This one post is to detail my weight issue for my coach. Because we're going to deal with this after vacation, I wanted to put it all down once.
I've always been tall. When I was in third grade, I spent the summer with my grandparents and we ate all the time. I went home about 10 pounds heavier, but the die was cast - I was heavy from then on. I distinctly remember eating for emotional reasons in high school - while I was heavier, I wasn't too freakish at this point, but I was tall and had boobs and looked much older. Freaked all the boys out and I never dated in high school. I weighed about 160 in high school and I'm 5'10". Not bad, but I thought I was HUUUUGGGEEE.
I fit in better in college. By this time, I had DD boobs and was more like 185. I lost some weight in a physical training course by running 3 miles a day and doing weights, but I couldn't keep it off.
In my first job in the mid 80s, I was about 190. Still large, but not hideous. Then I started working for the Hard Rock Cafe and became a vegetarian. Turns out to be the worst possible diet for someone with my health issues and I gained about 40 pounds. Of course, vegetarian doesn't always mean healthy diet - I ate plenty of carbs: french fries, veggie burgers, desserts. Again, there was emotional eating as well as entertaining.
Fast forward to 1993 when after watching Oprah one day, I decided I'd had enough and I was going to take off the weight. Cleared the place of bad food, hired a trainer at an upscale club (I got club membership for free), joined Weight Watchers and got serious. Unfortunately, this began a seesaw of not being able to lose weight no matter how hard I worked out. My trainer had been the trainer for Marines who couldn't pass a physical, so he was tough, but he could be kind. He had no idea why I was having this problem. I went to numerous doctors and spent thousands of dollars through naturopaths, gynecologists, various food allergy tests, etc. over the next few years because I knew that I should be losing SOMETHING. I was strong enough to leg press 875 pounds, but wouldn't lose a pound.
During this time, I also joined Weigh Down Workshop, a religious diet program which is very helpful in making you notice the times in which you emotionally eat. You have to cut down what you eat at least half and wait to be hungry, stop when full. It's a very good program for resetting yourself if you've developed the fear of hunger, not knowing what a real portion size is anymore, and fighting the "head hunger." Unfortunately, even though I cut my food by 2/3, I never lost a pound.
I worked with a food allergist who determined I had food sensitivity to a whole list of stuff. I tried not eating that stuff for about 6 weeks and nothing. I tried the blood type diet (which I thought was silly but was desperate) and nothing. I gave up on WW because it was so expensive to keep paying and not lose anything. I had my hair tested for minerals deficiencies. I wanted to try hypnosis but couldn't afford it after all these expenses. I continued to work out in a gym.
After about 5 years, I pretty much gave up. Nothing was working, so I didn't even try. I ate what I wanted, ate way too much portion size and blew up like a balloon. I believe at my heaviest I was about 290 or so. I never hit 300, although I was coming pretty close.
My doctor treated me like a fat, whining woman who wasn't trying. I was mad about it, but couldn't find another solution. Eventually NINE YEARS LATER, I convinced him that I wasn't just whining. He did a blood test and I was positive for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). I had never heard of it, so I'd never asked for that test. It has a multitude of symptoms (I don't have polycystic ovaries, I just have the syndrome), but the ones relevant to me is that there is a weird connection between the ovaries and insulin. Insulin is the hormone that not only regulates hunger, but also regulates keeping fat on the body.
The fact that I have insulin issues should be no surprise to anyone. Every time I fill out those papers at every single doctor's office, I checked the box that said my grandmother and great-grandmother died of diabetes complications. My brother has been insulin-dependent since he was 17. I've had my blood checked for diabetes and hypo-glycemia at least once if not twice a year since I was very young. (Actually drinking the sweet drink and hypo-glycemia test were ones that I only had 3 times - it's a 4 hour test.) If I don't lose weight, I'm a high candidate for Type 2 diabetes, and boy, is it an ugly disease.
So why didn't anyone make this connection? Sheesh.
I started taking metformin, a drug for people with Type 2 diabetes. Immediately I lost about 20 pounds with no effort at all. It only took about 1 month.
I also was diagnosed with low thyroid, so I also take Synthroid and probably will for the rest of my life. I quit taking it for a year to see if not taking it changed anything, but the result is that I need to keep taking it.
About this time, I had breast reduction surgery because I had grown to about a 44 J, which only made me look heavier. My back hurt, my neck hurt and as my doctor said, "If you have these problems at 42, imagine what 62 will be like." He didn't have to say anything else. The doc took off 9 pounds from my chest. Now I'm a 42 C.
So I start on WW again, thinking that NOW I'll be able to lose. Wrong. Can't seem to lose anymore. Tried several regular diets, portion control, etc. Can't lose anymore.
I started going to Bikram Yoga and I lost about 10 pounds rather quickly. Obviously, it was water weight, but 10 pounds is 10 pounds. I love Bikram Yoga (the kind where they heat the room to 105 degrees - yeah, I know, never thought I'd like it either), but there are only 3 studios in this huge metro area and all of them are 30 minutes away. Because the class is 90 minutes long, and you have to shower, that's a 3 1/2 hour commitment each time I do it. I still try to keep at it, but miss huge chunks during my high season. Still, even though I was toning and feeling better, I wasn't losing more than the initial 10 pounds.
Last year, I started the Fat Flush plan. Again, I lost another 10 pounds of water weight, but this is a hard program to stay on all the time. I do most of the time, but not all the time. Between the FF program and Bikram Yoga is the closest to being successful I've ever been, but that's really hard to keep up with.
Now, back to the candida. In 1993 or so, I was working a promotion that involved a bunch of dragsters. There was a ton of fumes and it gave me a sinus infection. The doc treated me with antibiotics. I got better for a little while, then had another sinus infection about a month later. More antibiotics. Better for a week or so. More antibiotics. The fact that antibiotics was the wrong treatment never seemed to occur to anyone. A friend mentioned that I might look into if it was a candida infection and she referred me to a doctor. I took the meds prescribed and felt better immediately.
Fast forward a couple of years to visiting the doc who was doing my food allergy testing. He gave me more antifungals for the yeast and it turned out I was extremely full of yeast. I got sick from the die-off, but eventually felt better.
Ever since then, I've had to manage it on a constant basis. I have not been able to get myself cured because it's expensive and I'm not sure it can be cured - at least not according to some message boards I've found.
Now I try to manage it with Fat Flush, but I'm concerned that I'll blow out my liver one of these days because of the high doses of antifungals I have to take - because whatever does you take, it will end up have to be higher because the yeast get used to it. Also, I've spent soooo much money on all this for so many years that I don't have any more to spend on it.
OK, now to the gluten thing. Through grace or an accident, depending on how you look at it, I discovered a magazine for people living gluten free. I had stomach pains in the last year and thought it might be related to gluten. Also, the first 2 weeks on FF is gluten-free and I did really well on it, so thought there might be a connection. The blood test was negative, but it's also not reliable so the doc said to go off all gluten products for 3 months and see how I feel. Since I've detailed that in other places, I won't continue it here. But talk about HARD. IT'S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to stay GF when eating out. I'm fine at home, but hard out. And to make it more interesting, no dairy.
I bought some GF products, but it seems to be worse than the gluten products. I get a weird body smell with GF products. I don't know if that's related to the candida or if I'll just have to give that up as well.
To change tacks, if I'm doing well and staying on FF, here's the way I eat:
Morning:
Synthroid an hour before breakfast
FF "cocktail" with cranwater and ground flax seeds.
Warm water with lemon
Breakfast:
Fruit smoothie with frozen fruit, whey protein, flax seed oil and cranwater.
1 hard boiled egg
Metformin, yeast meds
(can't afford the vitamin supplements supposed to take)
Snack:
Piece of fruit
Cranwater - made with 1/4 c cranberry juice (not cocktail) and fill the bottle with water and use Stevia as sweetner. Drink about 64 oz a day throughout the day.
Lunch:
Salad or veggies
Lean, usually grilled meat
sometimes a complex carb like roasted sweet potatoes
Cranwater
Snack:
Am usually too busy to eat this, but always take a hard-boiled egg
Cranwater
Dinner:
Lean, usually grilled meat
Veggies
sometimes a complex carb
Cranwater
Metformin and yeast meds
Evening:
Cocktail
(This is when I'm sticking with the more restrictive plan.)
As you can see, this can get really, really dull at times. When I'm on my game, I fix my lunch the night before and take it to work. But I do have to entertain at lunch for work, and sometimes I just can't take the idea of one more FF meal - so I go out. Sometimes when I go out, I can sorta stick to the plan. Sometimes I just go "to hell with it" and eat a Whopper with Cheese.
I normally do my grocery shopping on the day I get paid. I keep a running list of what I need on the refrigerator door. I buy everything I can at Wal Mart and use coupons if applicable (but I don't buy that much that uses coupons). I buy the rest of it at Whole Foods (cranberry juice, GF stuff).
According to FF, I soak all the meat, eggs, veggies & fruits in a bleach bath that is 1/4 tsp of bleach and a sink of water. This is supposed to keep the food fresh longer and kill any critters or bacteria on the food. Then I package them in individual sizes and put them in the fridge. I also grind up some flax seeds and keep them in the freezer.
Then I prepare some of it for the week ahead so I'm not stuck hungry with no food. So I might make the salad, make the coleslaw dressing ahead, grill up a couple of days worth of meat, make several bottles of cranwater, roast some sweet potatoes, chop veggies.
Then I make lunch the night before and take it to work with me.
OK, that's enough for now.
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