I have a number of disabilities - T2 diabetes, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, chronic depression, lymphoedema, vasculitis, essential tremor, costochondritis, vertigo, restless leg syndrome and neuropathy. I weigh about 131 kgs and need to lose weight for my health! I cut out all refined carbs a few years ago; bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, and I lost nearly 6 stone. Unfortunately the weight has gone back on. I'm trying again, with no luck this time. I'm so, so weak, I just love food. I never feel hungry, then when I do eat my body never tells me I'm full. It makes me really depressed. And because my mobility affects me greatly I'm unable to exercise. I've tried swimming, but I suffer so terribly the next day with pain. I can't walk far at all and my balance is atrocious.
Is there anyone who can help and/or advise me please?? XX
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sue32
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I can understand never feeling hungry & not getting body telling one you are full thats how it is for me. What has helped me is logging everything & calorie counting using myfitnes pal. I've had many setbacks but have managed to lose 18lbs which has improved my knee pain.Take it one day at a time & use this site you are not alone knowing this helps me to stop feeling such a "bad/useless" person. Good luck & keep posting xx
As I get older the weight is harder to shift, and I am also disabled so any fitness class is a no no or physical exercise and what does annoy me is they have exercise classes for the retired but not for disabled, it would help if the retired classes were just open to the disabled as well. I can swim but I work full time and am too tired to go afterwards. They do suggest exercises on a chair but it would be nice if someone actually did a fitness video with some up to date dance music that you can really get into. I'm sorry I haven't been much help but one thing I have just thought of I did a one off yoga class taster when I was on holiday, just streching and relaxing and it was brilliant and it helped with my breathing (manky lungs!) and the gentle streching really felt like a workout and helped to keep my mind focused, maybe this could be worth a try but don't go for a full yoga class just find one that just does relaxation to start with you'll be amazed what a difference it makes.
There is a DVD by a young woman named Leanne Grose based on her wheelchair - she had a leg amputation. The other suggestion would be aqua-aerobics. The water both supports the joints and provides resistance.
JCS44 when I wanted someone around me once, i was all alone. i don't want others to be the same alone as i was once.
Hi sue32,
I really think with your underlying medical conditions, you need to see managing your weight as an integral part of managing your medical conditions.
I'd stongly suggest you get professional medical advice about how to approach a weight loss regime in your particular circumstances. So go and talk with your GP / Practice Nurse or discuss it with any clinician that you might have involvement with due to your conditions.
You need to be clear as to how your weight loss efforts might impinge upon your conditions (and any medications / treatments your receive) and, also, vice-versa.
I'm so glad you reached out to us, it is a lonely place being stuck inside your own body, unable to move around without being punished with pain!
I had a coughing fit one day and the right side of my face went numb, the gp said it was neuralgia and would go in about two months, two days later i choked on some food and the right side of my body went numb! That was 9yrs ago and I am still numb. I am right handed so everything is really difficult. I now suffer from phantom limb pain in my right arm and face.
At my heaviest I was 31st 8lb with a hernia the whole length of my stomach. I trapped my hernia and got put in hospital and after 2days of just a bit of water on a sponge to keep my mouth wet, the consultant managed to free it, he asked me to come to his clinic to see about getting it repaired.
My bmi was 64 and the nurse said i couldn't be operated on until i got it down to a safe level!! It worked out i would weigh 16 stone ish, as you can guess my polite reply was if i weighed 16 stone i wouldn't need the op!!!
I begged my own gp to let me get it fixed and tie something round my stomach at the same time! She got me into the dietician and they put me on some hideous tablets that stop your body absorbing any kind of fat, even a thin scrape of marg on toast made you beat the 1 minute mile record for the loo! Hee hee.
After doing all they asked i was referred for a gastric sleeve op 3yrs ago and have managed to loose 10 stone, which has got me back to the weight i was when i was working. But now my body is punishing me. I have recently found out i have hypermobility, which for years i always said i must be double jointed as i have always been very flexible. But now my left hip dislocate just changing position in a chair and my knees are always doing the hoaky coaky! Hee hee.
So like you my weight has plateaued but i am now 146kg the lowest i got was 141 but that was before my joints decided to rule my life!!!
If you would like someone to be your healthy lifestyle buddy i'd be honoured to be there for you, we can beat this jail sentence together!!
I agree with Doikosp that you should be receiving support with weight loss and improving your activity levels from health professionals. Maybe you already are. However, I can't say I feel especially optimistic about you getting it unless you pursue them, goodness only knows what boxes they thing they've been ticking. I had a practice nurse weigh me when that wasn't what I went for (what a sheep am I!) announce I was obese and offered no more input than that and I was just shocked. I later found that she had put on my records that I had refused to discuss a weight reduction diet. (She was aware that I had a health condition that meant exercise was a problem, but then, she made no remark when I told her of symptoms which I later realised (and acted on) should be investigated immediately as potentially life threatening and seemed most obsessed with unpacking my comment that whilst I drink little alcohol it is more than just at Christmas (would seem to be a flag for alcoholism) and being annoyed with me that I had achieved the menopause without benefit of HRT!)
Presumably although cutting out a lot of things from your diet was effective previously, it hasn't been easy enough or motivating enough, by itself at any rate, for you to maintain that as a way of life since, nor not without support.
Do stick around here, I'm sure that there is a whole lot that can be done to help you feel better and progress in the direction you want. Some of my advent ideas might suit you, but I have a suggestion for right now and a firm one at that - if you do nothing else towards being more active and losing weight, do this one crucial thing: Stop calling yourself weak. You're not.
First I want to say well done for continuing to try and not loosing all hope. It must be very difficult living with all the challenges you have day in and day out. Have you addressed the stress, frustration and other emotions around this?I am a great believer in negative emotions getting in the way of success around weight loss.
Are you familiar with the theory that two or more illnesses that start at the same time have to be connected? (Because the odds of two individual illnesses striking at the same without some connection are way out there somewhere.)
With that many issues, no matter when they started, at least some of your problems have to be connected and some of the things in your list are those that don't actually have a full explanation just yet so any number of them could be a nutrition-based problem. (I would spend some time considering transfats, oils and really the whole subject of fats and perhaps also study gluten and grains. They can both create all sorts of problems in the body that are only just being discovered.) One of your illnesses that does have an explanation (albeit recent) is diabetes. It's sugar, plain and simple. It's caused by sugar. Your doctor won't tell you that, but if you look around at the latest evidence online, it's true. No one should really be eating sugar, even though it's in EVERYTHING! The recent spike of type 2 diabetes is being blamed on soft drinks and low-fat foods. Oh, the irony!
If you can't exercise without pain, don't. Like mitzymoo, I also have hypermobility and have to be careful with my joints. I've decided that exercise is great for those who can do it, but as I can't, aside from my core floor exercises, I have to rely on diet alone. And that's hard, but I'm learning slowly to replace snack times with other activities and keep learning. As far as nutrition goes, there is always more to learn and the more you learn, the less likely you are to go against your own common sense.
Hi I too am severely disabled physically and I know my belly fat is making it worse, like u I am very limited in what I can do in regards to moving and pain and tiredness but I've decided my whingeing about it won't help so if I could buddy up with u maybe we could help each other- Ideally weight loss tips is what I'm looking for not and encouragement not illness debates lol so yes if someone could help me and I could help them brilliant- I am looking to lose at least 2 stone - Good luck to all xx
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