Welcome to markdonnelly.ca ! U If you know me,
you know I have been a musician most of my life. If you are a hockey
fan, you know me as "Mr. O Canada". What you may not know is I am
also a licensed realtor with
Sutton West Coast Realty.
When buying or selling your home, call me at 604-339-4435
to
get "Mr. O Canada" working for you!
This is not a question that can be answered briefly with any
completeness. I have felt uncomfortable explaining in a few words
how I have lost over 150 lbs, not wanting to mislead people or
compel them to do something unhealthy. However, being in the public
eye, there is the possibility of many speculating as to how I did it
and that, I suppose, would be worse. Therefore, here is a brief
account of the major factor in my transformation.
Even though I have been athletic (more or less) since junior high
school, I have struggled with obesity for most of my life. Through
moderately stringent dieting and extensive exercise, I had manged in
the past to yo-yo between being fit and being fat. Then the 40's
hit, and fit was a permanent thing of the past. Exercise would only
slow the weight gain. Gradually I packed on the fat and reached 370
lbs! Diets were ineffective, and exercise only replaced a very small
amount of the fat with muscle. I was at wit's end and was developing
multiple health problems. Now we come to the part about which
everyone wants to know. How did I reverse this?
My wife, Catherine, while looking for a book on another health
issue, found a weight lose book which had at its core a diet
protocol that has been around since the 1950's. This diet is based
on the clinical experience of Dr. A. T. W. Simeons, a British
physician practicing in Rome, and is outlined in his paper Pounds
and Inches: A New Approach to Obesity.
(THIS IS A
CONTROVERSIAL DIET. MANY DOCTORS DO NOT BELIEVE IT HAS ANY MERIT.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS SIMPLY THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE DIET, NOT THE
COMPLETE DIET. I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS DIET FOR ANYONE. I AM SIMPLY
LETTING PEOPLE KNOW WHAT I DID. IF YOU WISH TO RESEARCH DR. SIMEONS'
DIET AND EMBARK ON IT YOURSELF, IT IS COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE. I
NEITHER ENCOURAGE NOR DISCOURAGE YOU TO DO SO.)
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According to Dr. Simeons, one of the features of the hormone human
Chorionic Gonadotrophin (hCG) is that it helps metabolizef fat
rather than muscle in pregnant women. He surmised that, if one
receives daily an injection of a small dose of hCG and ate a very
low calorie diet (500 calories/day), he would lose weight, mostly
fat. At his practice, he found that patients would lose weight at
rate of just less than one pound to about a pound and a half a day
for about four to six weeks. They then would go into a maintenance
period for six weeks or more. If more weight lose was needed,
another six weeks course of injections would be administered. Since
everything I had tried up to this point had not worked, I thought I
would give it a shot (no pun intended). What did I have to lose
(again, no pun intended)? I was jeopardizing my health by weighing
twice what I should.
My first injection was on August 2, 2010. In the first 30 days I
lost 45 lbs. I am now in the midst of my fifth course of injections.
To date (January 20, 2012) I have lost a little over 150 lbs in less
than 18 months and weigh less than 220 lbs. It has not been without
its trials and challenges. I developed a heart arrhythmia a few
months before I started which severely hampered my activity level. I
got a cellulitis infection in Oklahoma during my first course. A
kidney stone (9mm in diameter!) which had been developing for a few
years decided to make its presence felt (understatement) and had to
be removed about a month after I completed my first round. My dear
sister, Maureen, died during my third course of injections. There
have been plenty of excuses to stop. But, with nine children and a
devoted wife, I had more reasons to continue.
As I said earlier, this is a brief description of the main feature
of my weight lose program. There are other dietary strategies I had
to implement, body type research to be done, revamping of my
exercise regime (mostly the addition of kettlebells and getting rid
of what wasn't helping me maintain my weight), and combating my
interior doubt and the external negativity of the experts
(self-proclaimed and otherwise) who insist there is no merit to this
diet.
For now, I hope this satisfies the curious. There is much more to
this story that the hCG diet. For those of you who are longing for a
way out of obesity and ready to change your lives, I hope to make a
fuller and more helpful presentation soon (with transition
pictures!).
