Posted by admin on June 16th, 2008 — Posted in Diet
I've done this before. Diet that is.
It takes an awful lot of concentration on calories. An awful lot of dedication to regular excercise.
I've been successful before..twice. I dropped 14 pounds both times within 3 months of starting.
Right now, I'm approximately 20 pounds overweight.
This is in March 08:
and THIS is in NOV 07 , 10-15 pounds less:
Living off of spinach salad, ham and swiss cheese croissant sandwhiches, diet pepsi, and lots of water.
Yes, really.
I did treadmill everyday. the first time, I literally could only stay on 10 minutes, but worked up to 45 minutes at a moderate speed.
then, something happened.
I took Hydroxycut.
It is a weight loss supplement, that used to contain, ephedra.
Ephedra is something that got pulled off the market because people were stroking out and having heart attacks. People were dying.
I used the weight loss supplement responsibly, meaning I never took more than was required on the label.
The first time something horrible happened to me, I was already in the doctors office having a treatment done on my varicosed veins on my legs.
My four kids were at home, ages 16, 13, 6 and 3. back then, and Doug was serving a 6 month tour of duty in Kosovo.
I had an anxiety attack, my first one ever. Only I didn't know it was an anxiety attack.
I thought I was dying.
My heart beat soooo fast. I almost passed out. I felt chest pain, nausea, and fear. I thought ONLY of my kids at the time. I thought "I am going to die and I will not even be able to say goodbye to anyone"
After that, I still didn't even associate ephedra with panic attacks or even know that they were panic attacks.
Doug was due home soon and after he came home, I had a huge attack that lasted several hours and fairly mimicked a heart attack. My heart rate was 130 per min at rest. Chest and arm pain. fear and almost passing out. Drooling even.
In the ER, I was advised to immediately quit taking ephedra. The doctor who wore a surgical cap with skull and crossbones on it, (which I otherwise would've found hilarious had I not been in such a bad way), told me they had a lot of people coming in with these complaints while taking ephedra for weight loss.
Not long after, the FDA banned the use of ephedra in weight loss capsules.
My panic attacks went on for months. I tried to be stoic.
Many times I would end up running outside in my pajamas in 40 degree weather in the middle of the night, convinced that I would die.
Since most of the attacks happened in my bed at night, I began to associate the bed with the anxiety attacks and slept on the couch for months. Our cat curled up next to me and licked my hands and face. Doug was beside himself. He thought everything was all in my head, and I could stop the attacks at will.
Eventually, I got on anti-anxiety meds.
In a weird twist of fate, the anxiety meds made me lose more weight than the diet pills that had started the whole thing!
It is at that point I realized that there is no magic pill. I only wanted to take off 10-15 pounds at that point and realize NOW that life changes are an inevitable part of mid life.
Life changes are necessary. Pills to make you lose weight are not. I guarantee that every single bottle of any kind of pill that you will ever pick up will say the following or a variation of the following:
Should be used with a sensible diet and excercise plan.
Tommorrow, actually starts my weight loss attempts.
It was the swimming day, saturday bathing suit pics that opened my eyes. (only the good ones made it to my blog)
I didn't actually like what I looked like in the pictures, and while I don't have MUCH weight to lose, I think I felt better when I was lighter.
