Sleep apnea and is Ozempic right for me

Hi anyone! 

In 2022 I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea. It had been a problem for years but overtook my health during the pandemic. 

By the time I received a BIPAP machine in September, 2023, I could barely make it through a day. So much weight was regained, causing me to spiral downwards and have worse sleeps. 

I barely wanted to live because it was like sleep deprivation torture by the CIA. 

But things changed. I got a machine and my health immediate took a big step for the better, even though there's a long road to go.

Fortunately I ended up doing a sleep study in the hospital and got the proper machine for free, here in Saskatchewan. Prior to that, an at home study was done, paid for by the healthcare system, but at a private clinic. They didn't do well and didn't diagnose the severity of my apnea. In the mean time, they continue to try and sell me the wrong machine that is inappropriate for me.

It could take me up to a year to fully recover but I've made great strides in almost two months. I no longer fall asleep on the treadmill! I feel sooo much more human again.

With the apnea I had weird cravings and false hunger signals that I had never before experienced. I knew they were false but I gave in. 

I'm trying to drink water to offset it because that works for me. Having said that, most of those false hunger feelings are gone now after nearly two months of treatment.

By the way, I was getting up to urinate as much as every 45 minutes at at night. Sometimes it would be an hour and a half if I was lucky. That's all gone now! 

It was the sleep apnea, according to my doctor. I now get up only once, and that's only out of habit. 

I was so excited to sleep a continuous five hours on the first night, I couldn't go back to sleep because I was so blown away and excited!

A note about Ozempic.

A stress test at the hospital had my cardiologist suggesting and prescribing Ozempic for weight loss. (I did well on the stress test and have no known heart issues other than high bp.) 

I'm not diabetic or prediabetic so I couldn't get coverage for the $260.00/month Ozempic cost. I ended up stopping it after less than three months.

I did loose a bit of weight. 

I did realize I would have to be on it for life for it work and not gain back.

I did learn some things about thoughtful eating. My mind told me to eat and my body said no I'm full. Basically my obese mind ran into a body that was suddenly digesting slowly.

I was lucky to not have side effects. It does mess with your body, but somehow I think it's less scary than gastric bypass surgery.

My exercising is picking up and my eating is something I continue working on.

Thanks for reading!

James at age 57.

Three Years Ago Today My Life Changed

Three years ago today my life began a long, slow change towards a new me. I can confidently say that I have successfully reclaimed James. The struggle now is to hang on to him.

On this Saturday morning, I lay in bed eagerly pondering my physical activity for the day. I feel the adrenaline flowing through my veins as I consider the nice winter weather and the opportunity to go for an hour long cross country ski trek that will get my heart pumping and endorphins flowing. I have no fear, no apprehension, only anticipation of getting better at an activity I recently discovered. But three years ago, it would have been a far different story.

Three years ago I ate until my stomach hurt. That was my signal that I was full. Three years ago I ate fat and sugar laden foods that made me feel irritable, tired and sick. Eating made me sick.

Today my diet is moderated by reason and tempered by a conscious realization of what is going into me and how much I really need. It's a struggle but I've got it under control and am slowly making improvements. I still see junk food and am overtaken by anxiety. That probably shows a food addiction in me that will always be there, like other addictions are in addicts who are in recovery. But I have no desire to make myself sick by eating anymore. Awareness of the nuances of my eating disorder helps me keep it at bay.

Three years ago any activity was a struggle. Walking my daughter to her preschool at the end of the street was like climbing a mountain. I dreaded the ever so slight hill, barely noticeable to most people, in my journey down the street. Today, it's nothing to me. It's not even there. Three years ago, it wiped me out. I'd return home from the preschool soaked in sweat and exhausted. I'd use the whole time to my duaghter was at school to rest up for the block long journey to get her home.

Today I run 5K every other day and look forward to it. Three days a week I strengthen my body at the gym and that allows me to feel good about myself and helps me lose weight by increasing my metabolism. I cycle on roads and mountain biking trails and I cross country ski.

I've not only reclaimed James, I've reclaimed my youth. I feel like I'm eighteen again and anything is possible. Three years ago I felt like I was ninety.

It's Not Your Stomach That's Fat, It's Your Mind: A List of Things I Thought I Couldn't Do But Did

I've pushed well past 100 pounds lost and could probably lose another 75 but it's been ages since I've felt overweight.

I'm a quarter decade into to my reclaiming of me and I achieved yet another goal, one that I barely even dreamed of achieving because it seemed so far-fetched. It's got me to thinking about all the things I thought I couldn't do but did, one by one over the last two and a half years.

Regular readers know that I believe obesity has more to do with one's mind rather than one's body. I'm sure everyone who has a severe weight problem is different but my experience has been one of finding out just how messed up my mind got. The fat person's mind develops an attitude of "I can't."

Why do people seldom take action on their weight? I think it's because they gradually change their thought process on the issue. How is it we never do anything even when we're faced with possible death? Could it be because it's like raising a loaded gun to our heads in super-slow motion over time? One millimetre per day over the course of years until we just start to ignore the gun we're raising to our heads?

Here is the list of "I can't dos" that I've knocked off through the course of my life-changing journey, in chronological order:

1. At 380 pounds, after many failures, I thought I couldn't lose weight again. I'm now in the mid-two-hundreds and feel like I'm 18.
2. I thought I could never go tobogganing with my kids. Wrong.
3. I thought my body wouldn't respond to exercise in middle-age. As long as you're alive, it responds at any age.
4. I thought I could never walk longer than fifteen minutes. I've gone on two hour hikes in the mountains.
5. I thought I could never get on a bicycle again. I've ridden hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. It's always been my favourite activity and I'm doing it again.
6. I thought I could never jog. I started jogging and soon got up to fifteen minutes and stayed there for two years because I thought I couldn't go any longer.
7. I thought mountain biking was for young people because the hills--the hills are deadly, aren't they? I trained for a mountain biking race and completed the course successfully dozens of times.
8. I thought I could never do strength training because it was too hard and not for me. I started this summer and I feel even better about myself than I did with just cardio.
9. I thought my fat body could never cross country ski. I must have skied more than a hundred kilometres last winter and had a fun winter doing it.
10. I thought I couldn't exercise outside in cold weather. I've exercised in the coldest weather and not been cold because I learned how to dress.
11. After thinking I couldn't jog longer than fifteen minutes, I bumped it up to twenty last summer. How crazy is this, I thought. Then I had a bad day and bumped it up to thirty to make myself feel better about a new achievement. Even crazier, I thought, surely the longest I'm capable of doing.

My latest achievement has been running my first 5K, then I did it again two days later. That's 50 minutes at my pace. My knees are fine, everything's fine. I'm dong it outside, not on a treadmill. Even after all the things I thought I couldn't do but proved myself wrong by doing them, I still thought I couldn't do this. Not until I just decided to do it one day. Then, and only then, did I realize it was possible. 

It's hard to change a broken mind. But whatever you think you can't do physically, question that thought and know that you'll never stop thinking you can't do something until you actually just go out and do it. Proving yourself wrong is so liberating! It's the only way the fat mind will believe.

You're worth getting off the couch and moving for. Don't listen to that voice in your head. S/he is dead wrong.

Moving Into A New Era In My Fitness Life

It's been a while since I updated this page so I thought I'd give a brief update.

I've continued to progress with exercise, getting fitter and stronger slowly, just as the weight continues to go down gradually. I'm eating better and better while not feeling hungry or deprived.

I feel better than I have since I was a teenager, all thanks to my fitness from various forms of aerobic exercise. I'm turning 47 at the end of the month. For me to feel like I did when I was eighteen, is a tremendous thing. And it couldn't be further from being bedridden and sickly, as I was a quarter decade ago when I embarked on this journey to change.

I feel like a normal person, in spite of still being a large person. There's nothing I think twice about, nothing everyday I doubt I can do physically. There was a time 2.5 years ago when I questioned my ability to get up and eat supper. I thought my life was behind me, not in front of me as it is now.

I just got back from a half hour jog with my nine year old son. In a few more minutes, I will have forgotten that I jogged today because I won't feel it. Yesterday I went on a 30 kilometre ride with both my kids (5 and 9) and my wife. Life is good, better than I ever imagined it could be from getting off my ass and moving my body.

This summer I realized a career dream. I had the lead role in a low budget indie feature film. It was the role I'd had been waiting my whole life for. This wouldn't have been possible if I had not transformed myself through exercise and better nutrition.

My endurance is remarkable. One night during the filming I didn't sleep a wink (due to caffeine and stress). Being an actor means having to be fresh and focused on your character and your next scene. We shot outside on a hot day without any amenities and I survived remarkably well. The old me wouldn't have lasted an hour. It was a shining example of how far I've come and the opportunities that have opened up for me because I reclaimed my health.

I've begun strength training and although I don't enjoy it that much, I am feeling the benefits of it. This is the next chapter in my story. I'm going to go really hard this winter and see how far I can go.

One Year of Mountain Biking

Almost exactly one year ago I pieced together my first mountain bike and tried it out around the 'hood.

Tonight I walked to the local park  that is the former landfill where I toboggan with the kids in the winter and I had a flashback to those first days of having that bike. I remember trying it "off road" on level grass and I hated it. It was so slow and my arms hurt from holding up my body. It was tedious and a huge effort to do virtually nothing. In the background, stood the big hill which I only recently was able to walk up at the time. To think that I could ride that same bike UP that hill, repeatedly, and not think for a second about arm strain or other fatigue is startling to me. 

And it's a stark reminder of how I wasn't always like I am today, this week. I so easily forget the way things were. I'm thinking maybe putting pictures on the wall as a constant reminder. 

Celebrating 2 Years Back on a Bicycle and Entering a New Phase in Fitness

(I took this picture. This'll be me one day soon.)

Aside from playing unorganized sports with my friends as a kid, I've never really pushed myself physically. A lot of obese people I know just haven't ever gone down that road. During my first weight loss and exercise kick in my late twenties, I monitored my fitness through heart rate with the intention of burning the most fat and losing the most weight. That meant moderate exercise as per the conventional thinking at the time, twenty years ago.

There are overweight people who train for marathons, half-marathons, triathlons and mini-triathlons. You hear about them from time to time. I saw photos from the local mini-tri held last month and I was inspired to see lots of overweight people giving it their all, no doubt training for weeks or months for that day. They look fit and healthy but I sensed they were using the event as a fitness goal to battle their own demons with excessive weight. Even after all I've been through and learned, I'm still taken aback when I realize what the obese person's body is capable of through exercise.

I see it this time of year on ABC's Extreme Weight Loss. Those shows are like AA meetings for me. I see myself in others, not just physically, but more importantly, how they think. I see so much of my old self, especially the dysfunctional thinking and rigidity mixed with fear that people with severe weight problems seem to have. It's a reminder to stay strong and not retreat to my old ways. I know those TV shows can be controversial, but they do have a way of being therapeutic and inspiring when you see what's possible through exercise. Hopefully these shows inspire people to make positive changes to their lifestyle.

Two years ago this week I very nervously went biking with my son. I wasn't sure if I was ready or if I should wait another year to get in better shape and lose some tonnage. The whole expedition was intimidating. I struggled with biking and had to stop to rest every few minutes. I became dizzy from exertion and even crashed when my wheel slipped on some sand. When I realized I wasn't hurt, it was one of the greatest feelings I had had in a long time. Crashing was the best thing that could have happened to me that day. I felt like a kid again and I wanted to feel like that some more.

Now I'm training for a mountain biking race. The date is not firm because they take place every week. But I'm getting close to completing the race course without stopping to let my heart catch up. Very close. My heart is racing to 100% and each week I feel better when that happens. I'm getting clearer-headed at the top of the hills as I prepare to rocket down them. It's a sport I took up less than a year ago and I love the challenge, the skill required and the unpredictability (no one likes monotony in exercise.)

I'm not doing it to lose weight. I'm doing it because I can. I'm doing it to make up for all the things I chose not to do in my life. I'm doing it because I'm thankful for the body I have, a body that is healthy, strong and perfectly capable of just about anything.

And I'm doing it because I've decided I like to have fun.

The Overweight Person's Mental Battle with What's Possible in Fitness (Updated)

From the web, that's not me!

An interesting idea was proposed to me recently that sort of tore apart my notion of me. It was a proposal that me--a technically-obese middle-aged man--actually compete in a charity race of some sort one day. Athletic people, you see, use races as a grand way to set goals for themselves. Goals are good. Dieters have goals, why shouldn't people improving their fitness/health also have goals?

Of course, the idea of me competing in an organized race of ANY sort has NEVER, EVER been imagined by me. Not as a middle-aged man who lost much of his health to obesity, not as a younger man who once temporarily lost all his excess weight and got fit, and not as the active child who was slowed by his excess pounds. To accept this idea of competing is to challenge fundamentally the way I think of myself and what is possible.

Fitness is one part of my battle with obesity. It's also the easiest. Changing dozens of complex eating behaviours that have been ingrained in me is much, much harder and success will happen over a much longer period of time. Being successful at fitness and seeing the results quickly such as the vast improvements in my health is what encourages me to work on the much harder problem of eating behaviour.

I don't think I could successfully work on eating behaviour without being boosted by the success of fitness improvements. Now, more than ever, I'm determined to do all that I can with my body. I lost so much physical ability this time that I am hell-bent on doing everything I can to be the absolute most I can be.

Less than two years ago climbing on a bike was an incredibly daunting task for me. I was shaky, weak, and completely filled with doubt. I'll never forget that feeling because I had loved cycling so much in the past. But it was that love that got me to dreaming about getting back on once again. And now, in my mid-forties, I'm dreaming about competing in a mountain bike race one day, perhaps next year.

My weight, unfortunately, holds me back. My lack of progress on the eating front causes me to be held back on the fitness front. My cardiovascular system has improved remarkably, more than I ever imagined it could. Now I know it can improve even further. But biking up a big hill with upwards of a hundred pounds of extra fat on your body is no easy task. I have to get rid of some of that if I'm to compete in a race and not finish after everyone else has packed up their bikes and driven home.

The prospect is intimidating. I attend mountain biking classes that my son is taking and the people running it all look like Lance Armstrong. They're no couch-potato athletes. They are very fit people. Not all young, but very fit. Thin, lean, and strong.

Plus I'm new to mountain biking and it's more than fitness, there's a lot of skills to acquire. But I'm finding that I love the sport that I once poo-pooed. It's so much more unpredictable and fun that road biking.

The most fun I've had? It's going down the big hill at the local mountain biking course. Each day I try it I let myself go faster than the last. I get more nerve based on the trust I build up in myself and my bike. When I'm at the bottom, it's an incredible feeling of adrenaline and accomplishment. The first time I screamed out loud like I had just ridden the world's meanest bull for ten seconds and gracefully hopped off to the accolades of the crowd. (This is my first and last rodeo metaphor of my lifetime.)

For the diehards who mountain bike that sort of thing is not even something that would give them a thrill, I'm sure. But for me, breaking out of the confines of my own view of what's possible, it's exhilarating. That exhilaration is driving me to further reclaim James and everything that James can and should be.

Update

I completed the course with my son last night in approximately 28 minutes. I'll need to do it about 7 minutes faster to compete competently in a local race, but that's not bad. I could get there by the end of the summer if I work on it. My heart maxed out at 99% of the average maximum heart rate for my age. The problem with novice mountain biking is, with your heart pounding so fast at the top of the hill, you then have to go down the hill and have your wits about you as you go fast over rough and loose terrain. It was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment to complete the course given two years ago getting on a bicycle was as daunting as climbing Mount Everest naked. I'm going to work on getting some pounds off my body and increasing my fitness even further by doing the 4 km course a couple times per week. Each week it should be a little easier.

Love of Cycling During Childhood Never Leaves

As I rode past an elementary school and saw all the bikes parked there, a flood of childhood memories came flowing back to me. I realized more reasons why cycling is ingrained in me.

I lived quite a distance away from my elementary school, just ten feet from the line where they let kids stay for lunch over noon hour. The winter walks were sometimes brutal. When spring came and the day that I realized, "Hey, I can be taking my bike now," I was ecstatic. My little kid world changed on a dime on that annual day.

Suddenly I gained a whole bunch of power and freedom. No more was I panicked to get to school on time. I even had an extra twenty minutes to lounge around at lunch time. It was a terrific feeling of kid independence.

My nine-year-old son returned home from one of his first solo bike rides of the spring and he was filled with joy and wonder. "That was the most beautiful bike ride I've ever had," he exclaimed. He really took in the world, all the sights and smells when he was alone and free on his bike. The world was his to consume. Everything was beautiful to him on that ride, even water that was flooding a field on the edge of town.

He made me realize that I felt those same emotions when I was his age. It's the first real way a kid can be independent from their parents and observe the world on their terms.

Cycling is more than fitness. More than transportation.