Obesity and DLA

Horseunderwater

I am morbidly obese and I have many many illnesses and conditions that caused me to pile on weight. GP and diabetes nurses etc never believed that I ate a healthy diet and that my portion sizes were small enough. Well I was put on a drug called Byetta injections 2 times per day and one of the things it does is slow down food transit in the body. My problem was severe IBS - I could eat a meal and inside an hour have been cleared out totally. Basically the IBS caused me to starve so anything I did eat that got absorbed was stored for a rainy day. Weight gain. IBS almost went overnight and guess what I did not change my diet or cut down, but off came the weight, thus proving that I did eat right and healthy. From my heaviest I lost 10 stone and was lighter than I had been for many a year. Due to another illness that is incurable, I now have to ingest steroids every day and that has made some weight go back on, but the dose is being lowered and hopefully the weight will go back down once more. And the illness that I have means that I am unable to exercise at all. If it goes into remission induced by the immunesuppressants I am on then I may be able to get more active again, but so far no sign. I have trouble holding a boiling kettle over a mug to make tea now, and I used to be able to lift my husband up. I carried him over the doorstep! LOL! Mind you that was 20 years ago now!

margaretclare

I'm not a doctor but I have a long career in health-care behind me - nursing and midwifery to senior levels. Therefore:

Any hip or knee problem will benefit from some weight loss/weight control. This does not necessarily mean rushing out and joining a gym. Far from it. You mentioned swimming. This is excellent exercise which uses every muscle in the body including the heart (which is, of course, a muscle). Failing swimming, try aqua-aerobics. Failing those, try gentle walking. You mention walking a mile - well, do that as often as you can.

In addition, forget the word 'diet' but concentrate on eating sensibly and properly. There are many people who have lost weight simply by cutting out e.g. ready-meals, burgers, take-aways, chips with everything, snacky high-fat high-sugar foods, those kind of things. Eat proper food prepared and cooked at home. Many people advocate using a smaller plate i.e. a tea-plate or entree plate rather than a full-size dinner plate. That encourages eating smaller portions.

The reason behind all this is: when you transfer your weight from one leg to the other there is tremendous stress on the weight-bearing joints. There's an engineering-type explanation for it. If you ever get to see an orthopaedic consultant about the possibility of joint replacement, this is the kind of thing he or she will say. Having said that, to prevent osteoporosis weight-bearing exercise is essential.

HTH