Wellness for Life

I stood on the scale and looked down in dismay. I knew I had made some bad decisions that week, but I didn’t think it had been THAT bad. As I stepped back, I wondered once again why I was even trying.
​
It felt like I had been trying for years, with no result. Well, that wasn’t really true. I was seeing a change. Every week the numbers on the scale went up, no matter what I did. Sometimes, if I did everything exactly right, I could lose two or three pounds. It might take a month for that to happen, but every time, it felt like hope. And then one day I would skip a workout, because I was really tired or my legs hurt, or just because I was human and a skipped workout sometimes happens, and in one day those three pounds would come right back. It was like there was a magnet attached to my body, and those pounds would just latch on.

It didn’t used to be this way. I used to be the girl who could eat anything and never gain an ounce. To be honest, I vascilated between loving it and hating it. I liked my body, and I liked being slender. At the same time, I didn’t love the passive aggressive, and sometimes straight-up aggressive, comments I’d get about my slim frame. I was told my body wasn’t womanly, that I looked anorexic, and that I must be a size zero (I was, occasionally). Those disses didn’t feel good, but I understood that they came from jealousy.

When my ability to lose weight in the blink of an eye disappeared in my mid-thirties, I didn’t even notice it for months. I hadn’t stepped on a scale since my youngest child was born, because why would I need to? I trusted that my body would do what it was supposed to do. It always had. But as the weeks passed, I started getting really tired. Not just regular-mom-tired, but I-slept-all-night-and-I-feel-like-I’ve-been awake-for-two-days tired. I was nauseous most of the time, my muscles were sore, I was really irritable, my skin was getting dry patches, and I couldn’t think straight. I felt like I had the flu, without the fever. Eventually I went to my doctor, and after a blood test, I was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid.

Essentially, this means that I don’t have much in the way of metabolism. Everyone associates metabolism with weight loss, but there’s so much more to it than that. Metabolism is really just a way of referring to how your body burns energy. An underactive thyroid means that your body struggles to use energy efficiently. I was feeling so terrible because my body was not getting the energy it needed to function. If a body goes long enough without the energy it needs, the organs begin to shut down.

Fortunately, I can take medicine that helps my body to produce the energy it needs to function. But that was only the first step. Turns out there’s a lot more involved in taking care of a body with an underactive thyroid than just taking a pill.

Over the next months and years I began learning so much about how to take care of my body. I had to change my relationship to everything, from how I dressed to how I approached sleep, what I drank, what I ate, even how I talked to myself about my body. Suddenly I had to rethink every bite I put in my mouth. I could no longer just grab something because it sounded good. And even though my energy level improved and my mind became clear again, those pounds still were not coming off.
​
It is now about 5 years later, and I am finally starting to find things that work. Really, truly work. When I stick with them, I can lose a pound or two a week. It’s not a lot of progress, but it’s slow and steady. I’ve had to give up coffee entirely, and strictly monitor my sugar and gluten intake. I walk three miles four times a week, and work out the other three days. I drink more water now than I ever have before. I remind myself often that my body is healthy, strong, and functioning beautifully, because I want my brain and body to soak in this message and truly believe it. I only wear clothes that feel good on me, and I take joy in using beautifully smelling lotions. I want my body to know that I am committed to taking really good care of it, because I appreciate all it does for me. And I know that if I give it what it needs, I can (still) trust it to do its job.
​