On Being Fat

[DharmaGirl]

Being thin isn't everything.

I normally wouldn't worry about the weight loss, since I was slowly losing because I didn't eat processed foods or GMOs. I'm an organic gardener, raise chickens for eggs and bake my own low carb bread. I just have to lose to get the surgery on my back.

 

[Deleted member 541]

@DharmaGirl Can I ask what type of back surgery you are having? I was just diagnosed with degenerative disc and facet disease, 2 bulging disc, bone spurs and I'm bone on bone in L4 L5. Pretty much the same in my neck too. I feel so wonderful!!! Where is that sarcasm emoji??????

 

[Deadman]

Actually, we are talking about working on issues that keep us fat, not food consumption, but thank you for your input.

Well thats a polite way of telling me where to go.

 

[Kate Van Sant]

I gained 80 pounds in one year on Depakote. I've taken off 50 so have 30 to go. I eat one very well balanced meal a day, but I drink a lot during the day--water, iced coffee with 1/2 and 1/2 and the only sugar I take in besides Coca-Cola, lots of V8 juice, sometimes seltzer with maraschino cherries. I'm off Depakote now but am on escitalopram and lamotrigine, with a high dose of Seroquel at bedtime so I can sleep. Small doses of hydroxizine and Xanax when I feel on the edge of a panic attack. No problems with appetite with this cocktail. And I was widowed just three months ago, and only allow myself a Ben & Jerry's once a week. So I'm sayin' I spent 20 years being overweight by a lot, and it's gradually coming off. And I'm 63 so have gone through menopause, which is supposed to make it more difficult. So hang in there, try different, healthy ways of eating not so much, exercising doesn't mean crap (I don't do anything that makes me perspire), and eventually you will find a regimen that works. Good luck!

Forgot to mention that my lumber vertebrae 4 and 5 are in terrible shape as a result of a bad fall, so it takes me an entire week to sweep my house, and two days for my Rottweilers to mess it up.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

I can relate to most everything said here in this topic. Though my obesity is not caused by overeating.

I'm morbidly obese and had lost 75 pounds and dropped 5 dress sizes starting in 2006 by cleaning up my diet, cycling 24mph for 20 minutes three times a week, and doing strength training three days a week.

Everything went great until my hypothyroidism (began in 2003) took nose dive, and I developed two different conditions caused by under medicating for the disease. I had a dumb doctor at the time who didn't know what she was doing. It was the last straw though and I finally had to see a specialist in Endocrinology because of the severity of those two conditions.

I was still doing good on and off for the next couple of years until I hit my 60s and then got smacked with loads of allergic reactions to foods. I had the allergies to some of these since I was 10 years old. I never addressed them because my mother, a narcissist, insisted I eat those foods anyhow. As a child I never had a weight problem because I was physically active; swimming, bicycling, walking, roller skating, hula hooping daily. And I was a super picky, slow eater. My Nmother constantly hounded me to eat faster because everyone was waiting for me.

I'm allergic to over 40 foods mostly related to or distant cousins of the Parsley Family group of foods which includes spices and/or food used for spicing dishes. Not so lovely. It took all of summer 2016 to discover most of my allergies. I spent weeks riding the porcelain bus sometimes through the night.:yuck: I've discovered a few more this year. Every time I eat an offending food, which I didn't know about, it throws off my eating and I swell up all over the place and get sick. It's no fun. And exercise... forget it.

And this year, my one knee started bothering me so much I had to stop cycling. That sucked big time because I loved cycling. I had this small indoor cycle where I could sit in a regular chair. It worked great. I've searched high and wide for some form of exercise to replace it. My choice is going to be hula hooping. I used to love it as a child and young adult.

Three times a week is my goal for cardio with the hula hoop and cleaning my home. And three times a week I do strength training. Though it's been hard keeping up with the strength training when the allergies occur.

The odd thing about allergies is they cause similar symptoms as PTSD. I get heart palpitations, anxiety, irritability, fatigue, and more. Never thought food allergies caused symptoms like these.

The good news is my hypothyroidism has been stabilized since late 2015. From what I've read it's impossible to lose weight if your thyroid isn't working correctly. In 2015, I made the decision to not get flu shots any more because they caused my thyroid gland to become inflamed and that in turn destabilized my hypothyroidism. I suffered through 11 bouts of sub-acute thyroiditis, inflammation of the thyroid, caused by getting the flu shot since 2003.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Well thats a polite way of telling me where to go.

No, I didn't mean it that way at all. I was hoping to keep the thread on the thought of the barriers, not what to eat. I'm sorry if it looked like that. In your previous post you had talked about your fat as armor, and I was hoping to keep on that track. Again, I apologize for making you feel like that.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Can I ask what type of back surgery you are having?

I have stenosis all through my spine, degenerative disk disease,degenerative joint disease, facet arthritis, vertebral arthritis, bulging disks throughout my C-spine and L-spine, and some in my T-spine, Spondylolethesis, (however you spell it, it is an impressive word for a simple thing) which is when one vertebrata slips off another, in L1-2, L2-3, and L4-5. They will either fuse it or put a cage around it to keep it from slipping more so I don't get paralyzed. The slippage causes the spinal cord to be squished, to use a "technical" term. I'm in pain always, but I do have pain meds. They don't get rid of the pain, they just help you focus on something else if you know what I mean. Medical marijuana works somewhat too, but if I use that, I eat more. I don't even really want the surgery, but the less load on my spine, the better.

I think I will just continue to eat whole foods and ignore sugar and processed stuff, and try to exercise when I can. My right leg has started to buckle for no apparent reason, so I'll have to use my cane. I will get out my list of comfort activities, and post it on the fridge, so I can decide if I need food or comfort. I will also do a mantra on being safe. Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[Deleted member 8714]

If you add strength training to your exercise program that will help you lose weight more than cardio. It builds muscle and muscle burns calories. My goal is three times a week, but right now I'm only getting in twice a week. I've read that it's more important to strength train than to do cardio if you trying to lose weight.

 

[FireSign8]

If a person can cut out all processed foods from their diets, I guarantee they can & will lose weight.
I did this & lost almost 40 pounds by just eating. No special diet or measuring or anything other than cutting out all of the suggested food the doctors were telling me to eat for this "heart healthy" crap. They were killing me with low fat stuff & egg whites & grains/fiber & beans in place of meat. I was getting fatter & sicker every year. I went to a size 24. A size 3X was getting tight & I could not walk, let alone exercise.

So I gave up reading those packages & trying to figure out the ratios of fat to protein & sodium content & just stopped using all substances that did not come with the product. I learned to eat plain food without condiments, salt, or anything else added into them. I learned to like the taste of lemon or lime freshly squeezed over a piece of chicken or whatever veggie I was eating that day. When I eat meat, I always eat an equal amount of a green leafy vegetable with it & this will move it out of your intestines, rather than allow the fats in the meat to sit in your gut & clog up your colon.

Stop using butter & margarine & never use grapeseed oil. It will mess up your system for years. Switch to a good California Olive Oil or a Coconut oil when cooking or making a salad dressing. Stop using peanut butter. Peanuts are legumes & they are toxic. Switch to a real nut butter. Raw & without added salt or sugar or oils. Palm oil is BAD. Raw Almond or Cashew butter are a far better replacement food. Here's the kicker...

When I stopped consuming all bread products, I suddenly had no use for the tons of peanut butter & jars of jam I was using on my morning toast! I now realize just how addicted I was to all of the toxins of the poorly stored wheat products, yeasts, & endless additives & preservatives designed to keep food on my pantry shelf for months at a time. I was being a "prepared consumer" & stocking my pantry for the upcoming days of whatever emergency was about to take place. Yikes! I feel stupid now.

We are all hopelessly addicted to food & the food industry has teamed up with the marketing agencies in efforts to take our every last penny with coupons & sales & when we finally realize what all of that food is doing to us, we are no longer helpless consumers, but we are POWERFUL PEOPLE, who can learn to control our lives without intervention from outside sources.

Our ancestors had to learn to survive on grains. We do not. As soon as people wake up and realize that the grain should be left for the animals, they will come to realize they have been lied to by well meaning (yet misinformed) doctors & others who push us to consume toxic foods on a daily basis, gain weight, get sick & are suddenly forced into a new diet in order to see if we can all fit into that ONE SIZE FITS ALL MOLD.

I could go on, but I won't rant on about it. I just know I tried everything & nothing worked other than drugs & the 100 pounds came back & now I'm trying real food that has no additives & I have lost 40 pounds in the first 3 months & kept it off for over a year! I cannot exercise due to having bad knees. A walk with the dog around the block does me in. Surgery is my next option if I choose it. No shame in being fat. We gotta learn to love our jelly rolls & laugh about out double chins & flabby arms. So hang in there & just be good to yourself & see if the weight starts to fall off when you cut out toxic foods & replace them with real food!:hug:

 

[Friday]

If a person can cut out all processed foods from their diets, I guarantee they can & will lose weight.

Nope.

That works for some people. Not others.

People's physiology, metabolism, medical needs, etc. are all different.

Some people's bodies respond really well to changes in diet.
Some people's bodies respond really well to changes in activity.
Some people's bodies respond badly to changes in diet.
Some people's bodies respond badly to changes in activity.
And a whole lot of in between.
There's no one-right-way for everyone.

 

[Friday]

<grin> Thought about ETA'ing this, but as it's long?

Just as an example, before my starvation stuff, my body was pretty much completely non-responsive to my diet. Eat as much or as little, of whatever whenever, and no change. Exercise, on the other hand it was extremely responsive to. If I was exercising I was slim & lithe. If I wasn't I was fat. It was very straightforward.

After a few years of starvation? It's now a 2 part process, as a baseline. I have to increase my consumption (both content & frequency) AND decrease my activity (but still keep it present) to make sure that I'm not burning more calories than I'm consuming (eat more, exercise less) in order to either lose weight, or remain slim & muscled. My physiology is extremely responsive to any perceived threat. So I have to be really gentle with it. There's more to it than eat more / exercise less, (like I have a very high need for simple sugars for my chronic pain; and overall the more processed, the better as having to expend a lot of energy digesting is one of the things that my body perceives as a threat) but eat more / exercise less is the foundation of it.

LOL. I worked with a nutritionist for awhile who specialized in victims of starvation who prescribed me 1 happy meal from McDonalds (or the equivalent) per day :wtf:, in addition to my regular diet. I thought she was nuts. Gained roughly 10 pounds the first month, lost 15-20 pounds a month for the next 6! Yup. That works. Okay. ((And that's become one of my standbys; any time I'm looking to lose weight? I start eating fast food every day to ease my body into feeling safe enough to do so.))

@DharmaGirl ... That just reminded me (the fast food thing & my body feeling safe enough to lose weight); As a nurse you know Dieting is medical stress, just like insomnia, injury, etc. I hadn't ever really thought of that in relation to PTSD / StressCup stuff, but it makes sense, doesn't it? That in addition to all the psych aspects of feeling safe enough to lose weight, that there's not only the physical component, but also the StressCup component? That if our stress is rising past tolerable limits & we're kicking into survival mode our metabolisms may also be kicking into starvation mode in reaction to the increased stress if there's no outlet to lower stress? So there's Psych (mental/emotional), Physical, AND StressCup combo of mental/emotional/physical? :wtf: Blargh. No wonder this shit is hard. I mean, I already knew it was hard, but FFS. Talk about interdependent systems domino'ing off each other!

 

[Deleted member 8714]

FireSign8,
Unfortunately that doesn't work for me.

I can't stand the look and smell of meat. Sometimes I barely have the where with all to feed it to my dog who's on a raw diet because touching it even bothers me. Ever since I remembered how my father butchered children and then fed them to fish and sharks and crabs for bait, I stopped eating beef and chicken. So now I have to rely on a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet with occasional fish.

So one size definitely doesn't fit all.