Kirsten's Story

Kudos to Genny for her bravery. I shall attempt to do the same, and not hide anything, as embarrassing as it may be for me. Bear with me, please.

Those of you who have known me all my life know that I have never been skinny. In high school I wore a size 10 I think, but the truth is, I honestly don't remember, because I hated it so much that I tried not to pay attention to what the size was, as long as it fit. I went away to college and actually lost weight (again, I know no numbers because of my fear of the scale; I'm just going by how my clothes fit and what people would say to me) over the course of the three years I was there. I don't remember pant sizes, but I do remember that I could fit into medium tops when I moved home in 2000, and that made me thrilled.

Up to this point, I wasn't that active. In high school I was on the soccer team (but I was a crappy player, so I didn't get much playing time) and I took social dance and aerobics, but that didn't really seem to help me much. I would occasionally exercise at home using Matt's workout tape of Dolph Lundgren "Maximize Your Potential" or something like that. Hey, Dolph's handsome. :) I never stuck with it regularly though. During the summer months, Mom and my sisters and I would try to go on morning walks around the neighborhood, but that wasn't regular for me either because I really hate waking up. Mom soon bought the Prevention magazine's exercise tape of "Fat to Fit in 3o Minutes", which I really liked, but it was more for strength-training, not cardio. I would do that occasionally too, but again, not regularly. In college Maria and I would go walking as often as we could, but our schedules would get so crazy with classes and work and fatigue, that that was haphazard too. So again, I say I lost weight in college, but that was not because I was regularly "exercising"; it was just because I hauled around a thousand pounds of books on my back all over the huge BYU campus (it was probably the hike from the RB up to the Benson building after HEPE and before D&C that did it. There were a million stairs!!) and was in love with the Creamery's yogurts, so I would choose that instead of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Ok, so now where are we chronologically? Oh yea, I moved home in August 2000, and I tried to be better about exercising, for a while anyway, because my Mom is so healthy. That worked for a few weeks (at a time. I often start and stop things over and over.) I was still at a better weight than I'd ever been in high school, I think (again, based on how my clothes felt and how I felt overall about my body), but I was still a far-cry from "skinny". Then in the summer of 2001 I moved back to Provo with Ariana, and I got a job on campus as, among other things, a receiver for the Cannon Center, which meant I had to have a physical done to get a license driving the big trucks. At the physical I weighed 155 (if my memory holds true). I thought, wow, that's better than I thought! I asked the doctor what I should weigh, and he said that based on my height (5'61/2") I should probably weigh about 10 lbs. less (is that right? Does anyone have the true numbers, if there are true numbers for this?). I was actually feeling really good about that, because I thought I should be weighing 10 lbs. total (that's always how it felt). Ok, so then I met Brent, he liked me, I liked him, we got engaged, and got married in 2002. I had hoped to lose a few pounds before the big day because I thought that's what all brides are supposed to do, but it didn't happen. Instead, I know I gained a bit (I blame the fat-milk that I had to use on my cereal every morning. Those of you who don't know what was going on then can ask me via email if you really want the dish on that), but not that much. I was still feeling good, feeling like I was skinnier than I had ever been. Fast forward 6 months, and I am pregnant with Mitch. Starting weight: 166. At my last doctor's appointment before Mitch was born (2003), I weighed 192.5. YUCK. 6-weeks later Mitch is 1-month old and happily nursing and I am going to my doctor's appointment for my post-partum checkup. I weighed 162. I was feeling so awesome! I'd lost all my pregnancy weight and then some! I thought I was invincible, that breast-feeding was the cure-all, and as long as I breast-fed Mitch, I couldn't be stopped, I'd be skinny for sure. So... I'll be honest, I was reckless. Ice cream? Give it to me. Nutty bars? Hand 'em over. Candy bars? YUM. Just in the next three months, I could tell I'd really packed on the weight. Not pretty.

We moved to Idaho in August 2003, and I realized I was much heavier than I'd ever been besides when I was pregnant. I really tried to eat healthfully. I soon was walking 6 miles a day (one day I was especially ambitious and walked 12 miles, all in one day! I thought I'd dropped ten pounds easily that day), five days a week, and doing strength-training 3 days a week, and I rarely missed. I was an exercising queen! Then I went to my gynecologist I think in July 2004 for a regular Pap-smear or something, and I weighed 185 (you don't realize how hard it was to type those numbers just now!). I asked her what was going on, because despite my manic exercising and healthful-eating, I was up at least 10 lbs. from the previous summer when I thought I could get no heavier. She ran some tests, and I was told over the phone that I had too much insulin, or something, but I didn't dare go back to find out more because our insurance was refusing to cover anything, and I didn't dare incur more costs. Nonetheless, the weight was here to stay.

In October 2004 we moved back to California and I resumed my old job working at Monterey Credit Union. In February or March 2005, I forget which, we found out I was pregnant with Ian. At my first appointment with the doctor, I weighed 177. At the end of my pregnancy, I weighed 198 I think. 6 weeks later I had only lost 19 lbs., so I was at 179. Breast-feeding wasn't playing the Miracle Worker it had before. A couple of weeks later, for Christmas, we decided to use some of my disability money to get an elliptical machine. 2006 was to be the year of weight-loss. Brent and I really tried to be regular about exercising, and the weight melted off of Brent. Not for me though. However, at this same time, I learned I had a thyroid problem. I had been really shaky (visibly) for at least months now (Ariana says I had been shaky for much longer, but I can't verify this as I always just either attributed it to being hungry or having something to do with being pregnant), and I was always overheating (which, again, I attributed to being pregnant), and my ob-gyn suspected a thyroid problem. I went to see an endocrinologist in January 2006, and the results were that I was hyperthyroid (too much thyroid hormone). My doctor told me I should have been losing weight just by breathing, so he was confused about why it was acting the opposite. He gave me medication to basically "kill" the thyroid. I don't think I was losing any weight at this point. In May my thyroid was sufficiently "dead", so I was given medication to reactivate my thyroid, as at this point I was now hypothyroid (too little thyroid hormone). More weight came my way. In September 2006 I was referred to a new endocrinologist who specialized in my problem areas. Dr. Garcia (new guy) was so great. He listened to everything I had to say, and was determined to get to the bottom of all of this. He ran some more tests, and discovered that I was borderline PCOS (see Genny's post below about the effects of poly-cystic ovarian syndrome), and, like Genny, I was put on Metformin. The Metformin occasionally gave me the runs (sorry, all you queasy folks), but other than that, I didn't have any side effects. November 2006 I weighed my highest non-pregnancy weight: 187. Yeah. I was a fatty.

We went home to Idaho for Christmas 2006, and I was loving every minute of the Christmas Sweets at the Wall house. Christmas is the best!!! However, I thought for sure I was even closer to 200 than I was before. January came and I tried to jump-start the last-year's resolution and get my fat self back on the elliptical. I don't even remember why, but sometime in the first couple of weeks of January 2007 I decided to get on the scale, just to see where I stood. I was SHOCKED. I was down 6 or 8 lbs. I could NOT believe it, and attributed it solely to the Metformin. That did it though. It was the first time I could remember ever really losing weight and really being aware of the loss in terms of numbers. Brent and I attacked that elliptical like it was going out of style. Soon I was down 12 lbs. and my mother-in-law was telling me my face looked skinnier, and had I lost weight? What? She could tell??? AAAH! Hurray! Then the receptionist at my chiropractor's office said I looked like a whole new woman. WHAT? That much of a difference?? Oh my GOODNESS. I was feeling so alive for the first time in a reeeeeeally long time. Bless Brent's heart, he never did tell me I was a fatso, but I sure felt it all the time I was in the horrible 180s. I mean honestly. Let's be real here. Why should I exercise when walking 6 miles EVERY DAY does NOTHING for me? Why should I exercise when all my efforts lead to weight GAIN?? And why on earth should I think my husband finds me attractive when I want to gag at the sight of myself? Brent's my hero, that's for sure.

So, 2007 found me exercising and really trying to be healthy (for the most part, I admit). I could basically count on losing an average of 1-2 lbs. a week for the first six months of 2007. People kept telling me, "It's only 'cause of your miracle medicine. You'll plateau in two weeks and that'll be it." Well, I would plateau, every couple of weeks, but then after that I'd get back to losing. By May or June of 2007, I was down to 157.

My goal on January 1, 2007, was to lose 62 lbs. I have no idea if a woman 5-feet 6 1/2-inches tall should weigh 125 or not, but I really want to be 125, even for just one day, just to feel how it feels to finally be "one of them", to be one of the "skinny girls". However, I am realistic enough to think that I wouldn't be able to stay that weight for long, especially as I have been told by more than one source that a person my height and age (yes, age) should weigh more than 125. So, my goal to satisfy my superficial/image-based need is to weigh 125, at least for a day, and then find a weight that my body and my mind like. My goal to satisfy my healthy body/healthy mind/healthy self-image need is to be 135. My current short-term goal is to be 149 (a milestone for me, as it would be the first time in longer than I can remember that I would be closer to 100 lbs. than to 200 lbs.). All that being said, I am thrilled to say I can fit into size-8 jeans and even a size-6 skirt for the first time ever. Like I said, the smallest I remember being in high school was a size 10. Never single-digits. To be wearing size-8 jeans after being squeezed out of size-16 slacks is a feeling I cannot get over. I never want to get that way again.

The last few months have seen me up and down by a couple of pounds, so basically I've been maintaining my weight. The few days after we moved to this house in January 2008, I was down to 151 and thinking a milestone was near, but alas, that didn't last long and I am currently 155. Brent and I weigh ourselves every Sunday morning, so that is when I will be reporting my weight here.

Oh, as for my thyroid/PCOS status: my dear Dr. Garcia left and I was switched to Dr. Ahmad (anyone but that dratted Dr. King, the first endocrinologist. He was most unpleasant. Don't go to him.) in November or December 2007. He ran more tests, and it appears the Metformin worked! I no longer have PCOS, I am no longer in danger of getting type-2 diabetes, and all my levels are healthy and normal, so he took me off Metformin in December. I am currently taking levoxyl (aka synthroid or levothyroxin, the medication to boost my low-thyroid levels. The condition I have is called Hashimoto's disease, or hypothyroidism). On February 1, 2008, I had the left side of my thyroid removed due to several large lumps that were still suspicious of cancer even after two fine-needle biopsies over the course of over a year. My surgeon said there is a possibility that it was the left side of the thyroid that has been the problem all along, and that the right side just may well start to take over in a healthy manner so I don't have to keep taking the levoxyl, but currently that is not the case. Before the surgery, I was taking 50 mcg of levoxyl/day, and now I am up to 88 mcg/day. However, that being said, it used to be that I wasn't supposed to fast due to the Hashimoto's disease making me have hypoglycemic reactions, but the last couple of Fast Sundays I have tried to fast, and for the first time in a very long time, I have been able to do it just like I would when I was in high school. It is an awesome feeling to feel in control of my body!

Anyway, this has gone on far too long, and I have to make sugar cookies for Mitch's birthday party on Saturday, so I am going to end now.

If any of you would like to join us on our weight-loss crusade, feel free to contact Genny or me and we'll hook you up as an author. Maybe the more people we get involved in this, the more people we're accountable to, the more motivated we'll be to lose and keep off those blasted pounds!