Lowering the Feed Limit

I haven’t updated for awhile but not because things have been going badly. In fact, since getting my bodybugg, my weight has pretty consistently gone down. Today, I’m at 165# which is ten pounds from my Weight Watchers goal. I’d really like to get to 143, but I can start working for Weight Watchers at 155.

Last year at this time, I wanted to be at this weight, but I didn’t get here. I lost my motivation after that and then I had that problem with thyroid surgery and then discovering that I had had cancer and needed to go through radiation treatment.

However, now it feels like it’s really going to happen this time. I know it’s not over when I get to my goal weight. First of all, I want to keep going and get to 143, maybe 140, but if I can see 155, I’ll be thrilled!

It isn’t just because I’d love to work for Weight Watchers, but there is this person I know who talks almost all the time about how she’s trying to lose weight, but folks, she’s not. I see her more these days and I see confirmation of what I already knew. She has dessert at every meal even after two or more helpings of whatever the main dish was.

I know I was probably the same way before, but my thinking has changed about what is a healthy portion or what “being full” feels like. I keep hoping that she’ll see my success at this weight loss and she’ll want it, too.

She doesn’t walk well because of a past problem and I know that if she loses some weight, she’ll walk better and her overall health will be better. She’s so much less active now than she used to be.

I love this woman and it would be so sad if something could be done for her overall health and she’s just not willing to do it.

Anyway, I know she’s not ready to do anything but all I can do is keep plodding on and praying that she’ll see how happy I am about this and take it to heart.

It hasn’t been a good couple of days here. First off, Saturday night Beloved and the Girl had a major fight when he asked her to do the dishes. It’s kind of an ongoing fight around her to get her to do her chores, and she has some kind of issue with people knocking on her bedroom door. She literally yells “What?” whenever anyone knocks. I should say when her parents knock. She knows when it’s the Boy and doesn’t yell at him. It gets a little annoying when I’m scared to knock to see what she wants to drink for dinner for fear she’ll snap my head off.

Anyway, this fight was a bad one and pretty much lasted until…well, kind of, until now. A cease-fire has been established and relationships are cordial. Beloved still maintains that he will not mention her chores anymore, preferring to do them himself so as to not be a nag, but with that is no allowance for her and no going out with her friends. She, for her part, did work on the dishes after dinner and hasn’t yelled at anyone today.

This morning I woke up depressed. I think being in that menopausal state means that my hormones are messed up (Beloved calls it puberty in reverses) so some days I’m just depressed.

Well, I did all my weights yesterday – something I haven’t done in a while – and my entire body from inner thigh to triceps ache from the effort, so I didn’t go to the gym this morning. Beloved and I have a date to go tomorrow evening.

Weight watchers was a disaster. Up 2.2 pounds. I wanted to quit right then and there. I haven’t been tracking but I didn’t think I did that badly. I made it to the gym three times – twice for cardio – so I guess I got a little cocky and figured I was safe.

This afternoon I was working on my book and my computer froze up three times, meaning, I think, that I might have lost some of my work and I’m not happy about it.

Beloved and the Girl went to choir practice tonight and stopped at the grocery store. He bought me a red silk rose. Isn’t that nice?

If there is anyone out there, I could really use some encouragement and cheering up.

I had to go to the doctor today to talk about the nodules I have on my thyroid.

Let me go back to the beginning. If you get frustrated at medical incompetence, you might not want to read this.

About 12-13 years ago I had a goiter on my thyroid and saw an endocrinologist in IL who performed about three needle biopsies on the lump and nodules. Very painful and not something I’d be eager to repeat. None of them showed cancer of any type, so except for taking a little Synthroid, everything was okay.

We went to live in Germany for two years and when we came back, we lived in Pennsylvania. While there, I had another needle biopsy done (new doctor, new hospital, preparing for a transplant) and again, nothing conclusive, but the thyroid function was find and the goiter was gone, so I went on my merry way.

A couple of weeks ago, as I stated, I had a CAT scan done about the pneumonia and saw the pulmonary doctor for the first time on a Friday.

The next Monday, I got a call from my GP’s office. They told me that I have nodules on my thyroid!!! I told them I knew that, but they wanted me to see an ENT.

Then the nurse told me that I have cysts on or stones in my kidneys and I really should see a renal specialist. I stared at the phone then said, “Um, had a transplant seven years ago and see a nephrologist regularly.”

“All this stuff should be in your chart.”

“It is!”

Anyway, I had a thyroid ultrasound done and saw the ENT today. Turns out that there is a 2.5 cm nodule on the right side and a 1.7 cm one on the left, along with littler ones all over. She said I could either have the whole thing taken out or leave it and follow it with her regularly.

The problem is the nodules are not going to go away, and they’ll probably get bigger, so I’m thinking, pending a discussion with Beloved, that I might as well take the booger out. We’ll see.

The thing is: how much does it weigh? Enough to make a difference in a weigh-in? This is important stuff I want to know.

Just came back from the clinic where I had a chest X-ray (AGAIN!) and saw the pulmonary specialist.

The pneumonia is completely resolved! Yea, me!

This means I can go to the Y without worrying too much. My back is better and my lungs are clear. Exercise, here I come.

On the other hand, not being able to exercise much for about two weeks (or more) means that my WW meeting today might not be a happy one, but I did get weighed at the doctor’s and while I was up, not nearly as much as I suspected, so maybe things will be okay.

I did go to the Y yesterday and rode 48 minutes on the bike, worked off more than 300 calories, but my knees are still killing me today. I love the bike but it really is hard on my knees. Sigh. I have to stick to the elliptical, I guess.

Right after New Years, I was so psyched again about WW and how my weightloss was going. I lost 4.4 pounds between Christmas Eve and the 14th of Jan (my last weigh in day). I thought okay, no one’s coming to visit, there’s no reason why I can’t keep doing well – eating the right stuff, going to the gym, all that.

Then, of course, I got sick. Around the 17th of Jan, I started getting sick with pneumonia, which landed me in the hospital so I missed the next weigh-in day. I only worked out a couple of days that week before I got sick. I came home on Tuesday with instructions to take it easy, and discovered the antibiotic I was sent home with can weaken your joints so I shouldn’t exercise as vigorously as I might for at least two weeks after taking it. I depend on the exercise for extra points because frankly I don’t necessarily eat as well as I could for the points I have.

So, tomorrow, I have to go to weigh-in early because I foolishly made a doctor’s appointment for 1/2 hour before my normal meeting. I am sure I’ll be up and I’ll be discouraged (more so than now, even) and I’ll be certain I’ll never do this.

My husband believes in me but honestly, right this minute I feel like it’s a losing battle. Giving up means throwing away what progress I have made and probably getting back to almost 190 pounds. So, I can’t give up but I wish I could see more progress. I wish there could come a point where it is just easy, but I’m sure that’ll never happen. I fear struggling for the rest of my life, but I know I have to.

I’ve been in the hospital twice in the last two months and both times they checked my blood sugar several times a day. I am not diabetic but I’ve had doctors say that since I had gestational diabetes 18+ years ago, I’m just a time bomb waiting for it to happen. I don’t want it to happen and I know diet and exercise can help, maybe even prevent it.

So, I have to stay on this treadmill (no pun intended, I rarely use a treadmill) until the day I die, I guess, or until my knees finally give out like they threaten to periodically. Sometimes I wonder if it’s really worth it. I wonder if it would be better to be happy and not worry about every scrap of food I eat rather than count every point and worry about every weigh-in.

Was just catching up on the blogs in my reader and I found Just a Mom’s latest post. She’s talking about how she wants to get to a place where she doesn’t worry about food and can eat without it being something she has to talk about or agonize over.

Without her way with words, I want that, too. I know I haven’t been totally on program (or even on program at all) this week because I was in the hospital from Saturday night/Sunday morning (got to my room at 1 am) until Tuesday afternoon. I had pneumonia and I guess I’m still “recovering” from it. I’m not going to Adoration tonight nor am I going to my writers’ meeting (thank you, God, I’m not president anymore) tomorrow morning because I’m supposed to be taking it easy. However, taking it easy means no gym, and I’m really not happy about that. I kinda depend on the exercise for the extra points. I haven’t been keeping track because how do I account for what I ate in the hospital?

I read several weight loss blogs. At least, I try to read them when I have time, and now I’m feeling a bit guilty for not being more on program this week.

I guess I’ll start over again tomorrow.

I hope as the days countdown to the big holiday you’re all doing well!

Things here took an interesting turn Tuesday night. My inlaws arrived Tues afternoon and I’d been feel very sleepy that evening, so I took a little nap. That night as I lay down on a sofa in the rec room, my stomach started to hurt and continued to a point where I couldn’t straighten up and it felt like a knife in my belly.

At around midnight, I guess I woke up my husband he took me to the emergency room. After about an hour of waiting in the exam room (pretty fast for an ER) I saw a doctor who had the nurse insert and IV and gave me Benadril for a rash I’d developed that came and went (stress, I think), an anti-nausea drug and pain meds that made the room spin and caused me to fall asleep between sentences in the conversation. I had an X-ray done and a CAT scan (pretty scary to fall asleep between the instructions “Take a deep breath and hold it” and “Breathe normally.”)

Some of you don’t know that I had a kidney transplant almost 7 years ago. Turns out that a cyst on one of my own kidneys was bleeding and that caused the pain, which apparently was referred since it was nowhere near the organs! They admitted me because they were afraid of the cyst bleeding out. The transplanted kidney looks fine and my creatinine (measurement of kidney function) is well within normal range.

I was in the hospital until yesterday afternoon. While I’m home I’m still in a little pain (maybe a 1 instead of a 9) and not feeling great, so I’d appreciate prayers that I will continue to recover.

Thank for your support everyone!