Finally Getting Serious

jbonow1231

Hello everyone - I've decided to take the plunge and make a post.

I've had thyroid issues since puberty. (Looking at old pictures of me, you can see when it happens, before eleven I'm in a normal weight range, even bordering on kind of skinny, and then the next year, there's a whole lot of weight gain, despite continuing with three dance classes and pretty regular exercise.) I literally look like an entirely different person, my hair starts to thin, I start having skin problems. However, my diet changed a lot and there was a lot of family stress as well. (That could be a whole post in and of itself.) So what it was that kicked it off, or it was a combination of all of the above who knows.

When I was 14, my grandmother and my pediatrician somehow decided it was because I was depressed, and they started me on Zoloft. Which just made me gain more weight. Eventually, when I started to see a GYN, I was 18 and couldn't maintain a regular cycle (going for two weeks, and then not again for 4 months for no discernible reason) and they put me on Synthroid 88. I got increasingly heavier and heavier all through high school. My highest was a size 22.

When I was a college freshman, I'd managed to get down to size 16, as I basically starved myself every day and didn't eat lunch, as I was broke. Eventually I passed out from it, and had to start budgeting better. However, when you are broke and on a college campus with no transportation, the food choices are kind of abysmal and you try and get maximum for your buck - meaning all you can eat at the dining hall. Which, totally didn't help and I was right back to where I started. By the time I was in grad school, my thyroid had gotten worse, and I was starting to go bald, at which point they increased my Synthroid dosage to 100.

However, that was the be all and end all of investigation that any doctor did for a very long time. Any time I had a new symptom or problem crop up - it was written off as being caused either by my thyroid problem or my weight. I lose quit a bit of weight when I'm the assistant manager of a bookstore and go off the pill. Amazing weight loss results from standing on my feet for 8 hours a day, doing all of the shipping and receiving. I'm the thinnest I've been since high school - down to a size 14. However, I then get pregnant. I gain about twenty pounds during my pregnancy. This is probably kept in check by the fact that I sick -all the time.- I transition into being a SAHM - the baby weight sticks for three years.

After a series of doctor and dentist misadventures, all of them basically saying "well, you've got thyroid and you are fat" about two years ago, I decide that the standard medical field has apparently abandoned all hope and interest in discovering what my issue is. I go to see a Holistic Practitioner. She does blood tests, she listens to my symptoms. Her conclusion? I have a severe Vitamin D deficiency , which is contributing both to my dental problems and my depression. I start on supplements. Further, she discovers that I have gluten intolerance (potentially triggered by my pregnancy) which is the cause for my vitamin deficiencies and my anemia. She recommends I get on customized T3-T4 compounded Armour thyroid.

So - I've been on the new medication for about 2 years now, and I've been gluten free for about a year and a half. I started going to the gym to lose the baby weight, but - one conversation with a personal trainer there really set me back (you are fat because you have no willpower - thyroid is only in your head - step away from the food.) So - I stop going in shame. But, I'm look towards thirty this summer. And I want to be better looking, healthier, and with more energy in my 30s than I was in my 20s.

I've started counting my calories, and in less than two months on MFP - I've lost ten pounds. Which, I'm not expecting that to keep up. I think a lot of that might have been water weight now that I'm watching my sodium, but - I'm looking to keep motivated, keep it going, and get to a better weight.

Looking for some friends and some encouragement.