Hopefully, the above will be a photo of my sassy new hair. After the initial panic at how much she cut off, I kind of love it. :-)
I danced hard at Prince last Sunday night and got a great quad workout. I had my best weigh-in in AGES on Monday morning. By Thursday, the scale showed me up EIGHT pounds. I just do not think this is normal. I eat great, I exercise (although, after a great yoga week last week, I wasn't able to do yoga this week -- knee blew up after Prince-dancing -- my bad). But EIGHT pounds in four days? Seriously? The only bad thing that I ate that I don't normally was 5 cubes of pineapple and about 4 bites of birthday cake and ice cream on Wednesday night. THIS causes 8 pound weight-gain? Yes, I am depressed. I am angry and I am sad. I watch people eat scones, chips and other CRAP every day and no effect. I am mad that my body doesn't react the same way. It's not that I want to eat crap all the time, but I want to be able to eat something "bad" once in a while...maybe even once a week. I used to be able to do that and I apparently can't now.
I had therapy on Wednesday evening and it was good although we have not gotten into the weight thing yet.
I had a very interesting appointment with my acupuncture doctor this morning -- I am so lucky to have his insights to help me navigate my western docs! :-)
We went over all the (sometimes contradictory) test results I got from my gyne and my main MD this week:
Calcium: He agrees with MD that it is too high and it's probably caused by the high level of vitamin D I've been taking. He agrees that I should go down to 5K mg rather than 10K (which is what I have done, contrary to Gyne's recommendation that I maintain at 10K). Sounds like she should have checked my calcium when having me on such high doses of D. The calcium elevation could exacerbate the other heart-endangering things going on. And it's probably related to the thyroid stuff below too.
Glucose: He agrees with Gyne that it is too high (top "normal" level is 100 -- in range from 65-100 -- and I'm at 92) -- MD was totally unworried about that level. Acu Doc thinks the reading I got from MD on hemoglobin AIC (5.2) is wrong (Gyne's was 5.8, 6 is pre-diabetic). He agrees with the supplements Gyne told me to take and, contrary to what I planned, thinks I should take both unless I am going to cut out alcohol from my diet entirely (which I am not quite ready to do). Interestingly on booze -- he suggested vodka and tequila might be better than champagne. I told him I don't like that they make me drunk.
Cholesterol: It's up to 240 with bad cholesterol up to 152. :-( Probably exacerbated by all the other stuff going on. Acu Doc agrees with MC to cut out egg yolks and cheese and suggested cutting out red meat too (which I told him I have already done since getting these test results). MD is going to re-test me in two months.
Thyroid: Agrees with Gyne. TSH and T4 are apparently in acceptable range (although TSH has gone up which indicates the body is trying to stimulate the thyroid...unsuccessfully), but T3 (only tested by Gyne) is rock bottom. He says this means that the conversion from T4 to T3 is not working so agrees I should take the quarter grain of Naturthroid (which I started this week).
Weight: He thinks that my difficulty in getting it off despite nearly perfect diet is related to glucose and thyroid. I need to remember that challenges are opportunities for growth and SURRENDER to the fact that my body is different from others, i.e., I can't eat/drink/be-merry like others and still maintain my weight. This SUCKS, but I think he is right and I need to meditate on it to get peaceful, and not sad and angry, about it.
I told him that all this, along with my injured knee/back, etc., is really depressing me. He gave me a good pep talk -- I'm fixing these problems BEFORE they become problems unlike most people, etc. He says he has a lot of the same problems and understands...they happen to a lot of people as they age.
This is really a struggle for me on so many levels. But I keep trying. And this weekend, we have four of the grandkids coming to stay with us (yay!) so that will cheer me up.
7 comments:
is it possible you are getting surprise sodium in something? because, for myself, if my food was in line and I went up, it would be sodium. I can go up 5+ lbs in 24 hours from one thing with sodium. I am positive I could go up 8-10 with 2 things.
I have no experience with alcohol, so I don't know what that would do. have you tried stopping for a couple months and seeing what happens? like if nothing happens, you would know that wasn't it.
HAIR IS GREAT!
love the cut, love the style, love the color.
In the end, everything that is 'wrong' with me (and I too have a long list) ended up being an asset rather than a hinderance. what it all taught me has a great deal with where I am today. You can either fight it or use it.
love that you are monitoring all this stuff and have several thought processes to consider.
And I agree, more than one thing makes it confusing.
Can't believe you wrote a real post!
I am careful with sodium so I don't think that's it. It could be the alcohol which is very hard for me to give up with our (over) active social life. But I am concentrating on cutting back.
The hair is my natural color -- can you believe it? I can't believe I colored it for so many years! ;-)
I've got a lot to learn...am working on not getting overwhelmed with all of it...
Have a great weekend!
Love your hair Helen!
A few weekends ago, my hubby told me all his coworkers had gone up to the Prince concert and I looked at him and asked why we weren't there (did I tell you that already?)
before you give up egg yolk, do a bit of research- My doc just told me to eat them as they have choline and other nutrients and have been found not to raise serum cholesterol -crazy all the different ideas!
Did they tell you if your thyroid is whacked, it can raise your cholesterol? I haven"t been able to get anyone to answer my question to if it is really elevated or does the thyroid affect the number on the test only
Hair is adorable!!
Hope the eight pounds left as quick as it came. So glad you have therapist and acupuncture and docs to help. Good to get help we need.
Keep posting. Love to heat from you.
Typo--and I'm to anal to just ignore it. Hear, not "heat."
just catching up - I agree with Vickie there could be sodium in those spikes, but the docs are right, the glucose/thyroid is a factor, too. I love what you said:
"I need to remember that challenges are opportunities for growth and SURRENDER to the fact that my body is different from others, i.e., I can't eat/drink/be-merry like others and still maintain my weight. This SUCKS, but I think he is right and I need to meditate on it to get peaceful, and not sad and angry, about it."
What a fantastic attitude!! Hope to see more posting. Love your haircut!! Hang in there!
okay, even though we are not yet quite to a month, you need a new post because every time I pop in, I assume you are still frsutrated and depressed and then I wonder how things are. . .
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