First Timer - Looking for Support & Friends

shllmalone

Hello,

I'm Shelley. I'm just a nearly-30-year-old with a lot to lose and a fluctuating level of motivation. For the past 5+ years I have struggled with gaining weight...and losing weight....and gaining weight....and---well, you're probably getting the point. I come from a family of (for the most part) overweight women. In addition to the weight, I have been diagnosed with PCOS which, if you don't know what that is, it's worth a "Google" sometime (especially if you are a woman). PCOS helps with the weight gain but not so much the weight loss. I would like to blame my extra fluff on a disease but that just isn't fair when I know that most of it is due to my poor eating choices and mostly sedentary lifestyle. Because weight wasn’t a problem in my life until mid-college, I never worried about eating healthy or staying active. It didn’t occur to me that those things mattered ----or would matter. Sure, I wanted to be a runner-girl and run down the sidewalk in spandex and a pink sports bra but I hated running and I didn’t feel the need to push myself at that point in my life.

Fast forward to 2009. By this time, I had graduated college and gotten engaged. So some of this started off as ‘happy weight’ as they say. I don’t find anything happy about it at the moment. For the first time in my life, I was truly happy, just in general. I felt successful and pleased with the way things were going. So it seemed strange to me that a bitter self-consciousness began to rear its ugly head now. Ever so slowly, I began to put on weight. I didn’t even notice it at first. I knew that my clothes were tighter but what was happening didn’t register in my brain. It was such an unconscious thing at the time. The first year of being married was a rough one. I had a general doctor appointment and that was the very first time in my life that someone mentioned the word “obese” to me. I was so offended. SO offended. I was pissed too--insulted and all of those other words. It felt unjust at the time, to have anyone tell me that I didn’t look right---because that’s all I thought it was. My appearance had changed and so people were being mean to me. It still didn’t click in my head that gaining as much weight as I had was not *healthy* and was going to cause *health problems.*

Continue fast forwarding. In the summer of 2014 I began seeing a fertility specialist. My husband and I couldn’t understand why, after 4 years of marriage, we still were not pregnant. After a battery of expensive and painful tests, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and infertility. My doctor told me that, based on my hormone levels and weight, I had only a 15% chance of ever becoming pregnant on my own ---She told us that, due to all of my test results, it looked like my best option was IVF. Hormone therapies would not work for me. Needless to say, I was absolutely devastated. I took this to mean that I was too fat to have a baby. And the weight was my fault; therefore, the infertility was my fault. If there’s a word that means beyond devastated, go ahead and insert that right here.

It was after these horrible diagnoses and the misery that I was going through emotionally and mentally that I decided enough was enough. For the past 4 years I had heard doctors tell me I needed to do something about my ever-growing self. I didn’t listen to them because listening meant it was true and if it was true then…then….well, that sucks! But I finally put on my big girl (pun intended) drawers and faced facts. It was time to do something. I decided that I would work on making healthier eating choices and that I would get my @$$ out and moving. So I researched.

I researched and I researched and I researched. I learned about, as a woman with PCOS, what affects my weight gain and what is good for weight loss. There are a LOT of opinions out there---but there’s also a lot of medical research to pick through. Since this time I have severely limited my sugar intake (sugar & PCOS aren’t fiends) and I try to stay away from packaged and super-processed foods as much as possible. I have made steps in the right direction, but I’m here to try to make some strides.

As for the activity, I decided that I want to be a runner. In June of 2014 I began walking. Then I slowly began running. I signed up for a few 5Ks by the end of the year and ran/walked them with a friend. I wasn’t completely faithful to my running. I went to the gym and ran as often as a could (nearly every day of the week) but I don’t feel that I pushed myself or that I pushed through the hard parts in order to really build endurance. I felt that running on a treadmill was MUCH easier than running on pavement---so I took the “easy” road. This was probably my downfall. I think I wanted to try more than I actually did try to make changes. Regardless, I was losing weight. I refused to look at a scale during this time, but my clothes were fitting differently, people were noticing a change—and telling me so, but the best part was the energy I felt. I just felt good. I could handle the stress of life much better. I slept more soundly and it was easier to make healthy eating choices. I was dealing with the infertility thing better too. Physically, mentally and emotionally, I was in a good place.

Skip forward again. In the fall of 2015 I was continuing to run. I was getting better and enjoying it more. I loved to tell my friends and family “I was out for a run,” or “I’m going out to get in a few miles.” It was awesome. It was my favorite. All of this was disrupted by emergency, life-saving surgery. I wasn’t feeling well and had been in a lot of pain for about 2 weeks. It finally got bad enough that I went to the doctor. While in the office, my vitals became unstable and they discovered an actively rupturing ectopic pregnancy. I haven’t run since. I haven’t walked since. I haven’t cared since.

That was about 3 months ago. I am trying to pick up all of my pieces and get back on the wagon now. I want to do this better this time around though. I want to really push myself. I want to really make a change and I want it to be a lifestyle---not a diet and not a temporary routine. I don’t want this to be an attempt. I want to succeed.

So I’m here. And I welcome suggestions, support & inspiration.

Thanks.