The Sin-Eater #12: Lose It! Some More

When I first saw my PCP, I was 161.1 lbs and miserable! I’d been used to camera, rigging and other outdoor work, and ate 3k calories per day easily for years, never ganing a pound. When I injured my back in 2008 and the fibro slowly took over a year later and I was more sedentary overall, I was unfortunately still eating the same # of calories I ate when I was active, and I ballooned right up, gaining close to 40 lbs in a year’s time. A year after I started my calorie counting plan (using the Lose It! app on my iPhone), I was at 145, and my last weigh-in (last night) was 124.5 lbs, which is where I wanted to be and where Lose It! calculated as an estimate for me should I stick with the plan. My doc was so shocked that I’d stuck with it for that long that he actually gave me a noticeable bow and a hearty handshake at the end of the appointment!

The second component to my health program — well after I started counting calories — was seeing a nutritionist. I had no energy for the longest time and I basically forced myself out of bed and to work w/ the aid of industrial strength stimulants, pain medication and stretching; all of the tears and frustration finally paid off 3 months into the program, and I’m about 50% better now. Both a Vitamin D test (through my PCP) and general allergy testing contributed to my better health; I still have quite a bit of pain, but my cognative abilities are gaining strength again and I actually feel like getting out of bed most days now, which is quite a change from the past 2 years.

I must take a moment to thank my father for showing me how to persevere in life (even if it was sometimes a terrible and negative experience; I learned nonetheless), and my mother for teaching me to have compassion for those who can’t. It’s not an easy path — curing one’s own ills — and it requires intense amounts of discipline and patience with shortcomings to get anywhere. If you are a person in the thick of healing from fibromyalgia or any other medical issue, please give yourself more time, especially if you’re close to being at the end of your rope. I had a lot of bad days over the course of the past 2 years, and some of those days I woke up wondering whether to shoot myself or go to work, completely emotionally divorced and simply trying to make a decision about a disorder I thought would take my life down the toilet one day at a time. At this point, I realize that it is going to take a while for me to heal — I might not ever do it completely — but with the right tools, I at least have a chance. So do you, but you might have to do a little work to figure out what your tools are.