Developing a Weight Loss Program That Works for You

A couple of years after my sabbatical I realized I needed to try once more to get rid of my chronic back pain. I decided a good first step was to lose weight. I didn’t think I was THAT overweight and didn’t own a full-length mirror to be able to see what I really looked like on a day-to-day basis. I can’t remember if I even owned a scale. BIG mistake!

I bought a mirror and this is probably when I bought my scale, and was in shock when I discovered I was almost 170 pounds (5’6”)! I went into the living room and told my husband that I needed to seriously lose weight and was shocked when he agreed with me (normally he tells me he likes me just the way I am). This was the AHA! Moment. It was devastating and I broke into tears. I immediately started planning and told my husband I needed to do it my way and didn’t want to hear any push-back about how I was doing it.

The first ten pounds:

I decided I wasn’t going to do any fad anything this time and needed to start reducing portions. I started looking into various home meal deliveries and realized I couldn’t afford even the cheap ones. It was at that point I decided I could create my own system cheaply by going and buying the pre-packaged diet meals at the grocery store. I’m incredibly picky at this point about eating whole and non-processed foods and was a little bit back then so didn’t want to put anything in my body that was too fake, too much salt, etc. I did a little research and found the lean cuisine food wasn’t too bad. Neither was my local grocery store brand. Here’s how I ate almost every day for the first ten pounds:

• Pre-breakfast: ½ grapefruit
• Breakfast: three egg whites scrambled with veggies and coffee
• Mid-morning snack: an apple or ½ banana
• Lunch: a boxed diet meal plus a salad or carrots to supplement
• Mid-afternoon: a square of dark chocolate and coffee or tea (decaf)
• Pre-dinner snack: cut up cucumber
• Dinner: another boxed diet meal plus salad
• After dinner: (mid-evening ) an small mandarin or another square of dark chocolate
• If I was really dying (or PMS) I would eat a bag of Trader Joe’s organic single serve popcorn

I lasted about 1.5 months on this system and lost my first ten. I was also learning to run errands on my bike and was walking more with my hubby for increased exercise.

Next ten pounds:

I was stuck and sick of the diet meals  and needed to change it up! On to Weight Watchers!

Weight Watchers is still an amazing system for losing weight especially now that you can keep track electronically.  I stuck with WW for about three months and slowly lost the next ten pounds. I made all of my own food or supplemented with Lean Cuisines when I didn’t have time to cook BUT STAYED AWAY from anything that was fake (no skinny cows!).

Final five pounds

After three months and ten pounds I needed another change and was used to cooking for my new portion control so I picked up my exercise program and lost the last five pounds in another couple of months.  My next post will  be about the increased exercise!

Fast Forward Three Years!

Hi all! Wow! It’s been three years since my little healing sabbatical. It was back to work and not a word of writing since. Shame on me! That does not mean I haven’t been working on my healing, but it does mean I would like to start sharing again as I have so much to update and so many ideas percolating!

As of three years ago, here were my problems:

• Overweight: Female, 5’6” and 167 pounds
• Chronic back pain: It’s now been six years since my initial episode
• Chronic indigestion: About twenty years
• Chronic sinus headaches: About fifteen years
• Chronic fatigue (moderate)
• Joint pain: On and off for ten or so years

Sheesh. Overall I was fine and functioning and still looked pretty good despite my weight (I was thinking I hid it well), but I wanted to feel better. My biggest problem was my chronic back pain, which is what prompted my healing sabbatical and this blog.

I took a six-week sabbatical three years ago. During that time,  I wrote about my progress and health, I didn’t work (I’m a photographer and didn’t want to do any heavy lifting), I practiced yoga or walked every day, rested, saw a chiropractor and acupuncturist and watched what I ate. Almost nothing changed.

Fast forward three years and I have done the following:

• Weight: Lost 25 pounds
• Back Pain: Went from chronic back pain an average of 80% of the time to 0-20%
• Sinus headaches: One recent bout, but about 100% clear for two years
• Indigestion: One bout almost a year ago, but almost 100% clear for two years
• Chronic fatigue (a little less)
• Joint Pain: Less, but still there

Please follow the next few weeks of writing to find out what I’ve done during my SLOOOOOOOW  and continuing route to recovery! In the meantime, here is a before and after (scary to post the “before”)!

Before

After

"The Natural Way"

One of the books I picked up at my local used book store is called “The Natural Way: An A-to-Z Guide to Alternative Healing” by Mariah Jager. I quote Google books in a search for information about this book and author: “A beautifully packaged, information-packed resource covering more than a dozen alternative healing practices.”

I read this little gem in one evening and consider it a great resource to get a quick overview of various natural healing practices. It was first published in 1998 as “Alternative Healing Secrets” and re-published in 2005 under the current name.

I would highly recommend this book as a little start-up handbook if you’re researching various natural healing practices. There are some practices you may have never even heard of and wouldn’t know how to find or what to look for on the internet. Succinct and informative, I think this book would be a great first step in learning about the variety of natural healing processes.

S.O.L.

Sigh. Well, after flying down to San Diego and spending four hours under the incredible care and attention of Dr. Helen Hu and her associate, I’ve had discouraging news. I really have never felt in such experienced and confident hands and truly believe that Dr. Hu and Mr. Chen can help and have helped a lot of people including my referrer, but they had bad news for me. I knew from one of my first x-rays when I first was in pain that I have a deformity at the base of my spine (on the opposite side of my pain) and that this deformity is the possible catalyst of my pain. Over 44 years of living, I have compensated for this deformity and it finally caught up to me in the form of the bulging disc, degeneration and extreme muscle spasms. Basically, it’s too far gone and they don’t think I will ever be pain free. Not encouraging news.

Not surprising either. It has always astounded me that with every practitioner I have seen, they seem ultra-confident that with one to a few sessions, they should be able to help me work through my pain source and they always seem REALLY surprised when they don’t. It has definitely led me to believe that there’s no hope except major surgery (like putting in pins or something). I guess that’s true, so my new goal is to manage the pain and I will continue to work through that process on this sabbatical.

Dr. Hu was kind enough to give me a recommended action list including a detox diet to help me lose weight and strengthen my kidneys (she says that part of my chronic fatigue that I’ve experienced for years is because of “weak kidneys”). As already discovered, she said I should not hike, stand for long periods of time and to avoid excessive walking. She recommends yoga and swimming. Looks like I might have to cut my super-long hair. It’s always been a pain-in-the-ass for swimming. Gotta do what I gotta do!

More on acupuncture and this wonderful ancient Chinese practice called Tui Na when I get an interview with a practitioner!

Going Into the Poor House

I’m flying to San Diego today. Ugh. As if ten visits with the chiropractor, the yoga passes and taking time off from work weren’t enough spending, I’m flying to San Diego today to see an acupuncturist and massage therapist. Have I lost my mind? Maybe, maybe not.

It all started with a networking cup of coffee. Somehow we got on the subject of back pain and as we exchanged stories and ideas about healing, she mentioned an acupuncturist in San Diego that had done wonders for her on her initial visit and she recommended that if I was ever planning a trip to San Diego, I should see this practitioner. I was just starting my sabbatical and a couple of days later, my friend Laurel asked if I wanted to go to San Diego. Virgin Air was having a fare sale and she had to meet with a client down there. Serendipity! We booked the flights and got a great hotel rate through Priceline and I e-mailed my business contact to get the information for the miracle-worker.

I have an appointment tomorrow. THREE HOURS. Initial consultation, acupuncture treatment, then I go to another doctor in the same office for a deep tissue massage and then “cupping”. Have you ever heard of “cupping”? It’s supposed to draw out toxins through suction cups that are placed on your body. The unfortunate thing is that when you’re done, you look like a teenager whose make-out partner went a little overboard on the hickeys. I had it done once by my good friend Sara who is an acupuncturist here and because it was for allergies, she did it around my upper back and neck area. I wore turtlenecks (in the summer) for a week! Let’s hope the “cupping” will be applied to my LOWER back. Should look good at the hotel pool on Thursday.

So should I be spending all this money? I suppose in the grand scheme of health care and healing it still isn’t that much, but I’ll be pretty bummed if I don’t see any results. A tall order for trying to work through pain that’s been there for three years.

"Prozac Nation" is Probably Not a Good Read While Trying to Heal

I was recently on a women’s retreat and during our Friday night happy hour the group of women I was with decided to go around the room and offer up our favorite three books. I wrote everything down and then distributed the reading list once I got home. I’m trying to become a library user as much as I can, but the little branch library by my house is teeney-tiny and I’m a little impatient about ordering books. Anyway, I needed a book to read and headed to the library to try to find one of the books on the impromptu book list that was created at the retreat. As I went down the list on the reference computer, not surprisingly I realized the library didn’t have much on the list. The one book it DID have was “Prozac Nation”. I was desperate for a “read” and so I checked it out. No doubt, it’s probably a great book and I like the author’s style of writing but SURPRISE! it’s not a very uplifting book.

On the hike I took today, I realized that the book was bringing me down which is a little counterproductive when I’m trying to be on this hopeful healing sabbatical. I’ll have to put “Prozac Nation” aside for now and so took a walk over to the terrific little new/used independent book store down the street from my house. It’s called “Spectator Books” and it’s a great alternative to checking a book out of the library. I was in search of a book a friend told me about called “8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back” by Esther Gokhale. Although I didn’t find the title and may end up buying it new (or trying to order it from the library), I discovered a whole bunch of books on healing pain naturally. I picked up three and will report on any that seem worth reading. Your local library and used book store probably have loads of reading material on pain and healing, so check them out. Always nice to support local business!

Stop and Pet the Trees

I know I said this wasn’t going to be hippie dippy and certainly “Stop and pet the trees” falls into the category, but it comes from a hike I did many years ago with my friend Laurel. It was winter in the bay area which means GREEN. Lush green hillsides and glowing green moss growing on trees throughout the forests. We were hiking out on the coastal trail above Stinson Beach and we ran across a tree that had fallen long ago, but was somehow still alive. It looked like a big bench, but also absolutely glowing with lush green moss. Laurel (who IS a little hippie-ish) exclaimed that it looked like it had fur and went to “pet” it. Since then, when I hike in the wintertime I like to stop and pet the trees.

Today in trying to stick with my plan to walk or do yoga every day during my healing sabbatical, I drove to one of my favorite hiking spots. In the past week, I’ve discovered that hiking/walking in the bay area almost always includes steep and semi-steep inclines and declines. As much as I’ve always despised the uphills (I grew up in the Midwest flat-lands and am not accustomed to an uphill climb of any sort), I’ve discovered with my particular back pain that it’s the downhills that kill me. Not usually while I’m hiking which can be deceptive, but usually a few hours after I’m done or the next day. Frustrating since I LOVE hiking. I decided that for the rest of my sabbatical, I would have to forgo hiking if I’m going to attempt to heal, so this was my last hurrah for a month or so.

I ended up at Bon Tempe lake which is a four mile loop trail around a lovely lake on Mt. Tamalpais (Tam. for short) in Marin County. I recalled that it’s a pretty flat trail, so I figured it wouldn’t do much damage. The jury is still out, but oh! The trees were so PETTABLE! I’ll miss hiking and walking because it’s a great way to clear my mind, breathe fresh air and get some relatively easy (easier than running) exercise and stress relief, but I’m hoping that if I attempt to pick up swimming which I know will be much easier on my back, I’ll find that same sense of clearing of the mind I get from hiking and used to get from running. Not as beautiful and no fresh air, but I guess I can still take strolls with my husband through the flat sections of our neighborhood.

A little more about stopping and petting the trees. So much like stopping to smell the roses, in healing, I think stress-relief and slowing down are two really important elements. Consider stopping to smell the roses, the trees, the salt air, the fresh snow, the cut grass. Anything to take a tiny break, notice the world around you and de-stress.

If You Write It, They Will Come

A few weeks into my back pain, I was standing at the Berkeley Bowl grocery check-out (the best grocery store in the world in my opinion). I was scanning the various earthy crunchy magazines they had displayed (probably including the organic vegetarian pet magazine – this is Berkeley after all) and noticed a magazine about healing back pain naturally. I automatically plucked it out of the rack and threw it on the check-out counter. As I stood there and watched it make its way to the scanner, I noticed the price was $20.00. This was not a hard cover book. It was a regular sized magazine. I thought twice, but decided to purchase it. As the check-out guy scanned it, he saw the price, did a double-take and said he couldn’t believe I was spending $20.00 on a magazine. I looked at the twenty-something year-old checker and said, I bet you’ve never been in chronic back pain. If you had, you would understand. This was almost three years ago and I remember it vividly.

I think anyone with chronic pain is desperate for new ideas, compassion, comradery and understanding. I will listen to anyone who wants to talk about their pain and I’ve noticed that other people in chronic pain patiently listen to me. One enters a different world when something like this happens and we will do anything and read anything in hopes of help of relief. This is one reason I believe and I hope that others will want to share this blog and post comments with ideas and thoughts and stories of their own journey toward healing. Bring it on!

Ouch and ahhh. The Benefits of Yoga?

For almost three years I have not attended a yoga class. I used to love yoga. Well, I used to have a love/hate relationship with yoga. Love because every time I walked out of a yoga class, I felt like I’d had a massage. Hate because most of the time I thought it was excruciatingly boring and pretty painful and hard. But I’m a true believer in yoga and the HUGE benefits it provides for our bodies. I really think that if done right and regularly, it would truly be a great preventative to chronic body pain of all sorts. For crying out loud, all you have to do is look at Madonna’s body and energy to see the benefits. However, I never did it on a regular basis always on the up and down seesaw of working out. Sometimes I was dedicated and went once a week, other times I got busy or poorer and stopped working out all together. However, when I injured my back, I found that yoga aggravated the pain and when I started seeking help for my pain, some of the practitioners discouraged me from doing yoga and encouraged me to “rest my back”. This seemed like a get-out-of-exercise-free-pass to me and I took it.

What I think has happened (this according to my chiropractor with whom I think I agree) is that I’ve been so careful about aggravating my back that all of the rest of my body has gone into a protection mode and the muscles that are protecting are now so tense and in such spasm that nothing will release. Including my injury. This makes perfect sense to me except that I heard the same thing from a physical therapist two years ago. I tried doing gentle stretches and got a prescription for a months-worth of muscle relaxers which I took at night to try to really relax my muscles. It didn’t work, so I had my doubts about the spasm theory. When a year later I finally dove in and got an MRI it was discovered I had a bulging disc and some tears. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Impossible to know, but it was another get-out-of-exercise-free pass and time to try various western medical practices such as getting cortisone shots. Didn’t work.

All of this plus the recession put me in debt and I stopped doing anything for my back altogether until I could take significant time off from work for proper care and healing or had enough money (or some miracle change in health insurance) to get major back surgery.

So even though there has been no miracle change in health insurance, I’m finally out of debt and here I am. Taking the time off from work, getting regular chiropractic care and dedicated to doing yoga regularly ignoring the pain (but not over-doing) to see if eventually this might-be spasm will release. The yoga class was still a love/hate thing. The instructor was great, but it was hard. I felt a lot of popping in my pain area when doing one of the poses which made me a little worried, but it didn’t seem to cause immediate pain and when I walked out I felt like I had just gotten out of a massage. The true test is tomorrow when even if I didn’t feel aggravation of my back pain during an act of exercise, the pain will intensify the next day. Time will tell, but no matter what happens, I’m determined to stick with it. After all, I splurged on the yoga studio’s introduction ten-pass discount!

Getting on a Plane

I started pretending I was leaving. I’m leaving the country and I have to catch a plane. This is how I got into the mindset that I was going to take time off. That I really was going to go through with this. I talked to friends and family and told them my plan. Everyone was encouraging. I continued seeing the chiropractor and had little glimpses of healing hope here and there and I got through it. I finished my work and as of Monday of this week I officially began my sabbatical.