i need to lose weight also and i am trying to stop eating the things i shouldn't and eat fruits and veggies more. it is a constant struggle . i did'nt have sleep apnea when i was thin.

Same hear. The issues with weight gain are huge. Loosing weight will help a lot of things. I just learned that vitimin D diffeciency is also suspect for a lot of health related issues. Both of those together can spell disaster. You might want to spend some time at the World Health Organization web site: http://www.who.int/en/ I think you may be able to find some great info and help there.

I recently got the results of a sleep study saying I do have sleep apnea but not enough to warrant a CPAP. The recommendation was to lose weight. This is necessary and I'm approaching this with great intensity. I'm limited with having moderate persistent asthma but know the weight loss will help the sleep apnea. Finding the right exercise that I can do is a challenge. Right now I can walk 15 minutes at a stretch. I've eliminated all of those things you wrote of geomar. I'm battling the effects of oral and inhaled steroids but know I still can't give up in my quest to shed these pounds.

Great to hear that you have lost weight. You are right about shear determination! It's is very hard to loose weight when there's so much temptation in the world when it comes to food!!!!!!!

Yay! Go for it, I hope that you get support from those around you as well. Eah has been supporting me almost too much and is loosing weight when she's one of those who shouldn't loose any! Well I just have to let her eat a snack in front of me without it getting to me. It's not easy but we're learning to be able to accomodate each others needs without feeling left out. I even made her chocolate cake that I didn't eat much of and this month some fudge that I let her eat without me!!! So...hang in there, we can beat it together.

Vicious Circle for people with sleep apnea

Many of you may have heard of this in the popular press when it was published early last year. This is the original study in the International Journal of Obesity that rates sleep debt as the #1 cause of obesity after diet and exercise.

I posted the following in the type 2 diabetes forum but briefly, In Sept 05 I bought an auto-titrating CPAP. I expected my sleep would be slightly improved on a long term basis but never tthought I would notice anything immediately. Surprise, I began to sleep 8 hrs plus and lost 20 lbs in 2 months without changing my diet or exercise. Unfortunately I felt like crap the entire 2 months.

http://www.iaso.org/popout.asp?linkto=www.nature.com/ijo/index.html&site=iaso

I guess that link doesn't take you directly to the article. Search the title as a phrase and it will get you there "Putative contributors to the secular increase in obesity"

A very common take on this story was "top 10 EXCUSES for obesity". We can assume those journalists didn't bother to read beyond the headings in the story.

My AHI number is 57. My doctor is in a real flap about me losing weight because of how severe my index number is (and rightly so) and i'm doing pretty well with that. i'm down about 20lbs from when i started treatment. i just read an article on this guys blog http://hypopnea.blogspot.com/ it's from a study done at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. it talks about how a 10% weight loss is associated with a 26% decrease in the AHI, whereas a 10% weight gain is associated with a 32% increase in the AHI. pretty interesting stuff.