55yo woman weighing 280 lbs page 2

[givenup]

Thanks for the encouragement ladies!!

[givenup]

I have heard a lot about how great kettlebells are, but I am a medical transcriptionist and developed cubital tunnel syndrome after 20 plus years of work. Had the surgery which helped for a while, but now the pain is the same as before surgery and I just have to live with it. I don't think I could do that lifting with this bad arm. Getting ready to go for a walk and it's as hot as heck here right now!!!!

[HTownGirl]

Yes you can! However, don't be looking for a miracle fix. I'm 52 and have been on PB for 4 months now, and have only lost about half a size in the waist. However, the rest of me seems to be getting lean. Unfortunately, it makes my belly look larger (i can see it getting smaller though--the middle age gut is quite resistant), but I'm in it for the health as much as weight loss. Both of my parents, and my grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family have been diagnosed with Diabetes II right around the age of 60 (some later, some earlier). Not to mention the heart disease that runs rampant. They are all on all kinds of medications and I don't won't to be in that situation.

The most attractive thing about PB for me is the health benefits. It's not a quick fix diet, but it is a lifestyle. If you look at it as a "diet", I will say it's the easiest "diet" I've ever been on. Hard to explain, but it just feels "right". And there are side benefits like glowing skin, less allergies, strong nails, healthy hair and a general feeling of well being. And even though I don't look much different in my eyes (clothes aren't as loose as I'd like them either), I have lately been receiving compliments along the lines of "You look fantastic", "your skin is gorgeous--are you really 52?" and the most recent, "Your body is totally being reshaped."

Good luck, and you've got a great support system here. I predict you will change your profile name in a couple of months. Obviously, you haven't given up or you wouldn't be here. :-)

[piano-doctor-lady]

Givenup, I'm 65 and until a couple of months ago I was coasting just over 280. Now I'm gradually moving down to 270, and hope to get under 250 in the next few months.

I've had more than my share of unsuccessful diets which left me more crippled than I started (bad knees, fibro). I now follow a few principles which might or might not be of any use to you, but here they are.

1. It's much better not to have a deadline, since a deadline makes you try to lose quickly. "Working hard" at dieting usually led me to lose the wrong kind of weight, and I was more likely to crash and regain. "Gluconeogenesis" in a low-carb diet is your enemy. You can be eating almost all protein and low-carb veggies and even a reasonable amount of healthy fat and almost no fruit, and still be a "sugar-burner" with high blood glucose from gluconeogenesis. There are various ploys to get around this.

2. As you get older, "reducing" becomes harder and harder and it's more and more important to do it well and especially slowly, so that you lose belly fat and not lean mass like bone and organ and muscle and especially (for me) cartilage. Exercise is so important, but you need to introduce it carefully at the amount you can tolerate, or the cortisol goes up and you hold onto fat like a starving person.

3. If you visit Byron Richards' site, you'll find a series of articles written for a weight loss challenge he offered a few months ago. It talks about the importance of intestinal flora, and how having the wrong flora will totally screw you when trying to lose weight. There are "germ gangs" down there which can get together and tap right into your appetite and eating signaling (in the hippocampus, leptin and all that good stuff) and totally unmake your day. Anything you can do to improve flora is worth doing. One article was interesting recently: he found a study of studies, which followed a lot of people for a long time, figuring out what kinds of food led to weight loss or weight gain. Potatoes were the worst (if I remember right) even worse than sodas, and while potato chips or fries were really bad, even the "healthy" ways of cooking them were not much better. The best, oddly enough, was yogurt, plain yogurt, which also speaks to the importance of flora. Whole fat dairy caused no more weight gain than low fat dairy.

4. There are a bunch of "nutraceuticals" like L-Acetyl-Carnitine, which help move energy into cells so it can be burned off, and they can help when you're stuck deep in metabolic syndrome and can't seem to work your way out. Once energy is moving through your body in the desired way instead of getting stuck, it is possible to cut back on these helpers. Once again, Byron Richards talks well about this. The only thing I totally disagree with him about is his dislike of saturated fat ... and I also look carefully at advice from people who also sell products, but some of his seem okay, like his "iosal iodine". I tried his "thyroid helper", though, and got palpitations, so I stopped taking it.

5. If you tolerate it well, you might try my iodine routine: I take one drop of iosal iodine in water each morning. I seem to get more done in my day if I keep this habit going. If you have other thyroid issues, like Hashimoto's, you'll have to be careful about this, of course.

6. I like to garden, and if I do just what I can, and then when I feel tired or achy, I do just five minutes more and then take a break, I seem to get away with it. Things get done, I'm outside, I'm not just sitting around. I think that for pain in the body like arthritis and fibromyalgia, movement is all-important.

7. You might enjoy reading "The Shangri-La Diet" by Seth Roberts. I'm exploring his very interesting ideas about managing the intensity of tastes and how they get attached to different foods. I've tried working some relatively tasteless but nutritious foods into my diet, away from tasty meals, and they do seem to ease my appetite. Even when I'm officially "hungry" eating just doesn't seem to matter that much, like it did before. So far I've tried l-glutamine powder in water in the early morning, light olive oil in between meals in the middle of the day, and just recently I opened a can of salmon, meaning to take a few bites in place of breakfast, which I didn't have time to cook. I found out that particular can (with skin and bones included, I like it that way) had almost no salt, and it tasted sort of blah, while being very nutritious. That's what I'm looking for in exploring Seth Roberts' ideas, blah but nutritious. I probably will start buying salt-free canned fish from the health food coop. He theorizes that Pavlovian conditioning combining YUMMY taste with rich calorie and nutrient content overcomes the set point and increases appetite, all a relic of our Ice Age past when starvation was a major danger for human beings. So Seth wants to include nutrients which have very little taste. I just ordered Byron Richards' unflavored whey protein, to see if I can use that. When I eat the 'tasteless' foods, I try to be sure I'm reasonably hungry at the time. This is still experimental, but I have lost nine pounds in six weeks, which is WAY better than usual for me! So I'm encouraged. I'm combining Primal with this approach; they are fairly compatible so long as one doesn't try Seth's first tasteless food, which was unflavored table sugar in water.

Tangentrider, I'll check out "intu-flow". It looks neat, even though I usually like gardening as exercise over routines.

Atkins left me so exhausted that it felt like my tongue was dragging in the dust. And a low-carb low-calorie diet inflicted on me by a (stupid) Naturopath led directly to hobbling around with ruined knees, which are very slowly healing up.

[piano-doctor-lady]

Givenup -- I remember my time in Stockton, California and also in Austin, Texas. When it was hot as hades out there, I'd take my walks in the early, early morning, before the sun came up. (I tried the parcourse back then, at least as much of it as I could manage, I'd skip some hard steps I couldn't do.) Then I'd stay in the nice somewhat air-conditioned rooms during the hot part of the day.

[namelesswonder]

I started with walking 20 minutes on my lunch and riding a recumbent exercise bicycle for 20 minutes while I watched tv in the evening. Along with that, I did some wall pushups, some step ups/downs on my basement stairs, and since I didn't have a kettle bell, I did some laundry detergent bottle swings. One day I was out thrifting and found a set of 2.5/5/10 lb dumbbells for $15 so I bought those and do a little variety of upper body work.

What a great idea with the laundry detergent bottle! All you have to do is wash more clothes (and those sheets/curtains/towels you've forgotten about...) if it's too heavy for you :-P

[belinda]

What a great idea with the laundry detergent bottle! All you have to do is wash more clothes (and those sheets/curtains/towels you've forgotten about...) if it's too heavy for you :-P

Just go to the grocery store and lift a few bottles until you find ones that feel about right. Hopefully they'll be on sale. Don't use them for doing laundry until you're ready to graduate to heavier bottles An added bonus is that if you drop one on your foot (or hit yourself in the head, ahem) it probably doesn't hurt as much as a steel kettlebell would.

[HillsideGina]

Givenup, you are choosing to be negative - couldn't stay Atkins, can't sprint, too hot, wrist hurts - even your user name that you chose is negative. First and foremost you have to change that way of thinking. That's the hardest part. Make yourself think in terms of positives - I CAN do this, I CAN do that, I WILL do it, etc. No amount of advice from us will work unless you truly embrace the changes necessary to make yourself healthy.

So the first choice you make can be either "Hell Yeah! I am going to do these things!" or "Screw you and screw this, no way can I do this!"

I hope you choose the first, and toss the negatives in your mind to the curb! Go for it!

[givenup]

Thanks so much, HTownGirl! Your comments helped a lot. I have walked for 15 to 20 minutes the past two days and am sticking to the way of eating so I am headed in the right direction! Thanks!!!

[givenup]

Ouch! That hurt! I will develop a better attitude! Thanks!