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I’m back on my feet but not healed enough to ride a bike. I can start upper body workouts with weights and also clean up my horrible diet better than nothing.

Yup - and I have been really having those issues lately. I don’t know if it’s just age, medications - I’m on a couple of new ones, one of them - buprion, has the known side effect of messing with blood sugar. It can cause it to spike, which is a known but not too common side effect. But much more commonly, it can cause hypoglycemia. I’ve had a couple of pretty uncomfortable bouts of that in the past few months.

The worst one was, fortunately, at home in the evening recently. Felt funny - and it progressed really fast to a heavy cold sweat, shaking, a bright green aura in my field of vision, nausea. It was pretty intense and uncomfortable for a few minutes. I was able to drag myself to the kitchen and eat a couple of tablespoons of raw honey and drink about a cup of lukewarm water. That helped pretty fast.

Truth In Advertising Disclosure #1 here - I brought that entirely on myself by being a glutton and by doing something I knew I shouldn’t do: it was on Halloween night about 9 pm, at bedtime, and I chowed down on probably at least 6 or 7 pieces - or 8 or 9 or 10 probably is more like it - of leftover Halloween candy, Reeses, Twix, Hershey’s, Snickers. “Fun Size” - but still enough to make me good and sick. Sugar spike, followed by a rapid insulin spike, followed by a blood sugar crash.

Truth In Advertising Disclosure #2 here - I was prescribed Buprion along with another drug, Naltrexone, about 4 months ago by a doctor at the Weight Control Center at a major teaching hospital here. That combination in one pill is being marketed as the latest weight loss drug, Contrave. They prescibe the two separately because insurace covers them individually, but not “weight loss drugs” per se. I have also tried some of the other WL drugs over the years, too, including Phentermime, Phentermine and Topamax, and Vyvanse.

None of them really did much for me - at best, temporary appetite supression that wears off by evening, which is my worst time to watch my willpower fade and “cheat”.

Truth In Advertising Disclosure No. 3: The reason I went back (been there before) to the WLC is because I feel disgusting and am disgusted with myself. I have put on a LOT of weight in the past 15 months. Stupid stupid accident last year - first thing I said to myself was “no matter what, I’m not going to put on weight.”

That was about 40 lbs ago. None of my clothes really fit well at all, both my cardiovascular and muscle conditioning are bad in there. Because of the various injuries and treatments, I’ve just had a hard time keeping up with exercise, which has been one key to my successes. Both my cardio and strenth fitness levels have declined tremendously, I feel completely self-conscious about how I look, especially around my friends from the gym and at work.

You are SO SO RIGHT. Everything you suggest is what worked for me in the past. I used to be really careful with my diet and it paid off. When I was in my best shape, I was doing a lot of “creative substitutions” like lettuce wraps instead of bread, Konjac noodles instead of wheat pasta, cauliflower as rice, mashed, or even baked/roasted as a French fry substitute.

My diet has just gone to HE** in the past few years. Not just post-accident, it’s been slipping back for a few years, but I had been able to compensate with exercise and keep my weight basically within or close to my target range. The carbs gradually increased and the protein has really decreased. Along with a lot more processed and convenience foods, carry out and fast foods.

When I think about how I was eating in the past when I was really doing well, versus now, it’s night and day. I was at my best adult fitness level when I was eating really carefully, high protein, moderate good fats, and starchy carbs restricted to low glycemic index choices and carefully and accurately measured out. A lot, lot more fresh, non-starchy vegetables, more raw fruit than now. Plus, tracking of all my food intake, a lot more water and a lot less diet pop (“soda” to most of you not from the Great Lakes region).

SO ... I’m going to recommit to doing this right. I signed up for 3 months of an exercise-based weight loss program with nutritional “supervision” - RD meetings and weekly weigh-ins. I’ve been dumping the “bad”’stuff out of my pantry and freezer. Stocking up on the supplies I will need to get back on track.

Wish me ... not luck. It’s not a question of luck, it’s one of personal responsibility. So, wish the me the ability to recognize that staying on track and getting back in shape is in my long-term best interest. And, wish me the resilience to persevere in the face of adversity.