Need help after surgery weight!

Question
Hello,

I am a 28 year old mother of 2 boys, but even I cant blame the weight on my boys since they are 11 & 12 now! Actually I had a car accident about 3 years ago which put me in a slump. I had 6 surgeries in one year which two were major back surgeries. I now have a spinal fusion which limits my mobilty. About a month ago a had to have shoulder surgery and hopefully now I am done! I would love to drop 25-30 pounds in a couple of months before our big "ya ya" sister trip we are taking. I have a prescription for Adepex , but didnt know if I should take it. Is it even possible to turn my depression into anger and lose this much weight and rock in a couple of months??? LOL . Thanks for any help!

Answer
Dear Liz,
I've thought long and hard about your question.  Even though it is out of my expertise, I find myself stuck on my first thought.  "What the heck are you thinking!"  Look at all you have been through!  And here you are wanting to set a deadline for yourself to lose weight - jeepers.  Take a breath and be thrilled that you are alive and up and around, as I am certain your family, including your "ya ya" sisters, are.  Look at what you have achieved - lighten up on yourself.  Give your body time to regenerate and get its good chemistry back so that you can be kind to yourself.   

Now, I understand the reality of being overweight.  That you want to move on to a new goal and get rid of the reminder of hard times.  I can help with that.  But you  may not like what I have to say.  First, I firmly believe that setting a "couple of months" deadline is a big mistake.  I know that having a deadline often helps people motivate.  However, weight loss is a big job, and you already have enough on your plate.  If you don't lose your goal weight in time you will feel crummy and hit the doritos or chocolate cake and ice cream and end up in a really bad funk.  If you do stay on track, I bet you will increase the amount of weight you want to lose ("moving your cheese" is the saying) and still not feel good about it since you "could have done better".  I am just guessing, but this is a common thing that ruins so many of us.

So first, dump the deadline and substitute "I am going to revitalize myself, do activities I enjoy, eat well, and lose weight as I go along" so I can enjoy moving and being with my ya ya sisters.  Then dump the Adepx.  I really am not "Miss Natural" by any means so this is not a knee-jerk reaction.  I just don't think that Adepex is good for you since it feeds into the rush to a deadline, adding stress where you really don't need it.  Again, let yourself heal!  You will lose weight if you just give yourself a chance.  You are 28.  I wish I had been better to myself at that age - your body remembers every tough hoop you jumped it through and comes back to repay you when you least can handle it.  Don't add unnecessary hoops.

To lose weight I am going to suggest that you take simple, though not easy, steps.  Just because they make sense and are "simple" does not mean they are namby-pamby or aren't important.  They are central to reaching wight goals.  

1. Get enough sleep.  Really.  There are tons of studies, and my personal experience, that show that sleep and weight loss go hand in hand.  Sleeping will help ensure you are healed from all your surgery trauma too.  

2.  Drink enough fluids (burning fat uses up water).  Read the book "Eat, drink and be healthy" by Willett to learn about healthful things to do for yourself and your children.  This will help keep food out of the "enemy" column that many dieters put it in while they are trying to lose weight.  Food for a mother of two after all your trauma can not be more important - so eat well.  

3.  Which leads to dumping anything with corn syrup or other supped-up sugars.  You may have seen from my description that I am a low carb person.  This means that I believe that carbohydrates lead to weight gain and that they inundate the American diet since they are cheap.  So read labels.  Just look at the ingredients.  If you see *any* corn syrup, high fructose anything or any sugar added to something that really doesn't need it (like deli meats, peanut butter or sauces), then move on to something else.  This alone will change your diet a lot.  Eat basic things like meat, vegies, and fruits (whole fruits).  Treats, salty or sweet, have to be approached with caution.  One strategy is to limit your treats to only those that you make yourself.  Learn to bake a few things from scratch, not a mix.  Even bread if you can.  I know time is limited, so just do your best.  Even if you can't make everything, make at least one thing now and then.  If you are a salty person, don't always go for chips.  Start adding salt to celery, apples, peanut butter or any other thing you can think of.  Near me there is a store that sells all kinds of fun salts (red, black Hawaiian, big chunks, and such).  If you do start eating more salt, make sure to include potassium salt (like NuSalt), take a potassium pill, or eat high potassium foods, like avocados.  Potassium will balance the salt (sodium) and ameliorate its affect on your blood pressure.  For sweets, you have a few choices.  First is to learn to appreciate the sweetness of fruit, then to learn the sweeteners that don't lead to weight gain as much as sugar does.  This is a minefield.  Actually I will just put an index of sweeteners at the end of this reply.  The lower on the list, the better the sweetener is for dieting.  Splenda, saccharine and nutrasweet are not on the list since they are artificial.  Any of these will do for dieting, but really you should minimize how much you eat of them.  Nothing artificial is "for free", we just don't know enough about them yet.  

Perfection is rarely achieved but this should not keep you from getting as close as you can.  You will lose weight this way.  Not tons all at once, but you will make progress and will get better and better at losing weight as you hone your strategy.  Think, think, think.  Your brain burns a lot of calories, possibly more than any other organ.  So use it to your advantage.  

Try turning your depression not into anger, but into a feeling of achievement at what you have gone through and survived!  What doesn't kill us makes us strong.  Anger helps no one lose weight, and anger and depression are very close buddies so it's best to dump both of them over the cliff and wave "bye, bye".  Appreciating yourself and eating well to reward your body for getting over the tough times will serve you way better in your weight goals.  Breathe, think, plan, carry out your strategy.  

Successful weight loss is gained by thoughtful effort, not a desperate, angry, screaming, impatient one.

I sincerely wish you well and luck with your weight.  Happy Ya Ya,
Arlene

Corn syrup - 85-92
Sucrose (Table sugar) - 65 (4 calories/gram)
Honey - 50
Maltitol syrup, 48-53
Lactose (Milk sugar) - 46
Polyglycitol / hydrogenated starch hydrolysate - 39
Maltitol syrup, high-polymer - 36
Maltitol - 36 (used in most "low carb" sweets; 2.7 calories/gm)
Fructose (Fruit sugar) - 23
Erythritol - 0 (0.2 calories/gram)

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