I posted yesterday all fired up after my 5km run/walk I’d been on – with all those endorphins rushing around my body I couldn’t help but write a positive entry after the gloom of writing about my weight misery the previous day. I am thinking that I should update you all on what happened when I went to see lovely Triage nurse Jane and what has happened since on the battle of my blubber.
I saw Jane, she spoke to me about what I ate and weighed me. I told her I thought it was the Trazodone and Amisulpride combo that was piling the weight on and making it difficult to shift. I then half-heartedly mentioned that I was on the Depot Provera injection – now is not the time for pregnancy! Surprisingly Jane told me that would be the cause of my weight gain and that it is famous for putting weight on.
“Whenever any of my patients go on the injection I warn them that they should be prepared to gain weight.”
Jane said gravely. When I went on the injection nearly two years ago I was very borderline anorexic and spoke at length with the nurse in the North about weight gain. She said it was possible because it increased your appetite. I had ultimate control over my appetite at that time and was pretty used to feeling hungry so if the only way I could gain weight was by eating more, then I would ensure I continued to eat very little.
However, the weight has slowly crept on in the last 18 months since being on it. When I got home I looked on the web and there were similar stories to mine out there, women that had gained three or four stone in the years whilst they had been receiving the injection.
It was a great relief to find out the cause of my weight gain. I spoke to Jane about what I generally eat in a typical day and she could see no problem with what I was eating, although she does want me to keep a food diary for a week and return to see her with it, and of course, I no longer want to use the Depot Provera injections to prevent pregnancy of bambino Toads.
I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders (if not yet off my body!) – if Jane had confirmed my suspicions that it was the Amisulpride and the Trazodone I would have just had to continue taking them as I am the most stable I have been in a long time on that combination of medication. Whenever I have been taking my medication in the last year since the weight started to creep on, at the back of my mind I have been thinking they are making me fat. For a while I messed about not taking my doses properly thinking that would aid weight loss, but getting mentally poorly at the same time. (and funnily enough, not losing any weight!!)
After seeing Jane I quickly hot footed it to my local Weight Watchers meeting which was taking place the very morning I was seeing Jane – Tuesday mornings at 10am. I was a bit late so had to creep about whilst Melanie conducted the meeting, getting myself weighed with a clerk and signing up for the monthly pass that not only saves me money on my weekly meeting fee, but gives TuT and I access to the ‘e-source’ which contains an online points tracker, recipe builder – basically everything you need to accurately track your points of the food you are cooking and eating.
Finding out my weight wasn’t too much of a shock as I’d already just been weighed at the Surgery with Jane. When I attended Weight Watchers in the North it was Tuesday mornings at 10am with the lovely Jenny. Now it’s Tuesday mornings at 10am with Melanie in the South, but she seems just as lovely – conducting her meeting wearing a pink rabbit ears headband for Easter! At the end of the meeting myself and another newbie spent some time with Melanie as she went through the two plans.
Melanie had joined Weight Watchers nine times before cracking it and losing her weight – it took her 18 months to lose something like 30 pounds, and then she became a Weight Watchers leader. I asked her what was it, on the ninth time, that everything clicked and she lost her weight. Melanie explained that she began staying to the meetings and just taking the programme more seriously, she began cooking whereas previously she would have four or five takeaways a week. I was advised to try the points plan and make small changes this week. I am slightly concerned that I have joined the week before Easter – I am not expecting any eggs – but TuT and I are off together for four days with days out planned and it will take some discipline to stick to my running programme. In some ways I feel as though I have joined the week before Christmas and if I’d realised I might have joined next Tuesday.
But the war on my weight is now waged! I am determined to stick to my points over the Easter weekend and get some sort of weight loss on Tuesday – even if it’s just a pound.
Time is ticking on – it is time to stop writing about weight loss and get out for my run and do something proactive to lose that pound!
