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Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Your Story! Your Voice! Your Health!

Working desk jobs for most of my life, I had grown accustomed to quick fixes for food on the run. I never made time to eat properly or look after my health and well being. Now 60 lbs overweight, I am making adjustments to my life to shed the pounds and live a more healthy lifestyle.

Apr
29

Ultimate weight loss motivation, fighting Diabetes.

It has been a while since my last update.  Back on October 20th of 2015 I wrote about my desire to get back on the wagon to lose 91lbs. I mentioned how I haven't been feeling all too well and I was also at my heaviest weight of 274lbs. Knowing I had something wrong going on, I still decided to ignore it for a month or so without taking my own advice about seeing a doctor to check out what was ailing me.  Eventually, I saw a doctor and was able to get myself back on blood pressure medicine along with a statin to manage my cholesterol. Once back on the medication, after not having been on it for well over 2 years, I figured I was ok to continue my eating habits for a short time, sort of as a "last hurrah" before I kicked in my weight loss regime with the start of the new year.  With a follow up visit to the doctors to run some blood work to determine whether or not the medication was causing any havoc in my system, that is when the bomb dropped.  The abuse of my body had taken its toll.   It was discovered I had a high fasting blood glucose reading. (138) My A1C had me dipped into the insulin level of a diabetic. (9.6) Aside from all of this I also had an ear infection that was going on for some months and would not fully go away. 

I wasn't surprised and I almost suspected that something like this was happening based on how I did not feel well even after restarting the blood pressure and cholesterol meds. It was enough to give me a kick in the pants when it comes to making some key changes in my life.  Millions of people live with diabetes and many die due to complications of the disease.  This fact alone is enough to narrow my focus where I am to engage in battle against the disease as well as lose weight. In times past there was some wiggle room for excuses such as the "I can start up my diet tomorrow" which would roll from day to day, had turned into a "holy crap, you have no choice having two young children, you need to get your butt in gear and try to rid yourself of this disease so you can watch them grow up!".  Realistically, I realize I may not be able to get rid of diabetes if it is discovered that my pancreas is no longer creating sufficient insulin. Still, I need to give it a shot and see if I can conquer the disease that so many seem to fail and fall victim. Fortunately, it appears to be Type 2 where the cells in my body may be resisting the insulin my body may be creating.

Almonds
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Oct
20

If at first you do not succeed... try try to lose 91 lbs again.

Well over a year ago I was fed up with my weight.  I had grown fat and lazy.  Laziness was further perpetuated through the programming my brain had undergone with the years of poor eating and neglect.  I was addicted to sugar and fatty foods and eating the way I did sent me spiraling into depression which often then made it easy to be lazy. It ensured a self fulling prophecy of health failure since like any addition the substance (food in this case) tricks the brain into satisfying itself but with destructive results.

I woke up to what was happening and decided to try and lose weight.  Knowing well it was going to take a lifestyle change I cut sugar out of my diet and ate a high protein / low carb diet and lost over 40+ lbs.  However with the rising costs of food, having a family that has no dietary restrictions and having a disposition that proved to be weaker than I first thought, I fell back into my old routine of addictive sugar/fatty diet and gained my weight back.  Cost of food was really the breaking point since it is very expensive if you want to move completely away from eating processed foods.

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Jun
09

There really are no excuses. Senior citizens can bench more than I can :(

I struggle with getting myself into shape.  For quite sometime I have been "A SHAPE", primarily round. I lack the discipline to eat well and exercise. Excuses come easy, negative thinking drags me down and finances always seem to paint a picture of the easier "more affordable" options to eating being made up of .88 cent boxes of Ronzoni shells in butter versus eating whole foods.  Well take a look at these guys...

Simply put.  If these guys can do it at their ages.  Then I (we) have NO EXCUSES to get going. Here is a library I am forming of some really old people who are in much better shape than I am, and I'm half their age!

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Apr
09

Day 8: Reboot and the fat burning machine has started

One full day of properly (All day Tuesday) following my jumpstart program and I am starting to see the results I expect.  Wednesday morning weigh in was 230.4 lb . My body is starting to adjust to the lack of carbs.  I am drinking tons of water so I know the losses are not due to water retention / water loss. (110 oz of water for the day).  I am starting to clear out the previous day/days of food that had built up in my system.  Sometimes when starting up a low carb strategy you will notice bowel movements happen less frequently at first. As more clears out of my system I expect to see larger weight loss gains over the upcoming days.

I've stopped the cardio for now and I have been walking 2 miles/day. I want to have a few strong days on the jumpstart without the cardio and then I will go back to the gym starting Saturday to see if the cardio affects the weight-loss for the remaining days of the jumpstart period.

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Apr
09

Day 6 & 7: Jump-restart, getting ready to really burn!

My suspicions were confirmed.  My jumpstart weight-loss had stalled.  Why? Stupidity on my part. As much as I thought I was following my program I inadvertently introduced elements that were different and it has put a bump in the road. 

Zero Calorie does not equal zero Carbs

I am following a low carb food strategy and I started using Truvia sweetener.  Truvia carries 3g of carbs per packet. Shame on me for assuming it was carb free as other sweeteners I had used in times past.  Truvia IS the healthy way to go... but for now I will hold off on using it until the maintenance phase of the diet.  Since I drink Green tea like a fiend, I was consuming about 35-45 grams of carbs per day alone with Truvia.  That is what I believe is causing the the jumpstart weight-loss to stall.  For the jumpstart program to work, I need to consume next to 55-75 grams of carbs per day for 8 days... (And yes it is not that fun... remember, jumpstarts for any type of diet plan, are to be tolerated... anyone selling "fun" is trying to sell you product, I'd say to save your money.) The rest of the intake is an overload of protein, minimal fats, appropriate amount of salt and a whole lot of water.

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