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When I was in a program through Kaiser for morbidly obese patients, there were other patients with similar issues, knee problems in particular, or patients who were even wheelchair bound for a variety of issues (one lady I remember had MS). The weight can make knee problems worse, and the knee problems inhibit your ability to get enough exercise & the two problems compound one another. You get stuck in a circle.... I was in that same circle, and I feel for you. The program facilitator told our group about some "Chair-obics" or "Chair-dancing" video or something like that. I think I remember her saying it is available on Amazon.com, and perhaps you can find it if you Google it. Basically, it is good exercise/activity for patients with limited lower body mobility. It might be helpful for you.
You said you do not own a food scale... I bought a digital one on E-bay for less than $20. It runs on AA batteries, and it measures in whole grams and in ounces. It also is excellent or weighing my girls' eggs every day. You would invest $20 for your chickens' health... invest $20 for your own. I promise you, if you get one and you use it, it'll save your life.
Get in the habit of tracking your food intake on a site such as thedailyplate.com (there are others).
I ended up having gastric bypass surgery and was once a size 24 who could barely walk. I've been a size 6 for two years now and trained last year to run the American River Parkway Half Marathon (the only reason I didn't run is I didn't get my entrance fee in on time & the registration for the run was already closed by the time I had the money to register). But the gastric bypass surgery is only a tool (many people mis-perceive it as a fix-all, and it's not). No matter what tool you use... Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, gastric bypass, the Lap Band, the important thing to remember is that they are all tools to get you to better health. And a tool only works if you use it correctly.
I learned SO much about my health and how nutrition affects every aspect of it, even my mood. I weigh and measure. I record and write down and journal. I exercise. When my knees hurt and I feel like I can't do much, I've found that there is a LOT I can do on an inflatable exercise ball and a pair of 5-pound dumbbells that has little to no impact at all on my knees. Or even sitting on the couch. I do leg-lifts sitting on my bed at night.
You can do it... it may feel hugely overwhelming, but start with something small tasks and goals for yourself. For example, take one day and tell yourself you will not eat any white carbs that day, that all of your carbohydrates will come from whole, natural sources. White carbs include, of course, processed sugars and all the products that contain them, as well as white potatoes (sweet potatoes are a different story and are better for you), rice (limit brown rice--it can make you bloated), pastas, breads, crackers, etc. If you get a hankering for some spaghetti, you can get a spaghetti squash that will feed 6 people at the store for only a few nickels more than it would cost you to buy enough regular spaghetti to cook for 6 people.
Sometimes I mess up and eat poorly, eat things I shouldn't. I often pay a price for it when I do. It's there to remind me how hard it was to do anything when I was heavy and how much damage I was doing to myself. If I eat something high in fat and/or sugar now, I develop a very uncomfortable set of symptoms as a result of the gastric bypass. Some people think that's bad, but I think it's good if I look at it like this: If I ate something high in fat or sugar when I was heavy, before I had this surgery, I still did damage to my body and compromised my health--the result just was not an immediate visceral reaction. I was just slowly killing myself with ice cream and those fried cheese things from A&W.
My hope is to talk to people and share what I've done and what I've been through because you can learn from my experience without having to put your body through the risk of surgery. I don't for one second regret what I've done--it saved my knees and saved my life. But you gotta weigh, you gotta measure, you gotta keep track, and you gotta get SOME kind of exercise, even if you have limited mobility. If your knees are an issue, lay in the bed and do straight leg lifts -- you don't even use your knees. Use your lower ab muscles. It will feel like you are dying at first, but after a while you can do more and more of them.
If you have health insurance, see if it covers physical therapy and ask your ortho to send you for some PT. Ask the therapist for good weight loss exercises that are safe for your condition. You got it in you.
As my high-tech redneck hubby says... "Git r dun."
When I was in a program through Kaiser for morbidly obese patients, there were other patients with similar issues, knee problems in particular, or patients who were even wheelchair bound for a variety of issues (one lady I remember had MS). The weight can make knee problems worse, and the knee problems inhibit your ability to get enough exercise & the two problems compound one another. You get stuck in a circle.... I was in that same circle, and I feel for you. The program facilitator told our group about some "Chair-obics" or "Chair-dancing" video or something like that. I think I remember her saying it is available on Amazon.com, and perhaps you can find it if you Google it. Basically, it is good exercise/activity for patients with limited lower body mobility. It might be helpful for you.
You said you do not own a food scale... I bought a digital one on E-bay for less than $20. It runs on AA batteries, and it measures in whole grams and in ounces. It also is excellent or weighing my girls' eggs every day. You would invest $20 for your chickens' health... invest $20 for your own. I promise you, if you get one and you use it, it'll save your life.
Get in the habit of tracking your food intake on a site such as thedailyplate.com (there are others).
I ended up having gastric bypass surgery and was once a size 24 who could barely walk. I've been a size 6 for two years now and trained last year to run the American River Parkway Half Marathon (the only reason I didn't run is I didn't get my entrance fee in on time & the registration for the run was already closed by the time I had the money to register). But the gastric bypass surgery is only a tool (many people mis-perceive it as a fix-all, and it's not). No matter what tool you use... Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, gastric bypass, the Lap Band, the important thing to remember is that they are all tools to get you to better health. And a tool only works if you use it correctly.
I learned SO much about my health and how nutrition affects every aspect of it, even my mood. I weigh and measure. I record and write down and journal. I exercise. When my knees hurt and I feel like I can't do much, I've found that there is a LOT I can do on an inflatable exercise ball and a pair of 5-pound dumbbells that has little to no impact at all on my knees. Or even sitting on the couch. I do leg-lifts sitting on my bed at night.
You can do it... it may feel hugely overwhelming, but start with something small tasks and goals for yourself. For example, take one day and tell yourself you will not eat any white carbs that day, that all of your carbohydrates will come from whole, natural sources. White carbs include, of course, processed sugars and all the products that contain them, as well as white potatoes (sweet potatoes are a different story and are better for you), rice (limit brown rice--it can make you bloated), pastas, breads, crackers, etc. If you get a hankering for some spaghetti, you can get a spaghetti squash that will feed 6 people at the store for only a few nickels more than it would cost you to buy enough regular spaghetti to cook for 6 people.
Sometimes I mess up and eat poorly, eat things I shouldn't. I often pay a price for it when I do. It's there to remind me how hard it was to do anything when I was heavy and how much damage I was doing to myself. If I eat something high in fat and/or sugar now, I develop a very uncomfortable set of symptoms as a result of the gastric bypass. Some people think that's bad, but I think it's good if I look at it like this: If I ate something high in fat or sugar when I was heavy, before I had this surgery, I still did damage to my body and compromised my health--the result just was not an immediate visceral reaction. I was just slowly killing myself with ice cream and those fried cheese things from A&W.
My hope is to talk to people and share what I've done and what I've been through because you can learn from my experience without having to put your body through the risk of surgery. I don't for one second regret what I've done--it saved my knees and saved my life. But you gotta weigh, you gotta measure, you gotta keep track, and you gotta get SOME kind of exercise, even if you have limited mobility. If your knees are an issue, lay in the bed and do straight leg lifts -- you don't even use your knees. Use your lower ab muscles. It will feel like you are dying at first, but after a while you can do more and more of them.
If you have health insurance, see if it covers physical therapy and ask your ortho to send you for some PT. Ask the therapist for good weight loss exercises that are safe for your condition. You got it in you.
As my high-tech redneck hubby says... "Git r dun."
