 I finally made it!
Well I never thought I would be posting in this section but here I am and I am so happy! Here is my story of weight loss success:
I believe I have had PCOS since I was 16 but didn’t know what it was. I started gaining weight and got facial hair. I thought the weight gain was from stopping taking gym class in school and thought the facial hair was just inherited from my mother. I had always been skinny up to this point but by the time I graduated high school I was 140 pounds at 5’5”. I had also stopped having my period for 6 months and my mother took my to my first gyno appointment a few months after graduation. I was told that I was anemic and was told to take iron and was given Provera to start my period. Shortly after this I got a job where I had to walk quite a distance from where I parked my car to work. I began to lose weight and started watching how much I ate and ended up going down to 115 pounds shortly after I turned 19.
I met my DH to be a few months later and we dated for 2 years. Right before we got married I went on BCP’s as we didn’t want children right away. I started to gain weight and within less than a year I had gone back up to 140 pounds again. I decided that the pill wasn’t working for me with all the weight gain and I went off it, only to become pregnant with my first daughter! During my pregnancy I gained the recommended 25 pounds and after the birth of my daughter my weight quickly went back down to 140 pounds. I breastfed my daughter for 7 months and my weight remained fairly stable but when I stopped breastfeeding I went back on a different BCP as I found out that I had developed a latex allergy and couldn’t use condoms, etc. Up went the weight again!
When my daughter was a year and a half we decided to try for another baby so I went off the pill and got pregnant right away. I was 150 pounds. I only gained 3 pounds during that pregnancy and once my second daughter was born my weight went down to 140 pounds again. I breastfed her for 14 months and again my weight stayed stable. As soon as I stopped, however, my weight went up again. I gained 10 pounds in a week! I was so upset but had no idea why this was happening. I was back on the BCP’s at this point and stayed on them until my second daughter was 2 years old and then went off them to get pregnant with my son.
When I went into the doctor’s office for my first prenatal visit I got weighed and I was 164 pounds! How humiliating! I only gained 3 pounds during this pregnancy as well and after I had my son my weight went down to 150 pounds. I had a tubal ligation before I left the hospital and didn’t go back on BCP’s and my period never came back. When my son was 19 months old I ended up going to a new gyno and he diagnosed me with PCOS. He put me back on BCP’s to give me periods and also Spiro to lessen the facial hair. I had to go off the BCP’s after only 2 months due to really bad depression but stayed on the Spiro for 1 ½ years, all to no avail. I went back to the gyno, who had told me to lose a bit of weight to help with symptoms, and told him that I was going to go off the Spiro and lose weight to try to make my body healthy. I was so discouraged though that I asked him if there was anything that he could give me to help with the process as I had tried low carbing and Metformin and it just didn’t work for me. He told me that the only thing he has seen really helping his patients was Weight Watchers. I went home and found out the cost of the program and realized that I couldn’t afford it. I was talking to a friend who is also a cyster, and she told me she had done WW before and had all the points info so we decided to do it together and not go to meetings. This way we had somebody to be accountable to which is so important in successful weight loss as you can’t just cheat and get away with it. I also found that actually writing down what you eat helps because then you can’t pretend that the little snack or extra cookie didn’t happen. It helps to keep track of how much and what you are eating so that you can see trends in your weight loss and if what you are eating is helping or hindering the process.
It took me another few months to get to the point where I was determined enough to actually start the program. When I hit 170 pounds I finally realized that I had to bite the bullet and get going on losing weight. Before I started actually restricting points I just spent a couple of days recording how many points I was consuming eating the way I was used to. I was shocked at how many points I was eating even though I wasn’t eating a lot of food. It was all about what I was eating and not so much how much. I also prepared for success by stocking my cupboards and fridge with healthy low point foods so that I didn’t get discouraged that I had nothing to eat since what I was used to eating was so high in points I would have used my daily points quota up half way through lunch! I did have to learn portion control and I found that a kitchen scale was absolutely invaluable in this. I also realized how many points/calories I was consuming in drinks and switched to fat free creamer and artificial sweetener in my coffee. I also switched to diet pop and Crystal Light. After a while I started taking calcium supplements instead of drinking milk as I wanted to save up my points for food. I also stopped eating breakfast as I found I was hungrier by lunch time if I ate breakfast. I have never been a snacker so that wasn’t an issue for me. I started making healthier dinners without potatoes, pasta or rice. I also found that all the processed and convenience foods we have been told as a society are so desirable are what is making us fat so I stopped buying them and now stick to simple fresh or frozen veggies and lean meats. Lunch is usually vegetables as soup or salad, and fruit. Occasionally I will have whole wheat crackers with cheese or peanut butter. I made sure that I saved up enough points during the day so that I could still have a reasonable desert so that I never felt deprived. I found that if I was sensible in all the other things that I ate, I could still have treats that I enjoy. You just can’t eat poorly all day and then have treats as well.
When I started this diet, I was absolutely convinced that I wasn’t going to succeed as I never had before. I was also in too much pain with plantar fasciitis and sciatica to do any kind of strenuous exercise so I figured I was doomed to be fat forever. In spite of my skepticism, the weight started to come off. It was coming off at 1.5-2 pounds per week, with the occasional plateau. When plateaus happened I really had to lean on my friend for encouragement so I didn’t give up and I did the same for her. When I had lost 20 pounds my period started coming on its own and has been showing up regularly ever since! My testosterone level has dropped from 4.3 to 1.5(although this has killed my libido so now I look good but don’t want sex lol). My facial hair has not improved nor has my hair loss but I am giving it time. My plantar fasciitis and sciatica are asymptomatic now and I have so much more energy! I have totally changed the way I eat and it is something I can keep doing for the rest of my life, unlike diets that provide food for you and don’t teach you the right way to eat in the real world. I have learned moderation and that if you want your cake and eat it too you also have to eat your veggies and lean meats! It has taken me 10 months to lose 50 pounds and has been a real struggle at times, but it is all worth it in the end when I feel so much healthier and I look at myself in the mirror and can’t believe the body I see is mine! I finally found the real me under all that fat and I am not going to allow myself to get lost again! The pictures I am attaching are from my 10th anniversary on August 29, 2002 and then my 11th anniversary on August 29, 2003. Thanks to all my cysters for their support and encouragement and your success stories that motivated me! |