weight

Weight and VA update . . .

I had a quick trip to the VA this morning, to get the x-rays for evaluating my being a candidate for the femur replacement.  While I was there I stopped to visit with the dietician who runs the MOVE program (to help veterans with weight problems lose weight).  She remembered me, and how frustrated I was that I couldn’t seem to loose weight while following her program.

She took one look at me and her jaw literally dropped.  “CONGRATUATIONS!  You look great!”  (made my day, as well as hers)

We went ahead and did the whole tape measure around the middle, weight, and BMI eval just for grins and giggles – we both knew I’d made real progress – and my weight was officially 194.5 pounds. She did ask how I had finally started getting ahead of the weight, and I told her about discovering the paleo diet and the very slow, steady weight loss over the last 15 months or so, and she said that was actually the best way to do it.  Not only that, but losing the weight before surgery will help my recovery from the surgery whenever it happens.

Telomere experiment update . . .

This morning, I started my second round of supplements in line with the “Telomere repair” program.  Here is a recap of highlights of my experiment:

1.  My starting weight when I first began the telomere repair was 247.8 pounds.  My target weight is 170 pounds (which I have exceeded for over 20 years).

2.  In addition to doing the telomere repair, I’m also following the PALEO diet.  That means, basically, I am only eating foods that I can recognize what they were originally when they hit my plate.  Any edible fruit, vegetable, tuber, or meat is allowed, so long as it is not processed.  Cooking that does not alter the appearance is allowed.  Soups and stews are allowed.  Nuts and nut butters are allowed, but not recommended if you want to loose weight.

3.  My weight at the end of the last round of supplements was 224.0 pounds.

4.  My weight yesterday morning was 218.8 pounds.

5.  I have not been doing any strenuous exercise.

Weight loss . . .

Alright, I admit it – I’ve been very sneaky.  While I’ve been busy blogging about all the other stuff I’ve posted over the last month, I’ve deliberately NOT posted something.

My wife and I have been selectively testing some of the recipes in the 10 Day Detox Diet Cookbook – and a couple of days ago we ordered all of the supplements he recommends. As soon as the supplements get here we’re going to do the 10 Day Detox Diet.

Not that either of us has much concern about needing to Detox (we’re not drug abusers or anything like that) – but there are enough toxins in our food and air these days that periodically cleaning out your insides is a good idea.  In addition to which, this particular program is supposed to be great at helping you to lose weight, which I won’t sneeze at.

Update on Health Care and Weight . . .

Just a quick addendum to what I said yesterday about the Ayurvedic program.

After doing a little bit of searching, I found out that the reason we couldn’t BUY “clarified butter” locally is simplicity itself – as in, it’s incredibly simple to MAKE.

Really, the process is a lot like making Beef Bone Broth from scratch, which we already knew how to do. So I had my wife stop at the grocery store on her way home from work last night, and pick up 2 pounds of unsalted whole butter.

All you have to do is melt the butter over VERY LOW heat, and skim off the bubble-ish parts with a breakfast cereal spoon. When you’ve got it all melted, and all the floaty stuff skimmed off, very slowly pour the clear yellow liquid into a container that you can cover with a tight lid, watching for a “residue” on the bottom of the pan. Do not pour the residue into your container if you can avoid it. The clear yellow liquid will harden as it cools, and that is your “clarified butter”.

Diet and weight loss . . .

I’m fat.  In fact, by the standards used today, I’m morbidly obese.  That somewhat scary term simply means that I weigh more than 50 pounds more than my ideal weight.  I’m 5’8″ tall, and have a medium build.   My target weight should be around 155 pounds to 175 pounds.  I currently weigh in at 240 pounds, but when I tell people that they look at me incredulously and ask, “where are you hiding it?”

I’m not hiding it – it’s here.  A lot of it is a fairly obvious “beer belly” – a term I hate, by the way, because I don’t drink beer.  But the incredulous inquirers do have a point: My pants are only a size larger now than they were when I left the US Army 30+ years ago – at a lean 155.

I’ve talked to my primary care doctor.  I’ve talked to the nutritionist he referred me to.  I’ve talked to weight management counselors, physical therapists . . .  and I’ve read books and articles on macrobiotics, vegitarian eating, portion control, fasting, pacing, juicing . . .

None of it has worked for me.  There is one reason why, and it’s the giant pink elephant in the room.  It’s terribly obvious to me, but nobody else wants to acknowledge it because it is an automatic barrier to the success of whatever approach they pitch at me.  I’m a disabled veteran – I had a bone tumor in my left leg, and that bone has been permanently structurally weakened.

Imagine building a bridge across a half-mile wide river, and the central girder on the left side of the bridge was manufactured wrong and can only stand 10% of the weight it was intended to.  What is going to happen to that bridge when rush hour traffic hits it?  During the first 3 months after the surgery to treat my tumor, I was hospitalized an additional 10 times for stress fractures related to my not believing the limitations imposed on me.  I believe them now.

That’s what’s wrong with my leg now.  Instead of being able to stand the stresses of all the normal activity I used to do, I’m now limited to “No pushing, pulling, or lifting over 30 pounds” AND “no walking more than 1 mile per day TOTAL” – that includes trips to the bathroom and the kitchen.  Let me tell you, it’s amazing how small one mile is when you carry a pedometer around the house for a few weeks.  I have one of those “Cory Everson” resistance cable type home exercise machines, but it seems impossible to do enough repetitions with only 30 pounds of resistance to either burn fat or build muscle.

So, the next time you see someone in the store, or on the beach (which won’t be me, I don’t live anywhere near a beach) who is heavy, don’t automatically think that they are just lazy or don’t care about how they look.  Some of us care a LOT – there just isn’t anything we can do.  Because we are trying.