I recently got really mad at a friend the other day.
She’d read an article on the internet about sleep apnea, that said many people can be “cured” by losing weight.
First, she’s made a bunch of assumptions. The first one is that my sleep apnea is caused by my weight. Well, that isn’t always true. What is true in my case, is that I broke my jaw in a car accident. What is also true, is that I have snored ever since then, with the typical apnea gasp. What is also true is that I can pinpoint problems that I have had with sleep since the day of the accident.
Second, there is this whole society issue against people who are overweight.
People make all kinds of assumptions when they see an overweight person. They assume that you caused the problem yourself. They assume you don’t exercise. They assume that you cannot control yourself. Shallow Hal explores part of the issues — the physical part. But they only hit the surface.
I’ve struggled with my weight since the day of that accident. Part of the problem was that I went from burning lots of calories a day riding a bike to hardly any. It was hard to get used to not being able to eat any thing I wanted, any time I wanted.
It was also hard to find a substitute for bike riding — I was riding many miles a day — FYI, the accident occured while I was riding a bike, a car hit me and I went through this windshield. Yeah, big ouch.
I also injured a knee badly, so for quite a while, walking was out.
I’ve done a lot of research on sleep, and was also told this by my doctor. Not sleeping causes quite a bit of metobolic changes, the worst of which is a major decrease in metabolism.
I’ve had a lot of strikes against me when it comes to the weight issue. Most of the medical reasons around the weight gain have gone untreated for over 20 years. The good news, is that when they are treated, it is very easy for me to lose weight.
But I went off topic. The title of this, and the reason I got mad at my friend, is because she offered me a light at the end of my tunnel.
Right now, dealing with sleep apnea and diabetes, and the rest of my medical issues take a great deal of energy. It’s easy to deal with them if I take it all one day at a time, and know that what I am doing is NOT going to change.
Changing my diet does no good if I have the belief that I don’t have to eat that way forever. If I know that pizza will always raise my blood sugar, then I don’t need to eat it. However, if I know that someday it won’t, I will crave it.
Knowing that I have to exercise every day, gets me to the gym every day. Knowing that someday I won’t, won’t get me there.
Knowing that I have to take insulin every day to function well, means that I take it. Thinking someday I won’t, doesn’t make it easier. In fact, it makes it harder.
So don’t offer the lights at the end of the tunnel. So often my lights have been the next train, and diabetes DOES offer a great number of trains. (amputation, blindness and other complications are examples of trains). Let me getting out of the tunnel be a pleasant surprise.
Leave a Reply