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Why am I Not Losing Weight?
or
Living Downtown and Losing Weight in Minneapolis

I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror because I’m 46 pounds heavier than my ideal weight. I gained that in about 2 years of being on a medication. (I’m not naming the medication as some people lose weight due to the same drug.) The benefits of it outweighed (no pun intended) the negatives for quite a while.

I couldn’t believe this medication was the cause of my weight gain. I’d just never had anything like this experience. I’ve always been within an “okay” body mass index (BMI). I lost a lot of weight after pregnancy (in fact 46 pounds) by swimming laps an hour a day twenty-some years ago. I kept thinking that my dependable old approach to weight loss would surely work again. Not.

I thought, “I know how to do this.” Well, swimming front crawl laps, using a rowing machine, and bicycling daily made no dent in my weight. Instead, I continued to gain about a pound a week.

Now I got really serious.

Off and on for 18 months, I tracked every calorie I put in my mouth (exceptions were for things like my daughter’s wedding). I knew exactly what I ate or drank because every intake was measured by weight or volume. I recorded all this on a website (SparkPeople.com) over the course of each day. Depressingly, it made no difference and I continued watch the scale move higher every week. While the site is very useful, I might be the SparkPeople.com biggest failure.

I met with a nutritionist at my health club, Minneapolis Lifetime Fitness, and went over everything I’d been doing to lose weight. She hooked me up to a gizmo that calculated my body mass metabolism. I found out that my basal metabolic rate (BMR) was 1598 K! I’d been limiting calories to 1600 K. The nutritionist explained that if a person starves herself, the body will respond by dropping its metabolism, thus impeding weight loss. I certainly didn’t intend to starve myself but it did explain why I was so unbelievably hungry all of the time. But, why was I still gaining weight?

Then, probably due to my sudden weight gain, I developed plantar fasciitis and iIliotibial band syndrome. Both were amazingly painful and kept me off of my feet. I went to sports medicine physicians. I used the physical therapist’s help. I was saddened to have to take a bus 5 blocks to the pool and gym to work out. But I did as much as my pain allowed and focused on the therapist’s exercises. (I am happy to report that 2 years later I am fully recovered.)

The relentless rise in my weight continued at a predictable 1 pound per week rate. I decided it was time to taper off this medication. Parting with a medication that had helped me a lot was “such sweet sorrow” but I was ready. The positives no longer outweighed the negatives. I’ve now been off of that medication for over 6 months.

My weight gain stopped. I’ve been the same weight for about 6 months. That’s without dieting and without heavy exercise.

I began counting calories again. Surely, “calories in” and “calories out” would now work for me in my pursuit of weight-loss. I decided I’d just eat what I wanted, get my exercise, and see what happened. Again, I was surprised. If anything, my tendency now is to eat less than 1800 calories per day.

Stumped again.

I decided I’m at the point now that I really need a radical change in my life to lose the weight. Working out more is not an option since I’m at an age where I accumulate injuries fast.

I enrolled at CorePower Yoga to, hopefully, work off a little weight and get back into shape after being forced into my rather sedentary life. I targeted a goal of 30 straight days of yoga and actually made it to 23. I made daily entries on Facebook to keep up my motivation. I built muscles while gaining flexibility. I didn’t injure myself. But I didn’t lose any inches or weight.

I made the time to review all of the nutrition info available. What would “incentivize” my body to shrink down to normal weight?

I rediscovered the concepts of the Dean Ornish’s work. This is the only regimen yet that has reversed heart disease in people who have followed it (and it’s scientifically documented). It is radical in that it’s a very low-fat, low-sugar, high-fiber lifestyle (not diet). The lifestyle additionally requires daily meditation and daily moderate exercise. While I’ve been aware of the Ornish data on heart disease reversal, I’ve never seriously considered using it myself. Motivation will be everything for me.

Will the lifestyle achieve my goal of reaching my ideal body weight without losing my interest in eating at all? It’s time to find out.

I’ve checked Amazon’s delivery tracking on my diet books order twice today. I might receive them later today. I can’t believe that I’m looking forward to getting on board with this food plan. It’s an insight into how badly I want to find something that will work for me.

The books arrived in the mail. I’m torn because I also picked up a couple of novels from the library that are going to be fun to read. Can Isabel Dalhousie wait? Nah, I began the novel, the third in the series, and I’m anxious to find out if Isabel and Jamie are ever going to get together.

Later in the evening, I opened the package of books from Amazon. For some reason they were hermetically sealed by entombment in shrink-wrap plastic and cardboard. I got the impression that this was very precious cargo. Or maybe this is the equivalent of receiving a package in a plain brown wrapper. Perhaps the ideas in these books are socially aberrant. I’m not a deviant, honest.

I began to read “The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, Gain Health.”

The first few chapters are named

1. It Works!

2. Why It Works

3. How It Works

Reading makes me hungry. I sliced banana and strawberries into a bowl and topped with a dollop of Greek yogurt. That was satisfying.

Frankly, these chapters are as technical as I care to read (or not). Since I’ve been following all the science and technology breakthroughs for 30 years on heart disease, not much here was new to me.

I already know that heart disease is chronic. My father went through a heart bypass at age 54. Following that, Dad was forced illegally out of his job because of his bad health. (Minnesota law bans firing sick employees. Dad had the documentation to prove it and he won a settlement.) He lost his health insurance with the loss of his job.

A few years later, just after he qualified for Medicare, Dad needed a new thing called an angioplasty--which failed in 3 months and another bypass was done.

A number of years went by and Dad could no longer walk up a flight of stairs without severe chest pain and very short breath. (I should clarify that Dad’s angina, or chest pain, was never fully relieved by any of these procedures.) The doctors had told him that he could not have another bypass so they ended up doing a new kind of angioplasty with lasers to get through the blockages.

A few years later, Dad is suffering again. This time his doctors told him that they would do another bypass. That surgery included cutting out all of the scar tissue from previous surgeries and rerouting the blood feeding the heart again. By this time, Dad has lived 25 years past his “expiration date” at 54. Next, he was diagnosed with irregular heartbeat. Medications didn’t control it. He needed a pacemaker implant but he wasn’t healthy enough to go through the surgical procedure. A couple of years pass, a bunch of other health problems come and go (surgery for aortic aneurysm while removing his double sized spleen, surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, hernia surgery, the list goes on) and then he’s okayed to have the pacemaker implanted. He lived to 86 or so with a functioning pacemaker. He died last year at 90.

Leaving this planet at 90 is pretty good considering that his heart had clogged up at age 54. But jeez, what a horrible quality of life!

Nobody ever suggested that diet could reverse Dad’s heart disease. Medical advice limited his food by cutting out bad fats and most sugar. That was about it and Dad followed that prescription seriously. Dad was outdoors in the fall chopping wood (an event that should be in the Olympics) a week before he had to enter a nursing home at 82. He led an extremely active physical life building things, climbing buttes to hunt deer, even shoveling record snowfalls off his Minnesota roof. We could not suppress his desire to do all of this thinking he should take it a bit easier. But that’s probably what allowed him to survive through so many surgeries. What if diet and medication could have improved his life? We’ll never know.

So, that’s why I’m concerned about heart disease and my weight. Suddenly, despite living the good life (low fat, portion control and a lot of exercise), I’ve gone into a fat zone I never thought I would enter.

I hope Chapter 4: “You Are Unique” will begin to give me something more that I haven’t learned elsewhere.

Did I learn anything new from the rest of the book? Not really, but there are charts of foods ranked on their healthiness that may be helpful (technically that should be healthfulness but the grammarians aren’t checking anymore).

I can legitimately say that I really didn’t learn much new because as it turns out I’ve already embarked on the life journey the good doctor is recommending. A combination of a truly healthy daily diet, meditation, and moderate exercise has been exactly what I’ve pursued. (Too bad that at times I’ve not been able to do all three at once.) About 4 years ago, I discovered and began to practice of the benefits of meditation and yoga he describes in all of his books. I know that if I really want to lose pounds, meditation at least a little bit each day, is important. (Yoga counts as meditation, too.)

I paged through the recipes in the back of the “Spectrum” book. Overall, they look very appealing and appetizing and I will be using them.

Then I popped open my new “Every Day Cooking with Dean Ornish” cookbook. I found some guidelines there that will be my guide in applying these recipes to my weight-lowering efforts. I’ve decided I’m going to go for broke and try the most “extreme” level of healthiness which is an intake of no more than 20 to 25 grams of fat a day and choosing foods that have no more than 3 grams of fat per serving. The key, as explained by these books, is to seek out the most fresh and tasty ingredients and the healthiest fats (primarily canola or flax seed oil). Thus, it will be a completely vegetarian diet with the exception of egg whites and non-fat dairy products.

I’m thinking that I could save a lot on my grocery bills. Last night I treated us to grass-fed beef but it was $17.99/lb. Of course, two of us don’t eat a pound at a time. The fish I buy can be just as expensive. I can buy a lot of fresh herbs and brown rice for those prices.

This is going to be interesting eating in restaurants. I can choose more wisely there, but will I? We’ll see.

This is weird. I stepped on the scale yesterday and I was down a pound. So, I stepped on it again this morning and I was still down a pound. Could this be the power of suggestion? I haven’t started the “diet” yet. But I probably am making better choices after getting a great refresher course on where the fats are in my diet. But a whole pound in a few days?

I was exceptionally impressed in my reading about what the level of HDL in blood indicates. I have always been told that I should get my HDL level up. Mine’s not in a crisis zone, but this idea is some kind of Holy Grail for doctors. But reading Dr. Ornish’s material clarified just what may being going on with me in the blood fat issues. I have noticed that over the years of testing, my HDL just does not go up despite eating lots of whole foods with lots of fiber and “the good” fats. Ornish’s material point out that HDLs are the fire and police department when it comes to eliminated LDL from the body. We in fact make more HDL when our LDL is too high, somewhat like hiring on more trained policemen during high crime rates. So, a higher HDL may in fact be a reflection on how hard our bodies are trying to get rid of excessive cholesterols. While a statin controls my LDL, my HDL is still working hard. I’m going to stop worrying about my HDL when it’s the LDL that could do damage to me. Hmmm. Perhaps I can lower my LDL to a point I could get off of the statin.

Copyright © 2010 Garnatz and Grovender, Inc.
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