WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Unfortunately, I must make this brief, since I am already several hours late in posting. I am working today, not feeling well, having been up most of the night attending to that most inconvenient of complications in my fluid-filled existence: the female reproductive cycle.
I think I'll spare you the goriest of the details: suffice it to say that after two days of the most insane eat-everything-not-galloping hunger (no, I didn't overeat despite it - I did do a lot of frantic chewing on very very hard food, though, which seemed to make time pass) I realized that there are specific circumstances which, if this is what normally-reproducing females go through for three or four days out of the month while pre-menopausal, this SUX0RS. The only way I can describe it is the kind of hunger that would make any being, short, tall, armed or defenseless, attempt to run down whatever prey is available and eat it raw. Not even meat-eating animals would be safe! I think this must be a testosterone or a progesterone thing: feed the egg at all costs, at all risk.
At any rate, I got through it, but my teeth were sore from overcooking brown rice so hard that I had to chew it twice. This has the effect of palliating hunger, because chewing will palliate hunger, as you gum-chewers well know. And chewing the same thing over and over again doesn't render any more calories, fat or sodium than chewing new things each time and swallowing! After eating only hard fruits - very hard fruits, and brown rice, and other disgustingly healthy foods, I added it up for the day and no, I had not gone off the plan. But the mindset of 'eat everything' is very disturbing, and I am glad it is only an egg-time thing.
It is misty and rainy and chilly here, and winter is on the way. I went back to the cardio center a few days ago and did 45 minutes of rowing. Despite my severe knee injury and horrible pain there, there is still fat on my body and there is only one way it will burn off: exercise. And there are only so many exercises I can do: most of them involve the arms, or the arms and one leg! So I used the rowing machine. After another week of PT and my vacation trip to San Francisco over Samhain, I can ask my doctor if there is any safe way to do cardio exercise on a recumbent bike. If not, I guess I'm going to be trying out for the women's rowing team in San Ramon when I get back there whenever that happens.
I also applied for a new job that came out of nowhere, and if I get it, I'll be within wave-hello distance of our man Barack and his lovely family. And I am rather enthused about the possibility.
That is my Turtle Update, now for a few stats:
Starting weight 334
Current weight: 294 - 40 pounds lost, approximately 5 pounds fat, 35 pounds of water or 4.2 gallons. From my original estimate of 12.88 gallons of edema, I've made a big dent! 8.66 gallons to go (or almost 73 pounds of water). If I lose just the water, I'll have probably lost another two sizes. I won't really know until I am thin again how much water it really was and how much fat, but I intend to find out. Until then I keep updating my body fat percentage, and I am no longer overweight. I am at 25.5% body fat. The rest is just Michelin Woman.
My heart goes out to anyone else who has this problem; and I intend to do all I can to get my diagnosis, and to reach out to anyone I come across who experiences the same or similar types of problems with electrolyte imbalances and adrenal insufficiency.
And a very special thank you to our own Edward Spurlock who, due to his total geek devotion, gave me the initial calculations to figure out just how very very wrong my body was, and to start me on the path to find a solution. And who fixes my tags.
Sorry for the lateness: if I had not been up all night, and working all day frantically trying to do my day job in spite of it all, this would be here on time!
Scheduled WHEE diaries:
October 25
Sun PM - kismet
October 26
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - ???
October 27
Tues AM - ??
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 18)
October 28
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
October 29
Thurs AM - A DC Wonk
Thurs PM - ???
October 30
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM ???
October 31
Sat AM - louisev Turtle diary on hiatus for publishing conference please someone fill in! brimi????
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 19