Hey, all. I’ve lost more than 30 pounds with diet and exercise over a few months, and I have to say: I feel really great.
When I weighed 230 pounds, I had a lot of problems: high blood pressure, my knees were making terrible noises, I had problems sleeping, I felt gross, I got winded so easily and other problems that I can’t think of at the moment.
Well, after getting down below 200 (yay!), I can give an update on all those things. First, I don’t know about the high blood pressure. I am on medication for it, so it’s been fine. Of course, before I started taking the meds, it was bad. Like 150/105 bad. It is NOT that anymore, thank goodness. Now, it’s where it should be. I will say, though, that after dieting and exercising for a while, I haven’t had any BP spikes, which were happening even with the meds.
The main issue I had with sleeping was that when I would sleep on my side, my body would crush my hips. So, I would wake up often with pain in my hip, and I would have to switch sides. I realized that I no longer have that pain. I can sleep all night on my left side, which is how I like to sleep. Also, since I’m dieting and therefore not eating before bed, I find that I can fall asleep a little faster, stay asleep longer, lie on my back if I want and generally not have any stomach issues while trying to sleep.
I no longer get winded just walking up the steps in my house. I can do yard work and not feel like I’m going to die. I can go for a walk or exercise and not feel sore the next day. I can stay standing for hours and not feel like I need to sit down every two minutes. It’s amazing to think about how much being overweight can impact the simplest things.
I still feel sorta gross but not as bad as I did before. I can see that I’ve lost weight, which really helps. My clothes aren’t as tight. There is a pair of jeans that I no longer fit into that I really want to try on again. (I haven’t because there is a freezer in the way of my closet that I am waiting on someone to pick up.)
My knees were really what I was most concerned about. Kind of need the knees to walk, and the noise my knees were making was not good at ALL. Well, I am not hearing the noise anymore. What a relief! And walking doesn’t hurt as much. I do still have arthritis in my knees; that’s not going away. But they don’t hurt nearly as much as they did before.
Now, I’ve been overweight most of my adult life. And until a couple years ago, I had no real issues. I didn’t have high BP, my knees were OK, I slept fine, etc. I was always told by my doctors that yes, I was overweight, but I was healthy. It wasn’t until a couple years ago when my BP went insane that the weight really started to have an impact. And then I gained 40 pounds, and well, that sure didn’t help anything. So, I’m so glad that I finally got motivated to do something.
Strangely enough, a group of guys online who do funny videos, Viva La Dirt League, inspired me. They made a series called Buffed Up Nerds in which they did intense workouts over the course of 12 weeks. Now, I haven’t done anything as intense as they did, but it was seeing these guys, who were in their late 20s and early 30s at the time, huffing and puffing and struggling just made me realize that even the healthiest people face challenges while exercising. Something about that really hit my brain just right and inspired me to get off my big fat butt and exercise. Here are the vids.
Until next time!
Frazzled Daisy 