August 30, 2009

Moving onto weightier topics

Now that the job is sorted out, this should leave me more energy to focus on my weight.  It's not pretty.

I stepped on the scale the other day to see that the first two digits were about to change in the wrong direction.  I was alarmed since I have been spending the last couple of weeks exercising and watching what I eat.  And though I have fallen victim to late night snacking, I doubt that that alone would cause a 5lb weight gain in one week, especially with exercising and watching what I eat.  So I got myself to the doctor to talk about weight loss.

I know, being a nurse I should (and do!) already know this stuff--in fact, I counseled a few patients at the clinic about it--but I guess it's kind of hard to see it when the patient is yourself.

He told me that they do not prescribe diet pills and I told him that's just as well as I do not trust diet pills nor do I want to take them.  With my family's health history, I have always had an intense fear that I'd be one of the few people you hear about that try a diet capsule for the first time and die from cardiac arrest.  I'm not kidding--I won't even consider taking Alli and all that one does is block fat absorption.

He did a diabetes screening and a TSH test.  The blood glucose is flawless, but the TSH results are not in yet.  We talked exercise--he said that I'm doing good there, but to try to get some more aerobic exercise in (the workout DVD is more sculpting).  Then we talked about diet and even more changes that I could make.  He suggested that I go to a 1200 calorie diet.  I think that's a bit extreme for myself and my activity level, but it couldn't hurt to try it for a couple of weeks and go from there.

We also discussed sodium since my blood pressure was high at the visit--this was the first time in my life that it was in the Stage 1 HTN category.   I like salt.  It's never affected my blood pressure before--all my life, my BP has always been normal or low normal until now.  I guess it's finally catching up with me, so I had to honestly fess up about my sodium usage.  Since one HTN reading does not a HTN diagnosis make, he didn't want me to do a radical sodium diet overhaul (yet) but he did suggest that I get rid of my salt shaker.

So since the visit, I have not used extra salt on anything.  My God, is that going to take a lot of getting used to!  I hauled out all the Mrs. Dash bottles that I have, and have been trying them out.

Update:  the doctor called.  TSH is normal, T4 is...elevated.  He thinks this is likely not the cause of my weight gain.  I was told that I could make an appointment if I wanted to discuss the T4 further or get a referral to endocrinology if I wanted.  I might do that after orientation--the doctor didn't indicate it was at a critical level or that I had to come in stat.  For now, I'll dig out my nursing school textbooks and read up on it.  Perhaps all of that iodized salt I had been eating has something to do with it...