When I awoke on the morning of Oct. 17, 2012, the first
thing I was aware of was the pain in both my legs. It wasn’t a pain that kept
me from sleeping, but for the past three weeks, it was the first thing I had
noticed upon waking and walking. On this
morning, the pain was much more intense. Not only did the pain have my
attention, but now I was concerned.
What was causing this pain?
After hobbling into the kitchen and taking a blood pressure
pill, I remembered that the night before I had taken my last cholesterol
capsule. I reached for the empty bottle and started toward the kitchen phone to
call in the refill. It was then that a “light” came on. It was three weeks ago
that I had gone back on my three weeks on and two weeks off schedule of taking
the cholesterol medicine.
I knew that this was
a modified dosage schedule used sometimes for patients who had side effects
from the medication, but I used it because of the cost of the medication which
wasn’t covered by my insurance. It had worked fine in keeping my cholesterol
down, while saving money. I also knew that leg pain was a side effect of the
medication, but for some reason, I had just now made the connection.
What was I going to do? Obviously, the modified dosing
schedule wasn’t an option. Before going on the medication, I had tried a
low-fat diet. All that accomplished was lowering the good cholesterol: the bad
cholesterol never budged. I had tried exercise. I had gone to fitness classes
for years and had even spent a few months working out under a trainer. Under
the trainer’s guidance, I could do 100 jumping jacks, 50 push-ups, 200
crunches, and many other fitness feats, but the lab numbers for cholesterol
never improved. In addition to the low-fat diet and exercise, I had tried other
weight-loss programs with modest and temporal results. The most weight I had
lost was 12 pounds and the longest length of time of keeping it off was about
six months. Losing eight pounds wasn’t that hard, but losing more than that was
hard and keeping it off even harder.
I had to do something. I thought back to the days when my
cholesterol levels were normal. If I could just get back to or even close to
what I weighed then, surely the numbers would change. I remembered that in
those days, most of my exercise came from walking. Walking four miles a day
several days a week. Over the past 15 years or so, I had put on about 40
pounds. I wondered how much I needed to lose to affect the cholesterol numbers.
Obviously, I needed to lose at least half of that.
Online I found the guidelines for
losing a pound a week, based on the number of calories needed to maintain a
certain weight. I had kept a food journal sporadically in the past, using a
program included in software on my computer. Setting a goal of losing one
pound per week would help in establishing daily habits, while gradually
reducing the amount of calories consumed. This program also provided for
tracking daily nutrients, allowing me to see how my daily food choices fell
within daily guidelines for sugar and sodium, as well as other nutrients.
For the first eight weeks, I eliminated all added sugar from
my daily diet. Well, at least what I thought included added sugar. Not only did I hope this would help with lowering triglycerides
and cholesterol, but it also helped with easing into a daily calorie budget.
For those first few weeks, my daily calorie budget was just under 1800
calories, which included calories burned from walking. (I made two mathematical blunders in calculating daily calories those first weeks, but the second blunder compensated for the first.) That’s not exactly starving yourself, especially if you eat most
meals at home. In fact, I never went to bed hungry.
During those early months,
I would pour myself a half cup of organic Purely O cereal and munch on that.
At the time, this cereal was also
fortified with calcium (Currently, it no longer has added calcium.) and not
only satisfied late night hunger, but also supplied nutrients. Other times, I
would measure out a serving or half serving of nuts. Instead of chips, I bought
nuts and began keeping them in the pantry for snacks. I liked cashews, so that’s what I bought.
After figuring out that I used to eat nearly a half bag of potato chips at one
sitting, a can of nuts was a bargain and much healthier -- considering, too , that nuts are also more
filling and satisfying.
At the end of the first week, I weighed and had lost one
pound. That one pound had taken me out of the 180-range and I was now at 179.
The following week, I weighed again and had dropped another pound. For eight
weeks straight, I weighed and had the same result—another pound lost. At this
time, I had lab work done to check my cholesterol and triglycerides. I had been
off the medication for eight weeks and wanted to know if this eight-pound
weight loss and walking were helping. They were!!! The results were not great,
but they had improved to the point where meds were not recommended. Around the
same time, I had to lower my dosage for blood pressure medicine. All the
walking and eating a lower sodium diet had lessened my need for the medicine,
and my dosage was cut in half. My doctor told me I could start weaning off the
medicine, but at this point, I was concerned about staying with my new habits
and wanted to be more established in them before I went off the blood pressure
medicine completely.
By now, it was Christmas time, so I did add back some treats
to my daily calorie allowance. I found that being off sweets for eight weeks
had lessened my need or craving for them. It didn’t take much now to satisfy a
sweet tooth. I started tracking added sugar just like I was already tracking
sodium and tried to stay within the recommended guidelines. If I went over a
day or two a week, I didn’t worry about it. It was still much, much better than
what I was doing before. But most days, I did stay within the guidelines, and
it was freeing to be able to have a treat without guilt. To my surprise, I
found that my favorite recipes for treats fell within these guidelines -- if I
limited my servings. That is key to treats. Make them at home. You can also
adjust the sugar in most recipes and get the same results. After examining the
ingredients more thoroughly on commercial treats, I decided to make my own or
do without. During that first Christmas, I still baked but cut back to about
two or three baked goodies for the entire season.
It was during this time that I also discovered an app for my
new phone that would track my daily calories and nutrients, as well as my
walking and exercises and make the adjustments each week as I dropped another
pound. It would also compute my recipes into calories and nutrients. I could
even scan my food purchases into my phone for calorie and nutrient info. I
loved this app! Not only did it do all the a fore mentioned tasks, but it also
archived all my daily entries and showed me dates of when I could expect to
reach goals. Now, everything I had been doing on my computer for the past eight
weeks could be done in seconds on my phone. I could even record my weekly
weight and see how my daily calories and calories earned through walking and
exercise were adjusted. For each pound lost, my daily calories were adjusted
down six calories daily one week and seven calories down the following week and then
returned to six again the following week. I don’t understand the math in this,
but I do know it worked for me. I continued to lose a pound per week.
When the first week
of January came around, I had reached a 10-pound weight-loss. And that was
after going through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some people were noticing the
weight-loss now, including my husband. My husband decided to join me, and I set
up the app for him on his phone. It was also around this time that I started
getting a little anxious. This was where in the past I had reached a plateau
and the weight-loss stopped. Not this time!. Each week, the predicted one pound
fell off. When I reached the 15-pound loss, I started feeling more confident in
the plan. In March, I returned to my doctor to discuss the plan and get new lab
tests. I reported to him that I now had lost 21 pounds. He was so proud of my
efforts and results. My lab results had improved even more. I did not need the
medication for cholesterol at this point. My doctor told me I could come off
the blood pressure medicine also, but again I wanted to wait until I had stayed
with these new habits for at least a year. But the dosage of blood pressure
medicine was furthered reduced again to just one-fourth a dose per day.
After losing 20 pounds, I reset my goal to losing 25 pounds.
At my doctor’s visit, I discussed this new goal with him and reset it to 30
pounds. After I reached 30 pounds, I planned to reset to losing another 10
pounds at one-half pound per week. I didn’t want to go on maintenance with 500
calories suddenly added back to my daily allowance. Adding back 250 calories a
day to my daily allowance would take off the remaining 10 at an even slower
pace and further entrench these new habits.
At the end of May, I was in near disbelief as the scales
confirmed that I had exceeded my original goal of losing 20 pounds. I had now
lost 30 pounds. Now I wondered how the one-half pound per week loss would work
out, as I added back 250 calories per day to my daily allowance. It worked.
When I returned to my doctor in early November, I had lost a total of 38
pounds. When I saw my lab results at this visit, I felt like crying. My
triglycerides number was GREAT—around what it had been 30 years before – and a
good number for my cholesterol. My doctor told me that my blood pressure
medicine could not be reduced any lower, so I began the weaning off process and
then went off it completely.
When I first returned to walking as my primary exercise, I
tried walking five miles a day about five times a week. Right away, I noticed
that the fifth mile was rough on my knees, so I stopped at four, and found my
knees could take that. When I discussed the walking and calorie tracking with
my doctor, he said four miles was plenty. For the first two months or so, my
walking speed was 18 minutes for each mile. After three months or so, I was
walking a mile in 16 minutes. After six months of walking four miles a day for
four or five times a week, I was completing all four miles in 15-minute miles. Then
after about a year and half, I was walking four miles in 14 minutes each. At
this point, it just seemed natural to add a slight jog to part of each mile. So
with my doctor’s approval, I started doing this.
From the beginning of my return to walking as my primary
form of exercise, I have included some mat exercises, as well as some for
stretching and balancing. In addition, I work out with weights once or twice a
week. I have gone to a lot of fitness classes over the years, and the mat,
stretching and balancing exercise I do were learned in those classes.
Occasionally, I still go to fitness classes when my favorites are offered –
kick boxing and some form of aerobic step.
During the first eight weeks of tracking daily calories, I
didn’t add my walking and exercises as “earned calories.” First of all, I
wasn’t sure of a number to assign to them, and secondly, I didn’t want to get
in the habit of rewarding myself with extra food. Thirdly, while I was new at
logging daily food entries, I knew it was more than possible I would forget to
log something, and the calories earned from walking would hopefully cover that
and anything I logged wrong. After I started using the “Lose It” app, I banked
the calories earned for walking for planned indulgences and also to cover mistakes
in entries logged, and in a few cases, ingredients I forgot to list in
computing some of my recipes. These mistakes can and do happen. Thankfully,
I’ve had enough overage from my walking to cover them and met my goals. Although
I didn’t realize it at the time and didn’t account for it, I was gaining muscle
from the consistent mat exercises.
Like many other challenges in life, the hardest part is on
the front end. Although I really couldn’t say this has been hard as far as the
eating part. I don’t feel starved or go to bed hungry. Not even in the
beginning. For me the hardest part was in the beginning when I wondered if it
would really work—if I could make it past the plateau point in my past—and if
it would bring improvement to my lipid panel.
Sometimes, I’m asked if I lost this weight by sticking to 1,200-1,400
a day. The answer is no. In going back and looking at the entries from the
early weeks and months, I see that most days I took in around 1,600 calories. There were a few days when I only took in
around 1200-1,400 calories, just due to
the fact I was extra busy or just had
lower-calorie meals. Even with the lower calorie in-take, I was meeting daily
essential nutrient requirements. I
stopped eating junk when I started tracking calories, so everything I ate
counted toward these requirements. A few
times, I checked my daily log-ins and saw that I had only taken in 1,200 or so
calories, and I would eat something whether I was hungry or not. I didn’t want
to take in lower than my allowance and risk lowering my metabolism.
Going on maintenance
at 140 pounds brought my daily calorie allotment back to 1,689 calories before
walking or any exercise and more than adequately covers three meals and managed
treats. I still weigh several times a week. I don't plan to end the daily logging. It's working and it's become part of my daily life. I do not want to go back.
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