Getting a grip
Thanks to everyone who posted comments on my last entry; nice to have the support and suggestions. Yes, I know I need to be logging, and I'm trying to get there - one problem is that I can't get online at all during the day at my new job, and by the time evening rolls around, I'm tired and cranky and I've forgotten most of what I've eaten since I'm so damn busy all day. So I need to come up with a new strategy. Maybe I'll buy a little notebook to carry with me and write everything down as I eat; then I can update before bed.
But the main issue is that I've just been so discouraged. It's really hard to try to be a role model and set an example of how to eat right and exercise, when I'm doing everything I should and the pounds just keep creeping up on me. It makes me feel like there's no point in keeping track when nothing works. And I haven't wanted to post my weight.
I saw my doctor yesterday and we had a long discussion and did some assessments. He had taken my weight and my waist circumference before I started this medication in order to have a baseline. Yesterday we took them again. The first time - which was in April - I weighed 155.5. When I saw that on the sheet, I remembered how at the time I was not happy to see that number, since 155 was really the high end of where I wanted to stay in my maintenance phase, and I recall comforting myself by remembering that it was late in the day and I was fully dressed.
Then I got on the scale and it read 169.5. And all I wanted was to be back at 155.5.
Believe it or not, though, that wasn't the most telling indication; the waist circumference was. I've gone from 33 inches in April to 36 inches now. No wonder my damn pants don't fit.
Anyway, he is starting me on a new medication that has the same benefits without the weight gain side effect, but he said something that really disturbed me when he was talking about it - he said that it wouldn't "lower my metabolic rate" like the other one. Is that what happens? I hadn't thought of it that way, and now I'm all freaked out about it. How do I know my metabolism will go back up at all?
So what I'm doing now is gradually weaning onto the new medication while gradually weaning off the old one. It's going to take a few weeks until I've fully made the switch. I really hope my weight starts to go back down. I still kind of can't believe that it didn't occur to me, as my weight went up 5, 10, 15 pounds, that it wasn't normal. Too much going on in my life with my daughter starting kindergarten and me starting my new job, I guess. Or maybe I'm just so used to blaming myself for my weight issues. Well, at any rate, I hope this works...