Weight Loss: My Experience

valeracities commented on my last blog post about weight loss. She said that she thought weight loss was always a symptom of something more serious, so I wanted to comment on that in a post.

While weight loss does often tell you that something more serious is going on, I don't think that's always the case. Take me, for example. The reason why I'm losing weight is very, very apparent. I know why without even keeping track of anything, but my food log on caloriecount.about.com backs me up. I'm simply not able to find enough food I can eat without causing me problems to get the amount of calories I need every day to even maintain my weight. In fact, I get 500-1000 calories less than I need each day which is making me lose weight. Not to mention the diarrhea that causes weight loss from water weight being purged.

Now, if you're having weight loss, but you're still getting plenty to eat every day and, unlike me, you drink enough water every day to make up for water loss from diarrhea, you will want to go get that checked out with your doctor right away. I'm only saying that while weight loss can be associated with something more grave, it isn't always.

With that said, I feel like I've entered a new stage in this IBS mess. My pharmacy rotation I just completed was at a grocery store pharmacy. The grocery store also has a dietician on board, and I got to work very closely with her this month. Naturally, my IBS woes came up and she was very eager to help me find things I can eat to start feeling better and getting back up to my ideal weight. She gave me a lot of good ideas, but I think the best thing to come out of it was that I felt motivated to make a meal options list after meeting with her.

On this list, I listed out all of the different things I could eat at each meal that usually don't cause me any problems. I'm a very picky eater...probably worse than most kids. Growing up I only ate things like PB&J, Spaghettios, or Mac 'N Cheese and my tastes really haven't changed. So when I open up my fridge or pantry and don't see anything I can just grab and whip up quickly, I grab cereal or a bagel instead. It doesn't help that a lot of things in my pantry send my insides for a loop.

So having this list plastered on my pantry door really helps me see that cereal and bagels aren't my only options. She also really stressed building a plate. If you all didn't know (I didn't!), the new thing nowadays is called My Plate. It's really simple. It takes your plate and divides it into different food groups. Your plate should look like this at every meal. What I was doing before My Plate was taking one thing- a bagel, spaghetti or cereal- and eating just that. Sure, I like yogurt or could stand a little cheese, but I was only focusing on one part of the My Plate structure. Now that I keep My Plate in mind, I'm enjoying eating now. I feel like I have options again and that eating isn't just to maintain my energy and weight.

Not every one has plain tastes and is lazy when it comes to putting together a meal like I am, but I think everyone could benefit from trying to organize their plate like My Plate suggests. I know it has helped me a lot.

Need some ideas for meals? Obviously, everyone is different but here is my meal list so far:

Gaining weight & ending the fear

Obligatory "I'm such a bad blogger" paragraph! School has been keeping me ridiculously busy, I've taken on almost double the hours I've been working, and well, I guess I just didn't really know what else to say on here.

You know how when you go out somewhere & get really bad service? What do you want to do when you get home? Give the restaurant a really bad rating & a critical review, of course! No? Well, maybe that's just me. What I'm saying is that when things are good, there's not much to say. But when they're bad, there just isn't even enough room to get everything out! Since I've been feeling better, I just didn't really know what to post about on this blog.

On my other blog, I've been participating in Nablopomo which has taught me to pull topics out of my ass when I have absolutely nothing to talk about. Who benefits here, you guys, of course! ;)


Ok, to the actual post. If you're like me you have a bad relationship with food. You might even fear it like I do. I just cross posted a post (see below this one) I wrote for my other blog about worry. As I eat, I'm constantly worrying about what's going to happen once the food starts getting digested. Will my body be able to handle it? Am I going to have to rush to find a bathroom soon? The thoughts are endless. Wait, check that- they WERE endless. But, honestly, after reading only half of this book, I worry so much less about how the food's going to affect me & I eat...you know, like a normal person. The thoughts are still in the back of my mind, but I don't let them control how I eat.

This fear of food has had some pretty bad effects on my health. Since this bout with IBS started, I've lost 15-20 pounds that I haven't been able to put back on. At the end of last semester, I was feeling so weak & kind of losing hope of ever feeling normal again. That's when I decided to go see a nutritionist. Obviously, after fearing food for almost 4 years, I'd forgotten how to eat like a normal person. As hard as I was trying to put the weight I had lost back on, I just couldn't do it. I mean- what is there to eat other than cereal, rice & pasta? I sure as hell couldn't remember.

Seeing the nutritionist might have been my best decision in the past 4 years. She gave me two measly pieces of paper that have changed my life. I'm now only 5 pounds away from where I want to be & I feel great! She gave me a simple list of foods (you can find it here- it's a link to a PDF file that you can download) grouped by type that are calorie dense. I found that I'd been eating the same types of food, but I'd been choosing the ones with hardly any calories. I started picking foods that I knew weren't trigger foods from this list & tracking my progress on Calorie Counter.

Even if you're not trying to gain weight, there are some great options on here to remind you about healthy foods to try out. Try to eat as big of a variety from this list as you can to help train yourself to eat normally again & develop a healthy relationship with food. I've been really working hard at trying to put an end to my fear of food & gaining weight since May, and it's been tough. After eating like I did for so long, it took a while to get to the point where I could open the pantry & pull out something I'd never tried before instead of just reaching for the cereal.

You might be at the point I was just a year or two ago. You might feel like there's absolutely no hope. That you're going to be stuck at home, next to your bathroom, just in case. Or that you're going to die eating only cereal & rice. One good thing about IBS is that it usually cycles. As bad as it might be now, it will probably get better. Oh great, now I sound like those movies- "It gets better," but it really does. Maybe in a few years I'll feel like absolute shit again & basically be chained to my bed, but I'm not going down without a fight again.

I really hope you guys can take something away from that food list like I did. And seriously, if you feel any type of stress when you eat, buy that book & do the exercises inside. If you don't have the money right now, at least just start a worry journal. Simply writing down every single thing I worried about (you can bet my hand cramped up quite often) made me realize how pointless it all is- completely unproductive worry- & that it's only making things worse.