Lost 115+ in 2.5 years with Hypothyroidism and PSVT.

On June 22, 2015 I had a doctor’s appointment just to update my vaccinations and I was 281.13 pounds according to the records. Since I did not monitor my weight at this time it’s the only starting point I have. Sometime in September 2015 I decided to just try to do 10-15 minutes of walking on the treadmill that was sitting idle in my basement a few times a week. This was partly due to going on ten mile hikes with the boy scouts and crashing at about the eight mile mark. I would literally just want to curl up in a ball and die at the end of eight miles. This was due to exhaustion and poor footwear which produced blisters.

About this same time my PSVT (Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia) that I had since high school started to get worse. It was now waking me in the middle of the night and I was having longer, harder to break episodes. PSVT is a condition where your heart goes into a tachycardia, beating in excess of 200 beats per minute, and ineffectively circulates blood leaving me with symptoms similar to a heart attack. This can come on at any time and is not triggered by anything specific but many times trauma has been a trigger of it for me. The PSVT can be broken by deep breathing or a vasovagal maneuver. Finally in February 2016 I had a PSVT episode I could not break and went to the ER and got officially diagnosed via EKG at that time. During the ER visit they also found I had hypothyroidism. So I am now on medication for the hypothyroidism and the PSVT which has calmed my incidences greatly.

In March of 2017 I hit a plateau at about 230 pounds, I was increasing my activity by adding miles to my walks but getting nowhere with the weight loss. I was just maintaining within about a 10 pound range for about 6 months. It was then the my boyfriend’s family decided to start a Biggest Loser challenge within the family. In this competition you buy in for $20 per calendar quarter and the competition was forecast to go for five quarters. This money goes into the prize pool along with the “penalty fees”, if you gain you put in one dollar for each pound you gain that week and if you have an unexcused weigh-in absence it is a $5 penalty. Each week we get an update of the percent lost for each individual and at the end of the five quarters whomever loses the greatest percentage of weight overall is the winner of the entire pool. I saw this as an opportunity to remotivate myself and try some new techniques. In September 2017 I started using MyFitnessPal to track my calories as recommended by my boyfriend who had previously lost 100 pounds using MyFitnessPal. Up to this point I did not make any major changes to my diet. This change of now tracking my calories has broken my plateau, and as a result to date I have been the biggest loser in the competition for 16 of the 36 weeks so far and only having weight increases on 4 of those weeks. Yes I have had bad days, eating over my calorie goal but overall it has worked. I know if I go over I will need to work a little harder. I have also discovered how much feeling ill can affect your weight and just how much your weight varies on a daily basis, about 5 pounds for me.

My employer’s wellness program also motivated me to walk more due to the incentives offered. It also gave me the idea of getting to a healthy weight besides the goal of just feeling better and completing those 10 mile hikes. Within the wellness program when I first saw the number of 164.4 pounds as the top end of a healthy weight range for me I thought it was impossible. By the time I got to the feeling better and getting through those 10 mile hikes stage the 200 pound mark was a possibility of hitting given the weight I had already lost. Then doing a little research I discovered that hitting 197.3 would take me out of the obese range so I made that my goal. Eventually when I hit the no longer obese goal which was around Christmas 2017 I made it my goal to get to the healthy weight of 164.4.

The wellness program also keeps me motivated to be active by showing the leader board for each challenge. I try to be the leader in each challenge for at least my office if not the entire company. Granted there are some I am still working on starting like the yoga and resistance training. And others like swimming, which I enjoy, but deem too time consuming or difficult to complete due to travel time and pool schedule restrictions. One thing I did suggest in a recent survey for the program was to have rewards for the top positions per challenge, I think it would bring on some healthy competition and motivation.

Speaking of time that is one question I get asked often, “how do you find the time to get all those miles in?” A typical day has me up at 5am doing 40 minutes on the treadmill, then I do about 25 minutes at lunch, and the remainder, about two hours, after work. If I have a night meeting during the week I get up earlier and do more in the morning. Sometimes it is a challenge getting all those miles in but I have never been walking at midnight to try to hit my goal. I do admit I do get grumpy if I do not get a walk in as scheduled or if it is getting late and I have many miles to go. I like my sleep too.

So since September of 2015 I have steadily increased my average mileage per day to 13.96 for 2018 to date. I can now safely walk 16 miles in a day, double that of where I used to crash, with no signs of that crash type feeling. I’ve even had a few 20+ mile days. This combined with eating healthier has resulted in a total weight loss of 118.7 pounds since June 2015, as of May 21, 2018 I was at 162.4. Now I need to shift gears and figure out how to maintain this weight, I would like to stay within the 150 to 164 range while hopefully cutting back on my required exercise time.

My weight loss has been an old fashioned challenge through the tried and true diet and exercise method. I used no special equipment except for good quality hiking boots, wool socks, raingear, a treadmill and my smart phone and Fitbit for tracking. It also did not require being a member of an expensive gym, the city streets are free and safe to walk.

Some crazy goals I’m thinking about for the future;
• learn how to run so I can run an entire 5k (I don’t run currently),
• complete in a sprint triathlon,
• complete a mud run.

It has been one heck of a journey, I hope this gives you some hope and tips for your own health and wellness goals.

envscuba