I feel boring today; Portion creep; Salt Overload; Cytomel and my progress; Dismissive Doctors; Plugging Along...

I've been trying to figure out what the heck to blog about just to keep blogging. I feel really boring. I hate that.

So, maybe mention the portion creep I noticed going on here this week. It's not like I feel totally bingey or hugely hungry (though I have slacked off on both water and in-between meals protein-shakes). I have actually let myself get to the point of hunger, which tends not to be a good thing in my case (though it may work fine in yours). When I get hungry, I get a bit frantic and that's when I set myself up for impulse take-outs/delivery orders. I've fought the pizza cravings and the Chinese food take-out cravings well so far...and it's not easy.

  But it's 10x stronger when I let myself get hungry.

As a consequence of the laxity in water and hunger-stopgapping shakes, I've had bigger portions at lunch/dinner (still okay at breakfast). Not so much that I should gain--except for the salt bloat, and yes, I have dark circles under my eyes to prove I've overindulged in the white substance--not crack, but I guess my version of it. I love salt. I love it more than sugar.

I've had food delivery (pre-bought, low-cal) yesterday and today. It was from a Groupon set I bought a while back for SHAPELOVERS. I've used them in the past when I felt depressed or ill and didn't wanna cook. I do not feel depressed or ill, but I didn't wanna cook. :) So, I used one of my Groupons.

I've had their lower cal, turkey ham version of Spanish Tortilla for breakfast (yesterday, today) with Alpine Lace swiss cheese (one slice,  70 cals) on top for added calcium and yumsiness. I don't really care for turkey ham, but it was filling enough. I added a tomato yesterday. Today, mushrooms.

Today, I splurged on a whole tall can of Amy & Brian coconut water to fight the salt bloat, which is considerable today after having two cups of a super-saltilicious soup from the Lebanese place. It was lentils, chickpeas and a wee bit of beef in the broth, and very tasty, but the sodium tasted off the charts!

Lunch (late today) is gonna be kept under 500 cals, I just haven't decided yet whether it's gonna be the ShapeLovers Walnut Chicken (really tasty) or one of the WonderSlim entress with added veggies. The pick-up for my organic produce was delayed to tomorrow, so I have zip greens or veggies other than tomatoes, onions, and peppers in the house (and some frozen peas and maybe the back of the freezer has some asparagus or something).  I should be nicely stocked up tomorrow night. :)

I did have a mad chocolate urge last night, so I took 3 bites of a Rocky Road protein bar to quell that. About 70 cals worth.

So, still here, fighting the fight, and fighting my own slowly gaining laxity. I ain't quitting.

I have been browsing some books on Amazon on hypothyroidism. Since I feel so much better on the tiny amount of Cytomel (T3) I've been on since June (and it has helped me with the crazy hunger and helped my mood, damn what the docs say), I want to research this further. Doctors here are very reticent about changing the standard "Give em Synthroid or Levoxyl" formula, and I always went along. But the more I read, the more I suspect that I'm one of those leptin-resistant, reverse T3 plagued people. I have fatty liver disease. I don't trust my liver to do what it needs to to convert things properly,  just as I have insulin resistance and can't trust my cells to get what they need. My acanthosis nigricans has gotten BETTER with exercise and weight loss, and I hope my liver recovers with losing more weight. Until then, I just want the best regimen, most absorbable combo, I can get.

(I never had trouble keeping to a lower weight--ie, under 200-- before my immune system and thyroid went whack and it turned into 10+ pounds up a year.) It's worth looking into what else to do. If that means going on a search for an endocrinologist without a Synthroid only stick up their butt, then so be it.

I remember too well many times I made specific observations to a doc to have it dismissed, to find that 10 or 15 plus years later, studies came out that confirmed my particular observations. It made me think that doctors need to listen when patients who are informed and compliant make comments. I'm educated in the health sciences. I've had doctors think I was a doctor when I was going with my mother to her own visits (when she had a chronic, terminal illness). I read up on things. I want to be healthier.

So, when I'm dismissed and the status quo is all that matters, it makes me wonder if I have to wait 10 or more years for a study to confirm my observations, yet again.

Pisses me off.

Because I'm old enough to remember when they used to say "asthma is in your head, it's psychosomatic." Yeah, tell that to my fricken hyperreactive bronchii and my hyperreactive immune system, you close-minded MD jackass. :) My brother and I have totally different personalities (he's extroverted and naturally active and gregarious; I'm introverted, a depressive, and prefer books to parties). Both of us have bad asthma, and have had since infancy. We both respond to the same meds. In my head: Yeah, right. Look into the DNA instead, you pissers. (Oh, I think I remember, too, that PMS was all in "our heads." Right.)

I remember in the 80s, when I used to say, "Ya know, this may be weird, but I keep a calendar for when I have asthma flare-ups, and they occur more often right before my period." I was pooh-poohed.  And guess what--I was not alone. I just kept a calendar with incidents of attacks and respiratory downgrading that showed me the pattern.

I remember when I went to more than half a dozen specialists to try and figure out why my asthma got so bad I was essentially a respiratory cripple for years, couldn't use a pillow or couldn't breathe, sat up to sleep often, and was just given the regular regimen. It didn't occur to them to listen to me saying, "Um, this feels different. I've had asthma since I was a baby. But I'm 30 now and this is different." Well, when they treated my thyroid, guess what, the breathing started to improve. I suspect, though this can't be confirmed now, that my thyroid was inflamed and blocking my breathing. This, I suspect, is why I could not use a pillow (the way it inclined my neck made the obstruction worse). No one thought to check my thyroid, no matter how often I said to all these specialists, "It feels...different."

I was in such a state of inflammation from my immune system attacking me, I was turned down for blood donation--and that clue didn't lead my docs anywhere. It was DISMISSED. (yeah, years of blood donating, and suddenly my antibody titers made me unsuitable???)

I was in such a state of autoimmune inflammation that pap smears were a painful, bloody mess.



TMI?


And the fact that I worked in the oncology/hematology ward, surrounded by harsh cleansers and all sorts of toxic meds...nobody stopped to think that my already, naturally hyperreactive immune system may have just overloaded like the mother or all short circuits working 1 year in that environment? Hmmm...


But yeah....never mind what the patient is observing. All those little flags that add up to....

Docs don't always clue in. And American docs seem dismissive of European and other foreign studies. Don't know why? I'd think Swedish, French, Danish, British, Japanese, etc other doctors also have brains and degrees of study that means they can figure out how to do research and test meds. Ya know?

I may need to keep a new calendar/chart on how weight loss and mood and changes in my regimens correlate. Cause it wasnt' until the doc asked last time that I stopped to examine my progress and realized that, yeah, I was more active, losing weight, feeling more chipper, and wanting to try new activities. Most since the addition of Cytomel....

I was pooh-poohed again. Well, okay, let the studies come already. I'm sick of the dismissive doc shit. :P

I'll keep plugging along. This is my body. I am listening to it in my own way, trying not to be too much of an impediment to it's message....