Posts by grumpyoldman_51

I hear your rant!  Here for what it is worth is something you may not have been aware of before.  All sorts of diets, and work-outs can help in the short term, but as many of us obese people (me) can tell you, we always seem to gain it back and then some.  I finally found a doctor who explained it.  Bariatric medicine is just now learning that losing weight is not just "eat less, exercise more".  That cornerstone of what we have all been told is actually in some ways not so good for many people.  Frankly what we have not been told by the medical community is even under doctor supervised diets, less than 2% of people are successful.  Yes that is not a typo, less than 2%.  Now successful is defined as reaching a medical weight loss goal and keeping it off for 2 - 3 years. 

So what they have been looking at is how and why some people can eat food and not gain weight while others do.  It is metabolism.  Again at some level all doctors knew that, and thought there was not much we could do about it. 

Wrong. 

You should eat more often, even eat more calories (this on the advice of a doctor please, not my advice).  I know a guy who was 400+++ lbs before seeing this clinic, and only eating 500 cal a day.  He was still putting on weight.  His body was in "suvival" mode, storing food because of the famine.  The doctor put him on a 2000 cal diet, and the guy was saying "like are you trying to kill me? I am putting weight on at 500, I will balloon at 2000".   But they changed his diet to a lot more protein, and fiber, a lot less fat and carbs.  They changed his eating pattern to 8 times a day as well.  In two weeks he had lost 10 lbs.  He has continued to lose weight.

They have a machine that measures the metabolic rate of the person, and the tests have shown that eating 8 times a day, small portions, and lots of protein (even with no exercise, or little exercise) weight loss is much more consistent.

So stick to your caloric intake, but plan your intake to be many smaller portions over the period of the entire day.  Eat much more protein, and a lot less carbs and fat.  You might be amazed at what happens. 

Fats, fibre, carbs, protein, all components of a diet, but they needed to be blended to your body type, your lifestyle, and YOUR COMMITMENT!  There are chocolate products (Soy Chocolate "nuts" for instance that are high protein that are a heck of a lot better for you than coffee beans).  What I am saying is I am not a doctor, and so far I haven't seen too many here who are. 

Treat your problem (if it is a problem) as a medical issue and take the steps necessary.  That means research it, get the help, and that doesn't mean asking friends or us.  It means finding real, good medical based help.  Then where people like us, and a site like this comes in, is to help you stay focused.  This site is invaluable in finding out what is in all those things we put in our mouth all day long.  If we are "aiming" to put in x number of grams of carbs, y number of grams of protein, and staying under z number of fats, then this site is perfect to help.

Getting support on your down days, when nothing seems to be going your way, when you slip and, a couple of cookies find thier way into your gullet...a place like this can help you to realize it isn't the end of the world and not the reason to throw all the diet out the window and let go completely...but get back on track for the rest of the day, week and month. 

No single food, no single exercise, no single machine, even surgery...which I am on a waiting list for, is not going to make the change needed.  Surgery, which some people think is the thing that will mean they can still go on down to Taco Bell and pig out, but not worry about the fat rolls...  well it isn't true...you need to change your life, even before you get the surgery.  And after the surgery, even more.  So what I am saying is there is no short cut, no easy answer.

Be careful.  Most doctors are are not aware of how to help people lose weight.  Search out bariatric specialists, or highly recommended clinics that deal in multi disipline ways of dealing with weight loss, not just a single solution.  You will need to have to see people to check your current health, your metabolism, your heart etc... then go from there...  

Grumpy

Weeeeelllll   I am sort of odd man out here.  I AIM for about a 2000 Kcal deficit each day, not counting any exercise I do.  That said there are provisos.  I am on a doctor's supervised, and devised weigh management/loss program.  I am morbidly obese (BMI 51 +++) so my Kcal normal equalivalant point is about 3500 or so the math says.  The doctor put me on a 2000 Kcal a day diet, with a high protein component (to get ready for possible bariatric surgury).

However the clinic / doctor I see also stress changing the metabolism.  They stress that it is not an imaginary thing that FAT people often do eat the same amount of food as their skinny counterparts at work for instance, yet they keep on putting on weight.  It is because over time, our metabolisms, already gentically predisposed to storing food better than many people (it was a good thing in times of famine, and when there were no fast food places and supermarkets!), have gotten messed up.  We have often messed up our metabolisms trying to do what doctors in the past have told us to do!  Eat less and exercise more!  That may be OK for someone with a few vanity pounds, but for someone in the obese catagory, (obesity is a disease, not a condition, not a weakness) eating less can actually HURT your metabolism, because often we interpret it to mean "skip a meal here or there". 

So the clinic I am at espouses eating 8 times a day (6 minimum) to keep the metabolism fired up all day long, not to let it go into storage mode.  Eating slower, and with more protein, and of course healthier.   I can't do the whole seminar / lecture etc...but it is working.  I have lost 23.2 lbs in less than a month. 

Now I do try to do about 30 min - 45 min on a stationary bike every other day as well (about 300 - 500 Kcal burn) so that helps bring the weight down a bit too, though it also increases muscle which can actually increase weight over the short term.

In short you really should find a good doctor supervised or multi-disciplinary weight management place (no not a Jenny Craig or some place like that) to craft a plan that works for you, especially if you have a hard time losing weight as I have over the years.  I still think I shall need the surgery as I have so much weight to lose (hundreds of pounds) but, finding a place that finally didn't hand me a sheet of paper that said "eat less food, and exercise more" was key to helping me begin to understand I had an illness, and that I needed to treat it like one.

Grumpy

Thanks, I will try that!

Well I was back at the weight loss clinic today (this morning for more testing, this time calorimetric???) and they weighed me again.  Appears since Friday I have lost 10 lbs.  I told them I would play the stupid game.  I can lose weight, I have done it in the past to pass military physicals...but I can never keep it off.  I know, change life style... which is why I would like the surgery, because it will "FORCE" the change.  I want the change, but am to easy to slip back.

Called the surgeon's office to see if they could tell me what is going on vis a vis the other appointments with dieticians etc?  Of course I can't speak to him on the phone, at least not today.

Back to the clinic tonight for a "seminar", which I MUST attend or I am not cooperative and showing good initiative.  I shall attend.  I see the doctor at the WLC (weight loss clinic) again on Friday, where he is supposed to do more meal planning and stuff.  In the mean time I am still going to keep on losing weight.  Who knows maybe down another 4 or 5 lbs by Friday. 

Of course that may contraindicative showing I am too "aggressive".  I don't like being made to jump through hoops.  I especially don't like it when they don't explain why the hoops are there.

Grumpy (and hungry)

I get it, but if that is the case, then why in the appointment with the surgeon, did he not indicate this to me?  My wife was in the room with me.  He said "you will need to go on a liquid diet prior to surgery to shrink your liver".  He said nothing about a 10% body weight loss, nothing about referring me to a weight loss clinic, nothing about it at all.  Matter of fact, he told me my next steps were to make an appointment with his dietician, and social worker, as well as another doctor, not identified by specialty.  I made those appointments (all in March, a dissapointment in itself as he had indicated I was six months to a year away from surgery, but in fact at the time I was six months away from seeing the team the 'assesses' me, and that team hasn't seen me yet).  Out of the blue I get a call from a local clinic 'reminding me of an appointment'.  When I asked who made the referral (thinking that once again my ECT memory loss caused me to forget to write an appointment in my calender), they said it was my family doctor.  Confused I called my family doctor, only to be told he never made such an appointment.  When I showed up for the appointment I ran through the names of seven doctors I have seen in the past 3 years....turns out it was the surgeon who made the referral.

Would it not have been nice for the doctor to at least email me, call me, write me a letter, or in some way explain to me the rational behind what he is doing?  As it is the doctor at the clinic thinks I am "non-compliant" or "difficult".   He refuses to "speculate" on what is going on in the surgeon's mind.  Should the surgeon referring me to him not have given some idea of what the plan was? 

No while I have no fear of death, and thus the side effect of the surgery (most common two side effects cited by the surgeon are depression and suicide) is not a big deal.  My current and past psychiatrist know that my depression and suicide ideation are controlable with medication, and therapy, and will get better, most likely, not worse, with the surgery.  Yes I know they screen for mental illness, and such, but I have two psychiatrists who have stated catagorically that the surgery would be better for me than not having it and they should have a better idea of my mind and moods etc than a surgeon who has seen me for 20 minutes. 

By the way, I was told I would be done using the Minimally Invasive Procedure using 5 keyholes, though on occasion they have had to change to open procedure in some cases.  Like I have said, the surgeon gave a very thorough talk, answered all my questions, my wife's questions, and left us with the impression that my next step was to talk to Social Worker, Dietician, and other doctor (gas passer???) all on the same day in March, then see the surgeon the following week.  All those appointments have been booked.  Now what happens if I fail to lose 40 lbs in that time?  Start over?  No one can seem to tell me, and of course trying to get to speak to a surgeon on the phone is like getting a direct link to God himself.

Grumpy

I tried swimming, but found to my dismay that at some time in my aging process I developed an allergy to chlorine at least the high level in the public pools here in Hamilton Ontario.  I was swimming a mile a day for about a month but the rash was so bad my family doctor made me stop.  Like I say I have tried, I seemed like every which way I turned there was yet another stumbling block.  Each new medication I was put on (and I am on something like 18 a day) had "Weight gain" as a side effect! 

I am not sure what the letters mean in the reference to mental health.  My mental health conditions have no "direct" bearing on my weight, though there is some corelation to sexual abuse and sefl-image problems that can and has been documented to be related to overeating and obesity...this explained to me by one of my PDOCs (psychiatrists).  I do not know if that is the case with me.  I am genetically predisposed to being large.  I was 200 lbs at age 18, had to lose 20 lbs just to join the military.  Mind you I was in great shape, played football, and baseball, and could run cross country all day, just not for speed.

The only form of bypass surgery covered by our health plan here is the full bypass where they bypass your entire stomach and about a foot or more of intestine.  They create a 'new' stomach which is about the size of a tablespoon, from part of the old one, and attach the intestine to that.  They leave the old parts intact in side because to remove them totally is too complex (too many connecting tissues and organs).  I feel it will be the only way to sustain long term weight loss. 

I have at times lost weight with diets, and medications such as Xenecol, but it never lasts.  Is that because I cannot adjust my lifestyle?  Perhaps.  I will admit to that.  But with a stomach the size of a tablespoon, the feeling of being full will be accomplished much quicker and require several small meals a day which should solve any oral fixation problems. 

I do not enter the concept of bypass with it being some sort of magic formula, but rather a rather drastic, but in my case needed aid.  What is so bothersome is the super long waiting lists, and lack of doctor's knowledgeable and caring enough to deal with me.  You get to a point where you get tired of trying to explain, especially when you are not especially easy going, or socially adept with people.  It would be nice if there was a central ombudsman or spokesman who could coordinate all the information that has been available about me, and my condition over the years, all the attempts, and efforts.  Instead I feel upset and irritated at having to "start over" again and again.  It never seems to end. 

I do appreciate the community support.  Thanks all

Grumpy