Being an elephant....

Or more on perceptions vs. reality. I talk about losing weight and my deflabbification project but it never seems to work. I have decided my job is very fattening. I sit next to the kitchen and then people bring in nasty things like donuts and cookies... or even make special trips to the bakery next door to get more when the homemade stuff is run out or they just want a sweet thing. And of course they get enough to share. Then there is the snack rack where for 90 paltry pennies you can get a bag of premade, chemical and fat filled, empty calories of your choice. All within 8' of my desk and in my sightlines. As well as the parade of coworkers going by for their share. So I decided I look and feel like this:

Or this:

Last week at the reunion, I was talking to a social worker friend about this (who is less than 5' tall and weighs less than 90 lbs) about how I feel fat and I hate the way I look in pictures. Her calm reply was that we all feel that way. It did help but I still feel fat. I know my downfalls - emotional eating, late night snacking after dinner, on the job snacking and I have promised myself I need to do something about this before I have to buy larger clothes yet again. But I do feel very sorry for this elephant that is on a strict diet to lose 500 lbs during pregnancy no less.

It is possible that things can go in the right direction

In 2007, when I was in chemo, nausea was my constant friend. It didn't stop me from eating, in fact I did gain weight during chemo. It disappeared after chemo.

A few weeks ago, my rheumatologist put me on sulfasalazine to help with my rheumatoid arthritis. Its just like chemo again in that it makes me feel nauseous all over again. I have felt nauseous again and again since I started taking a few weeks ago. This nausea made me actually do some research on it even though I did listen to my doctor who said nausea could happen.

So I looked it up on drugs.com and there it is under side effects that may go

"Some sulfasalazine side effects may not need any medical attention. As your body gets used to the medicine these side effects may disappear. Your health care professional may be able to help you prevent or reduce these side effects, but do check with them if any of the following side effects continue, or if you are concerned about them:

More common

• Abdominal or stomach pain or upset
• decreased weight

Less common

• Welts

Less common or rare

• Discoloration of the skin or urine
• hair loss or thinning of the hair
• swelling or inflammation of the mouth"

Did you see it? The second bullet in the first series of bullets. Decreased weight. How sneaky? How cool? Every other medication has caused weight gain. This one causes weight loss. Now I am happy.

Being an elephant....

Or more on perceptions vs. reality. I talk about losing weight and my deflabbification project but it never seems to work. I have decided my job is very fattening. I sit next to the kitchen and then people bring in nasty things like donuts and cookies... or even make special trips to the bakery next door to get more when the homemade stuff is run out or they just want a sweet thing. And of course they get enough to share. Then there is the snack rack where for 90 paltry pennies you can get a bag of premade, chemical and fat filled, empty calories of your choice. All within 8' of my desk and in my sightlines. As well as the parade of coworkers going by for their share. So I decided I look and feel like this:

Or this:

Last week at the reunion, I was talking to a social worker friend about this (who is less than 5' tall and weighs less than 90 lbs) about how I feel fat and I hate the way I look in pictures. Her calm reply was that we all feel that way. It did help but I still feel fat. I know my downfalls - emotional eating, late night snacking after dinner, on the job snacking and I have promised myself I need to do something about this before I have to buy larger clothes yet again. But I do feel very sorry for this elephant that is on a strict diet to lose 500 lbs during pregnancy no less.

Weight gain is a side effect of cancer.

Weight gain is the side effect of everything these days - even breathing. I am on too many medications which have a side effect of weight gain.... So here I sit in my slightly tight clothes two sizes larger than I used to wear in dire need of a drastic deflabbification project.

"People with certain cancers – such as breast, prostate and colon cancer – are more likely to gain weight during treatment due to the therapies used to combat their disease. Hormone therapy, some chemotherapy regimens and medications such as steroids  all can cause weight gain, as well as water retention."

THEY  DIDN'T TELL ME THIS WHEN I WAS DIAGNOSED! Well there was a lot they didn't tell me - or that I didn't want to hear. But it is much harder to lose weight after breast cancer while still on hormone therapy.

And I am also on all sorts of other medications for my other ailments that might cause weight gain. I do go to the gym three times a week so its not as if I just sit around all the time.

And of course we need to remember:

"Some studies of cancer patients have linked obesity to an increased risk of recurrence and death in several common cancers, including breast, colorectal and prostate cancer. The California Teachers Study, led by City of Hope’s Leslie Berstein, showed that being obese was associated with a significant increase of dying from breast cancer for many women." More on this here.


So your treatment makes you fat and your fatness makes you more likely to die from it. So obviously something is wrong with the treatment. Does anyone see any irony with this?

The real question is if I went off the medications that might cause weight gain, would the weight magically disappear? I think that answer is a big fat no. Damn.

It is possible that things can go in the right direction

In 2007, when I was in chemo, nausea was my constant friend. It didn't stop me from eating, in fact I did gain weight during chemo. It disappeared after chemo.

A few weeks ago, my rheumatologist put me on sulfasalazine to help with my rheumatoid arthritis. Its just like chemo again in that it makes me feel nauseous all over again. I have felt nauseous again and again since I started taking a few weeks ago. This nausea made me actually do some research on it even though I did listen to my doctor who said nausea could happen.

So I looked it up on drugs.com and there it is under side effects that may go

"Some sulfasalazine side effects may not need any medical attention. As your body gets used to the medicine these side effects may disappear. Your health care professional may be able to help you prevent or reduce these side effects, but do check with them if any of the following side effects continue, or if you are concerned about them:

More common

• Abdominal or stomach pain or upset
• decreased weight

Less common

• Welts

Less common or rare

• Discoloration of the skin or urine
• hair loss or thinning of the hair
• swelling or inflammation of the mouth"

Did you see it? The second bullet in the first series of bullets. Decreased weight. How sneaky? How cool? Every other medication has caused weight gain. This one causes weight loss. Now I am happy.

I love this time of year

There is so much optimism in the health news this time of year (not so much the rest of the news especially with the ongoing European terrorism).  What I am referring to is the deluge of advice on flatten belly fat, eat healthier, and, my favorite,  how to really lose weight.

As with everything on the internet, we must take these with a grain of salt (and possibly a large margarita as well). Eating healthier does include eating more vegetables but I do that. I mean how many vegetables do I need in a day? And will it make all my ailments go away? They are what contribute to my unhealthy body. Because of my ailments, I spend too much time sitting on my butt and too little time hiking, skiing, snow shoeing, walking, etc.

I need real advice on how to be healthier and this is what I have come up with for me this January.

1. Attempt to go for a walk at least once a week. If I can do that, I can increase my weekly exercise quota. But its not really a reality. Some weeks I just cannot add in a walk because I feel crappy so much of the time.
2. Stop eating the crap at work. 

I work in a small office 15-18 hours/3 days a week. It is family run and wonderful. But I have never worked in an office with so much junk food, even when I worked for a candy company (Fanny Farmer Candy Shops) and was responsible for all the samples for photo shoots. Even the owners joke about the office 10 lb weight increase.

This week for example, the office manager had a sugar craving and went to the bakery next door and came back with an entire blueberry coffee cake (and a giant cookie for herself). Plus the (giant warehouse store containers of) brownies and cream puffs someone else brought in .

I think if I can attain those two goals, I will be a thinner happier person. I did breakdown yesterday and had a piece of coffee cake, left over Chex mix, and some goldfish. But in avoiding the crap for a couple weeks, the scale had started to move in the right direction.

So I am going to skip the healthy news this year, unless a cure for cancer, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis are announced, and stop eating the junk food at work.