Health Misadventures and a Return to Basics


I’m in some alternate reality right now and I feel like I’m captured!  I can’t seem to stop gaining weight. As of last weekend, I weigh in at an astonishing 230.  I don’t even want to see what has transpired in the last week…  a few theories:

  • I’m in the 1% of the population that gains weight from my particular medication.  Yeah, it’s rare, but then again, not so much.  For every thousand people there are ten left, gaining weight on this particular drug.  It could be that I’m one of them.  Sucks, but that makes sense as my weight issue stems from a hormone imbalance that throws off my insulin and makes me into an excellent fat making machine.  This medication may be the switch that turns all of that back on.
  • This medication makes me nauseous when it first hits my system, so I take it with food and don’t feel that so often.  But just in case I might get sick, I know I eat more around the times I need to take my meds.  More food, more calories, more fat.
  • I’m hungry around the clock so I eat more without knowing it.  I don’t think this is an issue during the day, but Bradley confessed to me that he’s noticed an uptick in the size and frequency of my night snacking.  On top of that, I’m a midnight snacker now, too.  I often wake up in the morning, realizing that I actually went downstairs in the middle of the night at ate a muffin or banana or pudding or all of them.
  • Or it’s a combination of some or all of them.

What’s a girl to do who is in a panic about gaining weight faster than a pregnant woman?  Well, if said girl is on a medication she is suspicious might be the cause, she stops taking the medication.  Within 24 hours, all the rage she thinks she felt before she went on prescribed medication returns like thunder, making her realize she didn’t imagine these feelings, at all.  This is real.  By 28 hours she found herself full of the aforementioned rage AND all of the nausea, dizziness, nervousness and exhaustion that accompanies a drug addict who is trying to come clean because it turns out that the meds are addictive and she’s hooked like a fish on the line.  Research online confirms this and a discovery is made that this one isn’t a cold turkey drug.  This one makes you sick like coming down for a month unless a slow weaning process has been underway.  So she goes back to taking the pills and, in four hours, feels much, much better.

I kinda freaked out about all that this weekend.  I’ve felt out of control before, but never like this.  This is so uncomfortable.  I feel so chubby.  My belly bounces around like crazy now.  My boobs are getting all huge.  Things that were flat and empty are filling out and plumpin up like I’m attached to a hose.

I was expressing all of this to Bradley today and sharing how grateful I am that he’s a husband who doesn’t care how much I weigh or what size I am and he started shaking his head.  Then he said several important things that I needed to hear:

  1. Yes.  I’m chubbier.  But it’s mostly my perception and isn’t terribly obvious to everyone who sees me.  I’m still wearing the same clothes, I’m still out and about.  It’s mostly in my head.
  2. When I was slender (my perception) I was also running and zumbaing like crazy.  I worked out 5-6 days a week and watched what I ate and was consistently consistent.  These days I’m very forgiving in both areanas and regularly work out only on the weekends.
  3. I’m lifting weights now and seem to be focused on that but I lost all my weight by being a runner and stepper.  I was focused and kept it simple.  Maybe a return to that would be smart.
  4. Diet Coke called to me like other food used to.  With Diet Coke, I was a superhero.  I didn’t need a snack, just a Coke.  Crutches help.  Maybe I need to lean on the Diet Coke crutch again. 

It was so good to hear all of that!  Sometimes you just need someone else’s calm, common sense eyes to see you, and their calm, common sense voice to say the things you need to hear.  He’s right.  I’m good at losing weight when I get back to basics.  I have fun when I mix up my workouts and go to Zumba.  I love to run because it’s so accessible and freeing!  I’m getting bogged down in math and nutrition and specific plans and bulking and and and and….  I’ve decided bulking up isn’t anything important to me now.  I need to maintain a healthy weight.  I’ll still do workout classes, weightlifting and everything else, but it’s for health, not bulk.  I do need to work on my food more.  I need to figure it how to healthfully eat for my medication AND me.  And maybe a Coke will make me smile.

I’ve got communication lines open with my doctor, but it feels good to snatch back a little control by making a plan.

One Comment

  1. Paula

    So sorry to hear of the struggle. Hormone imbalance is my weight issue too. I even went through a period of watching every single morsel & exercised each day only to gain 30 pounds like it was nothing but to remove? OMG! But you are correct to realize we have to be consistent in both eating & exercise but for me my focus is primarily on food as I am good about exercising. Please speak to your doctor as you may need a change in your Rx to help your body lose the weight. Running really was the only exercise that really changed my body. Glad to see you running.

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