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Health Measurements

I got my results today from my recent super-physical. Good news -- there's nothing drastically wrong with me, other than the usual stuff (hypertension, hypothyroid, both well under control). That's what I expected; I've worked hard on my health the last few years.

We lose weight for a variety of reasons. Some of us peel the pounds for a specific event (wedding, high school reunion). Some do it for looks, vanity, or societal pressure. My number one reason for losing weight was -- and remains to this day -- my health. (OK, I admit it, there's some vanity in there, too, but it's not the overriding reason.)

For 15 years, as the pounds piled on, I let my body go to pot, little by little. The effects of my neglect were small at first, but as the years passed, they grew until they were hard to ignore. Swollen ankles. The inability to climb stairs without getting out of breath. An increase in fasting blood glucose. Increasing blood pressure. (Vanity again: what bothered me the most, I think, was the swollen ankle thing. It made me think of of those thick-ankled, matronly, "sensibly-shoed" women I remembered from my childhood. I thought those ladies were about a million years old. Ouch.)

When you are young and fat, it is easy to think that your weight will never affect your health. You feel OK, you may even feel great. Your health numbers may be OK. Your body still appears to be working OK, so it's easy to ignore the health warnings, and think, "Oh, that will never happen to me. I'm different."

Unfortunately, excess pounds do their dirty work little by little, and the damage takes years to reveal itself. By the time problems develop, some of the damage may not be reversible. I was lucky, I guess. I took action before a suffered too much damage, and most of it was fix-able.

These days I am in "excellent health," in the words of my doc. You can bet your last dollar that I will continue to bust my rear for the right to wear that title for many years to come. Poor health does not exactly add pizazz to your life, y'know. Been there, done that, not going back, thankyouverymuch. The old lady's dead.

So please pardon me for bragging a little, because my new numbers these days are a true NSV (non-scale victory) for me. They remind me that the greatest rewards of a healthy weight aren't the ones hanging in my closet, and that the true measure of my accomplishment isn't dictated by the "iron monster."

(Note: the #s in parentheses are from my couch-potato days. . . circa 1999.)

*****

Total cholesterol: 199 (267)

LDL: 104 (171) -- I would like this to be lower; working on it

HDL: 81 (36) -- this is a record high for me

Fasting glucose: 93 (116)

hsC-RP - .9 (no ref) -- I'm told that anything under 1 is fantastic

*****

Last year I had one of those heart CT scans. I had a -0- calcium score. Whew. Guess I didn't do too much damage during my "fat" years. I'm working on keeping that one at -0-. Heart disease runs on my Mom's side . . . she had her first heart attack at 58. I'm 52. You do the math.

My high HDL is from all the biking, lifting, swimming, and other physical stuff I now do. My resting heart rate is 43. Most days, I feel about 25 years old. Never, ever underestimate the power of exercise. It can do a 180 on your health.

I also had a bone density DXA scan. Spinal: peak ref-94%; age-matched-104%. Hip: peak ref-106%; age-matched 114%. In other words, my bone density is normal, and is in fact high for my age.

Hmm. I think I'll keep biking, and slinging those weights around.

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Who ARE You, Really?

So, who are you?

Are you a thin person in a fat suit? Or are you a fat person in a thin suit?

Huh? Wazza? How's that, again?

What I mean is -- how do you see yourself? Are you a fat person who's temporarily thin? A thin person who's currently sporting a bit too much fat for comfort? Or . . .

Are you a skinny person who has lost the fat suit? Or, possibly, a fat person still wearing the fat suit, figuring that's what you're supposed to be wearing?

How you see yourself affects your ability to lose weight. It even affects how hard you think it is to lose weight in the first place.

The way we see the world -- and the way we see ourselves -- to a great extent determines how we function in life. If we think we're dumb, we won't strive for a promotion. We won't go back to school at night to get a degree. We're too dumb, right? What's the use, anyway? Why even try? Why even bother?

So, if we think of ourselves as "fat," then we will ALWAYS be fat . . . even when we are thin. That's a temporary condition, right? Because, after all, we are FAT. When we are thin, when we are losing weight, we are just struggling against our true natures. Aren't we?

Aren't we?

Personally, I don't think so. I think that, as in most of life, attitude is everything. How you think, how you feel, day after day, determines who you are, how you evolve, who you become.

I used to be a fat old lady. Swollen ankles, high cholesterol, wheezing up the stairs. Bad knees. Today I am a young, athletic woman. Yep, really. I believe that I am young -- I feel young. I feel about 25 most days. I am athletic. I'm in the best shape of my life. I'm a long-distance bicyclist, I have a resting heart rate of 45, and strong muscles, from lifting weights for more than four years.

OK, OK. I'm really 52, in calendar years. But that is not important. What is important is what I believe. Because if I BELIEVE I can become a young person again -- in all respects except for chronological age -- and if I act on that belief, if I live as if I were a young, healthy person, then I can become that person.

And I did become that person.

So, how'd I do it?

I can tell you how I did it . . . well, sorta. I can tell you what happened, but I can't necessarily tell you why it happened. Not completely, anyway. But I'll give it a shot.

What happened was that I had an "aha!" moment back in 1999. I was too fat and too out of shape to sweep off my front porch; it left me breathless. I determined right then and there that I was going to change my life, I was going to lose my couch potato status. I started exercising (biking and weight training) and in a couple of years, had improved my fitness to a significant extent.

Then I joined Weight Watchers in January 2002, as exercise alone wasn't enough to take the weight off. When I joined, I was ready to change my life completely. To never again eat as I had before, in the way that had gained me 85+ surplus pounds. And y'know, that's what I did. I never looked back. I knew that this time the change had to be permanent. (Sure, I had lost weight before . . . but that's another time, another blog entry.)

Fast forward to now. I've been at goal nearly a year. And somewhere along the way, at some point during my 3+ year (so far) weight loss journey, I changed the way I saw myself. Today, I'm a thin person who used to be fat, a long time ago. At least it seems like a long time ago.

What made the change happen?

Part of it was self-confidence. I had some before, I have more now. It's funny how success feeds self-confidence. Just staying on the program and watching myself succeed kept me going.

Another part of it was just sheer "this is it" determination. I had to do it. It was (in my mind) my last chance to avoid my familial fate. I didn't then, and still do not EVER, want to have a heart attack. Watching my health improve was, and still is, a huge boost.

So, there you have it. I made up my mind to change, I changed, and here I am today, still changed. I find weight maintenance to be pretty easy . . . as long as my attitude is right, and as long as I don't get cocky and start thinking that I'm suddenly cured of my obesiotic tendencies. (No, that's not a real word. I like it, though, so it stays.)

Now, I don't for a moment pretend to be an expert on the mind-body connection. But I can tell you, from my readings over the years and from personal experience, that our thoughts shape our day-to-day lives. And that we can change those thoughts. Cognitive therapy, for example, provides a means by which we can change the way we think and feel about things. Sure, it takes practice, and it won't happen overnight. But it has been shown that changing our thoughts can actually change the balance of chemicals in our brains.

That's awesome. Talk about the ultimate in self-help. I guess I did a cognitive therapy number on myself. Or something like it.

So, how does all this tie into the fat-suit issue? Well, it's something of a hackneyed old saw, but it's true -- whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. If you think you're really a fat person, you're really thinking that you "can't." Can't lose weight, can't keep it off. Not permanently, anyway.

So, BELIEVE. Believe in yourself. Practice it. Act as if you believe in yourself, even if you don't at the moment. Do it anyway. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. As many minutes as you can scrape together. Go ahead, BE that thin person, from the inside out. Even if you're currently wearing the fat suit. Do it, and you'll be needing a tailor.

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Registering My Weight Control

Two nights ago I filled out my 1-year follow-up questionnaire for the National Weight Control Registry. The NWCR is a research outfit that tracks individuals who have maintained at least a 30-pound weight loss for at least one year. I signed on with them a year ago, even though I was not really at goal weight yet. But seeing as how I'd kept off at least 65 lbs for more than a year, I figured I was eligible.

(My total "official" Weight Watchers weight loss, start-to-goal, is 77 lbs. My actual weight loss, based on my home scale, currently hovers around 86 lbs.)

The questionnaire itself is interesting . . . it consists of what amounts to a psychological questionnaire and a food questionnaire. For the first part, I had to indicate whether I'd gained or loss during the past year, and if so, whether I'd deliberately gone about changing my weight. As near as I could tell, I had dropped about another 7 lbs or so since I enlisted in the registry. So, I told them that yes, I had deliberately tried to lose the weight, and indicated that I'm working on peeling off another 10 lbs or so.

The rest of the questionnaire will be familiar to most folks who have taken any sort of survey or psych test in the past. I had to answer true/false questions such as "Food comforts me when I am stressed" (no, that's not an actual question, but you get the idea) and I also had to indicate, on a range from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly," my reaction to various statements about food, weight control, and so forth.

My answers may or may not have been typical. I'm not really a stress eater, and I find maintenance pretty easy. I journal my food, track my exercise, and in general, enjoy my normal, healthy weight. (My sagging closet poles are tangible evidence of that enjoyment. I have a jones for colorful leather jackets . . . but that's another story, another time.) Unfortunately, the questionnaire is somewhat limited -- and limiting -- it can't possibly include enough questions to elicit all possible answers. But I do wish I could have had more of a choice in telling them how I feel. Some of the "combination" questions didn't fit me exactly, but I had to give them the best answer I could. I guess that works for their data compilations, but it still doesn't tell them about the essence of "me." (Hmm . . . maybe they need to include an essay question, like the new SAT . . .)

The food questionnaire merely asked me about various types of foods -- what I eat, how often I eat them, do I eat full-fat versions, etc. Anyone reading my answers would figure out that I generally don't like to eat "diet" food, but that I tend to stay away from saturated fat (I have "cholesterol issues"). I also like to eat fried chicken 3 - 4 times a year, and enjoy full-fat ice cream. Fish and turkey are mainstays of my diet, I love fruit, and I struggle to get enough veggies in a day . . . mostly due to my gadabout lifestyle. (I have 6+ shelves full of wonderful cookbooks and no time to cook.) Not evidenced by the questionnaire: I love chocolate -- I have a little "Vitamin Ch" nearly every day. I believe that life is too short to eat bad food, so I make sure I eat the BEST I can scour up. I'm a huge fan of Whole Foods Market, visit Panera and Starbucks nearly every day (and am a shareholder of both), and recently learned to love sushi and spinach. [My hubby is wondering what the aliens did with his wife.]

I hope the Registry finds my answers useful. I anticipate sending them annual info 'til I take my dirt nap. If you're interested in signing on with the Registry, here's where you can get more info. Every little bit of data helps:

Join the National Weight Control Registry

Official web site of the Registry:

National Weight Control Registry Home Page

James Hill, PhD and Rena Wing, PhD talk about "successful losers:

The Permanente Journal/ Summer 2003/ Volume 7 No. 3

From the Harvard Medical School:

Stopping that Rebound in Weight

* * * * * *

Some key findings of the Registry, typical of us "successful losers" --

• Successful weight losers report making substantial changes in eating and exercise habits to loss and maintain their weight. [Yep, did that. This is KEY.]
• The average registrant has lost about 60 pounds / 18 kg, and has maintained that loss for approximately 5 years. [I'm there on the pounds, working on doin' the time.]
• Two-thirds of successful weight losers were overweight as a child, and 60% report a family history of obesity. [Nope. I was skinny until puberty hit me over the head. But all in my family have weight-gaining tendencies.]
• About half of participants lost weight on their own accord, without any type of assistance or formal weight loss program. [This go-round, I did Weight Watchers. But when I was about 30, I lost weight on my own and kept it off 3+ years.]
• Walking is the most frequently cited form of physical activity by registry members. [Walking doesn't do it for me; it barely gets my heart rate into the 80s. I bike, lift, swim, and can occasionally be induced to run a bit. But don't tell my back surgeon . . .]

Are you a registry member? Drop me a comment -- or just drop me a comment anyway. I'd like to hear from you guys.

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Please Observe Speed Limit

I've been spending some time at one of my favorite virtual hangouts -- the Weight Watchers message boards. Here's some of what I've been reading there lately:

"I want to lose 50 lbs by August, is that possible?"

"I have been on the program 2 months and have lost only 8 pounds, and I'm really discouraged."

"Hey, guys -- how long did it take you to lose 30 pounds? Think I can do it by summer?"

Maybe I've been hiding under a rock, or something, but it still astonishes me the number of people who want to lose weight FAST. Everyone -- or at least a good percentage of "everyone" -- apparently is in a tremendous hurry to lose. They want the ol' avoirdupois gone right now. Some of 'em, I think, would stick a tube in their hip and suck the fat out, if they could. (Can you imagine what the demand would be for a DIY liposuction kit, were that ever possible?) Health experts say it's best to take it slow . . . but still, folks want to exceed the speed limit, where weight loss is concerned.

I understand why, though; I really do. When you feel like you're trapped, you just want to escape. "Right now" often isn't soon enough.

Last year, I ruptured a lumbar disc and had to have an MRI. I forgot to tell my doc that I much prefer "open" MRI. I remembered only when I came face-to-face with the "donut" machine. Oops.

It was too late (and I was in too much pain) to back out, so I decided I could deal with feeling like I was stuck in a coffin for a while.

If you've had an MRI, you know that it's pretty boring (other than the claustrophobic part). And that it takes an excruciatingly long time. My session went on for about half again as long as eternity, and all I could do was stare at that little plastic ceiling, not 12 inches from my face. Shutting my eyes helped only marginally. I wanted desperately to sit up, and was barely able to keep a lid on my rising panic. I'm sure I drove the tech crazy with "Is it over? Can I move now?" "No, you have to keep perfectly still. Just a few more minutes." (Liar.) Hard to do when your back and leg hurt like hell and you think (irrationally, of course) that you're going to choke on the remnants of your winter cold -- or worse, ruin the MRI and have to start all over again.

I survived, of course, got patched up (surgery, but that's another story) and lived to write these words. The whole process was well worth the end result.

I doubt that being trapped in layers of fat generates the same panic that claustrophobia does . . . but there's no question that it can generate plenty of self-disgust. That, both from my observations and from personal experience, is one of the big reasons why folks want to drop the pounds in record time. I remember very well what it was like to be a prisoner of fat, and yes, I did want to get rid of it quickly. In the end, though, it took me several years. Frankly, I'm better off, and I am very glad I took the scenic route. As with my MRI, the process was worth what I ended up with.

By now you've figured out that I don't think quick weight loss is such a hot idea. The "why nots?" are many, but here are a few:

--It strips your body of lean tissue -- muscle mass and other useful body materials -- in addition to fat.

--It doesn't give you time to learn new eating habits.

--It doesn't always give your skin time to catch up to your new size.

--It's a quick fix, and quick fixes don't last.

There's a reason for losing weight a little at a time. Slow loss is healthy. You're able to eat enough to keep your body well-fueled and your immune system functioning properly. Why jeopardize your health by losing too quickly?

So, remember -- where weight loss is concerned, heed the speed limit. Take it slow. Take the time to do it right. Don't put a timetable on your loss . . . as long as you're losing, no matter how little, you are moving in the right direction. Do not get discouraged. You'll still get to the same place, you'll be more likely to stay there, and you'll have had more practice on the way. And as with anything worth doing, practice makes (practically) perfect.

More reading --

Mayo Clinic - Are You Ready to Lose Weight?

Healthy Weight - Brigham and Women's Hospital

JAMA - Maintaining a Healthy Weight

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Index of Posts

Like to find a specific post of mine? Hey, so would I! It's hard for me to remember all of the posts I've written, even though there have not been all that many, in the grand scheme of things. (Gotta love that CRS syndrome.)

So, behold! A listing of posts - from oldest to newest. To be continually updated . . .

Please Observe Speed Limit

Registering My Weight Control

Who ARE You, Really?

Health Measurements

So, Like, What's My Motivation?

Now, You Be Flexible With That Restraint, Y'Hear?

Old Habits, Old Foods

Planting A Garden

Exercising My Estimatin' Eye

"With Me, It's All or Nuthin' . . ."

In Sickness And in Health

The Great Daily Weigh-In

Act Your Age

Writing It Down

You Ought to Be in Pictures

Kick Them Out the Door

Take the Train

Vacation's Over

The Power of Moving Your Butt

Labelingo

Comfort Carbs

It's Just One Day

Just Do It

Power Tools

Fear of Failure

I'm The Queen . . .

Escape Artist

4th Anniversary

And the Fun Continues . . .

In The Zone

Get Over It

Oh, Yeah, Now I Remember . . .

Compose Yourself

Carbo Loading

Who's In Control?

Home, Home on the Range

Regular Food

Going the Distance

Boredom

The REAL Secret of Successful Weight Loss

Cheating

Just Do It

It Pays to Be Skeptical

Flux, or Life's (Mostly Little) Ups and Downs

Padded Corners

Tools

The Five P's

What to Eat, What to Eat?

Where It All Began

Old me, new me, new me, new me. OK, you want years? 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007. No, I don't ordinarily wear jewelry that elaborate. Well, OK, not most of the time. Just at VFCJ conventions.

I'm Debbie. I'm 80+ pounds lighter than I was in 1999.

As of this update (January 2008), I'm 55 years old. I'm married, have 3 elderly cats, work as a CPA. Biking is one of my all-consuming passions (Carbon Fork is my bicycle diary.) Vintage costume jewelry is another. (Yes, that's where the necklaces come in.) I just bought inline skates and am going to become the terror of the multiuse paths.

Quickstats: joined Weight Watchers 1/7/02. Made goal, 4/10/04. Made lifetime, 5/22/04. Still Lifetime, at goal.

I want to make one thing clear: I do not have THE answer to weight loss. I only have the answer for me. The monkey on my back is not the same one hitchhiking on your shoulder. But I do think that successful weight loss can result from borrowing an idea here, a technique there. I hope you find something on these pages that you can take away and use.

Let's talk about the rest as we go along, shall we?

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