My plan for natural healing of a tiny little brain tumor goes way beyond supplements and battling xenoestrogens. It’s about overall physical well-being, and that means losing the extra few pounds and stopping the loss of muscle mass as you age. This is me on my 51st birthday a few months ago. See that little tummy roll around my middle? THAT’s what I’m talking about!
When I found out that adipose tissue (fat) holds the toxins, I thought, What good does it do to heal my liver and filter my water if I have 39% body fat that’s hanging onto that nasty crud?
I’m not overweight but I’m definitely flabby and just not in great shape. Watching Marie Osmond on Dancing with the Stars just made me realize I could really lose it and I’d better do it before I get any older and trade out any more muscles for flab.
Four months ago, I started slowly working out on some old fitness equipment I had at home. Then in January, I discovered mall-walking and the 10,000 Steps a Day program and did that for two months. And then at the first of March, I joined 24-Hour Fitness. I’d looked around and knew that they were the ones used by the Biggest Loser contestants so I felt pretty good about them. It wasn’t that expensive and it’s just been a great, great experience!
I have to say, Wow. My goal was only to lose about 10-12 pounds and I have lost six pounds in the two weeks since I joined 24-Hour Fitness! I lost TWO INCHES off my waist! I’ve been at the same weight for the last two years and despite already having a decent diet and participating in two office weight contests, I just couldn’t lose that last ten pounds…
My membership came with a free hour with a personal trainer and I was so impressed, I bought one of the training packages. This trainer is amazing. He’s actually fresh out of a chiropractor program. He’d worked as a trainer through school so he is mature and thoughtful and is really aware of physical limitations and age and diet and everything.
He just paces everything very carefully and gradually builds up the exercises and resistance as I improve. I told him he was better than any physical therapist I’d ever had 
Really, he’s wayyy better!
He taught me the trick of getting to your target heart rate with your warm ups and then keeping your heart rate up throughout your muscle-building and circuit training, so you’re getting a cardio workout and fat blaster at the same time. That is a HUGE technique! He said the reason I wasn’t really seeing much progress with my mall-walking is that I was keeping it too comfortable, not really getting my heart rate up there.
So if I feel myself slowing down, I do some lunges or step-ups or he has me run around the gym a couple of times to keep my heart in the weight loss range.
I either do the exercises at home or go to the club every day. You get some sort of rewards for going to the club, like discounts and free trainer visits, so I go to the club most often. He shows me exercises where you really don’t need any special equipment — Shoot, tonight I was doing step-ups on a step stool I have at the house, trying to do them all the way through the looongg commercial breaks on TV, and I was stretching and doing ab exercises on a $10-dollar exercise ball. While my heart rate was up in that zone, I changed cat boxes and tidied up the house a bit — hey, I’m no fool! Gotta cash in on that trick he taught me about fat-burning.
The point is, it just does no good to filter my water and wash my laundry in vinegar and take all the supplements that dissolve fibroids if I’m flabby and can’t do one flight of stairs without needing 30 minutes to catch my breath.
I can’t say that eliminating fat and flab will do anything at all to shrink a fibroid or a brain tumor… but it will sure strengthen my body so that I can just plain enjoy every minute of my life.
P.S. I just wanted to add that I take MonaVie as part of my fitness plan because it’s so good for energy and my migraines. I am taking MonaVie Active, that’s the one with glucosamine.
As of April 28, 2008, I have progressed to the point of not only losing the last ten pounds but of training for a marathon as part of a fundraiser effort for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. To follow my progress or to learn how to go from being a non-athlete to a fit, trim, and healthy runner, see my blog at http://SheCanRun.wordpress.com.
Filed under: Physical fitness and exercise, Physical fitness and weight loss | Tagged: arthritis, brain tumor, diet, exercise, fitness, health, meningioma, natural healing, Weight loss, wellness
As someone who works at 24 Hour Fitness, I cannot be happier to hear about the results you’re achieving. Great job! I’m glad to hear that your membership and commitment to fitness is paying off, and that you’re having a great experience with your trainer so far.
Keep up the good work. All of us at 24 Hour Fitness are rooting for you!
Wow, you sure have an inspiring story! The results you are achieving are awesome, and I have a feeling it has a lot to do with your attitude about it all. They say that what you think about, you bring about, and you are saying, “bring it on!”
Congratulations, first and foremost, for battling brain tumour in its infancy. And on the weight loss, which affects a fair number of the population.
I’d like to ask if you changed your eating habits in any way during your training period?
Vedapon,
Thanks for the encouragement! It means so much to me.
Wow, did I change my diet? Let me think…
First, I’m a vegetarian and am organic, so I already eat pretty healthy and low calorie. I truly just wanted to lose 10 lbs, I’m well within my weight range for my age and height.
But I am a sugar fiend so I did cut back on all the “cheating” — I allowed myself one cheat day per week, usually the day of the weigh-in, and it was a fairly modest “cheat” — angel food cake or a few cookies. I tried to get in five miles per day of mall-walking to make up for it.
As a team, we headed towards Subway for their Fit sandwiches a lot more often than we ever have, at least three times per week. So I’d say I ate a lot less pasta and potatoes and Mexican food (our former standard office lunch fare) and a lot more whole grain breads and vegatables.
I drank MonaVie during that month — had not taken it for a few months. Don’t know if that made a difference but they say it helps with stabilizing your blood sugar and controlling hunger.
Two more things… I tried to do more 100-calorie snacks between meals. Biggest Loser said to feel free to drink all the skim milk you want. A sixteen-ounce glass is 18 grams of protein, plus the calcium and Vitamin D, so I did that a WHOLE lot more.
AND, one last thing, was I switched from my former breakfast shakes to the Apex meal replacement shakes (sold at 24 Hour Fitness, where I’ve been training). Plus, my trainer said to be sure to have a protein drink immediately after my workout to rebuild the muscles. So I started drinking “muscle milk” after my workouts. I honestly think that little trick made a huge difference.
It wasn’t all diet. My trainer, whose undergrad was in nutrition and whose postgrad is chiropractic, told me I needed to do cardio on my off days to burn the fat, strength training alone wouldn’t do it no matter how out of breath I got during a workout! So for the first two weeks (my biggest weight loss), I worked out six days per week. I’ve gotten a little lazy since then and just do the three days of training and a couple of days of mall-walking.
I haven’t hit my bodyfat goal so we still have some work to do and I’m still doing all the stuff above.
Hope this is helpful to you, thanks for taking an interest.
Teresa
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