So, I wanna talk a little bit about my experience because my weight loss has been a long-term struggle and partially onset due to addiction to sugary soft drinks, notable Coca Cola. Because of this, for years, I would sit around 230-240lbs for my weight, where I'm about 5'5". I also had terrible dental care, among hygiene issues.
I've long struggled a lot with over-drinking it as a primary means to consume some level of liquids in my diet. I'd drink anywhere from 3 to 5 regular sized cokes a day, sometimes more. Last year, around between February to April, after an exposure to COVID, I started developing some... stomach pains. They weren't much, but they were some bad days and bouts of hours-upon-hours of stomach problems. I wasn't sure of the triggers at the time, but they'd come and go. But then, around July-or-so, the issues became increasing unmanageable, and to the point August is where it was completely unbearable. Hours of being up, sometimes 12-14 hours of excruciating pain, and it was just absolutely awful.
I then started to pin-point the causes of it: It was something acid reflux related, because the weird "gas" I was experinece in my throat. I started to narrow things down a bit, but it didn't go away. Acidic foods, coca cola, etc., would trigger it, but I also started to experience another issue: My issues with lactose have gotten even worse over the years to the point I can barely drink anything without potential serious issues. I can't drink milk anymore, just... can't, though cheeses to a degree are fine. But Ice Cream can even trigger it, too.
Then came December, after seeing a doctor and nurse practitioner about my issues, we started medication, got some stuff scheduled (had to cancel and reschedule the one procedure recently due to illness, so hopefully I won't have any issues come July), but then right before Christmas, I had one of the worst absolute attacks I've ever had. Despite the fact I had significantly reduced the amount of coca cola to a really small 8oz can, even that amount was too much for my stomach. I finally quit. I didn't touch one since then.
Since then, I was hanging around 210-220lbs, and my weight began to drop quite a bit since then. On top of this, I've been trying to find what foods and drinks trigger my symptoms, reduce, limit, or cut things out. I keep Tums on me almost at all times to help manage it (thankfully recently I've hardly had to take any, but was taking them almost daily for a bit). My diet has been reduced a fair bit, too, and trying to eat as healthy as I can with the limited foods (I still eat some level of pork and hamburgers, but largely consume paltry as my primary meats, even for hotdogs and burgers).
As of today (April 29, 2023), I am now about 165lbs (with clothing on, it's 170-171), which is quite the transformation of what I was dealing with. I'm also trying to get stuff situated with my anxiety, waiting to get called for my dental work situated, and I'm "hoping" there won't be anything "too serious" they find out on the two upcoming procedures (CT Scan in just over a week from now and the endo/colonoscopy in July). There's a lot I'm planning on and once the weather gets a little bit better, I'm planning to go for more walks and also exercise more. I'm also planning to check out the gym sometime soon, but that might be for next year due to various circumstances don't wanna get into (this is a good thing, so hopefully I can talk about it in the future).
I am dealing with some weird shoulder pains and neck tension right now and I can't tell if it's because of Buspar I'm on or just poor posture (could be both, honestly). So will probably call the nurses office to check on that.
I will note I'm not attack free with my issues (which they are treating it as GERD, since I think I forgot to mention this), and still have problems. In fact, had a really bad bout of it not even quite a month ago. One thing I know that helps a bit is trying to reduce the stress, as if I have a bad day, especially for stress, it makes it a lot worse. I can still feel "gerdy", as I like to call it, but it doesn't seem to affect me as badly as other days.
There's more I could get into but that's just the general "gist" of things. One thing since I've lost so much weight, I've been having issues with my pants fitting me, because they're way, way, way too big for me now, haha.