Accidental Low Carb

[accidentallowcarb]

Introduction

This story begins in February of 2021.  A time when I was not in a good spot physically or emotionally.  

Physically, my back was in a lot of pain. To the point where just sitting at a desk and typing for more than 45 minutes to an hour led to the need to lay down flat and recover.  

Emotionally, I wasn’t in a good place as I wasn’t able to shake the loss of my father in November of 2020.  I’m really good at showing the emotion of anxiety in everyday life, but don’t really let the sorrow and sadness surface to the top and will internalize those emotions, which really isn’t a healthy coping mechanism.

Finally, the pain got to be too much and I headed into my doctors office for a visit.  While waiting to see the doc I was weighed and came in at a shocking 253 pounds.  That’s the most weight my 5′11″ body had ever packed on and something I was ashamed to have allowed to occur.

Prior to the doctors appointment I knew I was heavy.  My belly was distended, my face was fat when I looked in the mirror.  I had given myself every excuse for not addressing it.  “I have a bad left knee, I can’t run.”, ‘My back is in such pain I can’t walk.”  The pandemic of course made it easy the previous year to hunker down and eat, drink, and binge watch tv shows as that seemed like a safe activity or at least a great excuse to do nothing.

Doctors office was a pretty standard visit.  Bloodwork was requested. MRI’s for the back and abdomen were ordered.  A steroid was prescribed to lessen the pain/discomfort in my back.  A muscle relaxer to help the sleeping.  The best result of the visit was that the doc had signed off on my eligibility based on my BMI to receive the Covid-19 vaccination immediately (at the time, the doses were being administered by age group unless medical criteria was met).

Walking out of the doctors office is where the journey began. I’m writing this post in late October 2021 and will add to the story in the coming days/weeks.  Eventually, I’ll get to present day but will reveal now that I’ve enjoyed the journey and the results have been extremely positive. I didn’t want to blog my journey and add pressure to myself to meet benchmarks or prove anything to myself.  

As a matter of fact, I’ll leave this post with a bit of early advice if you are struggling with weight gain and looking to shed some pounds. Whatever you do change, please avoid the scale for as long as you can.  The mental ups and downs are just too much. I’ve been there done that in years past and the number that pops up alters things day-to-day.  A bad number means work out harder, eat less, be more miserable.  A good number can lead to thoughts that further loss can be accelerated by working harder, eating less, and of course, this too leads to misery.

More to come.

[accidentallowcarb]

The Questions Begin

To be clear, I am writing this now in November of 2021 and we'll be taking a look back (journey began in March of 2021). As the weeks go by I'll add to the story to get to present day. It's been a journey of learning and the experience has been pleasant and worthwhile.

Leaving the doctors office in early March tasked with getting a MRI as well as my bloodwork. Of primary importance was getting the pain in my back to subside and was provided a steroid for pain relief. The steroid treatment seemed to reduce the pain in the back to a moderate level, and that was a step in the right direction.

I made my appointment for both the bloodwork and the MRI and had my Florida Department of Health waiver for the Covid-19 vaccine. The fact that I had the waiver for obesity (BMI>30) was a reminder to me that I had to take action, but getting the vaccine at the time was a big relief mentally. Within 24-hours of my initial March appointment I was in a Covid-19 vaccine drive through and got my first shot.

In the next two weeks I scheduled my bloodwork and my MRI. During this time, I was trying to eat healthier, but wasn't committed to any particular knowledge based eating program. There's much more to diet and I'll expand on that as time goes on.

The MRI results showed a fatty liver and an enlarged spleen. The bloodwork revealed elevated LDL, Total Cholesterol, low HDL, and high triglycerides. Those are the areas of the blood most people focus on. As the knowledge journey continues I spent much time examining the bloodwork results and discovered other things of interest, more importantly, what did these numbers really mean?

I was prescribed a statin to lower cholesterol. I was on the same statin a number of years ago (20 mg/day) but now my doctor upped the dose to 40 mg/day. Being the good patient, I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medication and added it to my daily regimen.

I like to leave a little knowledge of what I've learned at the end of each of these posts. The first piece of advice was to avoid the scale as you begin your journey. I believe it leads to too many additional ups/downs emotional stimulus.

What I leave you with today is that we begin our journey in the same spot, some more severe than others, but often overlapping symptoms. The symptoms are both physical (obesity, hypertension, type-2 diabetes, irritable bowl syndrome) and mental (depression, anxiety). Since we all begin in somewhat the same spot, recognize that there are support groups out there on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

Developing a support system early will only help you on your journey. You'll need support as friends who are lean and healthy may not understand your issues, may not understand the path you take, and may offer advice that works for them but won't work for you. Even if your support system is initially scanning videos on YouTube for information, that works as well. Knowledge is power after all.