Re: Digest Number 1556

[Guest guest]

To the frustrated person that is overweight and has severe medical problems.

My heart truly goes out to you.

I'm sick and tired of being sick. I really try to keep my spirits up but it

gets tough. Especially during the the night when I'm alone to worry about what's

going to become of me physically and financially.

Here's the thing with weight loss. From my perspective. The more you have to

lose the more frustrating it looks. And is.

I gained a lot of weight from being on medications and the weight gain was

horrible. It ruined my self-esteem and caused physical problems. It really was

awful, and that's one of the reasons I feel for you.

I would also like to mention that yes, it would be good for you to be able to

walk and get some mild exercise. At the same time when you look at the weight

you need to lose exercise is really only a partial solution. And it really only

helps a lot on some people.

For me to lose weight, I always had to focus on the food intake not on

exercise. However, exercise is good for general health and I walk every day,

because my dog makes me not because I'm disciplined. Generally I hate to

exercise. I've met with my doctor about this and the situation is that my body

does not produce in the positive chemicals as a result of it. So it never makes

me feel better. Thus no motivation.

You did ask us to tell you about how to lose weight:

I start each morning with a very small bowl of gluten free cereral with a

little low fat mil (2% milk fat). I do not recommend nonfat milk for anyone. I

add in one half banana sliced up. As much decafinated black or red tea as I

would like. I put about a half teaspoon sugar into the entire pot so that I

control, the sugar intake, but still enjoy my tea. You could use a sweetener, if

needed. I save the other half of banana for later in the day when I need a

snack.

Because I get low blood sugarI have to heat throughout the day this is very

labor-intensive. When I go places I am carrying a bag of food with me. Including

when I go shopping.

I may have some totally nonfattening fruit like melon in between breakfast and

next meal. Or sliced up vegetables. I just try to toss something in there so I

can make it to the next meal.

Then, I make these huge salads. They very from time to time. Fresh lettuce,

spinach, tomatoes, onions, avocados, cauliflower, bell pepper, sometimes cooked

vegetables or cooled like broccoli. So the salads vary according to what I have

available, but they are big. I make a lot of salad -- enough to last for the

entire day and evening. This activity alone will provide exercise. It's a lot of

work to make a really good salad. Don't givein to buying bags of premade salad,

or takeout restaurant salads, that will not work.

At about 11:30 I load up my first plate. I add dressing (oil and vinegar), and

I may crumble some goat cheese, feta cheese, or sliced up Swiss cheese and very

occasionally a boiled egg or crumpled bacon. In order to be sure that I get

carbohydrates I sometimes add some boiled rice or gluten free pasta inot the

salid. The trick is that you cannot add large portions of the boiled a bacon or

cheese that will not work. Again, I drink decaf tea.

For salad dressing, I use only oils and vinegars. Absolutely no salad

dressing.

So I keep the leftover salad in the refrigerator and at about 4:30 it's the

same drill. I usually at the dressing when I am going to get the salads so it

doesn't get soggy.

If necessary, I do another small salad at around 7:00.

Now for snacks: I eat something like one half piece of two different kinds of

fruit. A few raw carrots. Etc.. Some fruits are very fattening so you need to

watch, which ones you eat. Apple and orange juice are also very fattening.

Sometimes I substitute the salid with a bowl of cut up fruit with a

non-flavored lowfat yogurt over it. Or sometimes, I will alternate with lowfat

cottage cheese and fruit. I do that to break up the monotony because it does

become boring.

I also drink lots of water throughout the day.

I drink no coffee, sodas, eat almost no processed and canned foods, including

things like crackers. I eat a piece of meat about the size of three fingers once

every six weeks for the flavor. Even then I stay away from the red meat and go

to pork.

I sometimes add chicken that is skinned and boiled and cut into small chunks

to the salads. I often add small amounts of canned tuna or canned salmon to the

salads. They are very nonfattening and make it so that I do not get as hungry.

Sometimes I eat about seven almonds as a snack.

So the trick really is to go all vegetables with very little meat, animal

protein, and breadstuffs like bread, pasta and crackers. No coffee, no sodas, no

alcohol.

I will tell you that the whole thing with weight loss is that it is no fun.

And no matter what I've done it is not fun. It is a slow tedious process. It

took me a long time to lose weight. If you lose 1 lb. a month, be happy.

Although when you are starting in the larger weight zone you will typically lose

quicker.

On the positive side. It feels good spiritually to know that you are feeding

your body in the way that it was meant to be fed. That you were doing your best,

regardless of what you've done in the past, to take care of it.

With all that said, I must admit that people become offended and they think it

is easy to say how to lose weight. It's not easy either because if you've been

large, you understand how difficult it really is for the other person to be in

the shoes. Being a large person in our society is a painful reality, both

physically and emotionally.

Again, all the best to you. Do try to work on your weight. It certainly is not

the cause of all of your physical problems, but it is one of the few things that

you can do to help rid your body of some of its suffering. You have so many

things going on, that you need to remember that your body needs all the love and

help that you can give it.

Sometimes for me it starts to think of my body as a separate person or thing.

Yes I realize the mind, body connection, but what I do is I make my mind say

good things to my body. When I go for walks my mind tells my body that it likes

it, or my mind tells my body that it wants it to be well. This may sound odd,

what it really boils down to is positive affirmations. They have been proven to

help in the healing process. Doing this helps me to stay focused on the fact

that I need to be nice to my body as much as I can and that is a daily challenge

due to time constraints, physical limitations, etc..

I sincerely hope this helps.

Silvana Wenkenbach

swenkenb@...