New Year 2014

It's the beginning of a new year. I hit my weight goal of 300 pounds. It felt great when the scale hit it. I feel like I really accomplished something special. 130 pounds in one year. I feel much better, but I'm not done. I set a new goal for 2014. I want to lose another 100 pounds. I want to be 275 by my birthday on March 19th. I just have to do what I do and maintain portion control. It should be easier now that the Christmas cookies, fudge, and family dinners are done. Now that it is the 2nd of January the weight celebration is kind of over. I did what I promised myself i would do and now I'm starting from 0. Well, really 300, but my weight loss for the year is zero. 100 more pounds to go by 2015! Yeah! :-)

I wrote a new weight summary for my website, www.lose250.com. I figured I'd share it here as well. Have a Happy New Year. May it be full of fun and love.

Obesity is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. Globally, there are at least 300 million obese adults. Obesity, morbid obesity, and super morbid obesity has been linked to diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and stroke, premature arthritis and certain forms of cancer. I started to have trouble with yo-yo dieting when I was in my early 20's. There is a couple of misconceptions I'd like to address. First, most overweight people don't like being fat and they don't pig out all the time. Sure, some people eat unhealthy and drink a bunch of sugary drinks all day or drink too much beer, but some simply eat 5 to 10% more than everyone else. It adds up and then people start giving up. They get hooked onto a diet pill or the latest fad just to fall back six to nine months later. Then the body through natural instinct kicks into famine mode. It begins to retain every calorie it can, thus, people gain back the weight plus the body throws in some insurance against weight loss by adding 10 to 20% of the original weight. Over the years it becomes out of control. That's basically my story; however, I had a little help like the suicide of my father in 1993 and bipolar medications known to cause weight gain after my first major bipolar episode in 2001. My psychologist told me she would rather have fat patients than dead ones.  Yea, I gave up. By the time I went into the hospital in November 2007 for Mono, H-pylori, chronic lymphonic leukemia, diabetes, and something else I weighed 456 pounds. I hated myself. I lost water weight in the hospital and then refused to eat the hospital food. They wouldn't allow sugar or salt or taste into my food. When I got out in December, I was still sick and under treatment and I didn't eat. In January 2008, I had lost too much weight too quickly and my bipolar medications worked against me and I was toxified into a full psychotic/bipolar episode. My poor wife and family did't know if I was going to come back. That was a perfectly horrible waste of a month. All I remember is a two week nightmare. I can't remember the first two weeks out of four as an inpatient at all. I spent another month as an outpatient. They changed my bipolar medications to medications that weren't so drastically effected by weight change and I haven't been on a mental ward since. Knock on wood.
Eventually, I worked my way down to 350 and was terribly frustrated that I started gaining weight again. I tried vegan. I tried riding my bike 50 miles per week and my body adjusted and I gained the weight back plus 20% extra. Then I gave up again. Once again, I hated myself for my lack of control, but normal weight people can't understand the emotional pain of food addiction. Again, I wasn't pigging out. I was eating maybe 10% more dinner than others, but my metabolism is completely screwed up and I gain weight just smelling good comfort food.
While I was losing weight in 2013, I actually had a guy pass me quickly on the way out of the grocery store and he said to me, "Shit, lose some weight man." I couldn't reply because he was gone by the time I turned around. I feel nothing by sympathy and empathy for overweight people. They didn't grow up and say, "hey, I want to be fat." Food is an addiction. I think the most powerful addiction. I figure that more people are overweight than addicted to meth or even cigarettes. 
I decided to get the lap-band surgery in August 11, 2011. They "installed" a saline adjustable plastic band above the stomach and it created a pouch. My father-in-law died in late September 2011 and I kind of messed up the purpose of the band and expanded my pouch. Then I got better and fell to 330 pounds by the end of November or mid-December 2011. I had a horrible time with a bipolar episode and started to gain weight again. I had completely stretched out my pouch and I could over-eat once again and 2012 was the big climb to stupidity. My stepfather, Dennis, went into the hospital with what ended up being brain cancer in December 2012. I ate like crap and probably boosted my weight by 20 pounds while sitting with him in the hospital. I also ignored two nasty open sores on my chins.
On January 2 or 3rd 2013, I wasn't very coherent so I can't exactly remember the date, but Dennis died. It was a fast death, but it was just as well. He told me everyday that he just wanted to die. By that point he was in great pain. The day after Dennis died I went to my doctor and he sent me to the hospital for a severe case of cellutisis (the infections on my leg). The sores were nasty, they immediately put me on IV antibiotics and other stuff and I missed Dennis' funeral. I stayed in the hospital for about two and a half weeks until they decided that I was stable enough to go to a nursing home to fully recover. I don't really remember being in the hospital. My wife said I was pretty out of  it. When they put me into the nursing home to monitor my infection, they had to teach me how to walk and make a simple dinners again (physical and occupational therapy). I hated the food in both and would only eat fresh fruit. I was in the nursing home for about 10 days. At one point I saw my chart in the nursing home and it said 429 pounds. I was sickened. Who knows how much I weighed when I entered the hospital?
I lost a bunch of weight and by the first or second week in February. I weighed just under 400. I decided I would lose 130 pounds in 2013 and fall to 300 pounds or less. I used the weight lost in the hospitals as a kick off point. I vowed to lose 10 to 15 pounds per month regardless of my bipolar problems and I did have many bipolar problems in 2013. I was stubborn and steady. Today is December 22, 2013. I weigh 299 pounds and I'm not about to stop. I have lost weight through exercise and portion control. I eat about 1/2 to 1 cup of food three times a day. I eat the bad stuff once in a while, but not often. It keeps my cravings away. My body's natural defenses are on the ropes. It can't keep up with the small portions and I don't lose weight so fast to throw nature into a panic. One year from now I predict that I will weigh in at 199 or less.
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about my bipolar disorder (manic depressive illness). I am fairly stable now, but, as my family and doctors can attest, I have had a lot of problems with severe mood swings weekly or even daily regardless of the large cocktail of medications I take. Being in the hospital didn't help. I was in a tail spin in the winter of 2013. I'm lucky my doctor was able to keep me out of the mental ward to adjust medications again. In 2014, I have to change psychiatrists and therapists. My anxiety is very high. Every bipolar has a different cocktail of meds that may or may not work for them, but I think I may be reaching the point where I'm taking to many meds. If I'm ever late taking a dose by an hour or two I can feel it. I've been thinking about shock therapy. I've heard it helps. If anything, it might help reduce the amount of meds I take. I have a lot of research to do before someone plugs my head into a socket. Actually, I've heard it's much better than before and painless. We'll see...
More than 10 million Americans have bipolar disorder to different degrees. Because of its irregular patterns, bipolar disorder is often difficult to diagnose and is often untreated. While the disorder has strong ties to genetics, predicting when the first symptoms will occur is very hard, if not impossible, to predict.. It can take over at pretty much any time in life. More than half of all cases begin between the ages 15 to 25. It has no discrimination between men or women or race. 
As I've stated, my first major episode happened in 2001 when I was 36. The worst psychotic/bipolar episode I've ever had occurred in January 2008. It rewired my brain. My intellect is still intact and I have a lust for learning everything from gastronomy to bio-astro-physics. I do have a problem with regular 9 to 5 jobs. Actually, my lack of tolerance and anxiety around a work setting or even working from home has permanently disabled me. I can write articles (of my choosing), write books, blogs, websites and, surprisingly poetry, but I can't do it for other people. The pressure and judgement is more than I can bare. Even the thought that someone might stumble onto this site and make judgments about me freaks me out, but I need to write. I figure that if I can help bipolars and/or bipolar families, then all of the openness is worth it. If you need me I'm always at csharits@comcast.net
Thanks for visiting,
Christopher Sharits