Fatso Run, Fatso Run?

I think many of us who have ventured into the world of weight loss over the years have heard of the “ Domino Effect”. To illustrate what I mean by this is something you do in life, had an effect on something else you are doing or trying to do.  

I have friends, and I have done this too, who are struggling trying to lose weight. Many are like me in the past way overweight, not just pleasingly plump, so to speak. In my case way over 300 pounds.

Everyone preaches that you got to exercise to get the weight off. I have no problem with that statement. But here is the kicker. What is exercise? If you are way overweight, and decide on going on an aggressive exercise program at your present weight some bad things happen, at least they always happened in my life.

You may lose weight at first, in some cases quite rapidly. This fact may even motivate you to even up what you are doing. But eventually what happens is that your stress your already over burdened body and it breaks down somewhere. Most of the time in my life that meant my legs. Torn muscles, or tendons are common. Feet also take a beating if the exercise program includes running or fast walking. The damage you do will not only effect you right away, the damage will linger into your later life. I have had both knees repaired and my back still suffers from my routine of running at least 6 miles every other day that I did.

Eventually because of the pain and injury, you stop the routine or in your mind only suspend it. But slowly the weight that you lost in this effort comes right back on and maybe even more and you go into what I call the “ Oh Well What the Hell Mode”. This is where you tell yourself I don’t need to be skinny, life is short, may as well eat and do what I want. Does this sound familiar?

The problem is the Domino Effect. Body breaks down, so weight comes back on. I know it is discouraging and everyone says you got to exercise to lose weight. And I agree with that……. BUT.

But you must, in my opinion, diet your way down with very moderate exercise first. You have to find the caloric level of eating that will allow for fairly fast weight loss and only do light exercise until you have reduced your body mass down quite a bit. In my case I lost from over 300 pounds down to about 225 before I felt that when I exercised that I was not stressing my body anymore. I could workout without having my heart beating very fast, and my legs and feet were not feeling an excessive amount of pain and what pain I had only lasted for a short time.

I am not a doctor so I can not advise you of what weight you should be before you can do strenuous exercise, so best to get the opinion form a professional. Once your body mass is low enough you will be able to workout without doing long term damage. You can continue to diet and work out but now you will be able to accelerate your weight loss with the exercise and not hurt yourself and slump back into not being able to do physical things, which will defeat your weight loss efforts.

It is a balancing act, cause and effect. Just don’t go to far on eater leg. Not too much exercise without dieting first. And then and only then can you up your activity. Not the other way around.

This has been my experience over the last 50 years or so of weight problems for me. I hope it helps you. 

New Weight Loss Help

Jackie and I recently got a new device to cook our food. We are always looking at improving how and what we eat. Especially now that I have had WLS it is important that I have very little fat. We have always cooked our meat on an open rack in the oven letting the drippings fall into another pan under the rack and getting as little as possible retained in the meat.

There is just the two of us in the house and when we cook meat in such a small amount. It is not very cost and time effective to use the big oven to cook just 4 ounces of food for each of us. We were looking at a way of being more effective and to be honest our oven is very old and Jackie does not like having to clean it so often. 

A friend of mine had tried several of these cooking devices like the ones you see on late night TV. He actually bought most of the popular brands and used them for some time. After doing an evaluation he decided that the best device he used was the cooker manufactured by Sharper Image. 

Jackie and I got one and we agree that it is very good. It cooks the food very quickly and has a rack so that the excess fat falls to the bottom of the big glass bowel. You can cook the meat or what ever you want even frozen. It takes only a very short time and the energy use and clean up is just great. The meat is browned and crispy if you want it that way. We even do fries in it and they are crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. 

In our mind this is a very good device if you want something that cooks things very fast and well. It makes life a lot simpler and costs less in energy and cleanup is much faster. The Sharper Image has a large glass bowel that is kind of heavy, but it will last longer than some that have some kind of plastic bowels. It is large enough that you could cook a complete meal in  it and it would work for a larger family if you need that. 

For Jackie and me, it fit’s the bill very well, and we love it. 

Burp!!!!

Things around here are pretty much returning to normal. My weight is stabilizing, I weigh every other week on Tuesdays. I bounce up or down a pound of two but for the most part I am still under my goal weight but not losing to a dangerous area any more. I am still having big time problems with heart burn or over active stomach acid problems. They are better than they were when I was on vacation. Seems like they come on when I am hungry or it has been awhile from the time I had something to eat and my stomach is empty. 

The Doctor is sending me for some tests next Tuesday. The kind of tests where you drink some yucky stuff and they take pictures of it going through your system. He for some reason thinks I am having a blockage or something like that. I don’t think so as I have no problem eating anything these days. In fact I am worried that I am eating too much. I do weigh and measure everything and log it into MY Fitness Pall software on the internet, but still I worry that the weight will start to creep up on me. 

We paid off all our vacation bills I think. We did charge some things while we were in England, got the bill and paid it, but there still may be a few linger changes still out there. It cost us a lot more than we had planned, but we had a wonderful time and the memories will last us for the rest of our lives. 

Now on to working on the house. Going to put new floors in most of the rooms and paint. We are still not sure what we are going to put in the kitchen but one thing for sure is that Jackie wants a new stove so I will be working on the cabinets to make room for a slide in gas oven and stove top. We will be working on that just after the first of the year. First we have to get though the holidays and have them paid for, then we can buy the supplies needed and get to work. I hope to have it all done by April. Wish me luck.