Those extra pounds...a 15 year history

When I was in high school, being fat sucked because I wasn't popular. I was picked on and treated poorly. I tried dieting, but didn't know how. By the end of high school, I was 5'6" and 215 pounds. A size 18.

In college, I started working out. I became vegetarian. I hung out with lots of people who were cool and didn't care about my body. Some were thin, some were fat. We were so different but so alike. We were all beautiful and told each other so. No matter how they've changed over the years, those friends are still strong and beautiful to me. I got healthy. Still overweight, but I could run. I played sports. I was strong. I played rugby and tennis. I went to the gym three times a week. I even worked there. I was about 195 pounds and a size 14. I lived on the 4th floor with no elevator, and I felt great.

Senior year rolled around. The stress and workload kept me from the gym, but I was still active. I gained weight, but not a ton. I still felt good. I was still healthy. Blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, all great. I could walk 2 miles no problem. I graduated and moved in with my girlfriend. Probably around 215, and a size 18 again.

Oh, the stress. I had a crappy job, living in a crappy situation, plus some relationship issues. Lots of drinking. Smoking. I'd say my weight went upwards of 250 then, and probably a size 22 (men's 40 pants). Eventually, I got a better job and my girlfriend and I moved.

By now I felt like crap again. A new job with lots of judgey people. I was the fat kid again. I was the unpopular one. My confidence was shot. And then I found out I had cancer. 4 months after being hired, I was out on leave for chemotherapy and radiation. At my worst, then, I was 135 pounds. No muscle, practically bedridden for months. Once I got up and moving again, eating normally and healthily, I was 145 pounds, a size 8-10. I was in HEAVEN! I felt amazing, and for the first time in years, I felt sexy again.

My confidence abounded. I loved hiking, biking, jogging with my dogs. I loved salads and lentil soup and green smoothies. These were not punishments or sacrifices, I loved them! Slowly my weight gained to 155-160 and I plateaued. This was where my body wanted to be. I am ACTUALLY big boned…I have broad shoulders, broad hips, wide wrists and knees. A size 10-12 was perfect for me. Plenty of muscle from 3+ mile hikes, able to run for half an hour on the treadmill, and I didn’t feel guilty eating some ice cream here or there because I was able to control myself to one serving. I didn’t notice that my period, which had always been very irregular, was often absent for months since the chemo.

Then I found out I was infertile. My wife and I went to the doctor’s to try and have a baby. After lots of tests and scans, they told me I had less than 1/10^th of a percent chance of getting pregnant. My absence of period added to the confirmation—Premature Ovarian Failure. I probably had PCOS before the chemotherapy (which seriously affects your ability to lose and maintain a healthy weight and is also related to diabetes which runs rampant in my genetics), but those drugs pretty much fried my ovaries and “cured” the disease. Which helped me keep the weight off, helped with unwanted body hair and all the other symptoms of PCOS, but also meant that my ovaries just weren’t working at all. But I was stubborn and we decided we would try anyway. I figured if there was no progress with hormone treatment to kickstart the ovaries, then my wife would try. She was healthy, it should be no problem for her.

The hormones brought my ovaries back to life. Somewhat. They also caused cravings, bloating, depression, not to mention the bruising along my stomach from the injections. Typically, someone on the doses I was getting would make 10-15 eggs or more per month. I made one. Maybe two. They increased doses, changed drugs, all to no avail. If I made one egg, we did an insemination. If I made two or more, we did IVF. We tried for months…and I gained weight for months.

20 pounds later, our marriage ended (unrelated to weight) and I moved out. I gained another 5 pounds or so from stress eating and drinking. I had stopped the fertility medications, but judging from other bodily changes, the PCOS was coming back (I see this in hindsight). I tried to keep working out and stay on the diet that had kept me healthy for years, but slowly kept increasing.

At 180 pounds or so, I met my current partner. I still felt fairly healthy, and we had a lot of fun doing so many different things. Unfortunately, a lot of our dates revolved around eating out, or cooking for each other. I also went on birth control—which has a side effect of, you guessed it, weight gain. I gained 15 pounds in 3 months. My aunt joked that I was now “fat and happy” with my new love. Unfortunately, I was not happy about the fat. I panicked as the scale inched closer to 200#. I had spent so much of my teen and young adult life well over that line, and cried every night as the scale inched closer and closer.

And then I got pregnant. 1/10^th of a percent chance happened just 4 months into this new relationship. There was a lot of stress, a lot of rough spots, but after 41 weeks, I birthed our beautiful, 9#8oz daughter in water at home with 3 midwives, her daddy, and my mom there. Over those 41 weeks, I gained 48 pounds.

A week after the birth, I stood on the scale. 225. I had lost about 20 pounds in a week (the first 10 was the hardest! Lol). My mom said “I was about 195 when I got pregnant with all three of you, and I lost all of it in 4 or 5 months, no matter how much I gained.” I was confident that with proper diet and exercise and breastfeeding, I could get back down to at least 175 within 6-8 months.

When my daughter was 2 months old, I stepped on the scale again and it read…oh, I don’t remember, but it was higher than 225. I had GAINED weight. How does anyone GAIN weight while breastfeeding and drinking green smoothies and having salads and eating generally healthy? I wasn’t depriving myself, but probably getting around 1800 calories a day.

A few months after that I stepped on the scale. 240 or so. OMG, I was almost as big as when I was fully pregnant! I made sure we always had healthy foods and tried again.

A few months later I saw 250. I’m sure I’ve been 250 before, but at that time, I didn’t own a scale. At that time, I was a heavy drinker who didn’t care about my weight. I had plenty of chunky friends who were awesome and I knew their weight didn’t matter to me, so my weight didn’t matter to them. Now, however, I wasn’t drinking. I did care. I was tired, sore, achy. I felt old. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. I got out of breath easily, and my workouts were getting harder instead of easier. So I went to the doctor. I told her what was going on, and she basically said “what do you want me to do about it?” The only thing I could think of at the time was to ask her to check my thyroid. The results came back. My TSH was normal, my T3 was low-normal, and my T4 was barely countable. Even though T4 is what the body needs from the thyroid, and is the drug that is given to treat hypothyroid, my doctor proclaimed my thyroid normal because my TSH was fine. I still have doubts.

So, for almost 2 years I have hovered around 250. I’m probably closer to 260 at this point. 100 pounds heavier than when I felt the best I have ever felt in my life. I could shed another PERSON off of me and be healthy. A small person…maybe a middle schooler…but another person nonetheless.

I’m not changing for my partner (although I miss feeling sexy and being able to do things that I can’t do right now…;) ). I’m not changing for society (I will never have a flat stomach and big boobs, not without multiple surgeries). Yes, I want to be able to shop in the “regular” section of the stores again. I don’t want to keep having to choose between a) 4 options for shirts I can afford or b) plenty of options of beautiful clothes I can’t afford.  I don’t want to be THIN…I will never be THIN. I want to be healthy. I will never fit into a size 4. Sure, I want my butt to look good in jeans. But I want it to look good because it works. Because it is strong and can lift a toddler in one arm and groceries in the other from a squatting position. I want to be able to race my kids around the yard. I want to be able to haul crap around our yard, to help replace fences, to pack up a truck for a yard sale with ease.