Feb
23
In many ways its not easy to right the above heading but its not the time to sugar coat this! Over the last year, things have busy, things have been hard and I haven’t looked after myself very well. I have always been overweight but my weight ballooned up and got out of control. It was time to act. About 2-3 months ago in conversation with our doctor she suggested it was time act on this on two fronts.
Firstly, as a result of the weight gain I started to snore. Poor Lidia (my Wife) sometimes can’t sleep the snoring is so bad. So one of the first steps was to see a sleep specialist to see if I have sleep apnoea. My snoring started and got worst as my weigh increased. The doctor said this is probably because the fat increases around the throat and as the throat naturally gets small over night, the fat causes it to get smaller again and this causes the snoring. I am now waiting to do a sleep test and the doctor said that the best thing to do for now is trying to lose weight.
Secondly, I went to see Dr Sharon Marks, from Monash University. Dr Marks is the coordinator of the Obesity Clinic at Monash Medical Centre. She weighed me and took my height and gave the verdict that I knew was coming. I was Morbidly Obese! I don’t know about you, but that term does strike a cord in your mind that isn’t pretty. It extracts an emotion like wow but the fact is that its true.
Sharon went on to explain about how it is considered a disease and that people suffering from it are always going to have trouble losing weight for a number of reasons:
1) Your Metabolism starts to slow down.
2) Seeing you weigh so much, its harder to exercise. Not only is it hard at the time but chances are that your body is going to hurt more the next day.
3) Just general moral and environment issues.
For these reason, some medical intervention is normally needed to get back on track. One option is to have surgery. The two options presented where Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Band (better known as Lap Band) or Intragastric Balloon. The first involves using a band filled with liquid to block the amount of food that you can eat and make you feel fuller. The Balloon goes into the stomach and again makes you feel much fuller. Both of these options where to us (Lidia and I) last resorts and but definitely not out of the question.
The other option was to use drugs or food replacement supplements. The drugs do things like make your body less likely to absorb fat or suppress your appetite. The Food replacements are thinks like bars and shakes and the likes that you take to replace normal meals. Drugs might come into in the long run but the first point of call is the Food replacement in the form of Optifast. It is a program that has bars, drinks and soups that you have to replace your meals. It sounds promising and the option that we have decide to go down. This was decided about two weeks ago so tomorrow I will follow on with what the steps where from our initial consultation.
Molly
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3 Responses to “Fat Blogging - Morbidly Obese! Time to act”
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hi molly,my doctor is also sharon marks she is the best,but even the best has a problem with me.sep 2007 129 kilos dec.2007 118kilos i am not looking forward to next visit march 15 2008 as today i am 120.5 ,its not the optifast its me helen
Hey Helen,
Thanks for dropping a comment. I understand that, unfortunately there are no magic pills (even the magic pills!) and in the end its going to be hard.
I don’t if Sharon had you do the Bircher Muesli (will write about it soon) but thats what I am on at the moment. Day 5 to be exact and it hasn’t been as bad as I thought. Will write about it as soon as I have a moment.
TIA
Molly
hi thanks for your reply,no sharon has not mentioned muselie to me yet,she did try me on
something interesting though,for medical reasons i cant take slimming tablets so she prescribed me an antidepressent which was really great but i stopped it because i could not sleep.I put myself on optifast yahoo alert and thats how i got you.