I passed the 18-month mark from when I began my Get Healthy journey and the closet definitely needed some decluttering.
April 22, 2022: I was 405 pounds lying in the hospital with heart problems and a lesion on one lung, both from COVID. A glorious electrocardiologist stood in the doorway with 3 other cardiologists said, “You will either change your life or you will live in a nursing home.”
That hit me like a bolt of lightning.
Flash Forward
In a flash, I saw myself sitting in a wheelchair at 400+ pounds, in a long hallway lined with other 400+ pound elderly people. In that same flash, I saw the nurse’s aid who hated her job because she had to wipe my ass and clean my crotch. She had to lift my enormous pannus (lower belly fat) to clean under it, smelling the putrid smell it gets when no one cleans it, and then put medication on it if my intertrigo had an infection flare up. In another instant, I saw myself hunched over the lunch table. Then I saw my kids visiting as I looked at them through hollow eyes.
In that instant’s complete image, I changed my life.
Quitting and Re-starting
Immediately, I stopped eating salt. I got rid of every grain of salt in my possession and bought as much no/low salt products as I could find.
That was not even the most difficult change (and I was a salt-o-holic). It was stopping Uber Eats. I swear they are going to go bankrupt simply because I quit eating from there. At first, it was very difficult to not order spontaneously. Instead, I made myself great big salads with fruits, veggies, and tuna on it. My low-sodium Panera Balsamic Vinaigrette poured on top.
In those four months before I went on Trulicity (dulaglutide), I lost 40 pounds… just from those two changes I made.
Trulicity
As I’ve already said in other posts, I thought Trulicity was a replacement for insulin. I kept getting low blood glucoses (BGs) and was finally taken off the Lantus and Novolog. Between 70 and 100 is normal. Below, not so good. The ones I kept having in the 40s? Precariously close to an absolute emergency
I seriously did not know that Trulicity was a GLP-1 medication. Had never heard of GLP-1s. I didn’t and don’t watch TV, so no commercials. I never pay attention to movie stars. I am not on social media. I was the epitome of clueless. And sure, I looked Trulicity up, but the part that talked about weight loss, I ignored because I never get that side effect.
But this time I did.
I lost 86 pounds in the year I was on Trulicity.
That brought me to a total loss of 126 pounds. I now weighed 279 pounds.
Mounjaro
It’s only been six weeks on Mounjaro and am down 27 pounds.
Better than all of that, way back 18 months ago, my HbA1c was 7.6 and today it is 5.1! (Below 5.7 is the non-diabetic range!)
That 5.1 is what is going to keep me alive. I know it’s difficult to determine what came first, the chicken/weight loss or the egg/Blood Glucoses falling, but in either case, I am the winner. WE are the winners!
(I have to tell you, I am working hard to eat the right amount of protein every day and writing “chicken” and “egg” sent my brain scrambling for their protein gram count.)
On my 18-month anniversary of my Life Change, I decluttered the clothes and shoes I can no longer wear. I’ve filled two garbage bags for Goodwill and it feels amazing.
I started this journey wearing clothes bigger than 7x and had to order from supersize stores like Sanctuarie and On the Plus Side. Somewhere along the way, I was able to wear 5-6x and decluttered those supersized clothes… without taking a picture. Again, I was pretty oblivious that the weight loss was going to keep going.
Now, however, I am not oblivious, so when I decluttered yesterday, I took pics.
