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A little over a week ago I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, a condition that while not limited to those being overweight is certainly likely to target that group at a higher rate.  As a public service announcement I’d like to educate my fellow fatbloggers in the hopes that should you be exhibiting any of the symptoms of sleep apnea that you get yourself checked out.

What is sleep apnea?

From this article:

People with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) experience recurrent episodes during sleep when their throat closes and they cannot suck air into their lungs (apnea). This happens because the muscles that normally hold the throat open during wakefulness relax during sleep and allow it to narrow. When the throat is partially closed and/or the muscles relax too much, trying to inhale will suck the throat completely closed and air cannot pass at all. This is an obstructive sleep apnea episode.

A cessation of breathing must last 10 seconds or more to be called an apnea. Obstructive apnea episodes can last as long as two minutes and are almost always associated with a reduction in the level of oxygen in the blood. When an individual is in the midst of an obstructive sleep apnea episode, as long as sleep continues, the apnea continues. It is only terminated and the victim’s life is saved by waking up. This arousal instantly increases the activity of the muscles of the tongue and throat muscles that enlarge the airway. The victim will be able to breathe and to once again fill the lungs with life-giving oxygen. This cycle may be repeated hundreds of times a night while the sufferer has no idea it is happening.

What are the symptoms of sleep apnea?

For years I had prided myself on my ability to “fall asleep on a dime” literally any time of day.  As it turns out it wasn’t something to be proud of – it was a symptom of sleep apnea.  Here is a list of symptoms:

• Fatigue and tiredness during the day
• Loud snoring, especially if punctuated by brief periods of silence or choking sounds
• Snorting, gasping, choking during sleep
• Feeling that sleep is strangely unrefreshing

I gradually developed these symptoms as I gained weight and I attributed them to my just being heavier.  But in my case it was something else – I had sleep apnea.

Do you have sleep apnea?

If you have the symptoms of sleep apnea and want to see if you have it the answer is as simple as getting a referal to a sleep clinic.  I did this during my annual physical but I would imagine you could arrange for this at any time.  Don’t be afraid of having a sleep study, it was actually very interesting.  Read about my visit to the sleep clinic and you’ll see it is no big deal.  In my case I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea which means I was having over 35 apnea episodes a minute.  My bloog oxygen level was dipping down to 80% which is simply not good.

Treatment for sleep apnea

While there are a few different treatments for sleep apnea the most common one, and the one I am on, is called a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.  It’s a small machine that is hooked to a nasal mask (some are full face masks) that you wear to bed.  It’s connected to a pump that forces air into the nasal passages at pressures high enough to overcome obstructions in the airway and stimulate normal breathing. The airway pressure delivered into the upper airway is continuous during both inspiration and expiration.

After being on the CPAP machine for a week I can confirm that it works.  My wife says I no longer snore and I do feel better during the day.  Not perfect yet because I am still getting adjusted to it, but better enough to know it is working.

Don’t be afraid, get check out

If you have any of the symptoms of sleep apena please do yourself and your family a favor and get checked out.  It’s easy to do and it could extend your life.

Already diagnosed with sleep apnea but don’t get treatment?  Get on the machine!

I hope for your sake you don’t have this problem but if you do please seek help.

Anyone else have sleep apnea?  Let is know in the comments!

I posted some months ago about the study I’m doing as a part of my Graduate program in Social Work. It is looking into the factors that make weight loss effective and successful. In the end I hope to show the obesity epidemic does effect social programs.

If you are interested in participating… it is annonymous (I won’t know who the answers belong to).  Either comment here or email me and I will send you the link to the survey.

I likely won’t post every couple of days like this, but I did want to check in with how I’m doing on this second full day.  It might mostly be psychological at this point, but my energy level is on an upswing and I don’t feel like my stomach is getting in the way of everything.  I hate that bloated feeling I have after I’ve eaten way too much. 

Technorati Tags: fatblogging, weight loss, dieting, Full Sail, iPhone, Lose It!

Crossposted at antimattr.net

Unfortunately, they don’t specify which behaviors were changed, they just mention the techniques for getting the study participants to make those changes.

http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/852571020057CCF6852575B1006C8B75

The most commonly reported behavioural change techniques, which were also associated with the most successful interventions, included self-monitoring (eg, food diaries), instructions to the participant (eg, how to make better food choices), and identifying barriers to success (eg, pinpointing difficult situations).

Like many others my weight loss efforts have been going in the wrong direction of late. Of late? Who am I kidding – for the last year really. I haven’t been able to put together any coherent thoughts as to why and what I am going to do about it but what I know I won’t be doing is any fad diets or pills. Maybe I haven’t learned much over the last couple of years but I have learned one thing – losing weight is all about motivation, diligence, will-power and hard work. There are no shortcuts.

The commercials on TV and other media outlets would have you believe otherwise. Hydroxycut is one product I’ve recently seen advertised but I doubt I’ll be seeing it anymore as the FDA has warned the public to stop using the product and the makers of Hydroxycut have voluntarily recalled it from stores.

Over 9 million packages of the product were sold last year and there have been 23 reported cases of liver problems associated with it including one death. While that might not seem like a lot you have to remember that most people wouldn’t actually report problems. Either they wouldn’t put two and two together (who knows what else they are taking?) or they simply don’t want to believe their miracle product would do that to them.

This quote from the article is partiuclary instructive:

“You really have to be careful about dietary supplements, especially weight-loss pills,” said Lobb. “People believe that the FDA has verified that these products are at least safe and effective, and that’s really not the case. When you see fantastic claims — that’s generally what they are.”

There are a couple of key points here – first, that the FDA does not verify these products. It’s rather appalling that a company can sell so much of a product without it being verified but that’s how it goes – people need to be educated on that. The second salient point is that there are no miracle solutions – if you see a claim that isn’t related to eating less and exercising more than you probably have something that isn’t rooted in reality.

Pills are not the answer people. I wish they were because that sure would make this easier, but they are not. Eat less and exercise more. Simple as that.

Cross-published on Rejected Reality.

As I started getting a fuller understanding of the disgusting lengths I put my body through to maintain a weight of over 400 lbs, the more nauseated I became when I saw others doing the same. In order to maintain 4+ spins, I had to consume over 10,000 calories per day!

When I visited an old friend while I was in Idaho last week; we were laughing about how we used to go to Izzy’s and gorge ourselves with food. It was a competition to see how many plates we could each go through! Then we would boast to others… Well, I polished off NINE plates! Like an alcoholic avoids pubs; I avoid buffet lines.

Watching food competitions on the cable networks (like Nathan’s 4th of July Hot Dog Contest) or The Travel Channels’ Man vs. Food, turns my stomach. I would much rather emulate Dhani Jones!

I was looking up some information on the Final Four (GO HEELS!) and I run across a Bill Geist piece for CBS Sunday Morning from last November on a restaurant in Chandler, Arizona called the Heart Attack Grill.

There are so many things about this clip that make me sick… icky icky nasty!

Cross posted at antimattr.net

nana korobi ya oki is a Japanese proverb that translates roughly as “fall down 7 times, get up 8”. Well, I fell yesterday, and fell hard. I’m feeling a ton of stress personally, professionally and financially, and yesterday I made some sad choices in a very misguided attempt to deal with my feelings using food. Of course, those problems are still there, and I only caused myself guilt and regret. I’m still struggling today, but I have made a conscious choice to do whatever it takes today to resist eating or acting out any other way to deal with those feelings. They are just feelings, and I refuse to let them own me. I will call my diet coaches, do an exercise out of The Beck Diet Solution, and anything else I have to in order to stay on program. My life, my health and my sanity are worth more than any food.

The lesson that I’m learning is that I need to focus on the process. I’m struggling in part because I’ve already skipped two days of exercise this week, I haven’t been posting on the Weight Watchers boards much, I haven’t been doing the exercises from The Beck Diet Solution, and I haven’t been making daily phone calls to the guys in my support group. Losing 130 lbs is a huge task, and I cannot do it alone. Heck, I can’t even really control whether the weight comes off, but I can control what I eat today, whether I exercise or not, and whether I use the tools I have available to assist me. I need to surrender to the process and stick to my program.

Today, I get up again. And if I fall, I will get up yet again. I will persevere-the stakes are too high to give up.

I don’t want to take away from Jason’s post whatsoever, but another angle on why someone would fear becoming thin came to mind and I had to share it. I also felt it deserved more than just another comment.

My wife had been on Weight Watchers for a few years off and on and was getting anywhere after having had some success, but gaining it back (women have it tougher, not only because guys lose weight faster, but we have less emotional baggage and issues to contend with) mostly. She wasn’t getting anywhere and I’ll admit I didn’t help much when I chose to eat whatever I wanted (partially in defiance of WW).

However, we reached a point that she either had to do something or we had to pull the plug on her going to WW (why spend the money if it is just being wasted). I finally asked her what else did she want me to do to make this successful.

You know what she said. It’s what every wife dreams their own husbands would do.

“Would you go to Weight-Watchers with me?”

I had opened the door and I couldn’t say no. I knew I was a roadblock in her being successful at home and at the restaurants. And I had reached a weight I wasn’t happy with. I was over 300 pounds (319 when I darkened WW doors) and I did need to lose the weight.

Now what does all of this have to do with the “fear of getting thin”?

I knew that she was on a thread at this point. My biggest fear was being successful at it. Not for my sake but for hers. I knew, as a guy, I would lose faster than her. I knew that my initial successes might outshine any losses she had at the same time. Frankly, I was afraid of completely alienating her as I got all the applause in the meetings while she sat back and lost a little here or there.

I was afraid my losing weight would hurt her more than anything.

I know, it’s not about anyone else but me. I was doing this for me, but I was also doing this for her. I was doing this to help her and I was afraid it would do the opposite. Sure, I could blame her later and say that she talked me into it, but that’s the last thing I would want to say. It doesn’t help.

Eventually I reached a point where my weight-loss far exceeded hers… she had a tough year losing her mother and so on.

Eventually I reached a point where I weighed less than her. That probably hurt the most for both of us. She’s still struggling and I’ve not had a perfect journey either.

I just wanted you to know that sometimes love creates fears of getting thin. I love her and I want her to be successful more than anything. I still live with that fear of reaching goal and what may happen.

I’m in this for the longhaul. Maybe I’ll be an inspiration to her… I can only do my best and hope she catches up (and even passes me). I can hope.

As many of you know I am pursuing a Masters degree in Social Work. I alluded to a need for research subjects at the start of Winter term in an earlier post. Now is the time for you to step up.

The question I seek to answer is, “What makes weight loss successful?”

If you have lost weight though whatever means it took to get it off, pills, celebrity diets, gastric bypass, lap-band, WeightWatchers, Jenny Craig, fad diets or simple ‘eat less and move more’, whatever… I want to hear from you.

Please email me sportsfanjohn@gmail.com or comment on this post. There will be basic demographic information I will need from you AND I will ask you to fill out a survey. I’m aiming at having the survey take you no more than 30 minutes.

Once you have filled out the survey, I may contact you again for clarification or for follow-up questions. But your obligations to me will be complete by June 2009.

I can 100% guarantee that your information will be kept in strictest confidence.

Please.. I need to get as many participants as possible from as many ages, genders and the categories I mentioned above to make this effective research (we’re talking my grade here folks). If you would send this to friends or family you think would like to or could participate I would greatly appreciate your efforts. I would like to start getting surveys out to you by the end of March. Also, again forgive me, if you weren’t successful please consider participating as well, otherwise I get skewed data.

I also need to include… You will not be compensated in any way for your participation in this project. Other than the warm feeling you will receive for helping a Grad Student earn his degree and therefore touch the lives of thousands through him.

Thank-you for your time.

Cross Posted at Losing Inspiration

Sorry for the huge gap in posting. I had family that I’ve never met come to town yesterday, so I spent the week fixing, cleaning, clearing, moving, painting, repairing, etc, etc, etc………. I had a nice run on Tuesday, only 1.5 miles. I was quite sore for some reason for a couple of days after the race. I guess it was from the sprint at the end. Anyway, my wife works long hours, so that leaves me to do the shopping and preparing the house for things like party’s and visitors. Since they have never been here, we wanted to make a good impression, so I went the extra mile in getting the house ready, including lots of yard work and sprinkler repairs that I had put off for a while. So that’s what I did all week for a 4 hour visit yesterday:-)
Back to reality starting tomorrow. I didn’t keep track everyday of all my intake like I did so religiously since the beginning, but I stayed pretty close to my numbers by my calculations. Although I did celebrate a bit after the race and enjoyed a cheeseburger for the first time in over 4 months, as well as, a couple of trips to some mexican restaurants we enjoy, but no worries. I will begin running regularly again and plan on doing a race in April instead of March, due to a friend who would like to do it with me then. I look forward to it. So, sorry again for such a big gap in posting and hope not to let that happen again. I hope all are well and sticking to your guns. More later…..

Enjoy the Journey!