It’s about more than weight
Disclaimer: This is in no way intended to be “medical advice.” It is simply sharing our own experiences. If you can relate to something you may be experiencing, by all means, talk to your doctor. As you can see below, some of my doctors advised me to do certain things I didn’t necessarily agree with or follow, but that was my own decision. Each person has to follow their own heart and mind.
When 2018 rolled around, both my husband and I had reached a point that we knew we needed to do something about our health. I retired on January 5, and this was my chance to concentrate on something besides my work. I had some health issues that were concerning and maybe being retired would give me time to work on those issues.
For one, I had not been able to sleep for several years without taking an over-the-counter sleep aid, and I did NOT like that! But I would become desperate enough for sleep that I would break down and take a little blue gel cap. The thing is, when I would wake up after taking one, I really didn’t feel rested. And waking up was SO hard! If someone asked me if I felt stressed out, I would have told you “no” because I really didn’t believe I was. But I do know I would find myself in the wee hours of the morning suddenly thinking of something work-related that I needed to do, or had forgotten to do, or bright ideas of things I could do to make things work better. So maybe it was stress. I didn’t feel stressed. I was happy and absolutely loved my job…so why should I feel stressed? Maybe my body knew something I didn’t.
And then the weird thing with my heart started. I would just be minding my own business and all of a sudden it felt like a train was running through my chest. I got an app on my phone that would let me put my finger over a light and it would count my pulse during one of those episodes…and sometimes it would read over 200 beats per minute! It was an awful feeling! And I noticed it would most often happen right after I had eaten my lunch and headed back to work for the afternoon. I broke down and went to a cardiologist who put a heart monitor on me for two weeks. At the end of that test he told me that I had Atrial fibrillation (also called AFib or AF), “a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications.” Well, that’s not scary at all! He prescribed a medication called Metropolol which is meant to slow your heart rate down. I went to the pharmacy and had the prescription filled. Then, being the over-thinker that I am, I also sat down and read about all the side effects, including people that felt they had “changed” into a different type of a person after taking it…depressed, forgetful, short-tempered, etc. I thought long and hard. That “forgetful” one was the one that scared me the most. I was still working, and I could not afford to become forgetful when some of my duties affected so many people and so many dollars. So I just put that bottle of pills into my nightstand without even uncapping it. In fact, I plan to use the Drug Take Back program at our local Police department this weekend to get rid of it.
Another issue was my cholesterol. Every year our workplace provided a health screening which included a blood lab workup to show our sugar, cholesterol, and other results. Mine (the “bad cholesterol”) for the past few years had crept up to quite a bit over 200! I was encouraged by doctors to look at medication for that, but talk about scary side effects! One of which is once you start taking it, you shouldn’t STOP taking it!
My husband (who will never talk about it unless asked) had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, had high blood pressure, and some serious skin issues. With diabetes, any kind of skin issues can escalate quickly and even become limb or life threatening.
And both of us were overweight. Well, truthfully, we were “obese.” That was the one issue that anyone could see. The others were all hidden from plain sight.
So from January, when I retired, until March, my husband (also an over-thinker) began to read, watch medical doctors online, and research the whole issue of weight loss. Healthy weight loss. Yes, we had both “dieted” before to lose weight, but we needed to do more than just lose weight. I am a “Lifetime Member” of Weight Watchers (we both were on WW), we had used the Nutrisystem foods and plans, used The Daily Plate online “counting” system, and followed the popular mantra “eat less, move more” that fitness gurus and even some doctors use to “encourage” people to lose weight. The thing is, using all those methods also had one “side effect” in common: you were ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS hungry. No matter how much they say “you won’t even be hungry.” You are. Starving all the time. And so no wonder we always put the weight right back on…and gained extra pounds to boot! Sound familiar?
This time we didn’t want that kind of results which are really NON-RESULTS. We couldn’t afford it at our age. Yo-yo dieting is SO unhealthy, and we were unhealthy enough as it was.
So, after all this research, long hard thinking, and yes, prayer, Hubby announced to me that he was going to “go on Atkins” and I was right there with him. I trusted his research enough to know that he felt this was the safest and healthiest way for us to go. I already wrote about how I “got started” in a previous post, so I won’t go into all that again. We started on March 12, 2018. But fast forward a few weeks and months…
Just three weeks into this, my husband’s average blood sugar dropped precipitously to normal levels. Then after 3 months he went to his doctor to have his A1C tested, it had fallen to 4.7, which is considered the ideal level for NON DIABETICS! His doctor after reading the results said, “You’re not going to believe this!” He encouraged him to keep doing whatever it was he was doing. In addition to blood sugar levels falling to NON DIABETIC levels all his other markers had improved as well! Lower triglycerides and higher HDL (the so-called “good” cholesterol). And all of this with no exercise! Just a simple change in diet.
My husband tells people, “The first guy that ever ran a ‘marathon’ was named Phidippides. He dropped dead at the finished line! I’m surprised it ever caught on!” Of course, he’s referring to the ancient Greek messenger who ran from the coastal city of Marathon all the the way to Athens with news of how the battle was going. “And,” he likes to add, “Phidippides was in his prime and on a strict Mediterranean diet! He had never eaten an artificial ingredient in his life!”
My husband’s blood pressure is our next target, and while it continues to be higher than it should, it’s gradually beginning to normalize. All those years I used “vegetable oils” to cook with will take a long time to get rid of in the veins.
And my AFib? Well, it’s gone. Without the scary drugs. I realized one day a few months back that I had not even had an “episode” of the heart-racing train in a long time.
My cholesterol screening at my first post-retirement annual physical last July (after being on this low-carb regimen for just 4 months) was already well within the “normal” range. I can’t wait to see what it will be THIS July.
And I sleep like a baby these days. WITHOUT a pill, which I haven’t taken in over a year now. I wake up feeling so rested. Some mornings I get up earlier than I did even when I was using an alarm clock and feel so rested I just go ahead and get up to get my day started. SUCH a good feeilng!
I reached my “goal weight” a few months ago and started eating a few more whole food carbs a day to keep from losing more weight than I need to. Foods like berries, nuts, and more veggies. But still NO SUGAR.
Having said all that, the weight loss was not the main objective for me. It was, and is, continuing to improve my / our health, and that is the real goal.
Don’t get discouraged if your scales are not giving you a result you want right away, or if it sometimes “stalls.” There are probably improvements going on that you can’t see that are more important than what your scales can show you!
YOU CAN DO THIS!