My Weight Loss Journey
At one point in my life I was considered obese. My largest weight I reached was 285 pounds. At an early age in one’s life you don’t take much notice of your habits and yourself because, well you are young and feel invisible. As you grow and age you feel and notice certain things and at 285 pounds, I started to take notice shortly after college. This is well over a decade in the making. Over a decade of aches, pains, severe illness, digestive and intestinal problems. Then after one or two hospitalizations by the time you reach your 30’s it hits you really hard. At least it did for me and I can only hope for others in a similar situation you can make an effort to change earlier. When I look back now and compare all the before and after pictures you really begin to understand the concept of being healthy and achieving it is not difficult as one would make it to be. The hardest obstacle is yourself and in the long run the decisions you make for change will pay off because living a lifestyle of bad habits has its costs and if you are ok with that then you need to own it however I don’t recommend it. Without your health, you have nothing.
A World of Pain.
When you are obese you are in a world of pain. It effects everything from mobility, concentration and financial flexibility. The most noticeable is back and joint pain and it is worse when this kind of pain effects the overall quality of your sleep. Silveri (2016) states that back and joint pain are the majority factor of obesity. I spent many nights and mornings waking up to severe back pain. I had to sit and wait for hours for the pain to alleviate. Taking hot baths and walking, stretching, which is very time consuming. It would interfere with my work, schooling, self-confidence and the overall quality of my life. Now that is considered a good day if it isn’t accompanied by any abdominal pain. The digestive complications that can arise from a situation such as this are extremely painful and can be scary. One or two episodes of these moments and you will end up right in the emergency room hospital as it eventually happened to me. To begin with when I was born in the summer august in 84 I had to be taken immediately for surgery and I spent seven days in the ICU and nearly died of intestinal blockage and complications. I had what physicians call Intestinal Obstruction and required immediate surgery. I basically couldn’t make a deposit in my infancy because babies as you know are poop factories, which turned out to be a problem. That was a very frightening moment for my mother and father and I carry the scar tissue from that surgery to today. That alone made things much worse for me following a lifestyle of poor health choices. Abdominal wall pain is another issue that has seemed to diminish since dropping weight. Although my medical examination wasn’t clear on what the direct cause of the pain was coming from. My physician suspected that it was some form of Fibromyalgia. It is associated with chronic pain that effects muscles and soft tissue. Which shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise since obesity opens up a window of wonderful opportunities of pain if it hasn’t become blatantly obvious at this point - moving on. Lack of physical activity severely diminished my digestive system and overall metabolism. Anything I ate stayed with me for extended periods of time, my intestinal wall did not have sufficient bacteria that is normally present to break down complex carbohydrates that would be part of a healthy diet that you would get from probiotics (e.g. diary, yogurt). I would get sick very easily and come down with stomach flus. Davis (2011) states that lack of physical activity and exercise slows down your digestive system and can increase the risk of colorectal cancer, something that my father was recently diagnosed with last year in November. He is 320 pounds and led a life of poor dietary habits and lack of exercise and now he is paying the ultimate price. Unfortunately, bad habits are somewhat of a family curse in our household that goes back generations.
Hospitalization
I got to the tipping point back in April of 2016. I woke up one morning after a glutinous night out with some friends with excruciating abdominal pain. The pain kept me awake for three days. Three days of no sleep. It was getting worse and worse. I started puking and vomiting and usually when you have to vomit it alleviates some of the pain but in this case the pain kept coming back and made it worse. I had never seen such lack of color in vomit before it was pitch black. I was afraid that maybe I had some intestinal bleeding but whatever it was it could not be good. By the third day I had reached my limit and by all rights I should have been checked out sooner but guys being guys we always try to wait it out. I checked into the ER the following morning and they gave me some pain medication because it was painful, especially the car ride there going over bumps and uneven roads. I spent eight hours in the ER while they were getting my room ready but beforehand I took some MRI pictures and by what they saw from the results it was a partial blockage on my lower small intestine that was also partially twisted. I was going to be spending a few days in the hospital. It was determined that residual scar tissue in my small intestine was the direct culprit. (Remember my surgery that I mentioned before.) The residual scar tissue that remains became problematic as a result of obesity, lack of exercise. Your gut has muscles, and those muscles help move food around your system to digest and extract nutrients and when you don’t exercise it becomes more difficult. Cavazos (2011).
So basically, in a nutshell too much going in and not much going out, physically and calorically. So, as I was being taken up to my room I was on pain medication and you would think I was able to finally get some sleep in. WRONG! I get wheel chaired inside and I see two nurses with a long plastic tube that was going to be used on me. Have I ever told you about the time I had a Nasogastric intubation??? If you can’t eat or swallow, you may need to have a nasogastric tube inserted. This process is known as nasogastric (NG) intubation. During NG intubation, your doctor or nurse will insert a thin plastic tube through your nostril, down your esophagus, and into your stomach. Once this tube is in place, they can use it to give you food and medicine. They can also use it to remove things from your stomach, such as toxic substances or a sample of your stomach contents. (Healthline, 2016, page. 1).
You are awake when you do this procedure. Once you get that tube up your nose and it comes out the back of your throat the nurse instructs you to keep swallowing and swallowing to make the muscles in your throat push the tube down all the while your gag refluxes are going haywire. I hope none of you ever have to go through that process, imagine trying to sleep after three days of no sleep while you have that thing jammed up your nose. One night when I managed to get some sleep I turned over on my face while I had that NG tube and screamed out in pain and woke up the whole hospital floor I was on. Good times. After that it was tests after tests, x-rays, doctor visits. I was informed by my surgeon that the problem was self-correcting 90% of the time and that eventually I would be able to go home after I had a bowel movement. That was the only way I could avoid going under the knife. Some of the physicians and radiologists were puzzled as to how someone who is so young could have these symptoms as if I were a 50-year-old man. The answer seemed obvious to me at this point.
LOOSE THE F*CKING WEIGHT!
After 4 days in the hospital I was finally sent home with some antibiotics and my primary physician had prescribed me some Metformin. It is diabetic medicinal drug. He said it was supposed to help me lose weight and manage my “pre-diabetic” disposition. I threw that garbage to the trash, I didn’t need that stuff. I have heard so many stories of how a controlled diet and exercise could stave off diabetes. So, I did a little research, talked to a few people and told them where I am and where I wanted to go with this new-found purpose. I cut out all the heavy carb and sugar and started eating leaner and did regular exercise. I even went so far as to hire a trainer to bust my ass at the gym. Wasn’t cheap. But when you compare a hospital bill for 4 days that accumulates to $15,000 dollars to a workout session at a rate of $35 per hour I would say that is a hell of a bargain, especially when you aren’t getting tubes shoved up your nose. I didn’t know this but are you aware that over 40% of Americans have medical debt according to Khazan (2014). So, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Poor health choices can lead to financial ruin, it’s a travesty. All that money you spend on food and gluttony will catch up with you. I say take that money and time and invest in your health. I unfortunately was a little late to the game but better late than never.
Dieting was something that took a lot of preparation and research. I had tried so many approaches before and had little success. However, that was mainly due to lack of consistency on my part. If you want to change your eating habits you have to be consistent. I started doing exercise and made some changes. I initially lost the bulk of my weight through a low carb low fat, high protein diet and for the most part it worked fairly well. I dropped about 40 pounds. Then I hit a plateau. Everyone who has gone through this knows what I am talking about, during your initial start you drop weight like clockwork, it’s almost effortless how easy it was. Unfortunately, you will get to a point where the calories you burn equal to the number of calories you eat, then you have reached a plateau and will stop dropping the weight. Mayo Clinic (2015). At this point you have to refine your diet and make changes. Keep your body in a state of confusion where it doesn’t have that sense of balance so I switched my diet a little bit and tried a ketogenic diet. This one was difficult to do. Basically, with a keto diet you consume 70% fat in your diet. Now you are thinking, how do you lose weight and burn fat by consuming fat? According to Eenfeldt (2017) “the ketogenic (keto) diet is a very low carb diet which turns the body into a fat burning machine” (par. 1). He further states that the keto in a ketogenic diet comes from the fact that the body produces small fuel cells called ketones. Eenfeldt (2017). These ketones are produced by eating “very few carbs” (Eenfeldt, 2017 Par, 5). So, as a result your entire body switches its metabolic state from burning carbs to burning fat. By doing this diet alone I was able to break through my plateau and drop an additional 20 pounds and now I stand currently at 227lbs.
Conclusion
What else can I tell you in a short five to six-page paper. I am running out of space and pages to continue. This essay could have gone for another six pages. But for the sake of time I had to do my best to prioritize the important points first. I will say it again, no matter what your financial situation is in life or social status, your health is paramount. The single biggest regret I hear from people in the older age group is how they neglected their health and didn’t take the time to take care of themselves. I hear it from my father, my mother, friend’s mothers and fathers, grandparents etc. Initially it is hard to get started and sometimes we need that wake up call. It’s the type of wakeup call that I had. It got my head in the right state but my hope is that all of you won’t have to go through the pain and hardship that I went through to make changes to your life. Make the best of it, be aware and informed. Here is to your health.
References
Davis, K. (2011). The Effects of Lack of Exercise on the Body. Retrieved from
http://www.livestrong.com/article/351679-the-effects-of-lack-of-exercise-on-the-body/
Silveri, C. (2017). Back Pain and Obesity. Retrieved from
https://www.spineuniverse.com/conditions/back-pain/back-pain-obesity
Cavazos, M. (2011) Does Lack of Exercise Cause Problems… Retrieved from.
www.livestrong.com/article/399754-does-lack-of-exercise-cause-problems-with-the-digestive-system/
Khaza, O. (2014). Why Americans Are Drowning In Medical Debt. Retrieved from
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/why-americans-are-drowning-in-
medical-debt/381163/
Healthline, (2016). What is nasogastric Intubation? Retrieved from.
http://www.healthline.com/health/nasogastric-intubation-and-feeding#overview1
Mayo Clinic, (2015). Getting Past a Weight Loss Plateau. Retrieved from
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss-plateau/art-20044615
Eenfeldt, (2017). A Keotgenic Diet for Beginners. Retrieved from.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto