My journey
Hi guys. I hope all of you are doing well. I came to this forum to seek answers to my questions. I've ran into some issues.
A little about my story.
I have been on and off Atkins for years. I've used it at times to lose 10-15 pounds here and there with generally favorable results over the years. I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the diet and low carb diets in general. However, it was until right before my 41st birthday did I truly understand what I'm dealing with. I'm 44 now...
The tragedy...
I was at the movies right before my 41st birthday and I noticed I was not feeling well. My chest was tight and had been for days. It seemed like it was muscle related and on the surface so I ignored it. That night at the movies it got tighter, so I excused myself to the restroom and once I got there my heart took off. It jumped all the way to around 170 beats a minute. And was pounding.
A guy there saw me grab my chest and asked if I was ok and I asked him to call 911. He did and I spent a few days getting worked over once they got my heart down with metoprolol. After a series of tests, stress tests and echos, they tried to tell me I was fine but had a panic attack. I said what? I am not the type to panic. They insisted it was in my head. Lol. I said no way, but nonetheless I was placed on lorazepam, metoprolol, losartan for bp and so on. I was released and went home.
This is when it really got bad...
I was the type to never take drugs , never been to hospital and didn't understand the full magnitude of the impact some of the drugs had. Within days my liver swelled up, my heart was skipping with thousands of pvc's a day, my bp was high but suddenly it was spiking to dangerous levels like 220-120. My heart stopped beating 3 times and was brought back from the precipice of death.
I felt such strain in my chest that I couldn't walk well. I was scared out of my mind, I knew my life was over. It was a matter of days or minutes til I was gone in my mind. I went to the doctor and told him the drugs are killing me and they assured me I was just having anxiety and gave me more lorazepam.
I came home, the next day, sat in the sun alone and cried for hours. I knew this might be it for me. I thought about all the things I never did in mylife and the feelings that went through me were gut wrenching. Then after what was forever feeling sry for myself, I realized that if I'm going to die, I'm going to die my way, and not with all these drugs tearing me apart.
So I weaned off everything. Which wasn't easy with lorazepam. I didn't know how deadly this drug was. And I decided I was going to diet exactly right and run until I couldn't run anymore. I was eithergonna beat this or die but I'd die my way. I dieted so hard, I run every day but carefully watched mypulse, I weaned off all meds against my doctors advice and I dropped 50 pounds and was running two miles a day. I was in Atkins exactly and I watched the scale more than I should've. I was coming back from the dead almost. Atkins saved my life, even being on Atkins made my pulse lower by about 10 beats per min.
Then ....
I was having sex one night and got a massive head ache. And then symptoms of a heart attack. I had impending doom. I thought oh no. I went to the ER, they said I had elevated troponin. They decided to do a heart cath and there it was. It wasn't in my head. I had 7 really bad blockages. They stented the two main ones including my LAD, which was at 90%. I was lucky. This is why I had had so much tightness and the drugs were killing me too.
Well...
After I got out of the hospital, I had to take effient fior 14 months and baby aspirin forever and new bp meds. But more issues came and I dealt with them.
Today my heart is doing pretty well. I survived so far. But with one draw back. I gained 40 pounds. It was very gradual. I was so upset. I had worked so hard and faught so hard. I was still eating exactly as I did when I lost it. I couldn't understand why I was gaining. It was very gradual. I gained the 40 back over about a year and a half even though I was still eating Atkins. I have no idea why. I thought it was meds maybe so I got off everything but the baby aspirin. Over the past month I've only lost 6 pounds roughly. But I can't seem to lose anymore unless I eat eggs like the Alan Keckwick diet. So my question is...
I want to beat this and get my weight right after all this. And this was the abridged version, but I can't seem to. I seem to be in a massive resistance for some reason and only a extremely strict diet seems to work. What could have changed? I men I have to be super strict to the point where I'm not sure how to get enough potassium. It just shouldn't have changed like this. I'm totally at a loss. I thought I did this diet very well. I guess not.
Last edited by Warbishop : Fri, Sep-15-17 at 15:33.
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