:::stands up:::

Hello, my name is Thumper, and I have a five year old child clinging to my hips, thighs, butt, and stomach. Oh, and other bits and piece of this wayward spawn have attached to other parts of my body. Like this weird second chin that, if it caught the wind just right, might flare out =just so= and enable my head to take flight.

I’ve lost 22 pounds since September; I started out using the Nutrisystem diet (food is pretty tasty!) but it didn’t agree with my intestines, so I had to drop it and have been piddling around with weight loss on my own since. I’ve hit a plateau (I’m calling it that; we’ll ignore the hoiday indulgences) but I’m ready to get back to things and break through it.

I need to lose 50 more pounds. 50 Most of the time that seems a little overwhelming, but the 22 came off without it being too tough–I didn’t starve and didn’t miss many favorite foods–so I have high hopes that by summer I’ll be close to goal without having gone insane.

Those 70 pounds were gained in a baffling and mostly unaddressed (medically speaking) way; around 1994 I was about 14-16% body fat and in pretty good shape, and my weight was normal. While still working out hard–martial arts a couple hours a day–I gained 30 pounds in a month, and it wasn’t muscle. My doc flatly refused to believe I hadn’t been shoving Big Macs and Whoppers and half a cow down my throat.

A year later: same thing. Thirty pounds in a month. And another ten trickled on after that…but by then I didn’t trust my doctor and didn’t bother to see him about it. I just lived with it.

Cut to two years ago, which was a year and a half (or thereabouts) after having a pituitary tumor removed. In the middle of an insulin stress test to see if my brain would spit out growth hormone my endocrinologist declared me to be insulin resistant (because he had to keep injecting meith insulin to drive my blood sugar down) and I finally mentioned my weird weight gain–and he wasn’t surprised. He suspected PCOS (but I haven’t done anything to find out about it) and figures it was starting then and making my entire system go haywayre.

So here I am, 50 pounds heavier than I’d like, and very much out of shape now. I don’t want the body I had in high school; I just want to lose enough to feel comfortable with my shirt tucked in, enough so that when I bend my neck I don’t have this massive extra chin, and enough that I take pressure off my back and hips.

I am so happy this exits now. I’ve got a weight loss blog, but it’s reallllllly lonely.