Losing weight for keeps

islandgirl1962 · July 2019

Hi everyone. My story is not that unique. I've had weight issues all my life especially when I hit my teens. Been in quite a few diets. Succeeded in losing weight, keeping it off for a time and then slowly regaining it. Gaining weight is easy and so much fun when you aren't counting calories and just enjoying eating what you want when you want to. I have low thyroid that I treat everyday with a pill. I have asthma. I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. My highest weight has been 196.6 and I'm barely 5'1".I happened to acquire a new internal medicine doctor recently. He's a really smart 32 heart old and when we discussed my qualifying for bariatric surgery he said I didn't qualify, but he said let's do a sleep study and see if you have sleep apnea because I was telling him how fatigue more often than not kept me from being able to exercise. Sleep apnea, he told me, causes you to wake up fatigued and makes it harder to lose weight because you are not having restful sleep and you are too fatigued to live a normal life especially being able to workout. So, I did the sleep study and it turns out I have severe sleep apnea. Ask this time I thought it was due to my health issues especially my Fibromyalgia. Even the doctors I've seen seemed to think the same thing. I'm going to be doing another study with a CPAP machine this month for a week. By the way, all of this sleep study stuff can now be done with a take home machine. So, I now qualify for the surgery because comorbidity.issues. The sleep apnea leads to heart conditions and high blood pressure, among other things. In order to be operated on you need to lose 10 to 20% of your weight before they do the procedure. I've been doing the 1200 calorie diet they put you on because my daughter also has weight issues and she goes first if surgery is done. She qualifies because of other factors. So, I'm doing it with her, the pre surgery weight loss diet. Thing is after sitting through the orientation with her, we agreed that if we could just lose the weight together through 1200 dieting, that wevwould rather not have the surgery.
We've been dieting since June 21st. She has lost 6.8 lbs and I have lost 3.8. Slower for me because of my severe sleep apnea and I'm sure that menopause is a factor too. Doctor says losing the weight will make it unnecessary to sleep with a CPAP machine and my sleep should normalize. In the meantime, using a CPAP will improve my sleep which in turn will give more energy and it will help me take the weight off better than I'm doing now. I'm not doing too badly, but I'm happy with the fact that it's working for not only me but my daughter. Doing the diet together is helping us to stay motivated. Biggest issue, insomnia. When I do walks I feel great. Have to push through a lot of fatigue, but I love how I feel when I do therm. But since I started dieting again and doing walks, I'm having the hardest time falling asleep. It's not because I'm hungry either. If I stay awake long enough, I end up getting hungry. I'll have cheerios and milk and that helps sleep to finally happen. Doctor says that the rule of thumb is to not exercise 2 to 3 hours before sleeping. I'm not. It's not the Keto effect either because I'm not doing that. It's just whatever it is I guess. My body reacting to less calories? I have net calories everyday. So...... Don't know. Desperately want a good night's sleep, because even with the severe sleep apnea, I still slept. I now only manage 5 hours on average when I used to do 8. Anyone else going through this and did it get better? My daughter and I are sticking with this no matter what. It's become a necessary thing to lose our extra weight. Thank you for your time.

Pamela_Sue · July 2019

I also had a sleep study and have severe sleep apnea. What I found is that is used to sleep many more hours a night before the CPAP. Because I wasn't getting enough REM sleep. Now that I am on CPAP I sleep so much better, however, I don't sleep nearly as long. Better quality, less quantity. I was 'sleeping' about 10 to 11 hours per night and was falling asleep all day. I now only sleep about 6 to 7 hours a night and wake up without an alarm clock. It make take a while, but with the CPAP you will discover your 'normal' amount of needed sleep, and it may be much different that what you are used to. Also, I no longer fall asleep during the day, but still am fatigued a lot. Might be my depression, as everything else has been ruled out. So for me, sleepiness and fatigue are 2 different things, with possibly different causes. Hope this helps somewhat.

TXMelRuns · July 2019

Hi! I understand your struggles with weight and asthma, as well as chronic illnesses like fibromyalgia. I have chronic sinusitis, which triggers my asthma and has required 7 surgeries and counting, the last one 3 weeks ago, to “manage”. Losing weight while trying to have a normal life with chronic illnesses can be hard, but it is definitely worth it! I began struggling with my weight in my teens, due to frequent extended courses of prednisone, and the ability to have a burger and 2! orders of fries for lunch. In my 20’s, I managed to lose 40 lbs, and this was the healthiest time for me overall, including with my asthma control. Unfortunately, I developed a sinus infection, for which I had surgery and, either from the surgery or my work as a registered nurse, I developed an active MRSA (super-bug) infection in my sinuses that spelled the end of my running, of having my asthma well-controlled, and of that career. Since then, my weight has steadily increased, with a big boost from pregnancy 3 years ago. Reading your post reminded me that weight control is central to the management of chronic diseases like asthma and sleep apnea, and gave me more motivation to recapture that “healthy” feeling I had when my weight and asthma were controlled.

I wish you and your daughter all the best on your journeys,

Losing weight for keeps

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