60 Day Update on My Struggles With Stress Starving

I published an article at the beginning of the New Year about the difficulties I've had throughout my life to gain weight. This is the promised 60 day update.

Too Long; Didn't Read of the previous post: A number of people don't eat when they're stressed. Instead of gaining weight, they have problems maintaining a healthy weight. There's no public conversation about this, and there should be. Underweight people are often body shamed for something not completely under their control. Unintentionally body shamed, but it happens. This adds to their stress. It's a never ending cycle.

At the end of the first article, I mentioned I would be working closely with a doctor and/or nutritionist. We started with a basic physical, including blood work. The results came out as expected.

I'm severely underweight. At 5' 4 3/4", I started out at 96 pounds. My Vitamin D was very low and my cholesterol was very, very high. The cholesterol was so high, they called me in on a Saturday to talk about the results and get me started on meds.

This isn't the first time I've had high numbers. I've been able to get them down through diet and exercise before, and I'll be doing that this time as well. A supplement for the Vitamin D, and I'm good to go. The weird thing about the Vitamin D level is that I live in Florida. I'm in the sunshine all the time. Apparently that isn't enough.

Specialized dieting is difficult. Ask anyone who's tried Weight Watchers, or any of the other common weight loss techniques. When a person is required to watch their caloric intake, whether it's to make it trend higher or lower, they tend to stress. Stress makes people eat. Or not eat, as is the point of this article.

My Companion is very supportive of the process. He is a diabetic, and it can't have been easy to watch me have at least one chocolate shake a day, but he held firm like a champ. It's not like I was running to McDonald's for one of their shakes; those things will kill you.

I picked up a whey protein meal replacement powder mix and used that for my shakes. The recommendation was two a day, I was never able to handle more than one. My body doesn't react especially well to excessive amounts of dairy, and I was using 2% milk and real vanilla bean ice cream, and an extra long dash of chocolate syrup. Because if I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to do it right.

We ditched a lot of the starches, and switched me to carbs and protein. The first thirty days were great! The pounds added up quickly and before I knew it, I had gained five.

For reference purposes, five pounds is 5% of my body weight. It adds up.

I began sessions with a family counsellor. We talked about a lot of things, including my methods for dealing with, well, everything. Good and bad stress have the same reaction on the body, so it's a matter of learning how to cope with both.

Bad stress: My Companion was released from his position in this time period. Trust me, it was a good thing and he's happy to move on to a new company, but it threw us for a bit of a loop. We've discovered we may have to relocate across the country, and probably quickly when it happens. My family pet I had bottle raised as a kitten, and who lasted 20 years with us, was put to sleep the weekend after Christmas while I was 900 miles away. A relative went into the hospital and now they're discussing hospice. After a week's vacation, my back and neck were giving out on me and the pain was horrendous for a time. It's easing now.

Medium stress: All the day to day stuff. Trying to fit in a trip to the grocery store when my other errands are across town, things like that. Trips like those are a pain in the butt. I always figure I'll grab something to snack on after I pop into this one store... but then I leave the store and move on to the next errand, completely forgetting about food because I want to get everything done by a certain time... Everyone is well aware of this kind of stress.

Good stress: I've been working for eight months to re-release one of my novels. That all culminated during this 60 day period. It's officially released, and we had a live release party while we were live streaming, and a Facebook event. I'm thrilled it's out, and I didn't have any nerve situations (thanks, Counsellor Lady!), but while we were running and planning, food fell off to the wayside. I've been offered other signings, and sold several paperbacks, and that's all great! I'm on track for that life goal.

For me, food is the easiest thing to forget. I hate that. When I have to stop and ask myself if I had anything healthy to eat - or anything at all - for the day, I get pissed at myself. Food should be simple. It's a basic requirement for living things.

So, the first month went great. I remembered my shakes everyday, and had them on top of healthy meals. The second month, not so much. We went on vacation, also, and I made the choice not to bring my blender for the shakes. That's totally on me. Today is the day I start making and drinking them again.

During the second month, I maintained the five pounds I put on during the first month. I had set a goal of gaining ten pounds in two months, considering it realistic. It was, but I didn't make it.

I'm not upset at the result. Technically, I can't be as there's no sympathy for self-inflicted wounds and I'm the one who made the choice to skip the last 10 days of shakes.

I'm thrilled with the five pounds. I'm excited to start the shakes back up.

I wish I had this giant, celebratory post about how I gained all this weight and feel so much better; similarly to how I believe people who are trying to lose weight feel when they don't hit their goal.

But dieting takes practice, and will power, and no one is going to get it exactly right on the first try. All I can do is tighten my belt, and try again.

Would you like to talk about your weight struggles? I'm here for you!

And comments are always open.

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