Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Muffin Top(ple) Monday - a day late & a donut short

I've been back from Mexico for one week and I figure it was time to get off my fat tush and get back to blogging. OK technically I'll be sitting ON my fat tush to blog but... anyway.

First I want to give a HUGE thanks to the lovely ladies who filled in for me while I was gone. They did a flabtastic job and I hope you add them to your list of blogs to stalk visit on a regular basis.

Just a Titch
Sex, Lies and Dating in the City
If Music Be
Just Lisa, No Filler

Now, on to business.

Before I left for Mexico I'd made a goal of not gaining weight while on vacation and I think I accomplished that. I say think because I weighed myself first thing in the morning the day after I got home, then had a doctor's appointment that same morning and the scale at the doctor's office said I weighed 9 pounds LESS than what my scale at home said.

The scale at the doc is one of those old timey ones where you slide the weights along the bars. My scale at home is digital. Matthew had a check up the week before and the doctor's office scale said he weighed almost 10 pounds MORE than the scale at home so I really have no idea which one is right. I have another appointment today and I weighed myself at home this morning so we'll see what the doc's scale has to say.

You may be wondering what's with all the doctor's appointments?

As you may or may not know, (and the only reason you wouldn't know is if you hadn't been reading my blog and in that case why the hell not?!) I have hypothyroidism. About 5 years ago I gained 30lbs in two months for no apparent reason. I joined a gym, worked out for two hours a day, five days a week and let a trainer beat my ass for three hours one day a week. Six weeks later and I had not lost One Single Pound. Turns out there was a reason. I could have worked out until I lost consciousness and it wouldn't have done much. I went to doc, had some blood drawn and voila! Under active thyroid. Yay me!

With diet, exercise and my daily dose of Levothyroxin I managed to get a few of those pounds off and manage to not gain anymore weight. Then I moved back to the south.

The last few years I lived in Michigan I'd adopted a relatively healthy lifestyle. I worked out in the gym at my apartment on a regular basis, I rarely ate fast food and I'd completely given up pop (aka soda, coke). I was fit, healthy and felt good about myself, if only on a superficial level.

In 2006 I made the decision to move back south to be near my niece and I'll be damned if the sun didn't melt the 'healthy' part of my brain. I started drinking pop again, I quit working out, I became close friends with Krystal's and Rally's and I put on 45lbs.

Even though by 'medical standards' I was morbidly obese, I was, according to 2 full work-ups in as many years completely and perfectly healthy. Well aside from the thyroid issue, that is. My blood pressure was normal, my sugar was fine, my good cholesterol was a little low but my bad cholesterol was great.

Last year I had the pleasure of finding out that there was another contributing factor to the increasing size of my waistline. I also have PCOS. You can read about that blog post here. One of the 'symptoms' or side effects of having PCOS is weight gain. Back in January my doc put me on Loestrin birth control to 'treat' my PCOS and in just over a month I put on 20lbs. One of the top side effects of Loestrin? You guessed it...

Weight Gain

I guess in the back of my mind I'd taken to thinking, well I've gained weight, and I'm not happy about said weight gain but as long as I'm still 'healthy' it's not that big of a deal.

Well I'm annoyed, aggravated and angry to say it's become a big deal. My appointment today is to discuss ways to lower my apparently now high cholesterol and I've no doubt losing weight is going to be at the top of the list. When the nurse called me to give me my lab results she said 'you should go on a diet'. I wanted to rip her throat out through the phone.

Below are two pictures of me.

The first picture is me in July of 2003. The second is me on my vacation just last week.

As you can see I've gained quite a bit of weight.
In just under 6 yrs I have gained about 65lbs. In my defense it was just about a year after that first picture that my thyroid decided to crap out and I've been in a battle to balance meds ever since. In my NOT defense - I admit to having developed a defeatist attitude when I was told 'you'll be on medication for the rest of your life' and said what the hell, it doesn't matter what I eat I'm going to gain weight anyway so screw it and I all but gave up a hella hard earned healthy lifestyle.

The funny thing is, according to EVERY 'ideal healthy weight' chart I can find, I was about 85lbs overweight in the first picture, which would make me... well a hell of a lot MORE overweight now.

But according to several doctors and a ton of tests I was perfectly healthy 25 pounds ago.

One of the ladies who is a part of Operation Muffin Top(ple) said in an e-mail today that she got on the scale and realized that she'd finally reached 'that number'. A number that she never thought and always hoped she would never see on a scale. I imagine we all have one of those numbers, I know I do. I also know that in recent weeks I've reached and topped it.

I always looked at big people and thought It can't be good for their health, how can they have let themselves get so big?. Now I know.

And now it's not just about looking better in my clothes, or feeling better about how my jeans fit. It's about correcting the health issues that being overweight have created. It's about saving myself... while I still can.

1 People who coughed on a furball:

Lady Jane said...

I know what you mean. I have an illness and I was put on steroids...40lbs in 2 weeks. My skin split like a grape ( stretch marks). That was 15 years ago and I have had to be on steroids ever since. I have went down drastically on how much of the medicine I take..which then my weight has went down, however, as soon as something happens they bump up the steroids and it starts all over again. Its just very frustrating. I feel for ya:)

Lady Jane AKA Ms. Potato Head