Losing Weight and Feeling Great

I’ve been thinking about vitamin and mineral deficiencies lately, and how dieting and aging effect them.  Why should we be at a special risk — women over 40 who are losing weight?

Dieting and Balance

Losing weight by dieting opens up a can of worms, so to speak.  You’re taking in less food, and presumably less nutrients, although hopefully better as far as overall nutrition.  But are you getting enough of the vitamins you need to stay healthy, even with an improved diet?

Or…are you one who just looks at cutting calories, and not balancing the calories you do take in.  Sorry, taking in 1,200 calories worth of Ben and Jerry’s and popping a multi-vitamin pill isn’t the same as eating a varied diet of fruits, veggies, proteins and fats for that 1,200 calories.

Either way, you could be setting yourself up for a vitamin / mineral deficiency.  And the older you get, the more important to pay attention to what you do eat.  You might have been OK with rice cakes and tuna in college, but that doesn’t cut it now.

Getting Older (That Aging Thing)

Ladies, we all know about osteoporosis and how it can effect us.  We know we have to take in more calcium or at least calcium supplements as we get older.  Broken bones are no fun in the best of circumstances, and can be life-threatening as we age.

But did you know that you could be setting yourself up for a B12 deficiency, just by getting older?  Sad, but true.  Vitamin B12 starts its path into your body by being broken up in your stomach with the enzyme pepsin.  As we get older, our bodies produce less and so we can’t break down all the B12 we take in.

The list of symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency are frightening; yet also very familiar.  They should be, because they sound exactly like the "normal" aging process, yet aren’t!  It makes you wonder exactly how many people in nursing homes don’t really need to be there.

It makes you wonder if that forgetfulness you’ve had lately is the result of a B12 deficiency or something more insidious.

Aging and Diet

The older we get, the more important it is to take care of our bodies.  Face it — they don’t bounce back as fast anymore.  Our reflexes aren’t as fast, and we may have a few more "foggy" days as far as our minds go.  It happens, but we don’t have to let ourselves degenerate faster than we normally would.

We don’t have to be relegated to a nursing home in our 70’s or 80’s.  We can take back our lives and health — some people a little, some people a lot.  But we need to finally start taking care of ourselves, right here and now.

We can’t change the past.  We can change the future.  And we can start today by discovering what our bodies need more of as we age, the signs of deficiencies and how to combat them.

Start out with the list of B vitamins, and I’ll be researching other vitamins and minerals that are vital to our bodies.

Losing weight — it’s hard enough without the specter of bad breath.  Why do we get that awful smell, and is there anything we can really do about it (aside from gargle every five minutes)?

Losing Weight and Bad Breath — Why?

First is the "why" — why when we go on a diet we start being odoriferous?  There are a couple of reasons.

1. Our diet detoxes us. Now I’m talking a sensible weight loss plan here — not a total fad like eating nothing but hot dogs or peanut butter.  When we start eating properly, and start to lose weight, the toxins stored in our body start releasing.  Some toxins may give us additional sweating, others strange body odors and some…bad breath.  The good part is that as you detox more and more, the odor gets less and less.
2. Some diets are more prone to bad breath.  A high-fat, high protein, low carb diet (example:  Atkins) will naturally give you additional interesting scents.  Part of it may be that some of the natural breath cleansers (many fruits and veggies) are pretty much absent.  Also, the release of ketones in your body can produce bad breath all by itself.  Check out WebMd for more information on low-carb diets and bad breath.

How Sweet it Is

Now even if losing weight and bad breath goes hand-in-hand, it is not a reason to quit dieting — face it, extra weight is worse for your health than bad breath!  But there are some things you can do to start smelling sweeter again.

The first is, naturally, brushing regularly.  Why?  One is to remove food particles that can cause odors.  The other is to keep your teeth and gums in good shape — you don’t need a tooth or gum infection to smell even stronger!

You can also pop sugarless mints occasionally.  While this has merits, especially for a quick fix, you don’t need all those extra chemicals in your diet (more to detox).  So keep your mints around for emergency fixes, but don’t totally rely on them.

Drink more water, less coffee.  Coffee adds to the smell, while water washes it away.  You can also use green tea, which is light and sweet in smell and guess what — it’s good for your teeth!

The standard remedy of chewing herbs can also help.  Just about everyone knows about parsley, but have you also considered any of the mint family — mint, peppermint, spearmint and even chocolate mint (although that’s one you’ll have to grow yourself)?

Consider a colon cleanse to hasten a detox.  There are gentle ones that work over the course of a month.  There are also, ahem, explosive ones that work very quickly.  (They aren’t really explosive, although it may seem that at first.)

Well, see you later — I’m off to brush my teeth and drink some water!

Why do you want to lose weight?  Sure, to be healthier.  To feel better.  But what are the more personal benefits of losing weight for you?

One thing for me — I want to be able to learn to belly dance.  I tried, in the privacy of my own home (complete with DVD) about 40 pounds ago and I couldn’t get through the warmups!  I don’t think I’d ever really want to do a belly dance in public, but I think it’s cool, and I’d love to be able to do some of the moves.

I know this one lady who wants to be able to get in and out of her car without feeling like a contortion artist; her car is on the small side and her weight makes it tough to slide in.  Getting out is also a feat that leaves her tired and sore.

Another one of the benefits of losing weight for me is getting into that little black dress David has promised me, once I reach my goal weight…and the cruise that goes with it!  You know, he’s promised me that for 5 years now, and up until recently (maybe the last 30 pounds) I don’t think he ever thought he’d have to actually pay up!

A friend of mine doesn’t have any children of her own, but is close to her young nieces — she wants to be alive to watch them grow up and get married some day.  To be able to be a part of their lives, instead of sitting around in the background.

One more for me; I want to age well.  To have a great quality of life as I grow older.  You know those commercials where they have those wonderful over 100 year old people still dancing and playing in a band?  I want to be one of them.  And I know I can’t, unless I take care of my health now.  Or they invent time travel (I’m not getting my hopes up on that one).

So, personally, what’s on the top of your benefits of losing weight list?  Come on and share!

As a nation, we’re obsessed with dieting.  We’re either on a diet, thinking about dieting, going off a diet…you get the picture.  (I guess I’m not helping matters any, am I?)

Is there anyone left in America who is a normal weight?

And aren’t the messages we’re getting so conflicting?  One commercial tries to tell you that it’s good to be full or otherwise SuperSize you.

The next commercial is for a dieting program.

A third tells you about a new candy that because it has dark chocolate, it has less fat.  Now that may be true, but the insinuation is that the candy bar is almost, well, diet when it’s far from it!

Dieting in America is a national pastime, and the scary part is that it’s not about losing 10 or 15 pounds anymore to look better.  No, now we’re fighting for our lives and having to lose 40 or 80 or a hundred or more pounds.  And yes, I fall in that category (although I’ve already lost 70 - yippee!).

It’s hard enough being overweight at 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years old.  But what happens as we age even more?  Will we be able to walk around — or will diabetes have robbed some of our senses and put us in a wheelchair?  And for that matter, will we be able to find a wheelchair to fit into?  Take that one step further — can we even get up out of bed without help?  Scary thoughts.

We’re into instant gratification — or at least fast.  We want to lose weight the same way — go to sleep fat and wake up thin.  I really wish it worked that way…but it doesn’t.

Dieting.  Hard word.  But doing it successfully can make the difference between a good quality of life as we get older, or one where we have to watch everything and everyone pass us by.

I hate it when I brush me hair and when I’m done, it seems like there is more hair stuck in the brush than is left on my head.

I get depressed in the shower when I wash my hair and see all the hair caught in the drain.

I keep wondering if I’ll have any hair left by the time I reach my weight goal.  Great, my body is fine but I’m bald — not an appetizing thought.

So, I went searching on the internet (as usual) to see what I could find out about what might be causing my dieting hair loss and how I could keep what I have.

Let’s see, the two  main reason that would apply to dieting in particular are:

• Weight loss stresses the body and sometimes it reacts by releasing hair follicles.

• I might not be getting enough of the nutrients that help keep my scalp healthy.

There was also another reason, in my particular case:

• After 40, a woman’s hair naturally thins with age.

So, what to do, aside from getting a fall or a wig (or use Rogaine)?  Since I can’t do a whole lot about weight loss stressing out my body or getting older, I focused on what I could do as far as nutrition.

GLA (gamma lineolenic acid), an omega-6 “good” fatty acid can help reduce hair loss and make existing hair a bit less susceptible to breakage.  Good sources are mainly in supplements for evening primrose, black currant, borage and hemp oils.

Exercise, moderate workout.  You don’t want to do stuff like a body-building routine, but a resistance band, light weight, walking or bicycling routine can help the body and the hair.

Saw palmetto, often thought of as a “man’s herb” can also help us ladies.  You can try a cup of saw palmetto tea every so often.

B vitamins, mostly because they help your body cope with stress better.  B-complex is great, but also consider a sublingual B12 theraputic dose, since B12 (and all of the B vitamins) are water soluble, meaning that the body doesn’t retain them.

Also, I saw to beware of getting too much zinc in the diet.  Apparently it depletes copper, and low copper levels are implicated in hair loss.  The amount?  No more than 30 mg of zinc a day.

I’ll leave you with a couple of interesting links on hair loss, for your reading pleasure:

Natural hair loss remedies and Historic hair loss remedies

Exercise can be a little tricky if you are an original couch potato (like yours truly).  One of the easiest ways to exercise if you’re not used to it is walking.

I wanted to do something, and walking seemed to be about the easiest — put on the shoes and go.  But I had some things holding me back.

• First, I didn’t want to appear in public in exercise clothes.  Actually, I didn’t want to appear in public at all, because I was so ashamed of my appearance.
• Next, I didn’t want to either pass out from heat exhaustion or get stuck in a thunderstorm.  Here where I live in Florida, it’s hot and humid all year, except for maybe a week in the winter.  Plus, there aren’t any sidewalks, so I’d be out in the street or trudging along the swales.

• One of my legs had been injured, and although I could walk some, I had a fear of the pain getting really bad more than a few blocks from home and have to practically crawl back (ew).

Ok, so those were my excuses, valid or not.  But I wanted to do something — I really needed a weight loss walking plan that I could do, and that I could stick to.  Even if it was only a couple times a week, it would be better than nothing.

After reviewing my options, I decided on the “Walk Away the Pounds” program of in-home walking.  It let me exercise at home, in the air-conditioning and if I really started hurting, I could just stop and hobble to a chair.

Here’s how it works:  put on your walking shoes, pick one of the DVDs, pop it in and follow the walk.  You can do anywhere from 1/2 mile on up to 5 or more.  You walk in place most of the time, but there are also a few stretchy side-to-side movements (easy even for me) to give it a little interest and move some different muscles.

The pace is a mile in 15 or 18 minutes (depending on the DVD).  There is music to keep you on pace, and the leader, too (Leslie Sansone).  Yeah, she’s a little too chatty at times, but her enthusiasm is much appreciated.

The Walk Away the Pounds weight loss walking plans have quite a few DVDs available.  Honestly, I got a few so I could vary the routine a little — the same DVD over and over again would drive me batty.

I’m almost to the point where I can walk in public — well, except for the heat and thunderstorm part at any rate.  But these walking DVDs are great for either getting started on a walking routine or for something different to do from time to time.

The DVD is a keeper for me.

My clothes don’t fit.  I have nothing to wear.

Up to about a year ago, these two statements would have meant I had grown out of my clothes — they were all too small because I had gained pounds and inches.

Now it’s because I’ve lost so much weight and my clothes aren’t fitting very well.  In fact because they are so loose, they make me look like I’ve gained weight!

The Closet Trials

Around Thanksgiving of last year I tore through my closet, making piles — this pile Goodwill (good clothes, just too big) and that pile trash (too big and need too much repair).  It left me with very, very little in my closet, except for some they-fit-me-at-the-time and some too-small clothes I thought I could shrink into as I move between sizes.

Today, I’m supposed to meet a friend of mine for lunch.  We talk, laugh and have fun.  When lunch is over, I have her take some photos of me.  Since we only see each other every three months, it’s a good length of time to document the pounds I’ve lost with pictures.

So with that in mind, I go to the closet and pick out the outfit.  I tried it on. Waaaaay too big!  Guess that one goes to Goodwill.

There’s another one I tried on 25 pounds ago and it was still tight.  I put it on.  Again, too lose.  Now this outfit I have never had a chance to wear even once (and no, I won’t gain weight just to be able to wear it once).

Hmph.  I literally only have one outfit left, and it just barely fits — and I do mean, just barely.  It’s a tight, but it doesn’t cut off my circulation.

But it’s also a size 18.  And when you start from a size 24, an 18 is practically petite!

Now I do have to do a little clothes shopping, but only a little since I’m still in transition.  I’ll post some pictures after I get back and can get to the computer to crop and re-size. 

Me, in a size 18.  Wow.  I have made progress.  Yeah, I’m still fat, but there’s a lot less of me now and I almost feel thin.

Has the diet been worth it?

YES!

(P.S. — a new photo is posted on my About Me, Before and During page.)

It was about this time last year that the weight-loss drug Alli was introduced, with much fanfare.  Finally, a diet pill that was over-the-counter but approved by the FDA.  And it lets a person lose 50% more weight than they normally would on the same diet.
What wasn’t to love?

Can you say “side effects”?

Now you can go to the official Alli website (My Alli) and they do warn you, in politically correct terms, that this is not a diet pill to be taken lightly.  That is can, and often does, have some embarrassing side effects.  I liked the part about wearing dark clothes while getting used to Alli.

Anyhow, there’s been some time that’s passed, and Alli is now mainstream.  And it’s still not for the uninformed.  Or people who have no willpower.  Unless, of course, you don’t mind wearing Depends.

But seriously, can taking Alli weight loss pills help or is it just another gimmick?

If you can stick to the Alli diet plan, this weight loss pill can help you lose more weight.  It works by partially blocking the absorption of fat, thereby lowering your calorie intake. So if you’re motivated to go on a weight loss plan and stick with it, Alli can be a way to lose the weight you were going to lose anyway, but just faster.

Alli has partnered with eDiets.com
to create a home food delivery program that works with the Alli weight loss pills.  So that’s an option, if you want to really manage your food and limit any side effects.

The Alli diet pills aren’t for everyone; the side effects can be, um, explosive.  But they can be for some people, who are committed to losing weight.

There’s a new diet pill on the horizon and it’s called Lorcaserin, made by Arena Pharmecuticals.  Yesterday Arena announced that its new drug had passed a second round of safety tests, this time specifically looking for any problems with the heart’s valves.

Lorcaserin works by triggering the same part of the brain that the infamous drug fen-phen did — by targeting a receptor that makes you feel full, and theoretically less likely to snack afterwards.

The big problem was that the "fen" part of fen-phen (fenfluramine) was implicated in damaging the heart’s vavles.  Arena didn’t want to take that chance, so decided on conducting a safety study lasting 12 months.

Now you can read the whole article here, but before you start counting your pennies, this drug is still on the horizon and hasn’t gone to the FDA yet — Arena is hoping to do that next year.  So with any kind of luck, you won’t need this drug, as you’ll have lost the weight you need before then! 

A lot of the biotech companies are jumping on the obesity-drug bandwagon.  Not only does Arena have Lorcaserin, but Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics are also rushing to get new diet drugs to market.

But before you take any kind of prescription medication, really think about it.  They aren’t just something to take because they are advertised to be a magic bullet.  Not to mention they are expensive and your insurance may not cover the costs.

But for some people, these weight loss drugs are heaven-sent, and they provide that little extra that keeps them on a diet.

So, keep your eyes and ears peeled for more weight-control drugs in the near future.

I just saw an interesting article posed online from amednews.com.  The crux of the article was:

Should we treat obese individuals like we treat smokers, to get them to change their habits?  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

"Using tactics that have helped to reduce the number of smokers, states
increasingly are considering bills that are designed to influence
people’s weight and to curb the obesity epidemic." 

The full article can be found online at: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/03/24/hlsa0324.htm

One of the (albeit not really serious) suggestions brought up was banning obese people from being served at a restaurant.  Now that bill died a swift death, but it’s been brought up once…will it be brought up again?

Now as to the taxing part of all this — some 17 states have placed a special tax on what they term junk food, as well as on soda.  Now supposedly this extra money will go to finance child obesity programs, but I’ll believe that when I see it.  Money raised from taxes tends to get, um, waylaid at times.
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There is also a special tax being considered for TVs and gaming consoles.  Again, to fund child obesity programs.

Don’t get me wrong — I know only too well how big a problem obesity is.  And how many people it effects.  As a nation, it’s killing us.  We do need to lose weight.

I just don’t like even the faint whisper of a law to outlaw obesity.  Smacks me as being too "Big Brother"-ish.