This is the story of my last chance journey to good health. I have no idea if this will be of interest to anyone - even me! - but I do know that I would like to have found such a blog as I've been searching for an answer to my problems. I am a happy 64-year-old woman who has much to be thankful for - a wonderful husband, no money worries, stimulating friends and interests, a comfortable home. But I've fought obesity since I was a baby and obesity has won over and over again. I've had brief success with Weight Watchers in my 20s and with South Beach in recent years. But mostly I've been obese, and I have a huge number of health problems - many of which could be eliminated or reduced in seriousness with the loss of 100 or so pounds.
South Beach is a wonderful program, and I lost 85 pounds on it a few years ago. I wasn't hungry, my health improved immediately, can't say enough nice things about it. But I am an extremely efficient body and very slow loser - it took over 3 years to lose that amount of weight, and it was easy to start putting it on again with increasing health problems. I will say that many of my South Beach friends do manage to keep some or even most of the weight lost off, and even I am not quite up to my original high weight.
But what has happened is the health problems have overwhelmed me, mainly the addition a year ago of gastroparesis. When I eat healthily - fiber, veggies, good fats, low glycemic carbs - I am nauseous most of the time. The doctor put me on a gastroparesis diet, which is everything you shouldn't eat to lose weight and as a diabetic (which I am): sugar, starch, mostly liquids. Thus far I have been able to eat most anything liquid if low in fiber, limited amounts of white bread, rice, and pasta, cheese, peanut butter, and tomato sauce. I would have eaten little of these things on South Beach, and as soon as I started eating them I started gaining weight. Now I am back up within 25 pounds of my highest weight and scared to death.
To get this out of the way, here are all the things wrong with me: diabetes (insulin-dependent as of May 2010, largerly caused by 10 years of being a type 2 diabetic and exacerbated by six months of the gastroparesis diet); high blood pressure (controlled with meds); high cholesterol (controlled with meds); fibromyalgia (for 35 years); carpal tunnel and ulnar tunnel problems with arms (improved with ART techniques of a physical therapist); moderate neuropathy in feet; gastric reflux (controlled by meds); arthritis (not too bad), osteoporosis, asthma, allergies (controlled by meds), heart stent. I take 16 medicines and refused gastroparsis medicine because of the black-box warning and potential dangers of taking it.
What has pushed me over the edge is the conflict between gastroparesis treatments and obesity and diabetes treatmments. I no longer know what to do. Incessant googling hasn't helped much either.
The reason I'm writing this blog is my obesity and associated problems is the one thing in my life that I haven't conquered. It seems to have been the impossible dream, and yet seemingly so simple. I simply do not understand WHY I cannot overcome obesity. I am a high achiever and disciplined person in other areas of my life - so why can't I do this? I will take the sadness that obesity has brought me to my grave as I feel I've shortchanged myself and my loved ones. I'd like to try one more time, and this is it. I will post starting tomorrow my last quest to good health, what I'm trying, and how it works.
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