diet

Positive Thinking, Positive Change

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I wanted to give an update about a post I wrote about medications and weight over the summer. Read that post for the background but the cliff notes version: I gained 10 pounds on a medication this summer.

I had a choice to make, try a different medication, or just keep going with prozac, which was working very well for my anxiety. I decided to give the buspar a chance per my doctor. I stopped the prozac and switched to the other one. Right off the bat, I was not a fan. It did absolutely nothing for my anxiety. I gave it over a month, waiting with white knuckles for it to finally kick in and start working…and nothing.

I was even having occasional panic attacks, which was not traditionally a component of my anxiety. So that was fun! I talked to my doctor and he increased the dosage. Within a few days of that, I started having really awful side effects. The biggest one was heart palpitations. Like constantly. It took me a few days to realize that the never ending heart palpitations might be because of the meds. I googled it and sure enough, “if you have this side effect, call your doctor immediately”. YAY! 🙁

So I stopped the buspar immediately and within a day or so the side effects were better and mostly gone. That’s the good news. The bad news? I was still in the same boat as I was before.

I went back on a low dose of the prozac and I am trying to manage my anxiety with mindfulness and a relaxation app I downloaded. The one I usually use is Breathe2Relax. I also use the Oak app. I like them and they work pretty well when I’m in the middle of an anxiety attack.

As for the weight I gained this summer…I am making good choices to lose it.

  1. No candy/dessert (which has been very hard with all the Halloween candy that’s EVERYWHERE!) but I am doing well with that so far.
  2. No alcohol Monday-Thursday and on Friday/Saturday nights I can have 1 drink (instead of my usual 2).
  3. Reminding myself it’s ok to be hungry sometimes.
  4. Taking the stairs at work. I go up and down between several floors multiple times a day and I’ve started using the stairs instead. It’s the little things that add up.
  5. I’m still working out my normal 5 days a week with 2 rest days.
  6. I’m counting my calories still but I am trying to actually create a deficit instead of eating back all of the calories in the gym.
  7. Weighing myself once a week. When I was in maintenance mode I was weighing once a month, or even less. If my clothes got tight, then I’d weigh myself, but I basically stuck at the same place.

The first week I lost almost 2 pounds. The second week I lost another pound. Over that weekend I wasn’t feeling 100% so I skipped drinking for the most part. I also didn’t have much of an appetite, so I think that helped jump start things.

As far as the mental aspect, I am doing well. My anxiety is “ok” and I’m feeling super focused on losing the weight. I am finding it easier to resist treats and things that are my downfall, so I think my mind is IN THE GAME on this.

Then Thanksgiving weekend hit–pie, wine, carbs…you know the drill. I didn’t weigh myself for 2 weeks and finally got back on the scale. This weekend I weighed myself after taking a few weeks off from the scale and was happy to see a few more pounds gone! I am now down a total of 7 pounds since October! WOOHOO!

I will keep you posted on my progress.

Obstacles and Motivation

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I got an email from a reader who had some questions for me. I thought I’d try and address them here.

The vision that motivated me was twofold. First, I was tired of being in pain. I was having a lot of health issues (high blood pressure, pre-diabetic). My back and knees and feet hurt all the time from the extra 100 pounds. Second, I was tired of not being okay in my body. There was definitely an emotional aspect to wanting to lose weight–wanting to be skinny, wanting to be pretty, wanting a life partner some day, wanting to be able to wear cute clothes that actually fit properly. There is definitely a motivating factor in vanity, but I would say that the health issues were the #1 reason I wanted to lose weight.

The biggest obstacle? Good question. I would say there were several. The first obstacle was that the idea of losing 100 pounds was a very overwhelming number. It seemed unattainable. In order to overcome that very scary, very unrealistic goal, I decided I would start small. I was going to be a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding in one year and I wanted to lose 50 pounds by then. I worked really hard and reached that goal and then it didn’t seem so hard to lose another 50 pounds.

Another obstacle would probably be the weight loss plateaus. Those were really hard. I’d be losing weight, feeling better, getting stronger, buying clothes in smaller sizes…and then all of a sudden it would stop. I didn’t know a lot about nutrition, really, and I definitely went through phases of overexercising thinking I could just work off the weight. I see now that that was pretty disordered–like working out for 3 hours because you ate some pizza. That’s not healthy. It’s better to just recognize your mistake and do better the next day…not punish yourself!

I don’t know that I ever “failed.” Failure implies that I gave up or that I stopped trying. I was so determined and so focused on my goals that failure was not an option. I was not going to quit. Even when I hit plateaus, when my weight fluctuated up and down, I kept my eyes on the road and just kept doing what I was doing. And it worked in the end.

These days, I am definitely finding it harder to not look at my lack of weight loss post-baby as a failure. I have been very hard on myself about how difficult it has been to lose even 10 pounds. It can be discouraging and frustrating and depressing. But I am still trying. I never gave up before, and I don’t plan on quitting now.

Whenever I didn’t hit a goal before, I looked at what I was doing and tried to figure out things to I could change. I often got into ruts and switching up my diet helped. Cutting out trigger foods helped (pizza and ice cream). Changing my workouts was definitely good! I started running and fell in love with it and it was very motivating for me in terms of weight loss and just EATING BETTER. I had to re-evaluate everything I was doing to be a better runner.

Training for races helped. It helped keep me focused. It gave me a goal to work towards. It helped me stay motivated to work out. I had something to train for. Something to look forward to. That has been the #1 thing keeping me going–HAVING A GOAL (losing 50 pounds before the wedding, training for a race, etc). I think it’s better to have focused, specific goals instead of vague ideas.

So there ya go, hopefully that answered the questions!