coolauntBBW

I hate when my weight stalls. Considering it was only 2 weeks, I wouldn’t call it a plateau, but I was definitely stalled. This was a better week, though. Down 9 pounds since last Sunday. Whoo hoo! And now I’m eating more and better food. It’s all about the right combinations. I’m eating the way the doctor had me eating when I was 436 pounds and lost down to 245. Why, oh, why, did I ever stop? But no use crying over pounds regained. Instead it’s time to look to the future, a future where I see a much slimmer me. Now I’m 36 pounds closer to my vision of myself.

Today was a very good weigh-in. Down 7 pounds from last week and 2 pounds under my first mini-goal. Yay! That’s 2 pounds into my NEXT mini-goal. Of course when I punched my weight into the tracker, it told me to slow down, that I was losing too fast, that I should only lose 1 or 2 pounds a week. What the tracker doesn’t understand is that 5 of those pounds were lost in 1 single night because I had to stay home with a stomach virus. As much as I’m glad to have lost that much weight in 1 week, diarrhea is NOT the way I would recommend doing it!

10 Minute Solutions Hip Hop Dance workout DVD: $9.97. Watching me try to learn the basic steps: priceless.

LOL. I don’t have enough room for some of the moves, and I’m not always the most coordinated person. But it was fun.

It was a long, hard week for me, and I’m happy to have a maintain. I work 3rd shift, and that makes it much more difficult to lose weight. For one thing, you are going against your body’s natural rhythm. For another, with the hours I work and the distance I travel to and from work, I never get enough sleep. My weight loss always comes on the 3 days a week I am off, and those vary from week to week with only Saturday being the same day off each week. But this week I worked 6 nights, a total of 63.75 hours. Yesterday was my only day off, and even then I didn’t get the sleep I normally do on Saturday because the AT&T guy had to come work on my internet, and that took more than 5 hours, and then, of course, I had to do laundry. Other chores will have to wait till the end of the week. Beginning Thursday is my 5 days off. I can’t wait! And hopefully I can find the time, the energy and the motivation to get back into the swing of working out.

What makes it a great start? After all, this is weigh-in day. And THAT is what makes it a great start, stepping on the scale and realizing I had lost 5 pounds this week. Whoo hoo! It’s amazing what a difference tracking your food can make. I use the My Plate food tracker on Livestrong.com. It’s the most comprehensive food tracker I have ever come across. For 1 week now I have been weighing and measuring everything. And I keep track of every bite that goes in my mouth, even the piece of sugar-free Werthers I ate during church last week.

Exercise is still a little shaky, but I’m getting there. This week I walked 3 times, finally getting up to 20 minutes at a time. Sometimes it’s hard to do because of the aches and pains of the ankles and knees. I have degenerative disease, so I have bone rubbing against bone, and that can be quite painful. And I used my toning bar twice. Not to mention I’m doing even more walking at work. It’s time now to dust off the Gazelle and start using it again. It’s great exercise and much easier on the joints.

This is going to be a long week. Normally this would be my split week, working Sunday and Monday, off Tuesday and Wednesday, working Thursday and Friday and then off on Saturday. But with someone being on vacation in the other receiving office, I have the opportunity to work 6 days this week. It’s going to be a long week, but I need the overtime too much to turn it down when it’s offered. Yesterday I prepared my dinner for the entire work week, putting my dinners in the freezer so that all I have to do is pull one out each day to take for work that night. Working the hours I work, it’s so much easier making my meals on Saturday and having them ready to go.

So with 19 pounds gone and only 5 more to go till my first mini-goal, I know my success will continue with the support of all my BS buddies.

What makes it a great start? After all, this is weigh-in day. And THAT is what makes it a great start, stepping on the scale and realizing I had lost 5 pounds this week. Whoo hoo! It’s amazing what a difference tracking your food can make. I use the My Plate food tracker on Livestrong.com. It’s the most comprehensive food tracker I have ever come across. For 1 week now I have been weighing and measuring everything. And I keep track of every bite that goes in my mouth, even the piece of sugar-free Werthers I ate during church last week.

Exercise is still a little shaky, but I’m getting there. This week I walked 3 times, finally getting up to 20 minutes at a time. Sometimes it’s hard to do because of the aches and pains of the ankles and knees. I have degenerative disease, so I have bone rubbing against bone, and that can be quite painful. And I used my toning bar twice. Not to mention I’m doing even more walking at work. It’s time now to dust off the Gazelle and start using it again. It’s great exercise and much easier on the joints.

This is going to be a long week. Normally this would be my split week, working Sunday and Monday, off Tuesday and Wednesday, working Thursday and Friday and then off on Saturday. But with someone being on vacation in the other receiving office, I have the opportunity to work 6 days this week. It’s going to be a long week, but I need the overtime too much to turn it down when it’s offered. Yesterday I prepared my dinner for the entire work week, putting my dinners in the freezer so that all I have to do is pull one out each day to take for work that night. Working the hours I work, it’s so much easier making my meals on Saturday and having them ready to go.

So with 19 pounds gone and only 5 more to go till my first mini-goal, I know my success will continue with the support of all my BS buddies.

Well, finally made it to the park this morning to walk before getting ready for church. This is the first time in 1 1/2 years that I have been there. And boy am I out of shape! I could only manage 17 minutes this morning. But it wasn’t just being out of shape. If that was all it was, I would have pushed myself further. But my siatica was acting up. Mine tends to gather in my left hip, making just walking in general difficult and making me favor that side because of the pain. Tomorrow I will have to remember to take an Advil before attempting any exercise.

Weighed in this morning (just after midnight, so VERY early morning…lol), and I had lost 2 more pounds this week. That puts me 10 pounds away from my first mini goal. Yay! I’m doing very well with my food. I’ve started tracking my food again, using the My Plate section of LiveStrong.com. I’ve been keeping my calories between 1200 and 1500 a day, and I’m getting in my water every day. I even turned down a Reese Cup when it was offered to me. Now THAT was willpower! Especially considering it was at work, and work has been so unbelievably stressful this week that it took a lot to turn down chocolate and peanut butter. I didn’t have to work the 2 extra days this week after all. As much as I needed the money, my sanity needed the time off even more.

Now I just have to get more exercise in. That’s the one area I’m not doing as well in. I’m not sedentary, I’m just not getting in as much walking as I should. One reason is a lack of energy. I’m in peri-menopause. Not going through the change yet but getting there. Last year I stopped having visits from Father Nature in May and he didn’t return until late October, the first day of my vacation to be precise. It’s a given that I have my period on vacation. It was during this time that I regained 30 pounds. And now I’m going through it again. I haven’t seen Father Nature since March. I love not having him around, but the lack of energy and cravings really suck. That’s why it’s so important to take control of my eating and exercise NOW.

What a heck of a week at work. In 5 days I worked 57 hours. This week I’m working 6 days. The stress right now is off the chart, so much so that I had a blood vessel burst in my eye one night while trying to make the new manager for the department understand how certain things work, basically that you can have this or you can have that but you can’t have both. Thank God I don’t have high blood pressure, otherwise I might have stroked out. The woman who does my job on the other dock had her things together last night and was ready to walk out. Much of the problem stems from some of the decisions being made by the new corporate president of the company who seems to have issues with the fact that the DC where I work, the 1 non-union facility, outproduces all the others. And having a new manager over my department who is too busy kissing butt and trying to climb the ladder that he doesn’t care about the employees and doesn’t want to listen to the people who know what is going on is a major stress-producer. This is the man who, sitting in my office one night, said, “Ours is not to reason why.” Before he could get out, “Ours is but to do and die,” I replied, “I’m not a suicidal person. Homicidal, yes, suicidal, no.” I think he might have had trouble deciding if I was serious or not because he hightailed it out of there. Hehehe.

Some ob-gyns in South Florida turn away overweight women

By BOB LAMENDOLA
Sun Sentinel
Updated: 3:46 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Posted: 5:45 a.m. Tuesday, May 17, 2011

In a nation with 93 million obese people, a few ob-gyn doctors in South Florida now refuse to see otherwise healthy women solely because they are overweight.

Fifteen obstetrics-gynecology practices out of 105 polled by the Sun Sentinel said they have set weight cut-offs for new patients starting at 200 pounds or based on measures of obesity — and turn down women who are heavier.

Some of the doctors said the main reason was their exam tables or other equipment can’t handle people over a certain weight. But at least six said they were trying to avoid obese patients because they have a higher risk of complications.

“People don’t realize the risk we’re taking by taking care of these patients,” said Dr. Albert Triana, whose two-physician practice in South Miami declines patients classified as obese. “There’s more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued. Everything is more complicated with an obese patient in GYN surgeries and in [pregnancies].”

Plantation ob-gyn partners Jeffrey Solomon and Isabel Otero-Echandi turn down any woman weighing more than 250 pounds.

Solomon and Otero don’t want to begin seeing heavy women and then have to send them to specialists if they later develop problems, said their office manager, who asked not to be named. The two doctors, like several of the others with weight cutoffs, declined to comment.

“This is not a high-risk practice,” the office manager said. “They are not experts in obesity.”

Turning down overweight people is not illegal for doctors, but the policy worried leaders of physician groups, medical ethics experts and advocates for the obese, all of whom said it violates the spirit of the medical profession.

“If I had that policy, I wouldn’t have a practice. I’d lose half my patients,” said Dr. Maureen Whelihan, a West Palm Beach ob-gyn. “We never turn down anyone. We would see them, and if we had to, we would refer them to a specialist.”

Leaders of eight local, state and national medical associations said they had never heard of doctors turning away patients solely because of weight. Several said obese people with no other health issues do not need special treatment.

“No doctor should be unable to treat patients just because they are heavy,” said Dr. Bruce Zafran, a Coral Springs ob-gyn.

So far, the weight cutoffs have been enacted only by South Florida ob-gyns, who have long complained of high numbers of lawsuits after difficult births and high rates for medical-malpractice insurance. More than half go without coverage.

Ob-gyns for years have declined to see pregnant women who are overweight, typically sending them to specialists. It’s new for them to turn down overweight women who are not pregnant, physician groups said.

Several ob-gyn offices said their ultrasound machines do not give good images of internal anatomy in obese women, making it harder to diagnose some medical problems.

The Plantation office manager said weight limits are not uncommon at offices owned, like hers, by the Coconut Grove medical services company VitalMD.

VitalMD treasurer Kerry Kuhn, an ob-gyn in Coral Springs, said he was unaware of his doctors setting weight limits, adding the company has nothing to do with doctor decisions.

“This is individual choice by a doctor,” Kuhn said. “Doctors know who they want to treat.”

Physicians, like any business, can decline service to whomever they choose for any reason — including personality conflicts — as long as it’s not discriminatory. The American Medical Association advises doctors that they cannot reject patients because of race, gender, sexual orientation or infectious diseases.

Doctors also are allowed to drop patients, if they believe they lack the medical skills to properly treat them. They must send notices and refer them to other doctors.

But decisions about patients typically are made after assessing the individual’s condition during an exam, not by ruling out an entire group, said Dr. Robert Yelverton, a board member of the Florida Obstetric and Gynecologic Society. He said he would discourage physicians from excluding the obese.

“Do I think it’s a good policy? No,” Yelverton said. “Overweight people need doctors. I don’t know where a patient in that situation would go if every practice had that policy.”

The AMA and the ob-gyn group declined to comment on doctors setting weight limits. A spokesman for the Obesity Action Coalition in Tampa said the restrictions sound like discrimination.

“This completely goes against the principles of being a doctor,” James Zervios said. “Health care professionals are there to help individuals improve their quality of health, not stigmatize them according to their weight.”