My Story - My Motivation

MY STORY - MY MOTIVATION

(What's yours?)

QUESTION:

Why am I telling you what I’m about to say?

ANSWER:

Because I want you to know that if I can experience the debilitating issues that I have, and find a better life by simply making some little changes, then you can do it, too.

For most of my life I was pretty healthy, or so I thought, because I felt good most of the time and never had any issues with my weight.  I could eat anything, yet still remained a teeny tiny petite little person.  That changed after being in a car accident that prevented me from exercising, shortly after turning 40 years old.  Suddenly I gradually began gaining weight.  Over the years I ate less, was active with exercising, playing volleyball, swimming, and lots of dancing, but that didn’t stop my body from changing.  I thought I was eating “healthy”, but I didn’t really know what healthy eating was.  The pounds continued to grow.  I don’t have much room to spread those pounds, as I am very short in height.  It seemed as though every little ounce showed.

I tried some fad diets, I went to Weight Watchers, I counted calories, I had a gym membership, I even took the prescription Phen-fen for three months.  All those strategies worked, somewhat, BUT only on a temporary basis.  I researched diet pills and diet drinks, only to discover they contained ingredients that seemed more geared to help people who had a constipation problem.  I was the opposite.  I was diagnosed with IBS/D, so if I took any of those diet products, they would aggravate my stomach issues.   I had read that eating fruit and other food items, such as cabbage were good for health and weight loss, but eating them only made my digestive issue worse.  In retrospect, I realize now, it was NOT the healthy foods, like fruits, that caused my problems.  It was all the other stuff I was eating that interacted with the healthy foods to cause my problems.  But back then I didn’t know this, so instead, I just avoided the healthy foods, and lived with the idea that there was nothing I could do about my weight. 

As I continued to age, arthritis surfaced, which caused exercising and activities to be painful. 

Then in January 2011 my pains became unbearable and immediately sent me straight to Urgent Care.  I could hardly walk.  I was diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), massive blood clots filling my entire leg.  This put a sudden halt to most normal activity in my life. 

After being on blood thinner medication for a while, the blood clots began disappearing.  I was beginning to feel a bit better, but was continuing to experience chronic pain in other areas of my body.  After several months of various testing, and the serious medical issues and diseases were ruled out, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.  I resigned myself to the idea that the rest of my life would be filled with daily chronic pain, fatigue, depression and all the other symptoms from Fibro.  Living with physical limitations creates obstacles in one’s life, especially since many other people do not understand what it’s like.

During this time, while I was dealing with my health problems, my husband was battling prostate cancer.  He had been diagnosed one month after I had been diagnosed with DVT.  It was a challenging time for both of us.  Our only outings were the many visits to doctors and specialists.  We called those our “dates”. 

My arthritis continued to worsen, and was told it was Osteoarthritis, which often comes along with aging.  During some of my previous testing, it was discovered I had nerve damage in my left arm which triggered numbness in half of my left hand, while the other half was in pain. 

When my legs began swelling and leaking fluid, I was diagnosed with Lymphedema.  Keeping it under control is very time-consuming and exhausting, especially for someone with the chronic pain issues from Fibro and Osteoarthritis. 

It felt as though my life, as I knew it, was over.

For more than three years I was quite sedentary.  I justified my lazy lifestyle because the pain didn’t allow me to move much; and being older gave me reason to no longer care about what I ate.  By this time, I needed a cane to help me walk.  I was a mess.  I could not take anything stronger than Tylenol for pain, because pain meds interact adversely with blood thinner meds.  I had to learn to deal with the chronic pain.

My Rheumatologist had told me the importance of movement in the body, to avoid stiffness.  He called it “oiling the joints”.  But, it was a vicious circle for me.  I couldn’t move because of the pain (or so I thought), but if I didn’t move, the pain was worse. 

Being depressed and frustrated about my lethargic life, in November of 2014, I suddenly felt a burst of motivation.  I’m not sure where it came from, but I knew I wanted to try to do something to feel better.  I desperately wanted my life back. 

The first thing I did was to dust off my treadmill and try to walk. It wasn't easy at first.  In fact, it was unequivocally difficult.  But I was determined to give it everything I had. The first few days I walked for only one minute at the slowest speed. I was surprised to discover that just moving my body, even a little, lessened the pain.  I was feeling a little better, so I gradually increased my walking time and the speed.  I invested in a Fitbit to keep track of my steps.

Shortly after that, the results of my annual bone density scan showed signs of Osteopenia, which is the beginning signs of Osteoporosis.  My doctor strongly suggested that I include stretching exercises to my daily routine.  Otherwise I’d have to begin a new medication, and I didn’t want that.  Often, adding movement and healthy eating to a routine, can help eliminated taking those awful medications that usually have unpleasant side-effect.  To my surprise, again, stretching helped me feel better and slightly decreased my pains.

 

Keep in mind that, although body movement is essential, it doesn’t need to be long strenuous workouts.  With Fibromyalgia, I am not able to do the long strenuous exercises anyway.  However, even with mild movement, I’m still much farther ahead that I was in my sedentary life. 

After watching some Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil episodes on TV, I noticed much of their shows were focusing on healthy eating.  So, I started researching nourishing foods, nutrition and the benefits of eating healthy.   My main goal was to try to incorporate what I learned in my research, along with walking and stretching just to feel better.  Weight loss had not even crossed my mind at this time.  BUT, in the process, not only did I begin feeling much better, pounds were melting off my body, too!  And, I stopped depending on a cane to help me walk!

I’m not “cured” by any means.  I still experience pain and other symptoms, but they have lessened enough to give me life back!  Many of the fun and satisfying good times I thought were gone forever, now are bringing me a more fulfilling life once again.  It's never too late to begin again, not even at 68 years old.

So, I'll begin at the beginning, a logical place to start~

My first experience in healthy eating was to eliminate the “Evil White Villains”, as I call them.  They are the criminals who were robbing me of my health.

So I waved “bye-bye” to………..

·        Sugars

·        Flour

·        Potatoes

·        Pasta

·        Rice

Yeah, all that tasty white stuff that I loved, but that did NOT love me!

I made a conscious effort to drink more water.

In addition I wanted to put an end to unconscious “mindless eating” – you know, a little bite of this here; a handful of that there.  It’s rather amazing how often I was doing that throughout the day!  To become aware of this and to focus on no longer doing it, I began counting calories on my Fitbit App.  By forcing myself to write down everything that went into my mouth, the mindless eating ceased. 

Since I mentioned calorie counting above, I just want to say that counting calories in NOT a necessity.  I do it just to keep myself in check.  It’s not about the amount of calories we consume.  It about the contents of the calories that matter.

 I’ll get into more details, later.  And, I’ll provide more information about how easy it can be to give up those “Evil White Villains”.  It’s surprising the unlimited countless substitutes available, which are delicious.  Our tastes and cravings change as we make these changes. 

But, for now, I’m signing off. 

With love and gratitude,

Ginny

P.S.  I am not a medical professional.  I do NOT have all the answers.  But, I do believe I've gained much valuable information that has help me; and I just want to share it with you.