Getting Started - a Marine's Perspective...

Sarauk2sf

^^nothing to be embarrassed about re the anxiety issues (easier said than done, I realize though).

usmcmp

Your profile says you're disabled and only 24. What's your disability may I ask?

Service connected at 50%, my Wife has it worse, she's at 60%. (I'll take knee pain and anxiety over a migraine that kills her and has for the last 3 years...) Terrible knee injury [will need it replaced probably in my thirties...] (makes my PT that much more "willpower" using haha), mental disorder (anxiety and the like ... ) and tinnitus. . Just relaxing, I am almost always at a 1-2 annoying pain level, that increases with more and more physical activity. It has only gotten worse with my weight gain. Another motivation to lose it!

Didn't even realize I put it on there... don't generally flaunt that/thought it was private/friends on here only. Kind of embarrassing to have anxiety issues. Haha.

I'm also 50% disabled. It's better to admit to anxiety and seek help than try to hide it. You'll find that it can get better and the process of changing your body can also change your mental health.

ClarkWierda

Welcome from this retired USAF MSgt.

It does get better. When I pay attention to my exercise and diet, things just go better. When I forget, I get fluffy.

SeptemberLondon

Thanks for all the welcomes. Also! Thank you ALL for your support. We can do this! Feel free to message me questions (a few have already!) and I will answer them if I am able to (or tell you I cannot and try and help provide a source for an answer!)

I'll try to be active on this site. Probably better use of my time than #facebook or #twitter.

Live your life in the present, but be aware of where you are going. One of my Marines refused to lose weight because he was happy with where he was. At first, I was very angry, but after I cooled off, I saw great insight in the things he said.

Sadly, the Marine Corps didn't care and he and I were training from 6 am to 7 am, from 11:30 to 12:30 and from 4:30 to 5:30... (This is why I did NOT wonder why I stopped all fitness when I got out!)

Anyway - the insight was, just be happy with who you are. Forget others. Your opinion of yourself is the only one that should truly matter (and MAYBE your Spouses if it's realistic).

Fat and happy wasn't invented for nothing! Like I stated in my post, if you are aware of all the risks and accept them, that's your life. I watched my Grandmother die slowly because of her diet and a weight loss surgery that killed her because she failed to follow the diet. Now I am watching my Mother walk down the same road. My motivation is to stop my Daughter from having to watch me go down that road.

This bounced around a lot... I tend to go on rants. Just be aware of that!

STAY HAPPY!

SeptemberLondon

If it's not too personal, do you mind talking more about the weight loss surgery and complications your mother & grandmother experienced? This is valuable and I think a lot of people can benefit from your perspective having witnessed that.

lisiloulah

bump!

kjstaley70

I really get your perspective. We are the only ones to blame for not getting out of bed to work out or for putting another fork full in our mouths. I too am a lover of pizza, thankfully the spouse isn't or I would end up eating it more :-)

I completely get the idea of being better for our children, showing them better eating habits and the importance of physical fitness. I tell my son all the time it has to be something you want to do and you are the only one you have to impress.

Good luck and thank you for your service!

Mitzarin

If it's not too personal, do you mind talking more about the weight loss surgery and complications your mother & grandmother experienced? This is valuable and I think a lot of people can benefit from your perspective having witnessed that.

My Grandmother was heavily obese for a good portion of her life. She had a lot of struggles from being kicked out of her home, to her first husband's death within 2 months of their marriage (motorcycle accident, beheaded... Guess I should be happy? I wouldn't exist if it didn't happen. #Rest in Peace)

Anyway, she eventually met my Mother's Dad, got married. Guy was crazy, so I hear. Big trickster, hated doctors. Got a meat hook jammed into his skull once and used a towel and a crow bar to heal/cover it and pull it out. (... I really wish I met the dude!)

Eventually she gave birth to a couple kids and the weight started packing on a little. Then her husband died at age 50 (which is apparently a curse of any man to marry into my Mom's family going back many generations #Cosmos is Crazy!) After he died my grandma got extremely depressed and ate and ate and ate and ate and became morbidly obese. She developed the many health conditions that go along with that, water retention (name?), diabetes, loss of nerves and degrading eyesight. Eventually she met her next husband (the only Grandpa on this side that I knew) and he helped her out a lot.

He died not too long after they married (3-5 years?) leaving my grandma with 2-3 million dollars and a paid off mansion. Eventually she got fed up and couldn't live in that house anymore. She moved to NC and her Mom moved in with her in a house she bought.

Her family were vultures, and within 3 years of his death EVERY PENNY of that money was gone. Still her sister/Mom/relatives drained her dry. Eventually my second cousin (a douche bag who still owes my Mother/Aunt the 150,000$ and refuses to pay) took a loan out on her house to fund a business which tanked. And with what little she had left, she invested in a weight loss surgery which cut her stomach in half.

I moved in with her about a year after this surgery (for a summer in between my JR/SR year) and the transformation was radical. I didn't even recognize her! She looked amazing.

Sadly, she had a VERY strict diet, and her stomach after the surgery could not handle greasy foods as well etc... She refused to follow the diet the doctors gave her, and her weight loss did not stop at a healthy weight.

By time I was in the Marines and engaged with my now Wife, when we visited, she was a skeleton. Her body was beginning to fail, and could not absorb nutrients as well anymore. She was hospitalized shortly after, and the Doctor screwed her with a catch 22. She had a hernia/ulcer that they could not or would not fix until her protein levels rose, and her body could no longer absorb protein.

She died about a month after being hospitalized, the final diagnosis being malnutrition.

---

That was in January of 2010, right before I was married and 2 years before her first Great-Grandchild was born.

Weight loss surgeries CAN work, if you do everything right, but it's unhealthy habits that killed my Grandma, and it's unhealthy habits that will make you gain all the weight you lose, back, plus some.

Long term perspective. You cannot change your diet for a week or a year. It's gotta be a life time thing.

SeptemberLondon

Wow! What a story - I'm sorry your Grandmother went through so much! It's amazing what we will do in the name of weight loss, but you're so right that without changing the habits, nothing will work long term.

I've actually had about half of my intestine removed (due to some freak intestinal twisting) and I've been through the malnutrition (at 200 pounds - it seems impossible, but it isn't) and I still have some issues absorbing nutrients now as well.

What I've noticed after just a few weeks of changing how I eat is that all of the things which I thought were a side effect of my surgeries (like bathroom habits, which I won't get into more detail about) are changing. For me, that alone is pretty serious motivation to keep the carbs & sugar under control!

The biggest lesson I learned during this ordeal in my life (which included 6 months total hospital & rehab time, 2 weeks in a coma, a total of 10+ surgeries - I've lost count, re-learning how to walk, drink & chew food) came during my time in a nursing home.

I was the only person there under 70 (I was 39 at the time) and I saw that some of the residents went to PT every day, embraced it, practiced walking on their own, it seemed that they just "NEEDED" to move, etc... while others didn't. Some were wheelchair or hospital bed-bound and were almost frightened to move. Granted, everyone had a different story and different reasons for being there but after talking with some of them and their families, what struck me is that the biggest determining factor into which category they fell was not age or what event "landed them" in the nursing home, but HOW ACTIVE THEY HAD BEEN THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES before any of this happened.

It's really quite simple. Our bodies are meant to be MOVED. If they aren't moved & challened, they will degrade. If you leave a car in the driveway for years without ever starting it, it will rust and degrade. Then it'll take a lot of repair to get it moving again, if that's even possible.

I came to the conclusion that I just don't ever want to allow my body to rust & degrade again.

Thanks for your candor, Mitzarin and I wish you the best! You're doing a great service to your family by setting a positive example!

KimbersNewLife

"Sometimes you will feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you want to just give up. Don't! You must search within yourself, find that inner strength, and just pull it out of you - and get that... motivation, to not give up. Not be a quitter, no matter how bad you just want to fall down flat on your face. "

Great workout song by the way... and thank you for your post it was very motivational!!!