat in the first place, which is how they were meant to be thought of all along, I just didn't realize it cuz they are devious little brown boogers!
My prayer for you is that you learn to love Sherrie enough to set her free from the big girl who is holding her hostage in an unhealthy body. She's a pretty cool gal who needs to be free to "live" the rest of her life in good health!
Mary
on 9/13/09 9:38 pm - Rochester, NY
I would like to be able to eat all things in moderation, restrict my calories and go from there. I know what works best for me in the past was a total restriction from white flour and sugar, but don't believe that's realistic for me long term. Guess I keep vacillating between the two and end up going nowhere. I think I definitely have to restrict the refined carbs initially anyway to get rid of the cravings. I also need to increase my exercise and that's really where the "loving Sherrie" comes in big time. I have spent the last 52 years (was put on my first diet at age 11) fighting this battle and don't want to die while still in the struggle.
I just need to start SOMEWHERE and build on it day by day.
Dieting by eating everything in moderation is not for the insulin resistant person. Eating alla that processed food will only lead to diabetes and more weight gain. Please don't spend the rest of your life trying to make a decision about which plan to go with...your body has already made that decision for you.
Now you know I only said that cuz I want the best for your body...tough love over.
Mary
on 9/14/09 10:24 pm - Rochester, NY
Thanks for the tough love...
Dear Sherrie:
I am a food addict/compulsive overeater myself. My recommendation is that you look for Overeaters Anonymous meetings (go on www.oa.org) and start learning about your affliction and what to do about it as soon as possible. This is a dangerous health problem, and I've found an answer for myself.
Since the time I was around 8 years old I've had the compulsive overeating obsession, never feeling like I got enough food and bingeing, as well. I went to OA off and on, but only recently (I'm 57 years old now) have I found my answer. I went to a group within OA called Back to Basics, where I worked the 12 Steps as found in Alcoholics Anonymous within 5 weeks. Once I'd worked the 5th step (giving away your personal inventory to another person), the eating obsession was gone! All the feelings that had been covered up by the excess food came up, and I prayed to my Higher Power to remove them - fear, worry, & anxiety, and He did! This is known in the OA program as a spiritual awakening. Now, I stick to my food plan perfectly every day, and feel no more compulsion to overeat. I know turning to a Higher Power (or God, if you will) sounds like a strange way to deal with your compulsive overeating/food addiction, but it's worked for alot of people, just like it did for the alcoholics who started AA back in the 1930s.
Good luck to you, whichever path you choose.
Denise Phares/highpow
