Well, I made it thru last weekend’s pseudo-hell unscathed (that Diet Coke was calling my name I tell you). Anyways, here’s another progress update: I am shocked at how mobile I am today!
A little back story may be helpful. I’ve had real mobility issues for a few years now. It started in 2006 when I yo-yo’d about 100 lbs after a major stress with the day job. A year or so later, I tore the meniscus in my left knee. A cortisone shot helped a little, but I (foolishly) did not do therapy and just became more and more sedentary.
Flash forward to early 2011 and I was doing well on my diet, but I was surprised that the mobility wasn’t returning with the weight loss. I’d gotten to the point where I was barely walking 500 steps a day, and after doing more than 75 or 100 steps I needed to sit down because of pain.
Since weight loss hadn’t helped this go-round I decided the problem was that I’d lost a lot of muscle mass in those years of sitting. So I started doing BBS. While I liked BBS as a protocol, it didn’t help much with my mobility. I was seeing progress on each machine, but I still couldn’t walk more than 100 or so steps at a time (and was still using a cane). So a couple of months later, I started doing water walking/aqua jogging in the pool 3-4x a week.
I made enough progress that I decided I could go to AHS11. Well, I’m glad I went, but my back was not up to all that travel and walking and sitting on hard conference chairs. I came back in excruciating pain to the point where I couldn’t sleep.
After a couple of spinal injections helped a little, I visited a well-known ortho here in the DC area who took an x-ray and MRI and then recommended fusing nearly my entire lower lumbar spine. Yikes! Fortunately, I went to see Doogie Howser (my name for him) the neurosurgeon who told me that that recommendation was bordering on criminal. He advised more weight loss and therapy and maybe microsurgery in the spring if that didn’t work. A post here on the blog led reader Kirk to recommend Egoscue, which I’ve been doing since October.
I’ve been making slow and steady progress on both the weight and back front since then. I stopped all NSAID use in January, and I stopped using the rollator I’d been using since September last month.
Well … I don’t know if it’s the Egoscue (Kirk and other fans: I just started doing tower work in mid-February), or the simple paleo diet, or the skate liver oil I recently started taking, or all of the above. But I’ve been walking around work today like a normal person! No pain, no asymmetry, and pretty decent posture.
I’m not quite jumping for joy, but I’m a happy camper!
Photo credit: Uta Noodles
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health & food policy. And cats!
As someone who has also had mobility issues I understand your jubilation. Hurrah! I am happy for you.
Cngratulations! it’s wonderful news. I’m going to recommend Egoscue to a couple of friends. Please report on your progress.
Congrats! My best friend has a serious Diet Coke issue. For many years of our friendship she didn’t drink ANY water- just DC. She went Paleo for a stretch last year, with great results. Unfortunately the stress of work and travel saw her fall off the wagon. For her, kicking DC is the hardest part, and she does wonder how much just kicking that habit led to improved body comp for her. She’s back to severely limiting her DC again, without being strictly paleo- it will be interesting to see what body comp (and mobility- she has knee issues) changes she experiences from just making that change.
I don’t like hot beverages, so I don’t typically drink coffee or hot tea. So I’m like your friend, except for my diet cola habit has been decades long. When I was in college they didn’t have cups larger than 10oz, so I’d fill one with ice and 3 with Tab (yes, I’m dating myself) for *every* meal, including breakfast. My average day was about a half-gallon of Diet Coke as my only beverage. Yeah, sad, I know!