Why a Fitness Update on a Bipolar Blog?
Over 80 percent of people with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, are overweight or obese. This contributes to them dying at three times the rate of overall population. Therefore, I have begun this weekly fitness update for motivation. Motivation for those of you out there struggling with weight, and more specifically, motivating me.
Here is Last Week’s Fitness Update:
Overall I did pretty well this week. There were a couple of days that I went way over my daily allowance, then I balanced them out with A LOT of walking during the first part of the week. I had planned to go down to the beach on Wednesday and Thursday so that was disappointing that I didn’t get some beach walking in.
On Friday the 4th of July (Independence Day), Maurice and I went to his parents’ home in the desert. We had planned to go on a nice walk when the sun went down, but that didn’t happen either. There were just a few of us but his parents cooked sausages, chicken and ribs. I’m pretty proud of myself. I ate more than usual, but kept myself under control
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On Saturday I weighed in and lost 0.4 pounds. Normally I’d have been disappointed, but considering it was a holiday week and I had a large salty meal the day before, I’m just happy I didn’t gain.
The Statistics
Original Maximum Weight: 303 lbs
Goal Weight: 160 lbs
This loss/gain this week: -0.4
Total loss so far: -47.0
Current weight: 256.4
For Those Familiar With Weight Watchers :
Total Daily PP Allowed: 48
Weekly PP: 49 Weekly PP Left Available: 26
Weekly Activity Earned: 54 pp
kudos to you for not gaining, especially on a holiday with lots of food! i have tried those kinds of diet systems before, and for me they just don’t work, cuz i can’t keep it up once you are done with the program. i used to just restrict, but then my metabolism was a lot higher, so it worked.
so i have started this ‘metabolic diet and exercise’ thing. the point of it is that for lots of meds relating to mental illness, you don’t just gain weight, your metabolism also slows down, so even if you only ate one small meal a day, you will still end up gaining weight. i was tired of gaining weight, so we are trying this metabolic thing. so far (week 1 of 4) i was told to eat at least 3 meals a day (with a goal of 6 meals a day), since i’ve only been eating one a day for years, this is a lot more food than i am accustomed to eating, and it makes me feel like a pig! i have gotten 4 meals in on a few days, and 3 on the others. so far so good. there are of course some foods to stay away from and some to lean toward, but really, its more about the frequency of eating. so for exercise i have been asked to just do 5 minutes of nonstop cardio, like walking. next tuesday is week 2, so we’ll see how that goes.
Yeah, meds that make you more hungry and simultaneously slow your metabolism spell disaster. I can’t believe you’ve only been eating 1 meal a day.
Keep us posted on how this program works for you. I’m hoping for the best.
Bradley you have done excellently!! 🙂
Oh ribs? Yummo! Lol Your very strong willed, more than I am. Haha
Still I’m on the treadmill each day for 1 hour. Do you take lithium and if so, what does?
My Dr is telling me it’s my Seroquel that’s putting the weight on, not the lithium! Help? Lol
Koala bear hug from OZ, Paula xxx
Hi Paula, I generally don’t discuss meds by name because they have different effects on different people. I would make an exception for you but I honestly don’t know which ones are the weight gainers. I take 6 different pills each day and if I remember correctly I believe my pdoc said 3 of them are gainers but I didn’t ask which ones they were.
Ack, the salt! It’ll get ya every time!
Yes it will, Rose. It takes very little to make me puff up..
After you pass all that water retained by the salt you’ll have a bit more of a drop. You enjoyed the holiday weekend and still maintained control. Way to go!
I’m on a meal plan similar to Kat’s, 5 small meals a day, some protein in each one and a vegetable in at least 3. Carbs are limited and must be very complex. Fruit is allowed in one or 2. Quantities are specific. It is slow going due to fighting the effects of my medication. When I used this plan when I was younger (had far less to lose) and medication free the pounds flew off my body. Ah well. It is definitely a healthier way of eating and I don’t crave sugar.
Keep up the good work, Bradley.
Good luck on your current meal plan. I’ve read many times that 5 or 6 small meals are much healthier than 3 big ones so it sounds like you’re on the right track.
Being older and on meds does make it much more difficult to lose than it use to, but fortunately it’s working even if it’s slow going some weeks.
Good for you honey, and you’re right, the right diet and fitness does help symptoms for me too, as long as i’m not on self destruct of course :-s
Yeah, I was running on self destruct for awhile and was glad when I was able to get past that