pcosbody-blog

[pcosbody-blog]

Sorting through my feelings.

I need to change my life. Not a complete overhaul. I have an amazing husband a charming son blah, blah, blah. I don't mean externally, I mean internally. Inside I'm a mess and I'm almost 40 so it's definitely time to clean this shit up. All my life, (up to my mid twenties, at least) I was always writing. Fiction, nonfiction, journaling, anything. That changed when my now husband and I first started dating. He found my diary and, while he didn't read it without my permission, he fixated on what may be in it, until I finally gave up and let him read it. Once he read it, he analyzed it, focusing on a pseudo relationship that I had with a coworker of both of ours. It had been a safe place where I could write out my feelings without judgement and then let them go. Once he read it and analyzed it and questioned me about sections of it, it was no longer my safe place. I stopped journaling because I knew that I could never be completely honest because complete honesty only occurs in anonymity or complete privacy. So, will I be completely honest now? I don't know. I just know that it is time to start journaling again because I can't keep eating my feelings. -- After I had my son, I was diagnosed with both hypothyroidism and PCOS. The doctor gave me meds to "treat" them, but nothing else. I wasn't told what these were and I thought that the meds were all that I needed to do. I often think that doctors have a get in, get out mentality and it's up to the patient to know what questions to ask. How do you know what to ask for a condition you've never heard of. I just thought that I had cysts in my ovaries and the metformin was to treat that. Through the years I've picked up bits and pieces of information, mainly that it makes it nearly impossible to lose weight, but that's the one thing that you should do. No real information on how to lose that impossible to lose weight and why doesn't exercise make any difference. Now, at 220 pounds, I'm unhappy with my body and worried about whether I'm going to be there for my family. I've learned that I'm much more likely to have type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression (there already), and anxiety (ditto). I'm reading The PCOS Diet by Hillary Wright and for the first time, I understand what insulin resistance is. It feels like every year, I'm deciding that this time is when I'm going to start my new diet of paleo, keto, lazy keto, try to not eat, but only last until 4 pm and then eat a family size bag of chips, whatever. Funnily, I have managed to stick with cardio exercise. I really like to run, but I've learned that the way that I run stresses out my body so I don't lose weight. -- This time I'm trying to focus on eating healthy and unprocessed foods, exercising in a way to not stress my body into releasing massive amounts of unneeded hormones and making myself accountable to these changes. So, I made an Instagram page where I post a semi clad photo of myself. Everyday, when I post that picture at least, I have to think and look about the effects that my diet has had on my health and my body. My body shows that it is under stress and something needs to change. And it's not the weight that I'm talking about (well, not only the weight). My weight is focused around my midsection, around my organs; fat that is crowding those organs and making it harder to function. I don't want to have a stroke or heart attack in my 40s; I don't want to have either at all, but especially not when my son is still young enough to need me. And he needs me. And my husband needs me. And I need me. I can't let us down.