Fat Fitness

I'm so excited to have worked with Paul Cory on this great fitness photoshoot and very thankful to the owner of my gym who let us use the facility and machines. Yes, this is my actual gym. I'm even wearing my ratty old tennis shoes. These are also some of my actual workout clothes. In other words, I didn't just pretend to workout to get cool pictures. I enjoy working out. Curves alternates between resistance machines and bounce pads for in place running, although you can skip the jogging and do double on the machines if you want to. They also do zumba which is awesome if you haven't tried it or heard of it. Remember that Health at Every Size says to find an exercise that you love and do it as often as you want! You don't have to go to a gym and workout on machines, but find something that's fun and you can be passionate about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fat Girl Health: Update

Remember how I gushed about the doctor not mentioning my weight? Well that didn't last long. She called me to let me know the results of my blood tests. My blood pressure was already good so she called to let me know that my cholesterol and my blood sugar were also good- a relief since diabetes runs in my family. Still, she just couldn't help (though to her credit she seemed tentative about it) but suggest that I lose weight. Being thin means being healthier! Right? But I'm already healthy so what do I have to gain exactly? More so, I'd like to know how she'd suggest I do this.

I'm going to talk a little about my health- something I avoid doing because I try to sound professional most of the time (I pull that off, right?).  I have hypothyroidism. At least according to my blood test done Dec. '10 with a TSH level of 4.1. This is something that actually impacts my  health. More recently because, despite not being medicated, my TSH suddenly dropped to 1.6 as my symptoms became debilitating. I may actually have hypothyroidism caused by Hashimoto's disease. It's an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the thyroid. When it does pieces sometimes break off and dump thyroid hormones into the body causing TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone- a hormone released by the pituitary gland in order to stimulate the thyroid when it's not producing enough hormones [T4 and T3]) to drop suddenly. The symptoms are hell to be honest. Severe fatigue, nausea, dizziness, pain.. I've been barely functioning for the past month or so.

This is partially relevant because one of the symptoms I've been experiencing is lack of appetite and nausea after eating. I've been eating very little. It varies from day to day but the most I've been able to eat in the past few weeks is about 1400 calories (I only know this because someone was concerned and asked me to add it up) and the average is closer to 700 with some days being much less. This is not okay and it also hasn't caused weight loss. So when I ask "what would she have me do?" she certainly can't tell me to eat less! This was just plain irresponsible of her. The severity is what caused me to make a doctor's appointment asap. So this, this is what actually effects my health and in a severe way.

I wanted to make the severity of my symptoms clear so that you can be shocked and outraged when I tell you that the doctor (resident) dismissed all of these symptoms. Perhaps she thinks 'oh, fattie thinks she has thyroid problems, big surprise' (even with a copy of my last blood test in front of her) or maybe she's just inexperienced- she is a resident after all. But these things she dismisses while my life is put on hold because of how sick I am, but she thinks weight loss is an appropriate piece of advice (after I informed her of my history with an ED no less- something else I haven't talked about on here because it still makes me feel ashamed and uncomfortable). There is no good excuse for this people. I have one more appointment next week and if it goes as poorly then it's time to find a new doctor!