Cooking and Weight Loss

I am on the Weight Watchers diet its the only one which works for me because when I am on it, I eat allot of food but its healthy stuff, I educate myself about portion control and I tend to try new things.

I have lost weight with them before and I kept it off for years, it was only after my health blip I piled on the weight but now I am well on the road to recovery I want to get back to being the old me.

OK.... I know, I know......

I can never go back to being the "old me" but I can re-create myself and be the person I like and feel comfortable with.

I am a far cry from the 8 stone I used to be I can tell you!

I have been going to group for about 6 weeks now and so far I have lost half a stone. 

The weight isn't falling off, its dripping off very slowly but hey? I am in no race I can take as long as I like to get where I want to be.

Ah those were the years when it was all about the lycra and aerobics!

So today I am taking the opportunity to do some cooking.

I am trying a few vegetarian dishes and am using Quorn in one just to see what its like.

I like vegetarian dishes as long as they are tasty with lots of spice and I don't really miss the meat at all. So the dishes I am making will be for me because the kids don't like anything with "bits" in and my husband does like his meat.

I wonder what it will taste like!

Hormones

I read a blog this morning via Twitter all about how this person's body couldn't handle hormonal changes. She wrote openly about how it affected her personality and her life and at last, I felt as though I wasn't alone in my plight with hormones.

It all began when I was in my early 20's. I was a size 6/8 and tiny..... things weren't going to well in my life. My parents had been going through a very nasty divorce during which time I was emotionally attacked by my dad, then my heroe, my big brother was killed in a car accident. All of this resulted in me going through a breakdown which led to the breakup with my long standing love, my fiance which was particularly nasty.

Looking back, I don't blame my dad or my ex.... I was a nightmare at that time in my life. Low self esteem, no confidence and I hated myself. They were having their own personal issues which changed them too. Its all water under the bridge now.

As part of my breakdown I started with an eating disorder. My weight plumeted to 6 stone and I was nothing but ribs and bones. The scarey thing for me looking back is that I distinctly remember thinking I was fat at the time.

The eating disorder never went away, it stayed with me until I had therapy at the age of 42 but it affected me in different ways.

The thing I am leading up to is.... when I did start eating properly again suddenly my periods stopped and my weight went up and up and up totally out of control until I hit 10stone and developed boobs!

The doctors didnt want to know until I met my husband and found that I couldnt conceive. During this time I was trying to lose weight unsuccessfully. Only after tests I found out that I had a hormonal disease called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which meant that my eggs developed normally but when they were released they stuck to my ovaries.

I read up about the condition and followed advice taking vitamins and supplements which helped and suddenly I found that I was losing weight and my symptoms subsided.

With fertility drugs I was able to have my two sons which is a blessing.

The hormonal changes which happened during each pregnancy made my weight go up and out of control but following my supplement and diet regime I lost the weight over time and felt great again.

I stayed a petite size 8 weighing in at 8 stone for years then I heard of this contraceptive contraption which all of my friends were raving about, the merina coil. This coil has a small amount of hormone in it and from the minute I had it fitted to the time I had it taken out my weight spiraled out of control again until I reached a size 12/14 and 10st 11lbs.......

As soon as the coil was removed and I started taking the pill again my hormones started to settle again and my weight began to fall off..............

That was when I found out that I had stage 3 HER2 pos breast cancer! The cancer was hormone sensitive so after surgery, chemo, radiotherapy and herceptin I was put on a hormonal treatment, a pill called Tamoxifen (thats another story).

Since being on Tamoxifen I have been struggling with my weight but that was the last of my problems because three years to the day of finding my first cancer, I was told that I had another cancer in my other breast.

This cancer wasn't as aggressive as the first and wasn't HER2 pos BUT it was hormone sensitive. This means that both of my cancers have been fed by my hormones.

Now I have had to have my ovaries shut down artificially to reduce the amount of oestrogen in my body and I also take a drug to stop my body producing any. Result..... I get days when I want to scream for no reason, other days I have no energy and then I have days when my bones hurt so much I can barely walk.

Hormones have been the bane of my life.

Lifes a Bitch!

 Everyone is entitled to a bad day and my bad day is TODAY!

Everything has got on top of me, mainly the pain in my back which has been caused by tamoxifen and which has become almost unbearable lately.

I think that I was easing my way back into physical activity because of my energy levels which were still in recovery but getting that energy back has made me realise how physically damaged I am at the moment.

I saw the doctor today but he was a waste of time! He is referring me to the orthopedic section but I don't need that, I need to come off tamoxifen.

Why don't they listen to me?

This is MY body and MY life and the way I feel right now I don't want to go on for another 2, 3 or 4 decades feeling this crap.

I told him I am worried about my weight and he discounted that, f***k the fact that I am 2 stone over my usual weight, have diabetes in both sides of the family and am in an increased risk bracket. He waved that off as though it was nothing.

Why don't they listen to me?

I need to be positive, I need to keep fighting but at the moment the wounds of battle are still open and bleeding (metaphorically speaking of course).

I am tired of fighting, I am tired of feeling like crap, I am tired of putting on a front!

"Don't you look well" people say

"You look amazing!"

I smile politely and agree.........

But do you know what? I am not going to agree anymore because I feel like rubbish and I am sick of fighting pain and feeling ill every flippin day!



I don't feel like laughing or partying anymore, I don't feel as though there is anything left to party for.

Why?

Because I honestly thought that once I went through surgery, chemo, radio and herceptin, I would come out of the other side and resume service as normal!

Will service ever be resumed as normal? I very much doubt it where I am sitting right now.

Yeah! I pop the lanzoprazol to keep my chemo damaged digestion at bay, I pop the happy pills to get me through the day, I pop the tamoxifen because apparently although it makes me feel like crap its keeping the cancer from coming back, I pop the loratadine to stop my allergies, take my seretide and ventolin so that I can breathe without feeling someone is sitting on my chest and now I am popping painkillers just so that I can function normally.

 Angry????

Too right I am angry!!

I am bouncing!!

I am seething!!

Cancer pfftttttt

I really thought that 3 years on I would be me again. I have got hair now, still can't lose the weight and feel like crap but I look ok and yes the hair is there.

Bloody hell what a year!

What pain and loss I have had this year, physically and mentally.

Right now I want to find myself a cave and go into hybernation. Would anybody miss me if I did that?

I just want my life to get back to normal. I want my body back. I want to feel like ME again.

I didn't bargain for this, I didn't expect all of this, it wasn't part of the deal when they were selling me the treatment.

Same old, same old....

I am back to Weight Watchers but am doing it online. I have taken advantage of an offer they had and signed up for 3 months. I have 22lbs to lose to get back to being comfortable and happy in myself. I am not sure if I am going to be able to achieve my goal because of the tamoxifen but I am going to really try.

Slimming World was great but it just didn't work for me. Weight Watchers is a plan that has always worked for me and I like the freedom you have with it.

I discussed my weight issue with the doctor the other day and she is happy that it is the tamoxifen causing the weight issue and because I am active and fit she doesn't see it as a problem. As she said, if I didnt follow a healthy eating plan and wasnt as active as I am the situation would be much worse.

So I wonder how I will do this first week back on the plan? Lets see what Tuesday brings hey.

Keep on Running

Once I got through treatment I was determined to run my first 10K, something my illness had delayed for me. I decided to run the Tatton Yule Yomp in December 2010 and raised almost £800 for the Love Hope Strength Foundation.

Since achieving my goal I have gone off the boil as far as my running is concerned. I have been affected with bouts of ill health and the depression has been kicking in a bit.

Having finished treatment, I think that the enormity of what I have been through over the past two years actually hit me and I have had to deal with that so that I can move on with my life which is what I feel I am doing right now.

I am desperately trying to lose a stone in weight, that way, when I DO come off the tamoxifen in a few years time the rest will come off naturally because I am still carrying fluid in my fingers that I can see so it must be all over.

I have tried diets to no avail so now I have decided to cut back on the wine and limit wine to once or twice a week, run (so I wont drink alcohol before my run days) and eat sensibly.

I have been onto the runners world events list and have book marked a few events so now I just have to prepare for them, sort out routes, timings to get there, my husbands shifts and child care and away we go.

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