the results

"JayJay" wrote in message
...

"Perple Gyrl" wrote in message
...

You don't have to have all of the symptoms of PCOS to have it. Some of
the
symptoms include: Acne, facial hair, male pattern balding, insulin
resistance, infertility, lack of menstration, tendancy to carry extra
weight
around the middle.

oh, no... I've got a brain tumor... :-)

Actually - I fit all those signs too - but mine is because of depo... not
pcos - (I think).

ok, poor attempt at humor...

I know it Jenn... but you just have to hang in there. Whatever you are
going thru has to be better then the alternative. Besides, these
problems
would have most likely manifested anyway. I bet you "feel" better now
at
the weight and health level you are at... that should be enough
incentive
to
keep going. Best wishes and keep us posted.

PG, you've got a great point there. These thing would have manifested
whether fat or not. I'm thinking that Jenn probably has a better chance
of
getting a good diagnosis and treatment at the lower weight than having all
the other guesswork of problems related to obesity.


I agree on that point. I'm sure I got better treatment as in more tests and
more aggressive efforts to find out what's wrong than if I'd had these
symptoms at 300 lbs - which oddly enough I did not. At that weight I had
regular and normal periods, no androgen problems, and no edema. Both the gyn
and the endo said that "normally we tell people to lose weight when these
symptoms occur." The endo gave me the green light to lose weight slowly
(not like I haven't been TRYING) until I get to my desired weight provided
my period doesn't stop again like it did before.

Jenn

"JMA" wrote in message
...

"JayJay" wrote in message
...
I'll be using protein powder shakes with fruit for convenience and
doing
something like Jayjay's meat and salad diet to limit myself to
1200-1500
cal/day in 5-6 meals until I get down to my goal weight and the water
stuff
finally stops. It's going to be *months* before I see any results
from
this - at least 6 months until the androgen reactions stop.

snicker, snort

You just made me almost get cottage cheese up my nose... As I sit here
munching on a salad w/ a little roastbeef (deli) topped with a dressing
of
cottage cheese and salsa...

You made my day with that comment. :-)

I'm glad I could make someone's day today I've been doing a lot of the
"dump a pouch of salmon or tuna" into the salad for dinner. Tonight's
feast
was cooked broccoli with a pouch of salmon and sugar free ranch dressing.
It's fast, easy, and nutritious. The pouches are great for keeping at
work
too as long as I don't get sick of tuna and salmon.

Jenn



there's your key... don't get sick of it. I did..

JMA wrote:

Thanks. I thought about you today as I did my first bench presses with my
trainer. We were discussing a new exercise plan that would put less
emphasis on running and he asked if I was interested in power lifting. He's
really pleased with how strong I've become in just a short time. I told him
it was from carrying around all that extra body weight for so long. I
declined for now but told him it was not out of the realm of
possibilities...

Oh, you've just got to love it: somewhere on internet there's a cabal
of older women secretly plotting to make power-lifting the next Pilates.
I see their influence now. :-) (No doubt they are secretly
worshiping the Goddess Squwaht.)

Dally, "what is she blathering about now"

JayJay wrote:

Jenn, you should be so damned proud of yourself for not giving up. You've
been through quite a struggle and you are a total inspiration. To think,
in the time you've been going thru this, I've just plain ol' gotten lazy,
gave up on watching what I do and have gained about 15lbs. Seeing your
post has totally put my current habits into perspective.

You also have to know that whenever you feel a struggle - you've got your
friends here to lean on for support. And also, my email will always be open
to you, if there is anything I can do. You are a total inspiration.

Ditto. (thanks for letting me crib your words, Jayjay, I'm tight on
time and mostly just lurking.)

Dally

I'm glad I could make someone's day today I've been doing a lot of the
"dump a pouch of salmon or tuna" into the salad for dinner. Tonight's feast
was cooked broccoli with a pouch of salmon and sugar free ranch dressing.
It's fast, easy, and nutritious. The pouches are great for keeping at work
too as long as I don't get sick of tuna and salmon.

My latest meal in 10 seconds or less is a sliced up apple (I've got one
of those devices that slices and cores it when you push the circle down
through the apple) and I put the slices in a cereal bowl and spoon some
natural peanut butter on it. Fiber, phytonutrients, protein and healthy
fat that I can eat with my fingers. Voila.

Actually, it's embarrassing to consider just how little time I've spent
on food lately. I eat a lot of balance bars, some cottage cheese mixed
with yogurt, etc. I cooked a meal once two weeks ago.

(Funny/Sad story: my sister chastised me for being such a bad mother. I
told her I had worked three days in a row of 9 am to 3 am the week she
was complaining about. She said that wasn't too difficult a schedule.
It took me a little while to figure out she had thought I said 9 am to 3
pm.)

Dally

"JMA"

and the endo has said I do not have it. I have a strong family history of
diabetes though.

It is good you don't have it... I tell you it wrecked me in my 20's before I
was diagnosed and treated. My acne was out of control. I am worried about
having to go off my meds when/if I get pregnant and having symptoms come
back again.

The calcium in my blood is coming from my bones as there is no other part
of
the body to get it from. I do plenty of weight bearing exercise to keep
the
bones healthy or at least it's assumed. The bones should be in great
shape
unless these glands are causing them to leach calcium. Cutting back on
the
high impact is a precaution that I'm willing to deal with for now. If I
was
truly a competitive runner and had a hope in hell of accomplishing
anything
with it then I'd probably get the scan (expensive) now, but the situation
may reverse itself and I'm willing to wait.

That is so strange to me, but I am not a doctor.

I don't have fertility problems and never did. I've been able to get
pregnant while on the pill (unintended) and two other times that I wanted
to. My problems with pregnancies were structural not hormonal. This is
another reason why the endo says that I do not have PCOS.

Ok good....

Actually I feel like crap and have been damn near suicidal at times. I've
never been able to truly enjoy the weight loss as the constant dread and
fear of regaining and the nightmare of actually putting on weight at
uncontrollable levels (at times) has kept me relatively miserable for
months. I've been told by multiple doctors, my shrink, and my trainer
that
I'm doing everything right and I've kept my weight within 30 lbs of my
lowest weight, but unfortunately for me, the gains (even water ones) are
what the brain sees and the self-image works with. I see a fat chick in
the
mirror even though no one else seems to see her. Just a few of the joys
of
the pathology of an eating disorder.

Has the self image gotten better with treatment? I don't know what to say,
except I hope you feel better about how you look one day. You can't live in
fear from what *may* happen in the future. Hang in there, Jenn.

Why don't you want to get into power lifting? I would love to if I couldn't
physically hurt myself due to my back/knee issues...

"JMA"
Thanks. I thought about you today as I did my first bench presses with my
trainer. We were discussing a new exercise plan that would put less
emphasis on running and he asked if I was interested in power lifting.
He's
really pleased with how strong I've become in just a short time. I told
him
it was from carrying around all that extra body weight for so long. I
declined for now but told him it was not out of the realm of
possibilities...

Jenn

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:58:16 -0600, "JMA"
wrote:
I do completely understand how a person can do so much to lose weight and
then give up. I've never totally given up, but it hasn't been easy at ALL.
When you stay at 1200 cal/day and begin to gain weight in spite of
exercising your ass off, it's not easy to keep the faith and in my case all
it did was feed into my eating disorders. I knew maintenance would be a
challenge and I never denied that, I just never expected it to be a constant
freakin fight. Thanks again for the support.

Jenn

Jenn
I'm full of admiration for the way in which you've managed to hold on
through all this and not go back to your previous eating behaviour. I
honestly don't think I am strong enough to have been able to do that.
I believe that this will make you even stronger for the coming weeks.

janice
233/177/133

I am so relieved that you have an answer and one that you can work with. I
can't imagine what a challenge it has been for you with your hormones out of
whack but I honestly believe that you would have been even more of a
hormonal train wreck without the diet and exercise!

Good luck and keep us posted. Did he do anything about the low estrogen
levels? Did he say anything about using Soy Protein for partial relief?

j
"JMA" wrote in message
...
Here's a brief summary of what I'm up against according to my
endocrinologist. I have two separate issues.
Issue 1 is low estrogen/high testosterone/high dhea-s combined with the
symptoms I've exhibited have lead him to surmise that I have some form of
insulin resistance. It would be PCOS, but I don't have the symptoms or
blood chemistry for it. He has put me on metformin (the generic of
Glucophage). He said that this combined with my typical diet and exercise
should give me control over my weight again. It's like Chris said about
thyroid meds - it won't make me lose weight by itself but will make what
I'm
doing actually work. The doctor told me that this should also provide
some
relief regarding appetite and food cravings

Issue 2 is that I've had rising serum calcium levels since last summer and
it's still going up which means I have some sort of growth on one of the 4
parathyroid glands. I'll be getting regular tests to make sure I'm not
forming kidney stones and I'll also be getting a bone scan in a few months
to keep an eye on bone density. If any of these become a problem then
I'll
have to get the growth removed. I will need to cut back on high impact
exercise temporarily as I may be more prone to stress fractures but that
only means running 2-3x a week instead of 4-5 (3-4 miles instead of 5-6)
and
taking a full day off every week. I've decided not to enter any races in
April or May but I will be running the Dead Skunk 5 mile in June.

That I hadn't completely given up on maintaining my weight loss in spite
of
the effort it was taking was a Good Thing and something he doesn't see
often. That this kind of thing would occur *after* losing weight is
another
oddity since technically I've done everything right to prevent type 2
diabetes. We discussed diet and that I appear to be somewhat
carb-sensitive. The endo didn't think it would be a bad thing for me to
just give up sugar, flour, and rice altogether as long as I was getting
sufficient carbs from vegetables, fruit, and dairy.

I'll be using protein powder shakes with fruit for convenience and doing
something like Jayjay's meat and salad diet to limit myself to 1200-1500
cal/day in 5-6 meals until I get down to my goal weight and the water
stuff
finally stops. It's going to be *months* before I see any results from
this - at least 6 months until the androgen reactions stop.

I do completely understand how a person can do so much to lose weight and
then give up. I've never totally given up, but it hasn't been easy at
ALL.
When you stay at 1200 cal/day and begin to gain weight in spite of
exercising your ass off, it's not easy to keep the faith and in my case
all
it did was feed into my eating disorders. I knew maintenance would be a
challenge and I never denied that, I just never expected it to be a
constant
freakin fight. Thanks again for the support.

Jenn

"Perple Gyrl" wrote in message
...
Why don't you want to get into power lifting? I would love to if I
couldn't
physically hurt myself due to my back/knee issues...


It's going to take a while to mentally get over not training for races right
now. Next week I start assistant coaching the middle school track team and
teaching my graduate class on the weekends - both of which will carry me
through the middle of May. I'll still be running with the track team, but
we only take them 2 miles.

For whatever reason, as much as I enjoy my weightlifting I don't feel the
need to push myself to the max like I do with running.