I'm doing what I want because I want to, and
I'm sharing what I'm doing with you in the hopes it will work as well for you
as it has for me.
About 7 years ago (Jan 1991), my wife left me.
I weighed about 365lbs. I had gained nearly 90lbs while married going from a
size 40 waist to a size 48 waist.
My ex-wife liked to cook a lot of fatty foods.
Often involving beef or pork and a starch (noodles, potatoes, etc..). We ate
few vegetables and salads, and drank soda or iced tea (with sugar) a lot.
I was fairly active as a computer field
service technician, doing a lot of walking and moving computer components
around on luggage carts. I was not in an office all day. To save bus and train
fare, I'd walk from 38th St as far north as 59th Street, or as far south as
14th Street unless I was in a hurry.
However, I was depressed and ate a lot as
consolation. Pizza, McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, and other snack
foods were something I'd use as a drug to try to feel better. It certainly
felt (in my mind) like I was giving something to myself.
Immediately after my wife left me, my weight
started to drop. I regularized at around 300lbs or so within a year. Still not
back to a size 40 though. That was about a size 44 or so. But I was pretty
happy that I had defied a admonition from her that I'd never lose weight.
We often fought about my weight, and I'd ask
her to make different foods which would support me in losing weight. She would
refuse and say that since she couldn't control what I ate when I wasn't home,
she wasn't going to fight it.
I believe that the best revenge I could get
for the changes that my ex-wife put me through when she left, was to live
well. Losing 65 pounds without dieting certainly seemed to me to fit that
goal.
But when I stabilized at 295 - 300lbs for a
few months, I realized I'd have to do some more to get back to my old
"fighting weight".
In March 1993 I joined a group called
"Naexus" which was similar to EST, 12-Step, etc.. (but much more
effective by my estimation)
My buddy Stewart called me at home from one of
the courses and we had a little chat about what we were both up to in our
lives. I didn't know if he knew that Jill had left, so I filled him in.
He told me that he thought what I was doing
for myself was great, and that I could consolidate it all, and go farther by
doing this work he was now doing.
When he told me that years ago, when I told
him he operated too cautiously, I was right. And, that his chronic back
problems were much improved. I realized that whatever he was doing, was
valuable. I believed that he was right. It probably was the next step I was
looking for, and WOULD consolidate what I had done in the past year.
So I signed up, and drove down to Philadelphia
for the course. I resisted a lot the first two days, but on the third day I
"let go" in Naexus parlance. From then on in my life got better and
better.
I started a training program with a fitness
trainer who was one of the people in the course. With her help, and the
coaching I got from other people in the group. I managed to lose another 30
lbs.
Naexus is gone now, though it has been
replaced with something better which goes by different names, one of them
being "Harmonics". Harmonics has been a factor in my life and
weight-loss. By connecting to God and using the information I get, I've
improved my life many-fold. I've been connected to the people who do this work
ever since. There's a link at the bottom of this page if you want to see what
all the excitement is about.
Along with working with Renee, and getting
coaching, and dealing with important gut-issues. I changed the way I ate quite
a bit.
I changed the way I ate without depriving
myself. I ate a lot more vegetables (Chinese Take-out [no salt/msg], home
cooked food, etc.). I ate less beef and more chicken, turkey and fish. Very
little dairy products (as I had started to become lactose-intolerant). This
worked fairly well, and I lost another 25 lbs and hit another plateau.
In October 1994, I was involved in an auto
accident and received a concussion. This injury affected my sleeping, my
balance and lowered my immune system. Without the technology that we have
today (at www.wayimmune.org), I had no
inkling of how to do anything about this. But I took supplements, slept a lot,
and took a working vacation as I healed.
Also, a death in the family (my mothers'
boyfriend Ernie, who is much beloved and missed by us all) and some legal
stuff with my "ex" caused depression to set in. I slipped in my
commitment to myself and went back to some bad habits. I gained back about 30
- 35lbs.
By the end of 1995 I had realized that I
couldn't keep gaining back the weight and didn't want to. While in
Philadelphia, I someone (Michael) at a Harmonics get-together who was a
nutritionist and an Acupuncturist. He was skilled with holistic remedies and
nutritional methods and had worked with great success with all of my friends
in Philadelphia.
He had been spending a lot of time helping
them cleanse. He believed that having a body which was cleaned of waste
poisons, supporting the digestive tract, and increasing liver & kidney
function was vital to better health and a longer life.
It just clicked in with me that he was right.
As I spent time accessing the implications of this information, I saw how
polluted my body was, and how this attributed to many problems I was having
losing weight and feeling good. I literally felt like I was a sponge loaded
with poison. I wanted to feel "clean" again.
I had done a 9-day "Colema-Fast" the
year before, and I got a great benefit from it. I had less of a craving for
sweets and bread. But I hadn't committed to doing these fasts often enough to
get a larger benefit.
So, I embarked on his program. Basically it
consisted of taking some Chinese Herbs which supported the Liver and
Kidney in their functions. Also, taking digestive enzymes before meals to help
my body digest food properly. He had a large selection of these and we used
accessing to find out which one was best suited to my body.
Also, he recommended taking extra fiber
everyday to help cleanse my colon. Also taking nutritional supplements
(vitamins and minerals) to help my body get important things it needed.
He suspected that unlike many of his other
clients, I was in pretty poor shape. His program was somewhat stressful on the
body, although he endeavored to make it as safe as possible. We accessed that
it would be better to ease me into the full program by doing a smaller regimen
to prepare me for the full program.
After a month or two of preparation, I was
able to start using a meal-replacement drink called: "Ultra-Clear".
This is a powder one can mix with water or fruit juice. It is formulated to
support liver and kidney function as well as support intestinal flora. It
wasn't hard to do at all. Although it did make me sick after a while. It
seemed to be that I still wasn't strong enough to handle it.
After doing some fact-finding and accessing, I
realized that one reason that I gained weight and had a hard time losing it,
was because I had low liver/kidney function. My body couldn't eliminate waste
material fast enough, so it stored the wastes in my fatty tissue.
This is why every time I lost weight I'd get
sick, my skin would break out and I'd get rashes. Also my Urine was usually
nearly clear, except when I was ill. I thought this meant I was eating just
the right amount of food and my body wasn't creating much waste materials. I
didn't have a clue this was a symptom of low liver/kidney function.
This made a lot of sense to me when we
discovered it. It explained a lot of things I had always wondered about.
Also, we found I was only absorbing about 10%
of the nutrition I was taking in. This is much less than normal efficiency.
I am mildly diabetic when my weight exceeds
300lbs. What made this worse is that my body absorbed sugar and carbohydrates
a lot easier than other forms of nutrients. My low liver and kidney function
were probably diabetes related as well.
It seemed to me that my body was in
"starvation" mode. Because, although I was eating a normal (or
greater than normal) amount of food. I was only absorbing 10% of what my body
should normally absorb. In response, my body started conserving calories,
keeping weight on, and slowed its metabolism to keep from starving to death.
I was 365lbs, and my body thought it was
starving to death. Let me tell you.. I laughed quite a bit on that one. It
just seemed so ludicrous. Like that episode in Star Trek where Tribbles were
poisoned by the grain they were eating, and to paraphrase Dr. McCoy; "In
a compartment full of wheat, these Tribbles were literally starving to
death..."
It also seemed like my body conserved fat
tissue in self-protection, since it was storing un-eliminated waste products
there.
We had to reverse this. We had to help my body
get back to a normal metabolism and get my elimination functions working
properly as well.
So we concentrated on building up my Liver and
Kidney function and kept cleaning my colon out with Fiber and Herbs. I
immediately started losing weight, my skin cleared up and I felt a lot more
energetic. As a side benefit, I slept better and could get up earlier without
tiring out as easily.
As an aside, when my weight gets around 300lbs
I start experiencing sleep apnea. I would snore quite loudly, choking as I
slept. I'd wake up after 8 hours sleep, just as tired as when I went to bed.
I would fall asleep for moments while driving
more than 15 minutes, and at the keyboard of a computer. This got me in
trouble with my computer clients, and was embarrassing in the extreme. One
client taped me snoring (video taped it as well), and played it back to
me after I woke up.
We used L-Ornithine and Melatonin to help my
sleeping. They made a great difference. I slept MUCH better and snored MUCH
less. Although Melatonin knocked me out and made me a little groggy the next
morning. Melatonin is much better taken in small doses (1mg or less) about 20
- 30 minutes before going to bed.
These two supplements were recommended in the
book: "The Cure for All Diseases". Another great book Michael
recommended and I read was; "In The Zone" by Barry Sears.
Recommended!
During 1997, I had a sedentary job and gained
a bit back. I went up to 290lbs, and towards the end of 97, decided to
recommit myself to what had worked before.
In the past few months, I've lost 20 - 25lbs
and am now about 260lbs (as of March 22nd 1998) and still going. I'm can get
into a size 42 pair of slacks, and my size 44's are very loose. Next time I
shop I'll be trying on some more size 42's and see how they fit.
The first week of January 1998, I completed a
7-day Colema Fast. I lost about 10lbs on the fast. I did another fast the
first week of March 1998 and lost another 10lbs.
Another factor that I haven't yet mentioned is
that I have been able to learn to love myself, and to catch myself being
depressed and getting myself out of a depressive state immediately. This is a
big factor, as what I did while depressed was a big influence on my weight.
Eating a quart of ice cream, or a box of cookies (with a half-gallon of milk),
etc.. Was not helping me in any way.
Being connected to God, loving myself and
others, serving others, giving myself what I really need (Sleep, rest,
exercise, etc..), working on myself (using my accessing) has made a big
difference. I was never able to feel good about myself no matter how much
therapy I did, or how many doctors I went to, or what medication I took.
I also reduced my chronic High Blood Pressure
to a great degree. I only get attacks when I'm under high stress (and I don't
handle the cause..). I haven't had a headache from high blood pressure in two
years now.
As I cleanse, I find I'm not attracted to
foods I used to eat. I'm much more satisfied with less (I'm absorbing more
nutrients. We found I'm now absorbing about 85 - 90% now..) and I'm not really
hungry between meals.
I find I like one of the Zone Diet's
concepts which is eating smaller meals more often. I'll eat a small to medium
breakfast around 9:00 - 9:30am, a small to medium lunch at 12:30pm, a snack at
4:30pm, and dinner at 7:30pm. I try not to eat anything after 9:00pm as my
metabolism is so slow this late in the day, I'd just store the calories I took
in.
I have also broken a caffeine/coffee
addiction. I now drink one cup a day, rather than one or two POTS a day. And I
can go days without it, without ill effects.
Since my throat surgery
I haven't found coffee as satisfying. Now, I'd much rather drink a cup of tea
than coffee.
SO.. The upshot is that one can lose weight by
employing other methods than dieting or exercise. Many people try these things
and never lose weight or don't keep it off long.
I advise anyone interested in losing weight to
look into facing and handling any self-worth/low self-esteem problems, doing a
cleanse, get on a supplement program to support your body in being healthy.
Please feel free to EMAIL me at: ahartmanjr@aol.com
with questions, for support, or to tell me what you did that worked for you.
I really want to give, and be truly supportive
of others facing the same things that I am..
