Tag: appetite

Smaller Appetite After Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Health, keto, WeightLeave a comment

I have always had a huge appetite since I was at least a teenager. At dinner, my mom would always make enough so everyone could have seconds, and I was typically the only one who would actually take seconds. I was so skinny and my mom never understood where that food went because I never gained any weight no matter how much food I ate. I kind of hate my younger self right now lol. I was also active, and when I say active, I mean like gym class, running from the school to escape bullies, then walking home from school. You know, typical teenage angst lol.

So the time of my life I’m referring to was when I was around 13 years old and I was 150lbs. Fast forward to when I was 26 and I was still 150lbs, then I quit smoking and that all changed. Suddenly I was gaining weight because I was discovering how wonderful food was. Before then I was eating to survive on what we could afford. After, I was eating for pleasure, and I wasn’t holding back. I was getting a lot more food than normal and within 2 months of quitting smoking, I had gained 50lbs. So there I was 200lbs with a fat belly all of a sudden and my appetite was out of control, but I was trying not to go over 200lbs.

Over the years I’ve gained weight because of my enormous appetite until I was at my highest last year at 267lbs. I bought a Fitbit Charge 4 watch and a Fitbit Aria scale and I tried working on my weight. When I got the scale I was 265lbs and by January this year I was 254lbs, then the surgeon told me to lose 15-20lbs for my surgery and then I went down to 230lbs. Now after surgery I have gone down to 225lbs.

And now to the subject of this post. I had my surgery where they reduced the size of my colon, which is a nicer way of saying they removed a section of my colon to remove the possibility of colon cancer. But ever since I had my surgery, I haven’t been very hungry. They fed me 6oz of soup and some other things like pudding or jello and some juices and milk. Well, that tiny amount of food and drinks made me feel so full. When I came home from the hospital I was still getting full from such a tiny amount of food. I left the hospital on Thursday and today is Sunday and I’m still getting full from 6oz of soup. I made myself tomato soup, a 3oz glass of sugar free Jell-O and a chocolate pudding cup and I couldn’t even eat the Jell-O or the pudding. It was literally too much food.

This will be to my advantage to help me reduce the size of my stomach. If I eat and I get full fast, then I won’t have the chance to make my stomach too big again, and that will help me lose weight, especially when I go back to eating my Keto food. This will also prevent me from even wanting to go to a buffet because if I’m not hungry for such a huge amount of food, then I won’t be tempted to go, thus I won’t overeat and gain weight again. So I see this as a huge win for me.

How long do you think it will take me to get down to 200lbs if I am 225lbs now? I pretty much lost 22lbs from mid-January to the end of March. So do you think I will be down to 200lbs by June or July maybe? And if I get down to 200lbs by then, I will just keep going and lose all the weight I can possibly lose. I really would like to get back to 150lbs, but I will be happy if I can get down to 160 or 170. When I finally get down to the weight I want to be, I’m going to continue to maintain my weight by eating Keto foods, and if I still lose weight, well then good for me.

My Eating Disorder

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, Health, Noom, Restaurant, WeightLeave a comment

overeating disorder

When I was a kid, I had a huge appetite, but I never gained any weight because, well, I was a kid and kids back in the 70’s and 80’s were more active than they are now.  As a kid, I was always riding my bicycle, roller skating or doing who knows what.  As a pre-teen and a teenager I was busy working with my step-father in the apartment building painting vacant apartments or doing whatever it was that he made me do, so I was constantly burning calories.

I was actually very fit throughout my entire childhood and through my teen years and even through most of my twenties.  I was also a smoker from age 15 to 26, and that’s when it all went downhill for me.  As soon as I quit smoking it was like my taste buds were brand new and everything tasted awesome.  My partner hates it when I say this, but everything new was like having an orgasm in my mouth lol.  I kid you not.

When I quit smoking in 1996, it only took maybe 2 months before I went from 150lbs to 200lbs, it was that quick. The reason was that I was eating sunflower seeds from the minute I woke up until the minute I went to bed.  I was told to keep that hand to mouth going to keep me from wanting a cigarette, but nobody told me how fattening and salty sunflower seeds were.  It wasn’t just that, I also discovered something I rarely ate throughout my life except for those certain special occasions.  Twinkies, ice cream, cake and doughnuts.

You know when you are so proud of yourself for accomplishing something that you want to reward yourself?  Yeah, don’t do that.  I was so proud of myself for quitting that I was literally eating Twinkies and ice cream everyday.  EVERY DAY!  We had a Winchell’s down the street from us and we were constantly going there and buying a dozen and splitting the box and we both would just sit there eating doughnut after doughnut until the box was empty.  Not good!

We would go to McDonald’s and buy one of their birthday cakes and we would literally eat the whole cake by ourselves.  Holy crap!  It was good though.  We didn’t really have a grocery store near us, and the little markets didn’t sell cakes so that was the only place for us to buy cake.  Plus it was really cheap so that’s why we bought it there.

We went to Sizzler in Hollywood and we discovered that they had an all-you-can-eat salad bar.  We took advantage of that because it wasn’t too expensive and we would keep going back until we were full, which you know you shouldn’t do, but you do it because you feel you want to get your moneys worth.  Then one time we went and decided not to get the salad bar, but to get some actual food, so I got Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.  That was the very first time I had ever had that.  My mother never made it when I was growing up and I never even heard of it before that day.  OH MY GOD!

As the years went on I was getting fatter and fatter.  We discovered Hometown Buffet and Golden Corral.  We couldn’t leave the place unless we were both so full that we literally couldn’t swallow another drop or eat another bite of whatever.

My hunger went off the charts at home.  I would eat a big breakfast and within an hour I was hungry again, so I would eat something.  I would have lunch and the same thing would happen again, I would get hungry, but this wasn’t just a hunger, this was a demand from my stomach.  My stomach would literally hurt, that’s how hungry I would get.  My stomach would grumble and I would feel pain and my hands would start trembling like I was a drug addict and I needed a fix.

I couldn’t just eat a sandwich for lunch, If I did have one, I would still be hungry so I’d make another and I’d probably still be hungry so to have something different I would put 4 hot dogs, yes, you read right, 4 “four” hot dogs in the microwave.  Guess what?  I’d be hungry again an hour later.  My stomach would hurt again and I’d get the shakes.

Whenever we would buy pizza, we always got 2 large pizzas with 2 toppings each, but they had different toppings so we had two choices.  I would usually (to be polite) put one of each on my plate and eat them, but then I’d go to the kitchen and as I was “putting the boxes away” I would eat two more slices, one of each.  In an hour I’d come back to the kitchen and grab one more, then another and another.  We always had enough pizza for lunch the next day, but only because I felt guilty about eating so much so I was saving those last slices lol.

I was going to the grocery store every day to buy our dinner, but I would always leave with an extra goodie that I would eat on the walk home.  Then I started getting greedy and would buy a couple or a few goodies.  I was snarfing a package of Twinkies and a candy bar or two.  I can just imagine what people were thinking as they were passing me while I was holding the grocery bag(s) with one hand, and stuffing my face with the other.

Suddenly I was no longer just 50lbs overweight, I was more than 100lbs overweight and I couldn’t stop my hunger from controlling my life.  I had type-2 diabetes because I was eating so much food and sugar.  I was trying to control my diet by cutting out the sugar, but I was still eating bread and pasta which we all know turns to sugar, so I wasn’t really controlling it like I thought I was.  The hunger, the stomach pains and the shakes were still there, still controlling me.

I want to say it wasn’t my fault because I take medication that has that side effect, but I also had an addiction to food, so I can’t just blame the medication.  When most people think of an eating disorder, they typically think of people who either don’t eat or they eat and then puke it all up, but they are unusually thin.  I have the opposite.  Sorry, I had…  I have to correct myself because that was the old me and I am not that person anymore.

I will be 43 in less than 2 months and I am just now learning how to eat properly.  I mean, I’ve always known, but I ignored it because I wanted to eat poorly because I was selfish and stubborn and stupid.  I didn’t care until I noticed how bad it was getting and how horrible the pain was.  I now know what I have to do to live a healthy lifestyle and I am never going back to that unhealthy place again.

Thanks to the Noom app on my cell phone for helping me to learn what is right to eat and what is wrong, I now can eat healthy food so I can avoid the mistakes I made before.

Since January 5th, 2013 I have lost 50.4lbs officially as of today, April 20th, 2013.  I couldn’t be more happy with my progress.  I feel so much better about myself and I am no longer starving all the time.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to eat a normal portion of food and be satisfied with it.  I don’t live to eat anymore, now I eat to live.

I have set the Noom app to lose 63lbs and according to the estimated end date, I will be finished by June 3rd 2013, but that date changes weekly.  It is so close I can feel it.  I know I will reach this goal and then I can continue to lose more weight.  I don’t want to be fat and unhealthy anymore.  I quit smoking and I don’t drink or do drugs so I don’t have any actual addictions, and now I have kicked my eating addiction so I am officially addiction free.  Well, I am still addicted to Facebook, but I mean come on, who isn’t?  Right?

So… until next week. 🙂

Wait 24 hours before hitting the panic button

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

HPNX1994

Imagine walking to the grocery store with really bad back pain just to buy 1 gallon of milk so you can make dinner.  You get there and you are heading to the check stand and you reach into your back pocket only to discover that it’s empty.  Just before panic sets in, you try the other pocket, then the front pockets and then check your jacket pockets.  Nothing.  You forgot your wallet!  *FACEPALM*

You sort of laugh it off, but you text your loved one at home asking them to grab your wallet and bring it to the store, but when they arrive, they didn’t bring your wallet.  When you get back to the house with groceries already paid for, you go check your desk where you thought it was, but it’s not there.  You look everywhere and panic sets in.

That happened to me last night.  I was in complete panic.  Even though I added the milk to the dinner and turned the stove back on, dinner was the last thing on my mind, in fact, I had lost my appetite.  I ransacked the whole house 20 times.  I checked the bank website and of course nothing had happened, but in my panic I called them to have them block my debit card so it can’t be used and issued me a new card which cost $5.

Even though I knew it wasn’t in there, I checked the car at least 3 or 4 times.  I checked the trash cans, I even looked in the freezer and the refrigerator… just in case.

When I woke up this morning, naturally I had to search the entire house again, and then again every hour.  I knew that someone else had it and that I would never see it again, but I still had hope that I’d still find it in the house somewhere.

I was in the living room less than 24 hours after I lost my wallet standing behind a chair and I moved my foot toward the chair and stepped on something soft.  At first I thought the dog had an accident, so I moved my foot away and looked and saw what looked exactly like my wallet.  At first I was thinking that perhaps it was wishful thinking.  I focused my eyes a bit more and the image of my wallet was still there, so I reached down and picked it up and holy crap, it was my wallet!  I found my wallet!

So, I guess I had reacted way too soon because now I can’t pay for anything until my new debit card comes.  I can write checks, but I really don’t like to do that because if you aren’t careful, they will become like rubber.

It’s awesome that I found my wallet, but I just wish that I had kept an eye on my bank account before calling them to cancel my card to issue me a new one.  If I really did lose my wallet outside, then someone would buy something and if that happened then naturally I would call them and cancel my debit card.  I don’t know, I guess it was a “better safe than sorry” thing.  Now I’m sorry that I was so safe lol.

This wallet is a bit immature for me.  I bought it at the 2012 Bakersfield Gay Pride festival for $5.  I bought it because it reminded me of my vans that I had when I was 15 years old.  It even has velcro lol.  It has a chain on it, but I took it off because of how cheap it is.  When I finally found it, I put the chain back on and clipped it to the belt loop of my pants so that the next time I take off my pants, the wallet won’t fly out of the pocket and this won’t happen again.

The good part of all of this is that I saved $30 because I won’t have to go to the DMV to get a new ID card.  It also saves me from worrying about identity theft because my ID card has my name and address and my insurance card has my social security number on it.  My identity has been stolen before and I would hate to go through that again.

A huge sigh of relief!

Recession Weight

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

Will Americans put on “recession pounds”? – Link Broken

According to this article, a study has shown that because of the recession we are in people are going to start buying cheaper foods and not paying the extra amount for fruits and veggies and because cheaper foods are higher in sugar and saturated fat, they will gain weight.

It used to be that the only people who were fat were royalty because they were so rich they could eat all the food they want so being obese was a sign of wealth.  Now, being obese is a sign of poverty.

I’ve basically been poor for the last 21 years lol.  Since I turned 17 and was homeless until now.  When I was a smoker I was always thin but when I quit smoking I gained weight because food took the place of the cigarettes.  I gained a huge appetite since then.  When I go to the grocery store for food I buy whatever is on sale like the boxes of shells and white cheddar or Fettuccine Alfredo or I’ll buy the little mini pizzas that are 10 for $10.  And the banquet TV dinners are almost always 10 for $10.

Since people are so busy working (if they didn’t lose their job) they don’t have time to exercise and they use that as an excuse not to exercise but there are always ways to overcome that like riding your bike to work or if you don’t live that far, walk.  And taking the stairs instead of the elevator and you don’t have to pig out on the vending machine food, you can bring some baby carrots with you for a snack or a banana or an apple.  Those aren’t expensive to buy.  I have an orange tree so my oranges are free.

Weight Loss

On By Michel McDonaldIn DietLeave a comment

When I quit smoking in 1996 I gained weight. A lot of weight. About 50lbs. And over the years it has grown. I’ve gone on diets and I’ve never really lost that much weight and when I did lose it, I ended up gaining it back.

One time I lost 40lbs and didn’t even realize it until I weighed myself and then I started gaining it back. Well, I’ve gotten so heavy that I went to 243lbs. I was originally 150lbs when I first quit smoking. I was very comfortable at 150lbs and I was happy but 243 is just too much so I went back on a diet.

I’ve so far lost 20lbs and hope to continue this quest of losing weight. I’m using 2 different programs, SparkPeople.com and Slim Fast. I like the slim fast optima because it curbs my appetite for 4 hours. I don’t get up early, I get up at noon, I don’t know why. But I do and so I wake up and have a chocolate shake then 4 hours later I have vanilla shake then at 6pm I eat dinner that is usually a recipe from Spark People.

At 8pm I will have a strawberry shake because I’m usually hungry again by that time so the shake controls my appetite until it’s bed time. Unfortunately I can’t go to sleep until 2am. The last shake would normally wear off by midnight but I try my best to not eat. If I have to I’ll eat a Slim Fast candy bar hehe. Those have the optima too. Well, I’m hoping to be 200lbs by the end of summer at least and then 150lbs by my next birthday.

If you want to see my progress look at the scale on my spark page (look at the menu on the left).

Emergency Room

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, DoctorLeave a comment

We went to the store tonight and I bought a can of Slim Fast Optima because it controls your appetite for 4 hours it says. During the day I really don’t have much of an appetite, it’s typically after 6pm when my appetite comes at me.

I will eat dinner at 6pm but an hour later I’m hungry again and I keep wanting to eat until about 1am and that’s bad. You aren’t supposed to eat past a certain time, I think 8pm or something. So I needed something to help me out with that so I bought Slim Fast.

Well, so I got out my slim fast shaker cup and filled it to the 8oz line with some low-fat milk then I put a scoop of slim fast in it then shook the cup. Then I looked over at my blender and thought oh I should put it in there and add some ice to it and I got a real milk shake.

So I went over to the blender, it’s not a big blender, it’s a 1 glass blender so it doesn’t make a pitcher full of drinks, just 1 glass at a time. So I went to unscrew it from the unit and when I did that I unscrewed the glass from the blade instead of the whole thing from the unit.

So I sat the glass down and grabbed the blade part and tried to unscrew it and I was turning it the wrong direction and completely forgetting that I had it plugged in, I was holding the unit with my right hand and accidentally pressed the button on it and it blended my left hand.

Well, thankfully it didn’t do a lot of damage. All it did was it made a half round mark on the palm of my hand, it cut deep enough into my skin that I had to go to the E.R. The cut near my index finger was superficial compared to the cut near my thumb.

I didn’t have to wait that long and I got seen and they cleaned it up with iodine and the doctor used Dermabond to glue the cut closed instead of stitches. It doesn’t hurt or anything, I just gotta be careful and not get it wet for the next 5-10 days which is how long it will be on before it falls off. I was very, very extremely lucky that it wasn’t worse. I could be missing a finger.