What was the moment? When did you decide to take back control?

11416181920

Replies

  • TealTrinket
    TealTrinket Posts: 22 Member
    I had 2 foot surgeries which went awry & left me in constant pain (the same syndrome that causes phantom pain), feeling grim from constant drug allergies & side effects thus exacerbating asthma, walking on the side of my foot or heel only for 6-yrs. On top of it all, no therapy helped & walking with a cane was tough. I had to stop trying drugs... my body rejected everything. The pain was so excruciating, at times I was suicidal... it was unbearable to endure for so many years. I hobbled into my dr's office at the pain clinic after so many hospitalizations with severe drug symptoms (I'm allergic to virtually everything) & begged him to cure me or kill me. He threatened to toss me into a mental hospital if I were serious. I was, but didn't want more pain. Until I couldn't walk or swim, I had no idea how many miles of it I did regularly.

    As a virtual shut-in I ate whatever anyone kindly brought me. 6-yrs later, feeling awful & 20-lbs heavier (I was always slim, so the 20 didn't make me look fat, just not like me & none of my clothing fit), I had to do something different. I stopped accepting fried chicken, fries & pizza or "making" my own meals, which was peanut butter toast & coffee (about 12 slices of bread/day) & requested fruit or prepared salad, only.

    My foot is fine now, but I've still got the 20-lbs to lose. I've just returned to walking last week. It feels great, but I'm so unused to walking that the bottom of my feet suffer after just 1-mi. Not horrible, but it just feels so... weird & my skin peels. Lovely, I know, but my pumice board remedies that each evening.

    So, I'm still at beginning stages, but it's only as I had to wait for my body to heal... now I can begin to live again.

    Super happy to read things are going so much better for you! Can I make a small suggestion of not pumicing your feet every night? It might actually help with the discomfort. Sounds like you're saying you haven't been walking on the bottoms of your feet properly, and I'm wondering if that would mean you have no calluses/tough skin like the rest of us do that help protect us when we walk. Might not help, but I know when I take up new activity that involves my hands and I start forming calluses, scrubbing them off makes it hurt longer.

    Good luck on your new active life though! Hopefully pain free for good now!
  • BraydanTaffy
    BraydanTaffy Posts: 504 Member
    I had 2 foot surgeries which went awry & left me in constant pain (the same syndrome that causes phantom pain), feeling grim from constant drug allergies & side effects thus exacerbating asthma, walking on the side of my foot or heel only for 6-yrs. On top of it all, no therapy helped & walking with a cane was tough. I had to stop trying drugs... my body rejected everything. The pain was so excruciating, at times I was suicidal... it was unbearable to endure for so many years. I hobbled into my dr's office at the pain clinic after so many hospitalizations with severe drug symptoms (I'm allergic to virtually everything) & begged him to cure me or kill me. He threatened to toss me into a mental hospital if I were serious. I was, but didn't want more pain. Until I couldn't walk or swim, I had no idea how many miles of it I did regularly.

    As a virtual shut-in I ate whatever anyone kindly brought me. 6-yrs later, feeling awful & 20-lbs heavier (I was always slim, so the 20 didn't make me look fat, just not like me & none of my clothing fit), I had to do something different. I stopped accepting fried chicken, fries & pizza or "making" my own meals, which was peanut butter toast & coffee (about 12 slices of bread/day) & requested fruit or prepared salad, only.

    My foot is fine now, but I've still got the 20-lbs to lose. I've just returned to walking last week. It feels great, but I'm so unused to walking that the bottom of my feet suffer after just 1-mi. Not horrible, but it just feels so... weird & my skin peels. Lovely, I know, but my pumice board remedies that each evening.

    So, I'm still at beginning stages, but it's only as I had to wait for my body to heal... now I can begin to live again.

    Super happy to read things are going so much better for you! Can I make a small suggestion of not pumicing your feet every night? It might actually help with the discomfort. Sounds like you're saying you haven't been walking on the bottoms of your feet properly, and I'm wondering if that would mean you have no calluses/tough skin like the rest of us do that help protect us when we walk. Might not help, but I know when I take up new activity that involves my hands and I start forming calluses, scrubbing them off makes it hurt longer.

    Good luck on your new active life though! Hopefully pain free for good now!

    Hey TT...

    TY kindly for your good wishes!

    You're absolutely right, but... (for the squeamish, tune out now), I have large skin flakes all over the balls of my feet, big toes & heels... never had anything like it before. Even pumicing doesn't remove flakes, just smooths them down a bit. It's gross in that they stick to blankets & wake me up, stick to my socks & require adjustment & sometimes when the flakes are manipulated by walking, stick into my foot & it actually feels like I stepped on a glass shard or pin, so I hop up in pain.

    I've slathered my feet in Vasoline (& some OTC foot cream supposed to smooth flakes) after soaking & covered them with socks... it makes it a bit smoother following day, but the "hanging chads" are still there. Nothing has removed them & they only manifested once I started walking level again, on the flats of both feet.

    I think you're totally right on why they're there, but I don't know how to get rid of them besides keeping chipping away at them by soaking, pumicing & slathering in cream? And, you're right... some nights, my feet are sore & I have to lay off the pumicing for a couple of days & just deal with the creepy feeling of flakes getting caught on everything.

    BTW... don't know if mani-pedi salons are open, but... I have such overly-ticklish feet, no one can get anywhere near them, so I'll have to find a remedy on my own.

    I was told walking barefoot in sand might help, but at the moment, I'm staying in the mountains, hundreds of miles from the nearest sea.

    Any ideas are appreciated.

    Cheers for the nice words!
  • charmmeth
    charmmeth Posts: 936 Member
    edited October 2020
    I don't know if this stuff would be available anywhere other than Germany, but like you I used to have hard flakes on my feet and my chiropodist recommended it. The whole series is amazing: https://www.allpresan.com/de-de/. Especially this one for those kind of hard flakes: https://www.allpresan.com/de-de/produkt/allpresan-fuss-spezial-original-schaum-creme-101136/.
  • BraydanTaffy
    BraydanTaffy Posts: 504 Member
    charmmeth wrote: »
    I don't know if this stuff would be available anywhere other than Germany, but like you I used to have hard flakes on my feet and my chiropodist recommended it. The whole series is amazing: https://www.allpresan.com/de-de/. Especially this one for those kind of hard flakes: https://www.allpresan.com/de-de/produkt/allpresan-fuss-spezial-original-schaum-creme-101136/.

    TY very much. I can't even read the info, but the point is, I guess there are products out there. :smile: I'll ask the pharmacist... maybe there's something OTC I can use. I think it's just that my feet are so soft & tender from years of not walking, they're suddenly reacting to a lot of walking. As a last resort, I'll go to a podiatrist. Never thought of that, so thank you for your suggestions!

  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 2,829 Member
    Do I buy the next size clothing or not?
  • BraydanTaffy
    BraydanTaffy Posts: 504 Member
    edited October 2020
    SModa61 wrote: »
    Do I buy the next size clothing or not?

    I can relate. The thing that's always made me lose the 5-lbs I gained by being careless is that I never bought the next size up in clothing. To me, that would make it easy to justify another 5-lbs in weight gain. I made myself wear my usual size & be uncomfortable... that was my incentive to lose. Sometimes that meant, holding skirt/pants waistbands together with a safety pin (I gain weight first in my waist/stomach).

    My reasoning was... whatever made me gain a few lbs in 1-2 wks (usually baked potatoes with a LOT of butter), was the thing I could delete from my daily diet to drop that 5-lbs & return to my normal weight. The discomfort of a tight waistband always worked.

    To further heighten my desire to say 'no'... it normally takes double the amount of time to lose the extra lbs as it did to gain it. Don't know why that is... but, that's enough to keep my lips tight when I want 2 slices of pizza at night washed down with an ale or 2... what I could do easily 'til age 47, without gaining an ounce. Ah, youth...
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 2,829 Member
    edited October 2020
    SModa61 wrote: »
    Do I buy the next size clothing or not?

    I can relate. The thing that's always made me lose the 5-lbs I gained by being careless is that I never bought the next size up in clothing. To me, that would make it easy to justify another 5-lbs in weight gain. I made myself wear my usual size & be uncomfortable... that was my incentive to lose. Sometimes that meant, holding skirt/pants waistbands together with a safety pin (I gain weight first in my waist/stomach).

    My reasoning was... whatever made me gain a few lbs in 1-2 wks (usually baked potatoes with a LOT of butter), was the thing I could delete from my daily diet to drop that 5-lbs & return to my normal weight. The discomfort of a tight waistband always worked.

    To further heighten my desire to say 'no'... it normally takes double the amount of time to lose the extra lbs as it did to gain it. Don't know why that is... but, that's enough to keep my lips tight when I want 2 slices of pizza at night washed down with an ale or 2... what I could do easily 'til age 47, without gaining an ounce. Ah, youth...

    :) The first time I got my act together in 2001, I could not find any clothing that I liked how they fitted. I recall trying to decide if I should lose weight to better fit "regular" clothing, or gain weight so that Lane Byant clothing fit right. I decided to lose.

    This time, again it was clothing. So if you know me, I love to wear aprons in the house. Well with these pounds, they provided an extra perk. I could wear my pants unzipped and no one knew what was behind the apron. Down 11 lb in 6 weeks. My jeans zip again! So glad I chose to not go shopping. It's cheaper, and feels so much better all around! :)

    Sounds like you have a lot of common sense to using your clothing as a guideline. Going forward, I need to shut it down faster.

  • BraydanTaffy
    BraydanTaffy Posts: 504 Member
    SModa61 wrote: »
    SModa61 wrote: »
    Do I buy the next size clothing or not?

    I can relate. The thing that's always made me lose the 5-lbs I gained by being careless is that I never bought the next size up in clothing. To me, that would make it easy to justify another 5-lbs in weight gain. I made myself wear my usual size & be uncomfortable... that was my incentive to lose. Sometimes that meant, holding skirt/pants waistbands together with a safety pin (I gain weight first in my waist/stomach).

    My reasoning was... whatever made me gain a few lbs in 1-2 wks (usually baked potatoes with a LOT of butter), was the thing I could delete from my daily diet to drop that 5-lbs & return to my normal weight. The discomfort of a tight waistband always worked.

    To further heighten my desire to say 'no'... it normally takes double the amount of time to lose the extra lbs as it did to gain it. Don't know why that is... but, that's enough to keep my lips tight when I want 2 slices of pizza at night washed down with an ale or 2... what I could do easily 'til age 47, without gaining an ounce. Ah, youth...

    Sounds like you have a lot of common sense to using your clothing as a guideline. Going forward, I need to shut it down faster.

    Same. I buy nice clothing, but at bargain prices... still... it's too pricey to waste good clothing cuz I can't eat 1 slice of pizza with a salad & call it a meal, but instead justify 6 slices throughout the night. I long ago learned if it's not in the house, I won't venture out to buy it. Crave it, yes, but I can't buy things to store for later... they get eaten... all of it... fast.
  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,281 Member
    When my 6 yr old said to me one night... “mommy, did you know some ladies are skinny and have flat tummy’s?” 😕😧

    He actually said that in a very kind way.. much more kind than most kids!
Do you Love MyFitnessPal? Have you crushed a goal or improved your life through better nutrition using MyFitnessPal?
Share your success and inspire others. Leave us a review on Apple Or Google Play stores!