Gaining Weight

Remember when you were younger and you saw overweight middle-aged people and you said to yourself, "That will never happen to me," - hah!

How did that happen?

It's been a year now that I've been retired.  I have had three surgeries, and my activity level has been limited.  I've taken up cooking  and haven't really worried about dieting.

So I went to my cardiologist for my annual check-up.  He was upset about my cholesterol levels.  I told him I'd tried an experiment and stopped my cholesterol medicine and started taking red yeast rice instead.  Well, my cholesterol is higher than it's ever been.  So much for that experiment. I told my doctor I'd gotten a dog, but since the surgery, I hadn't been able to walk him that much, but Wayne had been walking the dog and lost 15 lbs.  Then my doctor said, "And you found them!"  I was shocked because he's never said anything about my weight before.

When I told him I started cooking since I've been retired, he asked, "Are you watching those cooking shows?"  I said, Yes!"  He said, "Are you trying to kill yourself?"  Now my doctor is a very unassuming man, and I never expected him to be so upset about my results.

OK, so I'm back on Crestor, just 5 mg a day.  I've been able to do more minutes on the recumbent exercise bike at physical therapy, so I'm getting more activity.  I go back in a few weeks to see if my cholesterol levels have decreased.

The same week, I went back to my orthopedic surgeon to follow-up on my knee arthroscopy.  I was concerned because there's more swelling around the knee.  He comes in and looks at my knee, listens to what I have to say, and then he says, pointing to one side of my knee "This is fluid," and then pinching the other side of my knee, he says, "but this is fat!"  Oy vey! Two doctors in one week giving me grief about fat!

I tell very few people how much I weigh.  I told one friend, and she said, "you don't look like you weigh that much!"

I remember when we were going to take a helicopter to fly to Havasu Falls, in the western part of the Grand Canyon.  The helicopter people asked each of us how much we weighed.  I made Wayne go far away so he couldn't hear me tell them my weight.

I never get on the scale at the doctor's office.  The scale is right out in the open, and everyone can hear how much you weigh.  I don't know how medical personnel don't realize this is as confidential as all the other information they collect.  When they try to get me on the scale, I just tell them, "I don't weigh."  I figured out a long time ago, that if getting on the scale at the doctor's office was something I hated so much that it would prevent me from going to the doctor, then I would not get on the scale.  I'll tell them how much I weigh if I'm in the examination room, but not in front of everyone.  I've gotten better about it, especially because the nurses asking me my weight look like they weight the same as I do, if not more.

It's the same reason I don't have a problem getting in a swimsuit at the health club.  I figure there are people there who are bigger than I am, so if it's not a problem for them, it's not an issue for me.

The moral of the story:  learn to be comfortable in your own skin, no matter what your weight is.