Several years ago at age 65, and faced with the results of blood tests that indicated how close I was to being a full-on diabetic, I got serious about losing weight.
The physician's assistant who gave me the warning I didn't need -- my parents and both older sisters had been obese and had developed adult-onset diabetes, so I knew -- told me I could do something to improve my test scores, but, she tossed off, I'd have to lose 10 percent of my body weight. I believe "tossed off" describes it; it wasn't as though she said it with hope in her voice or that she sounded at all optimistic that I could do it. Kind of an unspoken "...as though you could do that."
Maybe it was reverse psychology on her part, but if it was, it worked. I'm sure I would have done it anyway, but her spoken skepticism was just that much more incentive. "I'll show you" has led to good outcomes.
No medication was necessary. I just did what it takes, the simple "eat less, exercise more" that is harder than it sounds, because that phrase leaves out "no sweets, no fats" and other fun stuff that had inflated me to 253 pounds.
Back then, I could have told you how long it took, but I've forgotten that part. But at my next annual Medicare appointment a year later, I weighed in at 228. A year after that, I could say to her, "I dropped 25 pounds and have kept it off." She didn't say anything in return.
More recently, I've fluctuated, as low as 220 after a low-grade URI, and as much as 233 after high-grade stress eating. The annual Medicare physical is two months away, and I want to go in there as close as I can get to that low number. I've been eating less and either walking, rebounding, or both, and this morning, I weighed 228 again. Reading the scale gave me a good feeling, and it's one that I understand I have control over going forward.
I can't believe I haven't used this before, but now I just ask myself, "Are you hungry?" Usually, the answer is "No," which has led to two meals a day instead of three, one in the morning sometime after coming downstairs, and the other in mid-afternoon, between the traditional lunch and supper times.
There's a heat advisory in place for the area, so elderly folk like me shouldn't go for the usual evening walk. Before the temperature reached the 90's, I did some gardening and dug up some stuff for replanting elsewhere, which was sufficient physical activity for the day.
