83 Pounds ~ The Great Weight Blog Entry, Volume 1

It seems wrong, somehow, to write up a post that talks about how much weight I've lost but not include pictures.  You have to understand, dear Reader, that everything is packed.  (Not that we're moving.  It's just that I don't have the heart to unpack.  Because we're not moving.  Because we can't sell the house.  And yes, my husband is still in Portland, Oregon.  And as of tomorrow he will have been gone A YEAR.) 

I can recall the existence of a few totally HIDEOUS pictures of me that were taken when I was 83 pounds heavier and I'll have to search for them.  Mostly, at that time, I threatened anyone and everyone with immediate death if they took pictures of me, so there really aren't but one or two shots of me from that time. 

In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it.   

I hesitate to give exact figures because... well... that's just difficult for me to do, but I don't mind giving BMI figures because that's less personal and, after all, it's not like I'm telling you my weight!   :)

When I was at my heaviest two years ago, my BMI was  32.7.

That's really pretty high.

(FYI -

Here's a really good site that discusses calorie usage, BMI and such.

Also here's another BMI related site.)

Anyhow, according to everything, a BMI of 32.7 is "obese."

At that weight, I was actually only about 16 pounds away from being "severely obese."

It showed not only on my frame, but also in my blood tests.  More on that in a second.

At this point, I'm at a BMI of 18.8.  One of those sites call this BMI "underweight" but it's not.  Other sites discuss how a BMI from 18.5 and up is normal.  But I'm not paying a whole lot of attention, because I was also trying to lose weight not just to get slimmer but also to normalize my abnormal blood test results.   The two goals are very separate. 

I'm in my early 30s, so to have abnormal blood tests (for which the Dr wanted to medicate me!) scared me half to death.  There are diabetes, cancer and heart disease in my family, so three years ago when my blood tests were:

2004 Blood Tests

Total Cholesterol:  206 (normal 100-199)
Triglycerides:  252 (normal 0-149)
HDL:  37 (normal 40-59)
LDL:  119 (normal 0-99)
Triglycerides / HDL:  6.8 (ratio should be less than 2)
HDL / total cholesterol:  .179 (normal should be greater than .24)

I was stunned. 

I had performed these blood tests courtesy of State Farm, who was trying to figure out whether or not I was going to die within the next 20 years, statistically speaking.  I had not anticipated such awful numbers. 

I trolled the internet looking for information and found out that I met 3 out of 5 of the "Metabolic Syndrome" indicators, which meant that I had "Metabolic Syndrome":

Metabolic Syndrome

1.)  A waist measurement of more than 35 inches for women (for men it's greater than 40) ~ check

2.)  Triglycerides greater than 150 (wow, did I ever meet THAT requirement in spades!)

3.)  HDL less than 40 (check!)

4.)   Blood pressure greater than 130/85 (mine was getting close)

5.)  Fasting blood sugar greater than 100 (thankfully, this was the only one where I was okay, since diabetes is incredibly strong in my family).

But I had three out of five of the indicators and I was a stone's throw away from having four.  I officially had Metabolic Syndrome, which meant that I was at an increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, which are both strong in my family's line.  At THIRTY!!!   Yikes!!

This was a severe wake up call... but I had no idea what to do about it.  To say that normal everyday doctors don't help you figure out how to really, truly handle these problems is an understatement.  They wanted to put me on cholesterol-lowering medication (the 29 year old P.A. that talked to me is on it herself and told me how it was "no big deal!") but these sorts of medications, of course, come with possible side-effects, get metabolized through the liver, etc., and I didn't want any part of it. 

But I was stuck, because the only diet in my life that had EVER worked for me was the Atkins diet.  Every time I had a baby, I had to use Atkins in order to come even remotely close to losing the extra pounds.  I would literally eat bacon and cream cheese, like a good little Atkins girl, because I had to do the "fat fast for the Fat Fast" since it was so dadgum hard to lose weight (if you've ever been a faithful Atkins diet book reader, you'll know what I'm talking about).  So I would dutifully nurse my block of cream cheese throughout the day, knowing that it was all I could do to lose the weight.  I look back on that now and just shudder. 

But you cannot nurse a block of cream cheese all day long if you have insanely high cholesterol.  Oh sure, I bought the garbage in the Atkins books about how eating bacon and cream cheese was actually good for your heart, but as I did research I found that all the other health studies showed that animal products are insanely bad for you -let alone bacon and cream cheese - and that vegetables and fruits are what are good for you.  But I was in despair, for how could I possibly ever lose weight on fruits and vegetables when everyone KNOWS that carbs are bad and make you gain weight? 

I had twelve years of Atkins dieting brain that I had to reprogram.  And it took a LOOOOOOOOONG time. 

I will say that the first 5 pounds was very easy to lose by doing not a whole lot.  I think I caught a cold and then a stomach flu or something from my kids and between those one day I stepped on the scale, noticed some pounds were missing, and felt a tiny sense of joy and hope.  It's absolutely amazing what a little weight loss feels like in the beginning, because when you think of how much you want to lose, the very idea of it was overwhelming.  At that point, I was 63 pounds heavier than I had been in high school and college and even when I was working at a career full time (it's so much easier to pile on the pounds as a stay-at-home-mom.  Life is so stressful and it's like- - I'll kill you if you come between me and that plate of cookies, I swear I will!)

So at that point, I just wanted to lose the 63 pounds that would get me back to what I considered normal.  Never, ever, in my wildest dreams did I think that I could make it... and if you'd told me that I could make it and surpass it I would have laughed out loud at you.  And then probably eaten a whole stack of Oreos out of despair.  (Which would bring up a whole 'nother thing about sugary food addictions, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.)

At that time, I was on the phone frequently with a dear, sweet soul that for some reason has stopped blogging.   She, also, was trying to stay away from sugar and eat well (though she didn't need to lose weight and has a totally darling figure) and she discussed with me different tactics she was using to increase her health.  She had a juicer and she juiced fresh vegetables and fruits, often in combination, and pointed me in the direction of some websites that discussed it.    

Since I was aiming for a total reversal of blood test problems AND weight loss, and since my dieting background (a la Atkins) was always extreme, I grasped onto juicing and held on tight.  I bought a juicer (thankfully, from Williams Sonoma so that when I hated the juicer because of a multitude of its juicer sins I was allowed to return it because Williams Sonoma is a totally awesome store and they stand behind their products) and dove right in. 

Success!  Well, and failure.  The success was that I started losing weight.  The failure was that I was ALWAYS HUNGRY.  Fresh juice, while really healthful and good for you, kept me from being voraciously starving for all of a half hour or so... and, of course, since I'm used to dieting extremes I had to go all out and pretty much "juice fast."  I'm sure that if you incorporate jucing into a wonderful diet regimen you would have a much easier time of it but, again, all I am is dieting extremes.

But I was losing weight!!  And it was much better to lose weight by juicing than it was to lose weight with a daily block of cream cheese.  So more success than failure, especially since "juice fasting" really helped me reset what I craved.  The juice helped me increase my tastes for fruits and vegetables, since those had never, ever been anything I cared about in the past.  And now, all of a sudden I was juicing produce I'd never even heard of, let alone eaten before! 

I was doing all of my shopping in the produce section of the grocery store- and I usually just walked on past that stuff.  So the juicing part of my diet journey really did help set the stage for where I ended up, because if I hadn't begun juicing I never would have ended up losing weight the way I have been for a year.  Juicing helped me begin to break some of my food addictions (bread/sugar/chocolate) and gave me a framework to keep looking for a healthful diet that I could lose weight on.  Prior to juicing and Jeni, I had no hope. 

Tune in next time, when I go from juicing to what I'm doing now!  :) 

Hints:

Eat to Live by Joel Furhman

Disease Proof - the Eat to Live Website

The World's Healthiest Foods

Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition - or CRON for short - which teaches you how to eat what you need to eat and why

_____________________________________________________

Oh, and for those who may read this who are at the beginning of their weight loss journey, I wanted to include the following:

I think it's pretty notable that, even after losing 83 pounds, I can see a difference in myself but, to me, it's not that much.  I will not say that I still think I am fat, for I do not think that I am still "fat" or "overweight."  I'm not quite sure what I thought I'd look like after losing a lot of weight, but I think that, even when we lose weight, our inherent bodily flaws are still there.

After the weight loss, I still have the flabby kangaroo extra-skin pouch and the stretch mark remains on my tummy.  That's always the part that I've hated.  I've given birth to six children and one set was triplets who were polyhydramnios (way too much extra fluid - and just in case you're new to my blog, they didn't survive for long after birth) and so my entire abdominal area took a SEVERE beating.  From the emergency c section (hip to hip, that was closed with SIX STAPLES) to the total trashing of my stomach muscles and skin, I suppose I figured that losing weight would help make that area less... I don't know... gross and scary.  It has not worked out that way. 

So the lesson I've learned that I would like to try to pass on-- inherent bodily flaws are STILL THERE for me, even after profound weight loss.

Comments

[Jeni]

Baa, humbug. I'll get back to blogging eventually. And guess what?! I'm beginning to eat healthy again, too. Not today, unless Creme'Brulee and chocolate chips are healthy, but I'm getting there, and I'm anxious to hear the rest of your story and see you--forget pictures, when are you coming up? :)

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