Welcome to the first proper entry on this new and exciting blog.
Last night I was full of happiness and optimism. My fiancé – TuT (Toad undergoing Training) had spent so long setting the website up, making sure my email was working and helping me load up my first entry, everything was good.
I watched my Delia which I really enjoyed and spent the rest of the evening reading and watching television – a pretty typical Monday night. I didn’t have any wineage and going to bed with a low calorie hot chocolate I felt healthy and virtuous, having been swimming and for a brisk 3km walk during the day and cooking a healthy stir fry for tea.
Then I wake up this morning, expecting to feel lighter and happier. I have spent the last hour and a half in floods of tears and have made TuT late for work. He hasn’t even had any breakfast and I feel like living shit about it. I just hate my weight, my appearance, and the fact that the majority of my clothes don’t fit.
When TuT and I moved in together I was a size 10/12 and sometimes if a particular shop was generously sized, an 8. I enjoyed shopping for clothes and the weekend was always a chance to get a little more dressed up than during the week and I was happy with how I looked and felt about myself.
The dark side of being that size for my 5 foot 10 inches frame was that I was achieving the size through strict avoidance of carbohydrates, a sort of Atkins diet that I had fashioned. However, after years of watching fat grams and counting Weight Watchers points, I wasn’t embracing the Atkins philosophy completely by eating mounds of cheese and cooked breakfasts, I was still avoiding the high fat foods as well as the carbohydrates. I just wasn’t eating very much at all.
I wasn’t taking any medication at this time for my mental health problems and the weight was just dropping off me.
“Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels”
Despite the ill health I experienced whilst following such a restricted diet and the fact that in its latter stages I was borderline anorexic, I loved being slim and wearing my size 10 jeans.
Now 18 months down the line I eat a much more varied diet, whilst still trying to be healthy, but including carbohydrates and pretty much all food groups. But I have gained four stone in the last year. I know I am healthier because I don’t permanently have some sort of cold or flu but I feel so bloody FAT. I am a size 14, pushing 16 now and I absolutely HATE IT.
One of the main differences is that I am now on medication to help manage my mental health problems. I take an antipsychotic called Amisulpride and an antidepressant called Trazodone. The weight has pretty much started creeping on slowly since I went on to these two medications. However, my web research this morning has said while it is possible to gain weight on these medications, although it is a rarer side effect than other antidepressants and antipsychotics, it is possible to LOSE WEIGHT whilst taking them.
So I need some sort of diet to follow and need to do a good amount of exercise. I have no idea where to start as TuT and I reckon we are pretty healthy at the moment and there isn’t much I can cut out of my diet. Following my hours of tears this morning I have rung the doctors and I am going to see the lovely Triage nurse, Jane. I saw her a few weeks ago and she was so lovely, so I am hoping she can make me feel better and offer some advice on how to get to a healthier weight and size.
Watch this space…
