Category Archives: Health & Weight Loss

I continue to be sick.  Friday will be 3 weeks now.  I’ve been to the doctor; at this point its just a matter of waiting out this bout.  But it sure feels like it will never end.  Afterwards, I have to see an ear nose and throat guy.  I’ve now been advised by multiple physicians that my tonsils need to come out.  They apparently have “pockets” on them which are hanging onto germs and whatnot, which is probably why I’ve had 8893849242 bouts of sore throat, strep, tonsilitis ad nauseum this past year+.

Getting tonsils out at my ripe old age of 38 is not the walk in the park that it would be for a six year old apparently.  In fact while a child bounces back in a few days, for an adult it can take several weeks.  I’m unthrilled at the prospect.  On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to go at least a few weeks at a time without throat pain, which right now seems impossible.

“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.” ~Albert Camus

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump, Health & Weight Loss

Here I am – again.  Over the past 7 years I’ve been using the internet to track my efforts at losing weight and regaining my health.  And I’m back to give it yet another go.  Like most people with a severe weight problem, I’ve tried almost anything and everything in my life.  In my teens and 20’s I lost weight with extreme and fad diets and they often worked, but of course it never lasted.  This journey has been about finding a healthy, sustainable way to live.  It has been far from easy.

Right now I weigh in at 285 pounds.  That’s a significant number to me, unfortunately.  I’ve managed to lose to this weight several times.  But every time I hit this point, my body just rebels.  Weeks go by, and no matter what I eat and don’t eat, no matter how much or little I exercise, no matter what tips I follow, what tricks I try, my body refuses to shed another pound.  When I stop working, the weight returns.  350 is where my body seems to want to rest.  Although I have seen higher numbers (close to 370 once), 350 is where I seem to stabalize, repeatedbly.  After hitting this “plateau” for the Nth time, my doctor urged me (and not for the first time) to consider weight loss surgery.

I’d been stubbornly opposed to the idea.  I wanted this to be a healthy, sustainable effort by ME.  Surgery seemed like cheating.  But it seemed clear by that point that my weight was affected by more than how much I ate or exercised.  What?  Well, that’s the lovely thing.  Doctors don’t really know.  They can say its “Syndrome X” or “Metabolic Syndrome”, but what it boils down to is that they recognize a collection of symptoms, but have no idea of the cause or any way to fix the problem.  My PCP and the surgeon urged me to reconsider, because aside from the obvious reduction in calories caused by surgery, the surgery also has an unknown factor, it works in a way they can’t explain, affecting brain and stomach chemistry, and they felt it was my best chance.

I eventually elected for lap-band surgery.  It’s far less extreme than the traditional gastric bypass.  In theory, its even reversable.  It doesn’t prevent you from absorbing calories like the bypass.  Nothing is removed; they simply place a belt around the initial bit of your stomach creating a tiny stomach with a tiny hole leading to the rest of the stomach.  So less food helps you feel fuller.  You don’t lose weight by the bucketful as with gastric bypass.  In fact, the standard 2 pounds a week rule still applies.  It just helps you control how much you put in your mouth.

Maybe I didn’t think it through well enough.  I mean eating well and exercising didn’t help me get past that mystical 285, so was feeling full on less really going to help?  Well, let me tell you what the surgery hasn’t done for me in the 16 months since I went under the knife.  It hasn’t suddenly made me skinny.  I got stuck at this exact same place about six months after the surgery.

But here is what it has done.  Before, when I hit this plateau (in all fairness, anything that lasts for months despite hitting the gym almost daily, including 3 times a week with a physical trainer, and barely being able to eat anything solid is more of a mountain chain of Everests than a plateau), I would work at it for a few more weeks or even a few months and eventually my inability to creep below 280, regardless of how I worked would wear me down.  I’d give up, and in the blink of an eye – almost literally, I think my record gain was 17 pounds in a week – all the weight would be back on.

But not this time.  I hit 285 and stayed there, and stayed there.  I had given up really trying.  I’m not exercising.  I’m not trying hard to eat the right foods.  I’m ignoring many of the rules of lap band surgery.  But I’ve maintained this weight for a year.

My body has had a year to acclimate to THIS as its “default” weight.  I’ve decided its time to stop fooling around, and get back to what I know I can do — eat well, exercise regularly and journal, and finally make progress once again. Read more about my exercise routine and what I use in the little home gym I made myself.

The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be. ~William James

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump, Health & Weight Loss