My next update.Blitzen2k5 wrote:Figured I should post here. I went to the doctor 2 weeks ago for a heel spur. He decided, while I was there and I hadnt eaten anything in 12 hours, to check my cholesterol. And it was through the roof. Lets just say when your doctor says you will be lucky to live another 5 or 10 years you know its bad. I decided to change what I eat. This is not a diet. Just a change in what I eat. I started this two weeks ago and realized I am losing weight to boot. So hey its win/win as far as I am concerned. Anyway here goes. I lost 5 pounds already and wasnt trying. So I decided to see just how far this goes with change in what I eat.
Age: 42
Sex: Male
Height: 6'6
Weight: 325 lbs. (Was 330lbs 2 weeks ago)
Goal: Get my LDLs down and my HDLs up. The weight loss is just icing on the cake. If I could drop 100 pounds that would be cool.
How: Changed my diet. From heavy fatty foods to more low cholesterol foods. I stopped eating pork completely. Zero pork. No more soft drinks, junk food, etc. Eating plenty of fruits, veggies, nuts, fish, grains, etc. Will still eat red meat once a week. Made that my magic meal. Because I go all out. Ribeye, tbone, sirloin, etc.
Exercise: Oddly enough I get a lot of exercise. I am a very active person. Scuba, fishing, camping, hiking, etc. I walk everywhere whenever I can. Though I have decided to increase it to running more. In a few weeks I want to join a gym.
Problems: Well I had been drinking soy milk and I loved the taste. Kinda tasted like heavy cream but without the high cholesterol. Sunday evening my stomach was killing me. (stop reading if your easily sick) I started vomiting at night that lasted til morning. And it was this thick white chunky stuff. Went to doc the next morning before work and found it was the soy milk. Some chemical in it that irritated my intestines. Was told to avoid eating for awhile and no more soy milk. So now I have to find another substitute. I love milk. So dont know what I am going to do yet. Think I will try rice milk next.
Anyway that is the start. Every week I will come back and post whats happening in this.
Well things have not been swim swim swim like I had hoped. I spent monday night in the ER. I was having chest pains all day and my BP was high the 4 times I had it taken. Finally around 10PM I gave up thinking it would clear up when I could feel my heart pulsating through my body and it was skipping beats. So off to the ER I went. It wasnt a heart attack thank whatever god there is. They gave me a "green lizard" and it helped a lot. It turned out to be acid reflux. The doctor said it was most likely due to stress and coupled with weight loss and the drastic change in diet. I havent been losing 2 to 3 pounds a week. More like 5 or more pounds a week. But the doctor added, sometimes you cant help it. When you switch from a bad diet to a good diet its not uncommon, in the first few months, to lose a lot of weight for some people.
So now I am having to take nexium everyday. But its slow to stop the pressure in my chest. Which I was told will take several days to "kick in" as it were. I went to work today and the more I worked, the worse it got. I only hope tomorrow is better. I cant even sleep from the pressure in my chest and the occasional feeling of my heart beating through my entire body.
I am trying to avoid all the stress I can. That is a stressful in and of itself since I feel stress everywhere I turn. Living with 3 generations of women that fight constantly, the elections, Isaac, work, and my nightmares have returned when I do get sleep. Even my friends now cause me stress.
Anyway, friday I see MY doctor. He has already said he is going to run a full GI series and heart series on me to make sure I am ok. I am not to eat anything after 12 noon tomorrow. So we shall see what comes up. He loves accupuncture so my hope is that his magic needles can stop the pressure. We shall see. I will post again here after the visit.
I was doing fairly well, then life threw me off track for a while and I got out of the habit of eating good and exercising. Going to try and get back to it, hopefully the weather warms up.
Having trouble moving on with stuff. I've put on a lot of weight and now am at my heaviest ever. So... guess that's my update. Glad everyone else is having a better time of it.
