BMR!!! Eating To your BMR... No Matter What!

[retroworx]

Originally Posted by Zer

Makes me want to get myself tested - somewhere that will do the tests to see what's WHAT (good, bad, indifferent) in all the areas that might affect function of thyroid, adrenals, other influential organs. Got to find a doctor.

I'll be eager to hear how others are getting info from labwork, especially tests that my HMO is not likely to initiate. With a list of pertinent tests, I guess I can use a private lab.

AGHHH! I wish I had just one competent MD to rely on! Just one!

Zer:

What kind of trouble has your HMO been giving you? I am on an HMO, but if the doc writes the correct illness code, they pay for the appropriate tests. You are over 300lbs, so I would think that a generic code for "Morbid Obesity" would cover a myriad of tests, but if not, the code for "Thyroid" ought to cover the usual, plus the Free T3s and T4s, and TPO tests the doc should also request.

Have you actually been turned down for these, or not found a doctor who will work with you on massaging the system (i.e. the codes) to get the work done? 'Cause I hear you on the difficulties in finding the right doc. The GP on my plan doesn't know how to properly interpret the thyroid labs, so I had to go off-plan to a homeopathic physician (no insurance accepted) who knew how to treat with Armour natural hormone.

[Zer]

I've asked to see a bariatric specialist. HMO has no bariatric specialists, just bariatric surgeons for WLSurgery. None of the MDs that I have seen in a dozen years with this HMO have any idea that such good health/blood as I enjoy is possible in an obese person. I am offered inhalers, when I have no respiratory need for one. I am offered what maybe is useful to another, but not pertinent to my personal medical condition. One ignorant young MD was about to write me a bp prescription in spite of my telling him I have 120/80 (give or take 10pts either way) bp and my telling him that his techs were pumping the cuff up and leaving it inflated while my arm turned ruddy and got bruises from bursting veins (blocked) while the deeper arteries kept filling my arm with blood. That is so painful that I'd nearly faint waiting for a tech to hear and record a bp reading on my batwings. I'd get huge purple bruises on my upper arm from such cuffing. One MD glanced at my arm and asked if it was a burn - that purple and huge was the bruise. Even when I told my HMO MD that no one had taken my temp - a temp that he told me was low and therefore indicative there was no infection in a hip/groin that I said was hot, he was still not able to hear or believe that what was on his chart did not reflect anyone sticking a temp device in my ear.

His determination to believe faulty bp readings upset me so much that I got a gadget to see for myself what my bp was. I bought a $50 gadget that takes bp. He sneered at my daily record of lower bp than his techs ever recorded, but had to admit that his own bp reading matched mine that day - 120/80 or close. With that, he agreed not to write me a bp scrip. Without that, he was determined to write the scrip and to dx me as being high bp. Go figure!

To date not a single HMO MD has examined a painful groin that I developed in Aug.2006 - more than 2yrs ago. Each MD has stethascoped me, as if my chest might reveal something useful. Go figure! One MD asked me to wait while she ran out to her car to bring back a book showing cats, as her way of handling a 64yr-old woman in massive groin/hip pain who sought diagnosis and who could barely walk to get in to see her. Tell me how flipping pages of cat pix (All Cats Have Asperger's is a cute book, but...not a dx, not a cure) is a way to handle a patient in distress. She too stethascoped my chest, did not examine a groin pain of a year's duration. A nice woman, with an Aspie child, but not much of a physician, to my way of thinking. She has okayed my request for ibuprofen, as the pharmacy requires a physician to renew a prescription. So she knows that I am taking ibuprofen, that I am dealing with pain, more than 2yrs after I first brought in my aching hip/groin for dx.

I dread being hauled into an HMO facility and having to be doctored by such incompetents as I have met in clinic visits for the past dozen years. Scary!

Oh, everyone knows that HMO jokes stem from incompetent service, so it's nothing new, hearing what I have experienced in seeking help from my HMO.

I'll be asking this Naturopathic Doctor for help in locating private MDs who I hope can address my health issues, when I am able to struggle in to see a holistic physician. Not everyone will make a home visit, as the NDoc did.

I am also in need of assistance in locating an assisted living facility, as my current abode offers no assistance at all, just a room that I've rented for 20yrs now. The tenants here are all employed and able, so my growing disability makes me less and less desirable as a tenant. Time for me to find a place that can help me with the daily tasks that I cannot do. Time for me to find a place with a bathroom closer at hand, maybe private, for me to use as I struggle to manage daily needs. Using a shared bathroom down the hall is sometimes a difficult thing to manage in a timely manner. Oh, yeah!

TMI? Yep, I guess so. But this is what I deal with daily. It's not easy.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate any and all support. I get so tired....

[i.am.jenn]

Originally Posted by Zer

I am also in need of assistance in locating an assisted living facility, as my current abode offers no assistance at all, just a room that I've rented for 20yrs now. The tenants here are all employed and able, so my growing disability makes me less and less desirable as a tenant. Time for me to find a place that can help me with the daily tasks that I cannot do. Time for me to find a place with a bathroom closer at hand, maybe private, for me to use as I struggle to manage daily needs. Using a shared bathroom down the hall is sometimes a difficult thing to manage in a timely manner. Oh, yeah!

TMI? Yep, I guess so. But this is what I deal with daily. It's not easy.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate any and all support. I get so tired....

Zer, that sucks to have to look for a new home!!! I hate that. I wish there was something I could do for you, but being halfway across the country I think all I can offer is virtual hugs and support.

Good luck!!!

[Ilpirata]

I think all I can offer is virtual hugs and support.

Good luck!!!

Me too Zer!

[Zer]

Originally Posted by jennbaker

Zer, that sucks to have to look for a new home!!! I hate that. I wish there was something I could do for you, but being halfway across the country I think all I can offer is virtual hugs and support. Good luck!!!

Thanks. Hugs help. I cannot even imagine the losses of asking strangers to pack and move me out of a place that I've made useful by putting things within reach of me, as I sit on my bed typing on my laptop. I'm trying to think through developing relationships with personal assistants who I can rely on to make decisions about clearing out a storage room that I cannot stay at during a weeding-out process. Same will be true of moving out of this room into a new place, probably a place that will ask for less clutter and that will be less secure than this place has been. Complete security has become a way of life for me. I do not know how I will adjust to going back to having less secure living, to having intrusive landlords and no control over who drifts through using landlord's key. That was a part of my living before I came to this place. For 20yrs I know that no one has rifled or browsed through my living space. That's quite a luxury for any renter.

[duece49424]

Zer - I want to help you too! If you would ever consider moving - I have an extra room now that my foster child moved on....hugs...

[Zer]

What a wonderful prospect, to move in with a LC'er to help keep me on track!

[kiwikid]

Zer, do you know of any assisted living places near you or will you need to shift area too? I was thinking that it is so good that you are computer literate and that you have so many friends on the web, at least you get to take us wherever you go.

[Zer]

Originally Posted by kiwikid

Zer, do you know of any assisted living places near you or will you need to shift area too? I was thinking that it is so good that you are computer literate and that you have so many friends on the web, at least you get to take us wherever you go.

I fear losing computer and all the contacts that my laptop brings into my life. But things get lost. It's a fact. Having a private dial-up line/phone may or may not be a part of living at a new site. So much of my life/banking and account mgmt depends on computer and phone that I'd sure try to have all that set up, but from what I've seen, a place that accepts a senior resident CAN get pretty demanding about who does what.

My Auntie paid a small fortune to a chic senior residence that she'd visited for decades, helping older friends adapt to living there, so she knew a LOT about the place and about other residences in her area. Yet she was rousted out of her warm bed at 6am for assisted bathing in a tub down the hall from her suite. I found that disheartening. She was NOT a morning person. I'm sure that she would have preferred a midmorning bath, but that was not an option, I gather, once she was living there and negotiating monthly for care and for rising costs. A cousin of mine sat in on the conferences and heard how terms were laid out by mgmt. All the cozy coddling of a sales staff was missing. That same place is courting me to come by for them to see if I am suitable (have resources) and if I am inclined to buy their softsoap. But I do remember how they handled my Auntie as her physical abilities declined and she was moved into less private quarters, finally ending up in a shared room with someone who ran the tv at all hours. Made her life miserable, having to share space and do without her personal items. She was glad to leave that place, to go to a hospice that had four or five private bedrooms, gave her a peaceful life for the final weeks of her life. Well, it looked peaceful to me. Was a private home in an upscale neighborhood. Very discreet. Very quiet. Attendants very kind and gentle, volunteers kind - to clients and visitors too.

Now if she had found such a place to live, as guest in a small facility that is able to provide comfort and convenience to residents - or if I can locate such a place myself - that would be Something Else. Maybe that's my next step.

But meanwhile, I hope to lose weight and become more able to manage my own affairs living where I've had a safe private room for 20yrs. That's nice. The safety alone is significant in a world that is not always as safe as we would like. I know that I have valued the safety of living in this place, and I would find it stressful to once again live where strangers can intrude on me. Before I located this place, I always lived on my own, came home to a place that was mine alone (with or without cats, as my circumstances permitted), and sometimes I came home to a burgled house, tossed and spurned by a stranger who took a bit and left a LOT as not worth carrying off. That was a surprising aspect of being burgled - how much of my stuff was NOT taken!

Okay, that's a weird posting for 4am on a Saturday. Time to go weigh, to collect data to mark on my calendar and my food diary and report here! I'm feeling nearly positive that collecting data will be a useful tool in my journey from 400# to 199# - and I am hopeful that my mobility will increase as I let go of pounds that are weighing me down. Hey, I'm almost 65, still time to live a bit, to experience new things, maybe travel places I've never been and might like to visit as a person who CAN walk and CAN sit (and rise easily).

I can dream that all of this is still ahead of me. I can dream. Amazing!

Now, if only I could SLEEP - oh, what I'd give for a night's sleep without all the fidgeting to find a position that does not ache my aching back, without the weird nighttime spasms that afflict my left leg and sometimes my right leg and torso as well. Funny that I still think carbs will knock me out, give me hours of sleep. So strange that I look back on carbs as a release from awareness and a promise of sweet sweet sleep. Don't think about the carby hangover that follows. But we all know that carby hangover, right? Ugh!

Wonder if anyone is doing 15:15 yet today. I'm going to check for that now. Doing useful tasks will take my mind off the idea of eating carbs as an escape from facing life, I hope.

[i.am.jenn]

Zer - what kind of assistance are you in need of? would you benefit from a home health service with an aide to visit you once or twice a day? would something like that allow you to stay living where you are?

I hate the situation of "nursing homes". Part of the reason I'm getting educated in health care is I am seriously considering running a nursing home, so I can make sure it's done RIGHT. My Grandmother (I was not close to her, she was schizophrenic in the 50s and the insulin shock treatments she was subjected to left her, in most respects, a vegetable that could smoke cigarettes) died a very painful and uncomfortable death due to serious neglect in a nursing home. She was severely malnurished (ultimate cause of death), dehydrated, had a few bedsores. It was horrible. And those people were being PAID to take care of her.

I'm racking my brain to see what I can come up with. I'm sure you've already looked into something like home health. I'll keep racking the brain.

[Zer]

All good questions. I don't want to hijack this thread, but I appreciate your kind concern as I struggle to provide myself with a LC plan that will enable me to take off pounds and hopefully improve my mobility. I found help at CraigsList and I've made a contact through an agency with a CNA (certified nursing asst) who will come to me privately in November, when we are both free to contract privately. The "agency" turned out to be a scam that charged me $21/hr and dropped her pay from $13/hr to $10/hr without telling her that. So I got out of my contract with that "agency" (and as I read the fine print on the contract, I see that the people I was paying say they are NOT AN AGENCY!). Just a scam, I guess, that links folks who need home help with people who seek work as home helpers.

That said, my personal chef leaves town in Nov - and I lose her services - and I am looking foward to picking up again with a home helper I met a while back and have just spoken with today about how we will be working together in Nov. I'll pay her cash. She'll provide me a visiting helpful service to do what I cannot manage. She will shop for me and will help organize my living space. I think she will also help me - doing the work herself, with maybe family assistance to lift and move boxes out of a storage space - to get me out from under an escalating expense for household goods that I put into storage back in 1991 or so, thinking that I would soon be buying a condo and setting up a kitchen. Not so. That is a reality that I am facing, that I shall probably NOT have a kitchen of my own in any future living situation. For 20yrs I've shared a kitchen and not done a great deal of cooking. That seems to work for me. I'm not much of a cook.

Can opener? That's my primary tool for fixing food. That and pull-tab cans of sardines that open easily and serve up 4oz of protein packed in olive oil.

Luckily I like sardines. I've got a week's worth of fish and meathballs in my small freezer space, food that I'll eat when my gut feels better. For now, I am using sardines, avocados, tuna, onions - and liverwurst with broc.sprouts - as my menu. And I am showing some steady weight loss again!

Not quite sure what to do about the higher BMR that my Naturopathic Doc got on her testing device. I mean, just striving to eat up to 2,423cals put me in a tizzy - and maybe stressed out my gut. So I'm eating less now, drinking up as much water as I can manage. Still got to weigh myself, today or Sunday, to capture data for this week's trend downward. Oh, I hope to see 389 soon!

[Zer]

Look! Fruit pizza, 12 slices of gorgeous dessert at 5gCarb a slice? Check out Bobo's Fruit Pizza, built on an almond flour crust that sounds like shortbread to me! I'd cut back on the sweetener, maybe use nutmeg in the baked crust.

Maybe this is something I can ask my departing personal chef to tackle, then wrap and freeze individual slices? Not sure how well it would thaw out. Soggy? Maybe just enjoy it or share it for a couple of days, risking a weight bOunCe on the fruit? Oh, maybe I'll just enjoy the pix and keep on working my way down in ounces. A few ounces a day adds up to a pound or so a week - maybe more, if I can find the right combo to get my body to burning fat faster. Ah, if only....

[Zer]

387.8 at midday today...
...is 6.6# gone since 10/1(394.4)
...and 2.8# gone since 10/6(390.6)

New goal is 380! Pray for me, please!

I'm now going to see if I can get to the fridge, where I have food prepared and waiting for me, if I can get there. It's a lot farther than the loo next door to me - and some days I just bypass making that long walk to find a bite to eat. I do. Got liverwurst and broccoli sprouts in the fridge; quiche and meatballs are in freezer, as well as salmon-greens-'shrooms waiting for me to thaw out to eat. If I don't get there, I have sardines, avocado, onion, tuna, salmon, olive oil - and a canopener - right handy!

[GME]

Congratulations Zer! 6.6 lbs in 12 days is great!

Your spirit and dertermination inspire me.

[Zer]

Thank you for your encouragement. It means a LOT to me!

I think it helps me to be mindful of how many pounds are GONE as I weigh and post my progress. Doing the math encourages me, helps me pass up carby impulses that will upset my progress. Waiting a month to total my progress is not as useful to me as doing the math and feeling the rush, week by week!

So glad to be out of the 390s!
Spent way too long in that space!

Hope to make short work of the 380s!

Can hardly wait to see 379 on my scale!

[WenB]

You've worked so hard Zer! Congtratulations on the loss!!

[Ilpirata]

WAY TO GO ZER!!!!

[Ilpirata]

Yesterday...
Well I sucessfully upped my carbs to fifty yestserday...
I'm afraid those carbs (all good veg carbs) triggered something though because I then CONTINUED to eat getting myself up to a total of like SEVENTY CARBS AND TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED CALORIES for yesterday!!!!
Prudently stayed off the scale this morning!

[Zer]

Apparently, even "good" vegie carbs can excite an appetite! I can hardly stop eating good greasy greens when I have a tub in front of me to dig into. Portion control is definitely the Last Frontier for even proficient LC'ers. Hope your carb fest works out well and shakes you loose a few ounces to get under that set point that your body seems to have latched on to.

[Ilpirata]

I literally have tears in my eyes reading Pam's response to my posted thyroid test results:

"My doctor (and many on the lists I have) would treat based on the FT4 and FT3. Waiting to see the TPO antibodies.

My FT3 showed almost no conversion also, and my FT4 was actually just a skoche higher than yours and my TSH LOWER and I benefitted dramatically from being treated with Armour Thyroid.

Both your Total T4 and your Total T3 are just..um..how to say...HORRIBLY LOW, it's a wonder you are able to function well..if it were me I'd not be able to: exercise much, would have extreme fatigue, would have a hard time with dry hair, skin, nails, and would have a hard losing and a harder time keeping the weight off.

Your panel would make a great teaching guide...because it shows just how dreadfully low the actual thyroid hormones can be while the TSH isn't out of range at all (but isn't very good either, most of us need a TSH near or under a 1).

If you would like a list of doctors that would actually treat you based on those FT's and TT's please PM me.

(You have a very famous thyroid doctor, who has moved from Florida to California in San Rafael...don't know where that is from where you are).

Pam"


I KNEW IT! I have been struggling for so so so many months with this uber slow weight loss... to finally have it confirmed that there IS SOMETHIGN WRONG just has me overwhelmed.

Now I just need to find a doctor, PAY FOR THE DOCTOR out of pocket, and get some medication. I am beside myself right now!

[Zer]

Wow...I think there's good news mingled in with all the malfunction news.

Glad that Pam is monitoring and interpreting data. Helps all of us understand more about what the numbers and ratios and all mean. Good luck to you in finding a program that will meet your needs and help your body work better.

[Ilpirata]

Wow...I think there's good news mingled in with all the malfunction news.

Glad that Pam is monitoring and interpreting data. Helps all of us understand more about what the numbers and ratios and all mean. Good luck to you in finding a program that will meet your needs and help your body work better.

Thanks Zer! The good news is that there IS medication for this - and I should be able to keep doing good clean Atkins BMR eating - and with they correct medications will start losing weight again - and at a more normal pace!

I too thank GOD for Pam and Fawn and our other resident experts. If Fawn hadn't suggested it I don't know that I would have bit the bullet and forked out the dough for the labs. I just trust her alot and our other experts. Thank GOD FOR LCF!

[Zer]

Amen. Thank you, LCFriends, for advice and support as we each struggle to find a path that works for us - in losing weight and in resolving health issues.

This board is rich in wisdom. So much more here than diet tricks and recipes!

[GME]

Kisha, I'm so glad you found an answer. I hope everything works out for you.

[Ilpirata]

Thank you Gina! I'm beyond beyond beyond pleased.

[i.am.jenn]

Kisha! Congrats!!!

Good luck getting the right meds!

[Ilpirata]

THANK YOU JENN!!!

[Sybilizedliving]

Deleted post - I did some searching and found my answers!

Glad to hear you are getting answers Kisha. I might need to push my doctor a bit more for additional tests. Will be reading up on this entire issue.

[JCro]

I have been in a stall for over three weeks. I exercise bike at 15 mph for 30 minutes and resistance bands for about 15 - Daily. I even just started doing planks. My weight stopped dead in it's tracks. I was easting less than 1,000 calories a day and around 22-25 carbs a day. My caloric intake was just because I was not hungry. Thank you for this challenge. It is the first thing that has made sense in a long time.

Starting at 201.5.

P.s. Anyone have any problems adding All Bran Xtra Fiber cereal to their diet?

[Zer]

I'm kind of curious about adding a bran cereal to my plan. I think I'd like the crunch and chewing, and sure could use the bulk! Wonder how the carbs add up and if I could manage to restrain myself to a small portion - 1/2cup - with cream.