Milestones - 4
11/2/04 - 3/27/05
I removed most names from these excerpts of messages that I posted to an online support list to protect other people's anonymity. This page is a sort of chronicle of my recovery from June 2004 forward.

11/2/04  I now  weigh 275 lbs.  Am able to go for 1/2 hour at 3.5 m.p.h. at an 8% incline on the treadmill.

Hi All,

Last night I rooted through my closet to see if I had any clothes that I could fit into. Ones from long ago before I put on all my weight. I ran across a beautiful long sleeve winter sweatshirt with a dog printed on front that my older sister gave me probably 10 years ago. It was still brand new because when she gave it to me it was a little tight so I stored it. It is a 2XL. I slipped it on last night and it fit perfectly—not too tight and not too lose. I was thrilled. 2XL is still a pretty big size but I use to have to wear 6XL tall sizes. I'm only 6 feet tall, but back then the regular length shirts didn't cover my belly very well. Hmmm, my waist seems to be getting higher. After that I found 4 almost new pair of sweat pants. Two of them were a size smaller than I have been wearing and fit much better. Maybe now I won't have to worry about them sliding off when I'm on the treadmill. The other two are too big for me so I'll go ahead and give them to the Salvation Army along with half a dozen or so white tee-shirts I found in there that are 5XL tall. I remember now that when I bought those they were too tight but I was too embarrassed and too fatigued to return them. Instead of returning them I packed them away telling myself I'd start a "diet" the next day. That was a few years ago and that resolution to lose weight was just one of many that I never took action on.

When I decided to lose weight in the early summer of 2003, when I actually did start, the difference was that I told myself that I was going to start right now. I started that very minute. Making a decision is one thing but actually taking action on it is another. One of my character flaws was, and still is to some degree, procrastination. It's easy to procrastinate at the point of actually taking action. Decision + action = results. Every time I said to myself that I'd start tomorrow, I was merely procrastinating. The definition of procrastination is putting off something that you 'should' be doing. Procrastination has guilt built right in. Guilt was always a very good reason for me to overeat.

When I finally "got it" so to speak, I didn't think about starting tomorrow. I was scared enough to feel that there was no other time but the right now. It's funny in a sad sort of way that fear was such a great motivator for me when the visions of and desire for health and happiness I had at around 450 pounds weren't. I'm so very grateful I got scared enough in time to do something about my health and I'm grateful that the tools and support I needed to get started were available and free.

I was able to do a full half hour on the treadmill yesterday at 3.5 mph. It was easier than I had thought. Makes me wonder how many of my limits where exercise is concerned are more mental than physical. I really feel like I could have jumped up to 3.5 mph several weeks ago. I also figured something out, or at least I think I did. I have troubles with my feet. Years of excess weight and walking around in what amounted to slippers all the time have taken a toll on my arches. Since I started wearing shoes again, I've mostly been wearing ones that close by Velcro straps instead of laces. They are pretty darn handy, or so I thought. Yesterday it occurred to me that I might try cinching them up more tightly so as to hold my foot more firmly in place and give more support. Amazing difference in foot pain after my treadmill workout. I didn't have any. Simple little thing I guess but I'd worn moccasins for so many years I'd forgotten the whole concept... all I thought about was immediate comfort. A loose shoe felt, at first, more comfortable.

Tomorrow is payday and I think maybe I'm going to buy a good quality pair of lace-up athletic shoes.

Love, Dave

12/1/04  I now  weigh 267 lbs.  Been doing 1/2 hour at 3.5 m.p.h. at a 10% incline on the treadmill, usually twice a day. Plus mild weight training three times a week.

Hi All,

Last weekend I bought myself a new bed. I'd been sleeping on one I bought several years ago. It was a twin mattress that was rated ultra firm. The very hardest Posturepedic made. It was hard as a rock and I didn't use a foundation. It was on a flat platform. I have a bad back and it felt good when I was laying on my back, but I rarely sleep that way. When I bought it I told myself I was getting it because of my bad back, but the truth is, I was so heavy back then that I would ruin regular cheaper mattresses in a few months. My weight would break down the edges and springs in no time. That old mattress caused me nothing but misery since day one. It aggravated the arthritis in my shoulders and made sleep difficult. On some level, I guess I felt like that's all I deserved.

My new bed is a very nice medium firm full bed set. It was on a super sale but I'll still be paying for it for the next few months. The last few nights I've slept deeper than I have for ages. It feels so good just laying there that I don't want to get up in the morning which is unusual for me. I do get up, but I lay there and bask in the comfort for awhile first. It's lovely. It takes up more room in my small living space than a twin bed, but I realized after the first night, that it's way worth it. That space is an important space in my life. I spend 6 to 8 hours a night there. I should be able to enjoy it.

On another note. Old tapes die hard. I went shopping for a new pair of shoes today. I've been having a lot of problems with my arches and blisters since doing more on the treadmill, so I realized the other day that I probably need a new and better quality pair of shoes for better support. I've been wearing pretty cheap shoes for a long time. K-mart specials to be exact. I went to a shoe store today and the guy measured my feet with a device you step on that measures the size and width. I was amazed to hear him say I need a 12 regular width. I told him I was sure I needed a wide shoe. He said "no, not at all. Your feet are definitely average width." And then we rechecked it and he showed me on the scale.

I'd been buying wide shoes since forever. I've always bought my shoes at places where you pick them out yourself off the rack and I'd always gotten my shoes in the wide sizes. Why, because when I was a little kid, my mother yelled at a shoe salesman once demanding that he bring out wide shoes for me. It made a big impression and I never bothered to question it. Shopping was always traumatic with my mom so as soon as I was old enough, I did it my way. I hated getting pestered by sales people asking if they could help me. I avoided those situations like the plague. Anyway, turns out, I've never needed wide shoes at all. I'm 51 and just found out I have average feet. It's nice to be average. :-) Wide shoes were often hard to find and it's nice to kill another old tape.

Love, Dave

1/15/05  Mourning is part of recovery

Hi All,

Even though I hated being at my top weight, the excess weight did serve some large purpose in my life. Not a very healthy or productive purposes for sure, but it was part of who I was and part of how I navigated relationships, intimacy, responsibilities, sexuality, and life in general. It was a good excuse for not participating fully in life. It reinforced my convoluted desire to isolate. It sort of legitimized my depression and low self worth in some weird way that I can't really explain. On one level I want all those things that "normal" people have, but the thought of attaining them someday is overwhelming. It's like I have to change every concept I've ever had about myself. This is one of those areas where taking some time to reflect and meditate every day feels essential to me. I use some of this time to rebuild my internal picture of a healthy whole me. I know on one level, a happy healthy and free Dave is my higher power's will for me, but it takes some work every day to not lose the deeper feeling of it—the inner knowing in my gut.

I've found that I need to do the work of mourning even if I'm mourning losses for things that weren't good for me. I don't think I could have ever stayed sober if I didn't mourn the loss of my drugs and booze 20 years ago—the loss of a way of life. Mourning made it all more real and helped propel me forward into a new life. I think it's like that with my weight now. It's hard work to find healthy replacements for those parts of my routine and my life that I'm in the process of giving up. Mourning helps that process just as if I was mourning the loss of a loved one. It's a necessary thing that helps me to move on.

One of my biggest problems is that I've spent so much of my life finding ways to numb or deny strong feelings. And mourning is a feeling process. So what I've been attempting to do lately is to really get into it and spend some time each day trying for all my might to feel what I am feeling. To plow through the depression and touch the pain and chaos underneath and see if I can make friends with it.

I think the feelings may also be biological in some way. My excess fat tissue was a physical part of my body. My system has supported it and acclimated to it for a long time. My brain had the job of making constant decisions as to how to utilize and store it—to tell my muscles and internal organs how to live with it and make allowances for it.

One of the things that I'm dealing with now—mourning—is the lost time and potential... all the lost years. Now that I can actually feel some sense of having a future, the fact that I put my life on hold for so many years because of my obesity and eating disorder feels a lot more intense and real. It hurts a lot more now than it did a year ago. I just have to have faith that it will get better. Other people have done this before and lived through it.

Love, Dave

1/29/05  I now  weigh 258 lbs.  Blood pressure is still just fine thank you-- 110/66.

Hi All,

Today, I am reevaluating my recovery goals. They've changed as I've changed in recovery. Every so often it helps me to list them out. Some of these are goals that I am working on with some measure of success, and others still feel quite far off. Most seem to be related to each other and all may be dependant on having some success with the next one. I feel like I'm heading in the right general direction, but I easily get to feeling kind of lost or rudderless. I've been feeling a little lost lately.

My recovery goals are:

Love, Dave

1/30/05 

Hi All,

Two more perfectly good nearly new pair of jeans are now going to the Goodwill and I'm not sorry. They had gotten so big that I had to use suspenders to keep them up. For the first year of my recovery, they were too small for me. Today, I have on yet another almost new pair that has been sitting in my closet for at least 10 years. They're 4 inches smaller in the waist than the two pair I just dumped. I've never been so happy about donating something to Goodwill or glad to get rid of perfectly good clothes. :-)

I'm actually anxious now for the stores to get their shipments of summer clothes in. I'm looking forward to going shopping. I don't want to use my money to buy the heavy shirts and sweatpants that they presently have in stock. I like the lighter weight ones now--even for most winter use. They're just a lot more comfortable and I'm not so concerned about how well they hide me from the world--as if they ever really could. I'm so grateful that I no longer have to worry about where and if I can find the next larger size. That was a humiliating nightmare and constant worry.

I'm leaving in a little while to go fix a friends kitchen sink. There's a leak. A couple of years ago I would have passed when asked. I would have had too much of a problem getting down and into position under the sink and then getting back up. I would have worried about being embarrassed--feeling way too vulnerable--exposed. I don't have those concerns today. It's no big deal.

I am grateful this morning for my recovery, this list, and everything and everyone that has helped me get this far. Thank you. I sure wasn't having much success on my own.

Wishing you all peace and recovery.
Love, Dave

3/4/05 My blood pressure is 111/61 with a pulse of 57 first thing in the morning. A new personal exercise goal is reached. I'm now able to go for 1/2 hour at 4.0 m.p.h. at an 11% incline on the treadmill. I'm steadily increasing the amount of weight I'm using in my weight training and I'm having much less difficulty in my exercise with foot and joint pains and muscle soreness.

Hi All,

I'm so happy with myself. I just completed a half hour on the treadmill at 4 miles per hour at an 11 degree incline plus another 5 minute warm-down. I didn't think I'd ever get to this speed or incline. I was so stuck just a couple of weeks ago and getting discouraged. I did it today and it wasn't nearly as painful or awful as I thought it would be. I still wish I liked to exercise... maybe someday.

A couple of days ago I spent the night at the VA hospital emergency with kidney stone problems. I had a kidney stone a few years ago before my current recovery and it was, in part, what lead to my bottoming out. I didn't think I'd have another problem since I eat such healthy stuff now, but I did. Darn... still human. <lol> Anyway, I passed the stone by morning and everything is fine again. In fact, the kidney pains I've had for the last several months are now gone. I think this stone may have been present since pre-recovery and just now let loose. I hope it's the last of them.

Love, Dave

3/24/05  I now  weigh 242 lbs. 

Hi All,

I had one of those wonderful and surprising rewards of recovery today that... well, felt really good. I saw my primary care physician at the VA today for the first time since last fall. When she walked into the exam room she asked me if I'd ever been in before. She didn't recognize me. She had to pick up my chart and read for a minute before it clicked in her mind who I was. I was about 60 pounds heavier and had a full beard and long hair the last time. We had a really nice extended visit. I returned my CPAP machine to the sleep disorders clinic so I'm shed of it once and for all, had a bunch of blood drawn for testing at the lab, and my doctor told me that she would set me up anytime I wished to have a consultation with the plastic surgeon for a future skin reduction (tummy tuck). Way cool!

On another note. Some of you may remember that my elderly mother who lives in a nursing home had been refusing her medications and we agreed if that was what she wanted, then we wouldn't try and force her. All went well for a awhile, but then she became violent and ended up being hauled off to a geriatric psych ward. The nursing home won't let her come back as they just aren't set up to deal with patients like her. So we had to go to a lawyer and file for legal guardianship and hunt down a place that takes Medicare that handles people with serious dementia.

Life just seems to keep throwing curve balls. I'm glad I'm not resorting to food to handle them because that never seemed to resolve anything. I'm so grateful to my sister for taking the lead in these affairs with my mom. They always sort of send me over the edge emotionally--triggering old psychiatric problems. I'm doing ok with all this so far. My sister is really impressing me with her courage and willingness to do what needs to be done. She suffered pretty much the same abuse I did and grew up with a lot of issues and emotional liabilities too. Life keeps happening--and that's a good thing.

Love, Dave

3/27/05  I now  weigh 241 lbs.  Blood pressure is 117/71 with a pulse of 55 first thing in the morning when I get up.

Hi All,

I just got my latest cholesterol level test results back. I'm happy! In particular, I've been trying to get my HDL (good cholesterol) levels to go up. They're finally up in a range I feel good about. Blood sugar is still hanging in a little under 90 and that's ok too. :-)

On another note, I've been using the treadmill's pre-programmed courses the last three days. I finally decided to get out the instructions and figure out what all the buttons and knobs did. Instead of walking at a steady incline like I had been, it varies up and down several times and different amounts during the program more like a real walk. I went from my old 45 minutes at a steady 11 degrees to an hour on the walking program. I found that it's much easier on my feet and joints, and easier overall. The really cool thing is that according to the onboard computer that monitors heart rate, weight, age, and speed, I'm actually burning more energy this way even though it feels like a lot less work. I guess exercise is a lot like good nutrition--it pays to get a lot of variety.

Love, Dave