No more skinny wraith!

I have been incommunicado for a while, and the resultant guilt is quite strong. I may only beg forgiveness and offer the following excuse: my husband and I took possession of our first condo at the beginning of December. Since that date, every spare minute was being spent painting every inch of the 1100 square foot space. The walls needed primer and two coats as the previous owners were clearly colour blind, and the ceiling also needed a thorough going-over. As neither of us took time off work to complete this project, it took a few weeks. Then came the moving-of-the-crap part, and while the vast majority of our stuff is out of the boxes and put away, the condo is still a dreadful mess. Happily, however, we are now officially living/sleeping there full time. I’m planning on spending all of Saturday cleaning, tidying, putting away, and organizing.

During this hectic December period, an interesting body change occurred: I lost approximately eight pounds of weight in about one month. Normally, people expect this sort of change to be heralded; in this instance it isn’t exactly welcome. I was nice and lean before, with 137 pounds on my 5'8.5" frame. I dropped as low as 128 lbs and am now at 129.5 lbs, and look skinny and emaciated. Glen challenged me to put on 5 lbs by the end of Christmas holidays – a feat he knew would be next to impossible but would be a good smack-up-the-head to get me to eat more. My mother has been fretting about my weight, and during a class warm-up one of my very dear dance friends blurted out "what happened to your arms?" when she noticed how twiggy they currently appear.

My mother in law took a picture of my on my 27th birthday in late December. I was dressed up for the theatre and had a big smile on, but the feature that struck me most was how grimly drawn I appeared. My grin seemed strained, and my skin looked like it was stretched tight over my neck and cheeks. It was weird. While my western-body-image-issues, thin-is-better trained irrational brain cheers the low numbers on the scale, my rational brain knows that this ain’t good. My fitness loving, powerhouse brain wants to put back on some poundage, and my goal is to get back up to my high-school weight average of 135 lbs.

Now dear reader, don't go thinking "good lord, she’s developed disordered eating habits!" This weight loss has been unintentional and (when my rational brain is in gear, which is most of the time), unwanted. I believe that this is a result of my thyroid management. My current dose of thyroid hormone supplement has returned my physical and mental energy levels back to normal, which feels fantastic - I remember when my brain used to chat to itself like this, and I’m ecstatic that it’s back to it’s old self. I remember when my body wanted to be randomly active, flailing about for the sheer joy of movement and I worked out because I loved feeling my muscles flex and burn. I’ve always been clumsy, but for a while I was clumsy due to fatigue and slowed reflexes. Now I’m clumsy because my body just wants to move but doesn’t always think about how. This is how I remember being before the hypothyroidism, and this is how I feel now.

What isn't quite back to normal is my overall metabolism. It’s back to high-school level, when I had to work at putting on weight (unless I completely ditched physical activity), or even very slightly higher. This does not mean that I don’t have to watch my diet and my calories. Actually, it means I have to watch them more closely than I was before. Now, I need to watch them to make sure that I’m getting enough. My body is now burning calories faster than it was, so feeding it enough has become very important. For someone who is both inclined to be a moderate-to-light eater, this could be a challenge. Huge portions aren’t my style; I get really uncomfortable and kind of nauseous if I eat too much. If I ignore the “man, I’m hungry” stomach growling phase and let myself get too hungry…I get nauseous, lose my appetite, and my energy levels crash quite alarmingly. But I don’t want to eat because I don’t feel good, which doesn’t help the situation.

I’ve decided that I will take advantage of one of the more interesting employee benefits my workplace offers: up to two hours free access to a nutritionist. I need to get more calories, but I want to know how many calories a day are right for me, and how to get the most nutritional benefit from those calories. I could just start slugging back twelve packs of cola, but empty calories don’t do a body good. I’ve got a pretty good handle on nutrition, but a trained professional will be able to give me more focused direction. This can only benefit Glen, who has the metabolism of a blast furnace and at 6'2" weighs 150 lbs soaking wet. When his lung collapsed, he actually dropped down to 140 lbs. Now that was alarming!

I want to optimize my diet so that I can put on five to eight pounds primarily of muscle as well as a little fat. I know what’s sexy: jutting hips and poky spines are not! Time to get back those toned biceps and shoulders, time to fill out that bra!*

My current weight-related goal does not mean that any further diet, nurtition, or weight related posts will focus solely on weight gain. This topic is of interest on all levels, and I've worked with it at all levels. I plan on continuing to address all aspects of dealing with our weight in a healthy way, and that includes weight loss, weight gain, and weight maintenance. There will be info suitable for all, so stay tuned!


*One of the unfortunate side effects of the weight loss is that my boobs have also shrunk. According to the measuring tape, I’ve lost at least an inch, and my girls aren’t that big to begin with!