Sunday, March 17, 2013

An Unfortunate Development

Things were chugging along nicely. I was getting up at 5 AM five days a week and walking 2 miles in the park with a friend. I was steadily losing weight. Not at a breakneck speed, but there was progress. I really started feeling great about myself.

And then it happened.

In my obsession to get to the gate at school before it was shut (which would require me to walk the long way home. Good grief), I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and stepped off the edge of the sidewalk. Honestly, it's a miracle I was able to catch myself from crashing into the concrete bench in front of me. In my moment of stupid, sheer clumsiness, I twisted my ankle.

Now, I have a sprained ankle I can't walk on due to stiffness. In my reading, I've seen that it can take weeks before I'm back to normal and am able to walk like I used to. Weeks. Just when things were going so well...

To say that I'm frustrated with myself is an understatement. A gross understatement.

There's not a lot I can do about it. To rush my healing is to risk further injury. More lasting injury. And that's just not worth it.

So, I may have to do what I did a couple years ago. And that's keep track of my daily caloric intake on Myfitnesspal. We'll see. I'd really like to continue losing weight, not losing the ground I've reached.

Maybe that will be a big incentive to keeping track of my calories--something I detest.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Regularity

This may seem like too much information for y'all, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Who knows? It might be affecting other women in my shoes.

I haven't had a regular menstrual cycle for over 16 years. It coincides with the rate at which I gained weight. Before we were married, I even had a doctor tell me that, due to my obesity (I really loathe that word), it would be difficult--if not impossible--for me to get pregnant when that time came. Well, four kids later, she was clearly not correct about that. However. She was right about my irregularity. Each year I gained weight, my periods came less and less frequently. There were years I had about one or two a year. And that can't possibly be healthy, right?

In the last several months, since the weight has really started to come off, my periods have become increasingly regular. In fact, the last two have occurred the same time of the month as each other. And for me, that's not something that has happened since I was about 22 years old.

Who knew losing weight would bring back the regularity to my cycles?!

Like I said at the beginning: this may be more information than you've ever wanted to know about me. But for that one obese woman who has been struggling with getting pregnant due to irregular periods, these next few words are for you:

Honey, you know you need to lose weight. You know it. I don't have to tell you that being obese is not healthy for you. And it's certainly not healthy for that baby you so desperately want to have. If you lose some weight--so far, I've only lost about 12% of my total body weight--not only will you feel and look better, have more energy, and improve your health, you may bring back more regular cycles as well. And as we both know, it's extremely difficult to get pregnant with irregular cycles. Your baby is worth the hard work and effort on your part. But more importantly, so are you.