What happens to your health when you lose 54 pounds?

Today I weighed in with a total loss of 53.7. Of course I’m thrilled to be wearing smaller clothes and looking hot… but more than the outward appearance, I’m thrilled with the dramatic changes in my health. Here are a few things that I’m rejoicing about:

• I’m sleeping! Since the week after surgery I’ve been able to sleep through the night without getting up 5 or 6 times to potty, or just wake up for no reason. And it’s deep restful sleep too. This is the most amazing feeling in the world – to have enough sleep to function like a normal person. I never realized how bad my sleep habits were until I experienced normalcy.
• Asthma disappears! I’m no longer taking Singulair or Advair and I only occasionally need my fast acting inhaler (once every ten days or so, maybe). I’m breaking better and feeling like I have a lot more power in my lungs.
• Allergies diminish! I don’t know why, but my environment/indoor allergies seem to be disappearing. I don’t know if it has to do with my weight loss or that my asthma is no longer a big issue – but I’m now off my daily allergy medication and only take a Benadryl every once in a while when I have a flair up.
• High Blood Pressure goes away! Officially yesterday I’m being weaned off the high blood pressure meds. Yippee! After taking my own blood pressure readings with a home-style cuff for the past week I noticed a disturbing trend that my readings were super low (like 95/60 or 100/65). So within another couple weeks I’ll be rid of those meds too!
• Energy abounds! I can walk up a flight of stairs without hyperventilating. (Ok, it’s not like I literally hyperventilated before, but I certainly was out of breath.) I did this yesterday when I was at the doctor’s office and didn’t have to stop and catch my breath at the top of the stairs.
• Knee and Back pain leave town! I used to avoid the stairs because my knees would be killing me with the added strain. Not anymore. Also I used to put my back out every couple months and have chronic lower back pain between those episodes. No pain in my back for the past couple months. WooHoo!

But there's one thing losing weight does NOT help you with when it comes to be healthy. It doesn’t do a bit of good when you slice your finger open with your brand new knives. Duh! I bled like a crazy woman and it hurt like mad. But I didn’t want to waste my Saturday at the ER, so I just put a band-aid on it and went about my day. It continued to bleed off and on the rest of Saturday, but it’s looking much better today. Hopefully it’ll heal cleanly and quickly. So here's a warning ... if you lose 54 pounds and you start to feel like Super Woman, that doesn't help you one single bit when it comes to razor sharp kitchen knives. I’m plowing through the 240’s pretty quickly. Can’t wait until I hit the 230’s. ~Pam