Health

Am officially morbidly obese. Why do people make judgements based on how you look and assume that you eat too much food?
Having survived beyond the 40th year of my life - GP notes stated I should now be 6ft under!
Well to all folks out there - I eat a normal amount of food, which is well balanced nutritionally - but due to medical conditions and a strange lot of symptons - it would seem that I not destined to be thin.
The GP has referred me to the diabetic clinic who also does endocrinology which is where I and she think I have problems. If this turns out to be the case - then I will have a long long haul ahead in order to get a better life quality. It is not a cure, but I understand more putting the disease into some kind of remission. This disease is called Cushings' syndrome. I will tell you more as I learn more. If this blog helps one other person it will have done some good.
Have just had some of the results back re the diabetes clinic. They are interesting results, especially the cholesterol result which is below the magic 5 and this achieved by eating mostly unprocessed food cooked from scratch and using butter no less! Also I hardly ever take the statin tablets as I like grapefruit too much and it now seems that peppermints also affect them. It would also appear that these tablets may cause muscle loss and severe leg cramps. Of which I have suffered both. I try to eat as much food as I can that contains magnesium as this is the mineral that keeps cramps at bay. Walnuts are a good source.
Had fun doing the first stage of the test for Cushing's - Had to collect all my waste water for 3 days and pop it in a very large sample bottle! As you can imagine my size did not help.
Hope they have enough as I do not want to go through that again.
New bit:
According to the Diabetic clinic Consultant, I do not seem to have Cushings Disease. But I do have several hormonal problems she tells me.
I started injecting the drug Byetta twice per day in November 2009. This has to be done a maximum of one hour before I eat something and the 2 injections have to be a min 6 hours apart.
Me weight had dropped to well below my start weight by April this year and was 158.1 kg's.
People are now starting to notice the loss and my GP even jokes about getting a lamp post in her room, so that I will be able to hide behind it! LOL! That's just under the 25 stone mark.
At my heaviest I was 197.4 kg's or 31.02 stones. So people there is hope for all of us morbidly obese bods.
People always judge a large person, by how they look and they never ever bother to find out the why behind our health problems.
I used to suffer severe IBS attacks and it got so bad that I ended up in my local A & E admissions unit until I could get a ward bed as I needed 5 units of blood having lost so much one night that I was unable to stand up from the toilet. Very low blood pressure. The new drug seems to prevent most of the major attacks that I used to have and because I now get the nutrition from my food as it now goes through at a reasonably slow pace, and I still eat healthy 90% of the time, the weight is dropping at around 1lb or so a week. It seems to be staying off too. I do not get any way near as hungry as I used to. So I eat less overall. Anyway I go to the clinic again on the 20th July. So will update this bit of the blog then.
Update: Have now completed a whole year on injecting Byetta (exanatide). My weight seems to have plateaued or as the nurse said decrease input with same activity or increase output with same input or increase activity and decrease input. Am trying to do the last option. My diabetic consultant now thinks I should opt in for bariatric surgery (gastric band or balloon). I have cut out all sugar from drinks and take in water now. The water is used for flushing toxins out. I have a big suspicion that if everyone stopped eating sugar or sweets then there would be far less toxin in everyones body and some would be almost cured of their problems. Of course the Sugar industry does not want us to do this do they? Have you ever smelled the processing smell when sugar is being obtained from the beets? It stinks and if you go by the factory at Bury St Edmunds, it should be enough to make you think - do I need to put that into my body? Certainly makes me think.
Further update: Weight now at 154kg and that just after Christmas hee hee hee. In old money that is 24.20 stone (Decimal) So in stones/lbs oz is 24 stones and just over 3lb 2 oz. Modern scales are such a giggle for accuracy.
I am now trying to eat meals that are higher in protein with a vastly reduced carb content. The idea being to lower my carb intake and thus engage the fat conversion back to stored carbs and thus burn up fat. Tech term is Ketosis. Which if it works, will mean that my consultant will not insist on bariatric surgery. Hopefully will get back exercising again once I get over this chesty cough bug that I caught from several generous bus customers. It would seem that quite a few diets are catching onto this high protein to low carb ratio. Problem I find is that I do not like their ready meals or their price for that matter and I would far rather make and cook my own food from scratch. Often far cheaper. May even be far healthier. I will never ever go to weight watchers or slimming world as I am intelligent enough to work out a diet without their little books. Waste of money. And yes I do allow a treat now and again, usually fruit. I am not doing it for the weight, but more to lower the sugar levels in my blood. The weight loss is a good side effect or bonus.