This blog is going to document my journey as I tackle a medically supervised weight loss plan along with an endocrinologist and dietitian. This blog has a couple of goals: 1) to help me to express myself through writing as I make this journey, and 2) hopefully provide inspiration and/or motivation to others who may feel as hopeless as I have at times.
Monday morning I weighed in at 313. That is the highest weight I have been at in quite some time, but it isn't the biggest number I have ever seen on the scale. In early 2012, shortly after the passing of my grandfather, I walked by myself in the mirror and was horrified at how I looked. I didn't own a scale and while I had struggled with my weight since youth, until that moment it had never really hit me just how much I had let myself go. I purchased a scale and weighed in at a whopping 375 pounds. I remember vividly seeing that number and I cried. Not just a few tears... I am talking full on meltdown sobbing and weeping uncontrollably. It was then I knew I had to do something. My answer was Nutrisystem.
For a period of about 4 years, I worked (mainly successfully... with some periods of not as strong compliance as I should have) and found myself down to 259.3 pounds at my lowest. I was feeling great and nothing was going to derail my progress --- or so I thought. It was early 2016, while I was driving to a conference, that I experienced the worst chest pain in my life. I thought I was having a heart attack and so I rushed as quickly as I could to the nearest emergency room. Thankfully, my heart was fine, but the diagnosis I would eventually receive has changed my life.
After a series of additional ER visits while waiting to see a specialist, I finally received a diagnosis by my gastroenterologist of eosinophilic esophagitis. I will spare you a lot of the details here, but the brief summary is that my esophagus had decided that some of the foods I was ingesting (along with other environmental allergens) were harmful to me and caused inflammation of my esophagus. For many, it causes strictures and the narrowing of the esophagus. For me, it was basically these terrible "jackhammer spasms" that only Benadryl would tame. Then, after it subsided, would leave me weak and defeated.
Over a series of several years, I have come to learn most of what foods my esophagus has decided are a "no go," and that includes fish, peanuts, peas, eggs, and green beans... among others. Because I didn't feel well during this whole process, I turned to comfort foods that I could eat and began slowly packing on the pounds.
That brings me to where I am now. After consulting with my primary care physician about my weight, I was referred to an endocrinologist and dietitian who work together on a very low calorie diet to help people lose weight and gain quality of life back. We had discussed weight loss medications and even surgery, but I decided I was going to give this a legitimate try before we went those routes.
I began my journey bright and early Monday morning. For the next several (number not set yet) weeks, I will be consuming Optifast shakes (the bars are out for me because I have esophageal reactions) exclusively to jump start my weight loss journey. I will drive an hour once a week to be seen by the specialist and the dietitian. This will be a major commitment, but one I am ready to make.
I will be blogging about my "highs" and my "lows" on journey and documenting my progress along the way. I am determined to make this work and I look forward to sharing my insights along the way.
So, here we go... time to scale this mountain. No looking back.
#optifast #eoe #weightloss #obesity
