After Ozempic Diet Week 5
Well, I am not quite sure how it happened for sure. But I stepped on the scale and was down to 356 pounds. So I have lost weight since last week. Several pounds, as a matter of fact. I can tell you for sure that it was not due to eating properly. This reminds me. I read an amazing story by a fellow Medium author last week. She wrote from the heart. It was very inspiring. It also reminded me of my struggles. I realized, in part, that this has been a struggle for me well before I ended up morbidly obese. If I measure myself by today’s standards, I was not fat at all when I was a young adult. But I did have a bit of a belly. I was always fighting with my self-image because of that. And I was fighting with the food cravings as well.
Food always brought me happiness. Food also brought guilt later when I realized that I probably gained a pound or two from indulgence. I am 6'6" tall (that is 198 cm for those outside the US). This means that growing up, I had to consume a lot of calories for my growing body. I did not reach my full height till I was 20 years old. Once I did, I should have changed my eating habits. But the food was just too yummy. Over the decades, I kept adding to my weight. It was slow. And when you are as tall as I am, it is easy to hide the extra weight. But that does not mean it is any easier on my joints or the rest of my body.
This also meant that when I stood in front of the mirror, I would feel complete disgust at my image. One would think this would make it easier to diet and get in shape. But it seems to have the opposite effect. That means when the cravings hit, it is just that much easier to give into them. I guess eating disorders come in many styles.
Well, as I mentioned at the top, I did lose weight this last week. I think that it was because I spent a lot of time on the house renovations that we are doing. Going up and down a ladder repeatedly is a fair bit of exercise. I also did get my arse out and walked for several days while waiting for my daughter to get out of school. I found out I can get in over 1,000 steps in the 10 minutes or so I am waiting for her. But I think it was mainly working on the house. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I cleared 7,000 steps for the day. I was averaging barely 3,000 otherwise. I did not do as much work today. But I did do some shopping. I am at over 4,900 right now as I write this.
There is one other thing I was reminded of this weekend. A couple of months ago, I spent a month wearing a constant glucose monitor (Freestyle Libre) so I could track the fluctuations in my blood sugar. One of the things I learned is that I can be prone to low blood sugar. I also learned what it feels like when I get like that. I would start feeling weak and shaky. I would get some brain fog. Then, suddenly, my wife was texting me because she was getting alerts about my low blood sugar. It would drop down to about 55–60 during those times (that is pretty darn low for the uninitiated).
I looked back at what I had eaten earlier in the day. We had our healthy breakfast, which is basically a very low-carb meal with lots of fiber. I was not intentionally trying to do low-carb. It just happened to be that way. I had similar issues when I was wearing the CGM and trying to do physical activities after having low-carb meals. My wife had some meal bars that did have chocolate and carbs. That helped some. And then I drank a couple of glasses of milk, too. Eventually, things got a bit more on track.
I remember one time this summer when I had gotten alerted for low blood sugar. I knew I needed to eat something. I started eating nuts. But it did not really help. I was like, “This is supposed to be the healthy option,” while eating them. Luckily, my wife brought me some fruit after a short bit. I was on Ozempic at that time. So, it was really easy to ignore eating. I always had to keep trail mix with the raisins and M&Ms in it the whole time of being on Ozempic in case I started to feel woozy. And I had to be very mindful of going too long without eating.
The bottom line is that I am going to try to make sure to keep moving this week as well. Maybe I do need to set a goal of getting at least 10,000 steps in a day. Maybe that is a golden task for me. Oh, and we have a huge family gathering this weekend that will have loads of yummy food. That is going to be a bit of a challenge. Let’s see what next Monday brings on the scale.