How I lost weight (overweight, supplements, doctor, weight loss)

[13levine]

This got much longer than I planned on.

My goal is the same as it was a long time ago when I was grossly obese. I was about 100 pounds overweight.

A little history first: About 25 years ago when I was still under 50 years old I went in for my very first physical because I was having chest pains and was about 100 pounds overweight as I said earlier. I am a guy, by the way, so going to a doctor is taking drastic measures.

It was discovered I had 1800 triglycerides (fat in blood) and my cholesterol was 480. The Doctor told me it was the highest he had ever seen and he didn’t know how I came to WALK in. I happened to know the lab tech who told me it was pretty scary when he centrifuged (spun the sample to separate it) and there was more fat than blood in the test tube.

The Doctor then informed me I had 3 distinct choices: 1) Keep on going the way I was and live a very short time. 2) Take a lot of meds and live a while longer or 3) lose a lot weight, take a few meds and live a long time. I was broke and had no health insurance. Did I have a choice really? Any choice other than 3) was actually suicide.

I decided that rather than go on one the crazy diets and I certainly had no money for gym membership or “lots of meds” I would learn to eat right and I set a goal of over half an ounce (half a tablespoon of fat) of weight loss per day or 12 pounds per year. Chest pains went away right away. If you check your oil in the cupboard you will find 2 tablespoons = 1 ounce. I always walked a lot and rest of what I did is detailed elsewhere. I lost over 70 pounds over 6 years. I quit the exercises and my weight has stayed the same for the past about 10 years. I have now decided to lose the other 25 pounds and it is going to take a couple of years. I am diabetic by the way so that is an added incentive.

Nobody actually needs any advice on losing weight (diet is a 4 letter word). If you learn to eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks you don’t have to diet. Just consume the number of calories of healthy food per day (usually 1300 to 1500 calories per day) required to maintain what your ideal weight would be and you WILL lose weight then maintain you ideal weight for the rest of your life. You can even pig out occasionally (eat out or whatever) but get right back to your goal and soldier on.

Remember, deflated fat cells (body makes fat cells but keeps them) are a permanent fixture in your body just waiting to suck up any surplus fat that goes by so you will gain whatever you lose back in a hurry if you decide to go back to whatever put the weight on in the first place. I guess the main thing to remember is you didn’t put that weight on overnight so don’t expect to lose it overnight.

By the way if you like to eat out a lot or drink much alcohol don’t waste your time trying to lose weight. I have found a long time ago that the only buffet I can go to (occasionally) and not gain weight or create sugar problems is Chinese and stay away from the sweets section or use sparingly. I always make a pig of myself at a buffet. Gotta get my monies worth I guess and the food is so darn good.

If you have a digital scale and step on it daily, keep the number after the decimal always going down. Of course if you use it weekly then the last number before the decimal is also important. If you step on it less than that I don’t think you want to know the facts.

Your two real enemies are white sugar and salt which canned stuff and other processed food is full of.

Drink at least twice the recommended daily amount of water. It must wash the fat away or something.

Realist goals get realistic results.

Two good books are: The 30-day Diabetic cure. If every person in the world lived by this book obesity would be totally gone. The title is kind of misleading. Even though it dwells on diabetes it is also for people who don’t want to become a member of the latest worldwide pandemic – diabetes or just want some really good tips on how to eat properly. On Amazon.com it is an expensive book but so are heart attacks, diabetes, diet plans and all the other stuff (equipment etc.) that goes with overweight.

A good start is to count every morsel that goes in your mouth for a week so you at least aware of how much you are eating. After that you probably don't really need to. Proper eating becomes a habit, the same as improper eating did. It is truly amazing how the calories add up and how little food a person actually needs. Three squares a day and a snack between meals are what you need and add up fast if you don't pay attention.

The other book is The CalorieKing – Calorie Fat & Carbohydrate Counter also available on Kindle. I have both.

By the way lots of people are going to find fault and be upset about some of the stuff in here. This is just my methods. I'm not a doctor just a plain "old" lay man.

[LittleDolphin]

Very interesting case study. Good for you to have achieved all this using self-control.

I'm curious if you've read Dr. Joel Fuhrman's new book about Ending Diabetes? I just read it. It's encouraging diabetics to eat a mostly vegan diet, with tiny amounts of white meat poultry and/or fish a couple of times a week. Very low on grain carbs. He's had some incredible results with ending diabetes and getting diabetics off medications.

While I'm not diabetic, my blood sugar has been rising bit by bit over the years. I'm now eating a pretty much vegan diet as Fuhrman recommends..we'll see what happens. I wouldn't mind losing 15 pounds along the way.

Keep up the great work!

[hellothereIN]

Love Dr. Furhuman or ANY doctor that supports GOOD nutrition.

For it is true, food is medicine. If people ate what they should instead of what they want, they might improve their health considerably. What can better food choices hurt?

By changing my diet, I found within months I could stop the sinus meds/sprays/antibiotics, migraine meds, healed my gut/IBS/GERD--a peptic ulcer and most recently shrunk a multinodular goiter and brought my thyroid numbers back to normal.

I am organic. Gluten free. Do some supplements and herbal teas. No gmos. No meds.