Approaching 50 With Sleeping, Weight, Fatigue, Severe Pain Problems & No Motivation To Exercise!

You always hear that you need both diet and exercise to lose weight, well that isn’t always the case. Let us say that we are not promoting inactivity. However, sometimes issues such as chronic pain or injury get in the way of performing physical activity, but that isn’t always a valid excuse for not losing weight, or even worse, gaining weight. Many of our patients here are coming for chronic pain, and many of them have limited physical ability, yet we still have many weight loss success stories. A patient that just followed up with me today is a great example of that.

I’ve been working with Ralph, a patient here at Caring Medical, for 4 months. He originally came to us for a natural medicine consultation for an array of issues. After his first appointment with the doctor, he was given lab orders for many tests including Diet Typing and Food Allergies.

He was having issues with sleeping and weight loss. He was also fatigued and very unmotivated to exercise. Exercise was limited with or without the motivation due to severe knee pain.

There were going to have to be some major life changes for Ralph in order to get him losing weight and feeling better. His nutrition was towards the poor side. He drank a lot of soda and ate out quite a bit, eating a lot of simple carbs. Approaching 50, he really thought it was too late to make severe lifestyle changes. I assured him that if he slowly made a couple changes at a time he could get there.

After the test results for Diet Typing came back, we found that his insulin level was on the high side, making it necessary to put him on the Otter Diet. His physiology required him to consume more protein, something he was not used to doing. This would mean eliminating his daily intake of soda (completely!) and preparing his own meals more often, instead of eating out and on the run. He got started while we were awaiting his food allergy results.

He was making some progress, having decreased the amount of soda he drank and increased his protein intake. Ralph also felt a slight increase in energy, although it was not as much as we had hoped. Some missing links were his food allergies. Once those were determined, we met to talk about what other changes he would now have to make. This meant getting rid of gluten and eggs, as those were high on his allergenic list. He had been having eggs almost everyday since starting on the Otter Diet because they are a good high protein food! I gave him new ideas for breakfast and other options for gluten containing products. He was a little frustrated with this and thought it would just be too hard.

Well, four months after starting this whole lifestyle changing process, Ralph has lost 20 pounds. He still has an occasional soda pop each week (1-2 per week instead of daily), but this is a big change from where he started. He has also been able to eliminate his allergenic foods almost completely, doing better than he thought he would. During this time there has been almost no structured exercise in his daily routine due to the knee pain he experiences. Yet, he has still been able to take off weight with just nutritional modifications. Now for someone who could make these changes AND workout, we would probably see even more of a weight deficit. We are hoping once Ralph starts treatment for his knee pain, that he too will be running on the treadmill and taking walks with his dog in the forest preserve and anything else he wants to do! But until then, he continues to make great nutritional strides!

The point is, do not let the inability to exercise regularly, whether due to pain or even time, be an excuse to not lose weight. There is a way to do it; you just have to find it. A sedentary lifestyle will obviously make it a little harder for you to lose weight, but the point is, it can still be done. If you’ve been trying and it isn’t working, it may be your diet, particularly your food choices. By doing a few simple tests using Diet Typing, we can quickly figure out what foods are going to work for you! Remember, if you eat great, chances are you will feel great! Find out today!