CPAP'ers - Too Lazy to Lose Weight

[neversleeps]

I started a thread on this same topic back in June.

Weight and OSA

There's no denying being overweight is intrinsically linked to OSA.

Obesity is also the greatest risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). While approximately 2% to 4% of the population is estimated to have OSA, the prevalence increases to 20% to 40% in the obese population.

(An excerpt from this article: RT Obesity and Obstructive Sleep Apnea June 2005)

The burning question for me is: Why is the struggle to adapt to CPAP, with all it's ups and downs, mask problems, humidification issues, pressure adjustments, etc., easier than losing weight?

[ozij]

And of course promoting CPAP machines is more popular and the money maker to those who sell anything related to sleep apnea.

Do you have any ideas how many millions of dollars are invested in the useless diet industry?

Do you know of any peer reviewed research showing the long term results of dieting?

Would you care to tell us how many times in your life you've already lost weight only to gain it back again, and then some?

Has your doctor given you a proven treatment for weight loss, or just implied that you should be virtuous and refrain from eating?

Have you ever thought of the similarity between the present day "virtue" of not eating, and the older "virtue" of refraining from sexual activity? If you think calling people "lazy" is going to help them lose weight and keep it off, I suggest you keep the term for yourself.

I don't care of you're fat yourself - fat people are maligned like absolutely no other part of society - and that makes me furious!.

Maybe you really are lazy, intellectually lazy, (do you think it's OK to call fat people lazy because they're fat, but not becuase on any other behavior?) since you're making pronouncements about the people in this forum, without even taking the trouble to do a search of the posts.

Try this thread:How fat are you? but take care, it is 12 pages long.

If you want to share your problems with your weight, speak for yourself. If you want to speak badly about a fat person you know, speak about yourself. Don't presume you hava a right to do so about others just because they're fat.
Being fat can be a big health problem. Neversleeps points out how very difficult it is to lose weight. Looking for a way of living correctly, giving proper respect to one's self, body and needs as Terry is attempting is the first step in handling health problems.

Maligning people because they're fat has brought nobody nowhere - ever. As a matter of fact, models now look thinner than ever, and yet the majority of western society is overweight. Laziness? Look at the portions served in restaurants - made bigger so that charges could be bigger. Look at all the people forced to work 12 or more hours a day without a chance to move.. Look a TV addiction - there are many social - econonmically based causes for the problems people in Western society have in maintaining their weight.

Fat and Furious!!!!

O.

[Sleepless on LI]

I will reply happily.

I used to have about 25 lbs. to lose when diagnosed. Due to change in eating habits, exercise now and water drinking, I have lost 14 lbs. in the past 7 weeks. Have 11 more to go.

My AHI has dropped to below 1.0 99% of the time and last night was the first night with absolutely NO APNEA EVENTS, although I had 4 hypopneas, and zero snore index.

Do I think it's helped? Y E S ! ! ! ! Feels much better to shed thse lbs., too. A definite recommendation to all...

[suntan]

My story:- Fatigued for years. Family doctor says "Everythings fine!" Still fatigued, Naturopath says hypothyroidism. On medication for 9 years. Still fatigued. Stopped medication of my own accord and visited endocrinologist. Tested for hypothyroidism, Doc says "Everythings fine!" Still fatigued. Sends me for sleep study. I ask sleep Doc "What is sleep apnea exactly?" His reply, " I can't tell you until after the study as I don't know which kind you might have!" Being therefore in the dark regarding what the study might reveal, I apprehensively visited to hear the results. Sleep Doc as he walks into the room "You stopped breathing 23 times during REM, read this form and take it to my receptionist, and she'll set up an appointment to be fitted for a mask!" MASK? What Mask? My brain is whirling, I STOPPED BREATHING???? What the heck is going on? As he is ushering me out of the door ( I was an automaton at this point), he adds "Make sure you order a top grade mask, lose some weight, and apnea can cause heart failure or a stroke!" Needless to say I was in a state of shock. Upon arriving home, I immediately searched the Internet for info. and happened upon this site. Folks! I can tell you I was never more happy to find something. Since then I have made more discoveries, and it appears that I personally will benefit more from losing weight at this point. This comes from 5 different sources including the therapist who was to fit me for a mask, and a site posted by "lostone" in July. Another factor; I am retired and on a fixed income. Even with a small government subsidy, the cost for cpap is up to $1200 in Ontario. so I would rather spend my limited income on losing the weight as it will improve my health in so many other ways, and I feel reassured that it will improve if not eliminate my mild form of sleep apnea. Wish me luck! Thanks, suntan!

[Guest]

Suntan,
I live in NY. If you want, I can buy the CPAP machine/mask for you if we work out something like a Paypal transfer and send it to you. That's ridiculous to pay that kind of money. Let me know if you want to do something like that.
The reason I say Paypal is, they guarantee your purchase. So since you don't know me from Adam (or I should say Eve), you are safe in your transaction.
Wouldn't a site like this, though, cpap.com, send it to Ontario??? Their prices are very fair.

[Guest]

In my humble opinion, you should change the topic from "CPAP'ers - Too Lazy to Lose Weight" to "CPAP'ers - Too Tired to Lose Weight"

It's hard to find the energy to exercise when you aren't getting quality sleep. I believe that it starts a vicious circle. I'm too tired to exercise, so I gain weight. This makes the OSA worse and I'm even more tired, so my activity level decreases even more, which makes me gain weight.......

You get the picture. Treating the OSA is the first step to being healthier--but it's only one step in the big picture. Exercise, diet changes, meditation (if you're into that)--they'll all help you feel better and be healthier.

Maybe we should start an OSA diet club?

[neversleeps]

....he adds "Make sure you order a top grade mask, lose some weight, and apnea can cause heart failure or a stroke!" Needless to say I was in a state of shock. ....Another factor; I am retired and on a fixed income. Even with a small government subsidy, the cost for cpap is up to $1200 in Ontario. so I would rather spend my limited income on losing the weight as it will improve my health in so many other ways, and I feel reassured that it will improve if not eliminate my mild form of sleep apnea.

What a sad, sad state of affairs that any of us is forced to choose whether or not to pursue the benefits of CPAP because of the exorbitant cost of health insurance.

suntan, with your positive attitude, you WILL lose the weight! (I just wish you could use CPAP while you're doing it.) GOOD LUCK!

[Janelle]

Fact: OSA makes you gain weight because your Cortisol levels get out of wack
Fact: Return of normal cortisol levels helps you lose weight even without exercise
Fact: When you are tired your body craves carbs, but the carbs last a very short time and then you are even more tired, so eat more carbs
Fact: Once your cortisol levels are good you will no longer crave carbs because you aren't tired, because you are getting good sleep, and you are affecting your cortisol levels by getting good sleep, and you have more energy. More energy to do things, more energy to clean up your house, mow the lawn, plant flowers, and generally care more about not only yourself but you surroundings.

That is the truth of obesity and CPAP

[lola]

Well said, ozij and Janelle!!

I'm quite fat, and it is very insulting to have someone tell me I am this large because I am lazy. I'll tell you how I got this large - DIETS and the endless drive to lose weight. They mess up your natural eating pattern, they mess up your relationship with food and your body, and the health problems associated with yo-yo dieting are as worrisome as anything you might develop from being fat. I was put on diets from the age of TEN, even though I was not actually fat, not even chubby, because I had well-meaning relatives that were quite fat-phobic. It has taken nearly 10 years to overcome the disordered eating and body image I developed.

I suspect many people probably look at me and think "Oh my god, why doesn't she go to the gym and stop eating cheeseburgers?" - when I likely do more exercise and eat healthier than they do!! My personal trainer at the gym is quite impressed with my physical strength and abilities, and my doctor is happy with my overall health (except for the obvious sleep apnea!), and they're the ones whose opinons count. I've been examined by an ENT specialist and have had it confirmed that my ENT bits are rather small and squashed up, hence my ear problems, apnea, very sensitive gag reflex, and inability to sing properly, etc. He and my GP have agreed that I'd have sleep apnea problems whether I weighed 100lbs or 400lbs.

So my focus is NOT on LOSING WEIGHT, it is on being HEALTHY. Even if you do not lose weight from it, just eating well and exercising (especially exercising) will give you enormous health benefits. I'm hoping that after I've been using CPAP for a while I'll finally have enough energy to up my training at the gym and start learning a martial art! At the moment even though I enjoy gym, I have to drag myself there most of the time.

Perhaps CPAP therapy will reduce my cortisol levels and I'll start losing fat, but if it doesn't, I'm not going to beat myself up over it and engage in unhealthy practices in order to be thinner. I acknowledge that for many people, yes, just being fat can cause them health problems, however for many other people it is not automatically unhealthy and cause for alarm over various risks. It is dieting, obesity hysteria, and fat phobia that is unhealthy for everyone.

(Anyone who wants further information on being healthy at any size, positive body image, etc -
http://www.bodypositive.com is a good site to start from.)

[HisServ]

I am hesitant to reply as I know this is such a heated topic. I personally am only about 35 lbs overweight, but the way I feel I might as well weigh 400 lbs. I am absolutely disgusted at society and the way skinny people are exalted. It makes me very upset. There are so many body image problems because of it. If we all like Lola could learn to be happy and healthy no matter what our size, we would be so much better off. The struggle for me is how to get there. Like others have said who has the energy to come home and spend an hour or even 30 minutes every night exercising? Most of the time, I don't even want to cook supper much less exercise. I just don't have the energy. I also believe that some people are genetically predisposed to being overweight. There are skinny people out there that eat ONLY junk food and yet because of their metabolism are still skinny THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM ANY HEALTHIER THAN A FAT PERSON. There are also as Lola has so aptly illustrated, fatter people out there who are very healthy. Can't we all just get along?

[ozij]

Thanks for the site, lola!
O.

[Guest]

Ok, I was the one who started this post and I am going to use a quote from the smartest thing I remember that George W once said when he was criticized for something he did or said -

"People have a right to their opinion, they can say whatever they want, that is their right in America."

And that is what I have to say to those who have misunderstood a sentence or word from my first post.

I do hope that at least one person who has read this subject got inspired to lose some weight in an attempt to improve their health and maybe their OSA.

See ya

[Flower51 Terry]

Lest I give someone a false impression.....even though I've been doing well w/eating healthy foods, I am no saint when it comes to excercise....my pattern has been fits and starts....and sometimes have been consistent for a few months in a row....

but outside of housework, digging in my garden which DOES work up a sweat and chasing the dogs around I haven't been so disciplined. I do enjoy a walk in the metroparks and the occassional bounce on a minirebounder that I picked up at the thrift store but Its just occasional. I love to swim but there's nothing in my area that is affordable that is a decent pool. The city pool is an outside pool (limited use in Ohio w/our cold weather months) and full of little ones and teens being rowdy and doing cannonballs from the side into the center....not safe and not conducive to serious laps. My hand weights get a little use and I stretch some but the videos are collecting dust and the treadmill I thought would change my life is more of a laundry holder than anything else.

YES I want to change this. I need to concentrate on the benefits and just start slowly and do it I know. I did work as a fitness associate at Curves for several months and worked out with the members as I encouraged them (yes they hired me at my weight becaused the members could relate to me...I wasn't some perfectly proportioned thin young woman who didn't understand). During that time I had good energy, enjoyed the socializing in the club, had more stamina climbing stairs and doing "normal life stuff" and lost some inches but didn't lose much weight at all....The energy and stamina were really a great benefit and that was BEFORE cpap....think how much good it would do now!!!! When that job was through, so was the exercise.

I am a natural couch potato. I love to read, dream, write, sketch, observe, watch the clouds go by....and then theres the internet...I should have VERY thin fingers!!! Its a BIG stretch for me to do something like get up at 6am to walk every day...although there have been short spurts of doing that. I too grimace at the title "fat and lazy".... I've been taking a step at a time here....using the autopap, eating healthfully, aiming for a sweet sense of balance. I believe the rest will come as I just plain make determine to make time to do it. I want to do something that I can continue as a part of my life and not just a quick burst out the chute and a quick burn out like I've done so many times in the past. Ok I'm giving myself a peptalk here....hope I'm not boring you! My aim is to have energy for the important things and people in my life.....and continued improvement of health....It will come! Terry

[lola]

The thing is, Guest, that losing weight is not an automatic ticket to health and happiness, and it is nowhere near as easy as the diet industry would like us to believe. People concentrate far too hard on that number on the scale. The overall state of mental health as well as physical would be greatly improved if people could forget about that number and instead eat healthy food because it tastes good and is nutritious, not because it makes them virtuous, and if they could exercise for the sheer fun of moving instead of an endless session on the treadmill because they feel bad for eating something "forbidden".

Perhaps some people do become fat and stay that way because they are lazy, but for the great majority it is much more complicated, and trying to motivate us fatties to lose weight by suggesting we're lazy doesn't really help with our health goals given that it is an extremely loaded term (no matter how humourously it was intended). Even the already slim face continual pressure to be slimmer than they are - do you really think that name-calling and humiliation ever motivated anyone to lose weight in a healthy manner and keep it off?

I've seen far more larger people inspired to improve their health by supportive health professionals who took the focus away from weight; learning to avoid associating "fat" with "bad" or "sinful"; starting exercise programs designed for those with larger bodies; seeing other large people actually enjoying life instead of putting things off until they're skinny; the list goes on. I love my gym - they've banned the scales even though they do run a weight loss program, and people of all sizes and ages are made to feel welcome.

You feel that your use of the word "lazy" was misinterpreted - but there's not really any other way to interpret it given the long held association of fat = lazy, slovenly, stupid, bad. If you were really concerned about the health of people who don't exercise much and aren't up on the healthy food, maybe you could have started a thread with ideas to help people start on the road to health, such as encouraging a 10-15 minute walk at lunchtime (it can be a big step if you've been sedentary for a while, fat or thin) and how to get more tasty vegies into your meals. Works better than the boot camp sergeant approach, really.

[kacy65]

I am severely Morbidly Obese, have been for a good portion of my life. I am in the process of having a form of gastric bypass surgery and through that process was diagnoses with sleep apnea. Well being the person that I am I researched sleep apnea in particular with relation to weight. Yes weight can contribute to sleep apnea. Yes, some people only have sleep apnea due to the extreme weight placed on their chest, throat, fatty tissue in the throat, etc. Yes there are genetic components that are major contributors to sleep apnea of the obese as well as the relatively thin or healthy person. There are also biological components in some people in which their bodies, though health in every other way have some sort of "defect" in the breathing apparatus, so there is no one specific or most common epidemiology. That all said, in relation to the initial quote that people with sleep apnea are " just to lazy to loose weight", is a very judgemental way to make a statement that could, as indicated by research have a biological basis. The old school of thought was often that people who are overweight or obese who have sleep apnea have "brought this on themselves" and that if the weight was lost they wouldn't have to suffer through this. There is a body of research now that demonstrateds that sleep apnea may actually contribute to obesity in SOME cases. That a person who has sleep apnea has a higher degree of lack of energy and stamina and that the metabolism is ofter lower due to the body trying to maintain with lack of sleep and some oxygen deprivation. Due to this the person is not able to get in a adequate amount of exercise or increase their body metabolism high enough to loose or maintain a low weight loss, even when maintaining a healthy diet. Therefore, which came first, sleep apnea or obesity????? The truth of the matter is that the weight loss will always be a healthier option no matter which came first. Just a thought.