Sunday, September 11, 2016

Lose Weight Fast?



Is it just me or are the "airwaves" flooded with "Lose weight fast" ads.  One ad appearing in my email, promised a 35 lbs loss in a matter of days.  Then, there is the 21 day diet which I've heard touted.  And of course, there is the nuclear option, surgery, which includes cutting up your stomach and throwing away most of it as in the gastric sleeve (nevermind that the stomach is a critical digestive organ as these medical providers DO learn in school and probably doesn't work to digest a bunch of the 100 nutrients and micronutrients we need daily --after it's cut up) or cutting off most of the stomach to make a "pouch" (isn't that cutsie)... attaching this to the bowel, bypassing the business end of the small bowel (where the rest of the nutrients are digested) and this is supposed to kill your appetite and the pounds just "drop off" ... as in the gastric bypass.  Well, after surgery when you feel like you've been hit by a train, you aren't very hungry but I know plenty of gastric bypass post ops who weigh over 300 lbs (those who LIVED that is... 1-2% of them die within 30 days of surgery - we never hear about this on TV of course).

None of this works of course, because the appetite centers are in the brain, not the stomach but everyone is looking for the quick way out.  There IS NO quick way.  As Beverly Sills, the opera singer has said "There is no quick road to a place worth going!" Even the Dr Nowzardian shows which greatly romanticize the weight loss surgeries, include a disclaimer "less than 5% are successful in keeping off the weight on the long term."

   Mild calorie restriction and counting your calories every day, will cause a weight loss and keep it off - as long as you count your calories - they have good web clients which are free, like "My Fitness Pal".

Overweight is 60% genetic, so say the experts.  And the American lifestyle consisting mostly, of fast food and high fat foods, is not only fattening us up but also clogging our blood vessels.  The hospital where my husband got 5 surgeries to unclog his major blood vessels (including the coronary arteries, 4 out of 5 which were completely blocked), has lots of folks who are aging and either missing limbs or pretty sick.  We don't see this on TV either.  My hubby has been in the hospital since Jan 2016!  As of this writing (Sept 2016) that's pretty near 8 months (he was home for the month of June)

In the early 1990's, Dr Dean Ornish who had come down with heart disease when he was 45, did a lot of research and wrote a book called "REVERSING HEART DISEASE".  In it, he detailed 10,000 patients (including himself) who had reversed heart disease eating a low fat diet (10% fat) and exercising cardio at least 30 minutes a day.  The surgeon general of the USA agreed and wrote a few papers to that effect, also.  This was mostly ignored by the public despite the evidence based research and sadly, few people heard from their medical providers that this was good advice, leaving only a handful of us, often labeled "health nuts" to believe Dr Ornish (kind of a no brainer that what he was writing was true).  

In 1994, at the age of 49, I went on the low fat diet and started exercising cardio, daily.  This made me healthy but only took off 19 lbs.

In 2008, by serendipity I discovered that mild calorie restriction not only made my GERD go away but made me lose weight.  I ended up losing 110 lbs and keeping 107 lbs off, ever since.  And yes, I count my calories daily and I still exercise cardio 6 days a week.

And I, despite heart disease running in my family, and despite my getting pretty close to my 72nd birthday, am NOT in the hospital getting my arteries unclogged, .

Don't have the time to read Ornish's book?  Here's a 3 minute video giving the Reader's Digest version - by Dr Ornish himself, still going strong, unlike his Dad who died at the age of 49. 

Photo is of myself and hubby just before all the surgeries and what hubby looked like when he came back from getting a quadruple coronary bypass.  Hubby is finally realizing that exercise should be a part of his life and exercising on his own (walking his wheelchair down the halls of the hospital).  Photos of him are reprinted by permission.  A word to the wise should be sufficient.  "Who does not study history, is doomed to repeat it!"  

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Monthly Weigh In



So with the WW website community going away, I guess I fire up this blog.

Today was my monthly Weigh In and meeting. I basically stayed the same which is a good thing since I'm significantly below goal.  And I enjoyed the meeting as usual. Always enjoy chatting and sharing with other members and enjoy what our leader shares also. I never weigh at home or seldom, and just weigh at the meeting.

We had a lively group at the meeting and I always learn new things there, which is fun.

I look forward to my monthly meeting! And now to watch the Olympics! :)

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Jan 2016 update

(My favorite game of late - CrazyKitchen!) :)

Weight Watchers has a new program called "Beyond the Scale" and I approached with trepidation, after all, it's very new and different from the "Points Plus" program I've been following for years.  But after I'd read the new material and studied it, I realized it's the best program yet, because it warns you about unhealthy foods by assigning them high points value and steers you toward healthy foods by assigning lower points values, and also because it's the only program that I know of, which incorporates fitness right into the program as an integral part.  That's something near and dear to my heart because I feel regular exercise is pretty close to being a lifesaver.  They have an "app" for iPhones and the like which helps members work fitness into their daily lives!  So after really studying the materials carefully, I decided to embrace the new program and I _totally_ love it!  As for foods, you can still choose anything you want but now you can, before you eat, know exactly what you are getting.  I've stayed away from fast food and food high in saturated fats because of a 2 year research I did on the subject which included things like studies, testing the blood after eating foods high in saturated fats and seeing fatty deposits in the blood etc.  Since fast food is a big seller, this is underplayed on TV but Weight Watchers hopes to protect members from falling into the fast food jungle.  (Fast food is very high in calories also - I notice that most of the very overweight folks on the TLC TV show "My 600 lb life" ate lots of fast food.  That's not the only reason they got so large - Obesity scientist, Rudy Leibel states that obesity is at least 60 % genetic/physical (metabolic etc).

Bottom line, I'm very happy with the new program and I don't know if I've lost any weight because I weigh once a month at my Weight Watchers meeting, but I'm on maintenance anyway and several members who have weighed in, said they not only, saw nice losses but feel better than they have felt in a long time because of eating more healthy foods.  I've been maintaining my weight, several lbs below goal now, since March 2010.

PS: when they talk about eating for stress etc, I know about that - had to find new mechanisms for handling stress - it's not easy but can be done.

PPS: (referring to the graphic above) I only chase donuts in computer games - I pass by them in real life! :) :)