Something I Never Really Talk About...

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Very rarely do I ever really get super serious here on the blog. I want it to be a positive place full of lollipops and puppies and meadows filled with sunflowers to frolic in.

But, I know a lot of people are struggling with what I struggle with, and I want others to know that they are not alone.

For my entire life I have always struggled with my weight. I was the lucky one in my family where I was blessed with the slowest metabolism to ever walk the face of this planet. If you gave my metabolism to a snail he would probably start to slither backwards.

In elementary and middle school I was a legit obese kid. I was called things like "tubby" and "elephant". Kids would look at me with disgust as I walked down the hallways. If I wasn't moving fast enough for them they would literally push me out of their way.

When you're a kid you don't really realize what you look like. When I reached middle school I started to obsess over things like clothes, my hair and my body. I went on a mini diet in middle school and lost about 20 pounds. In high school I lost another 10, by the time I was in my 3rd year of college I had lost an additional 25 pounds.

It was hard to lose that weight. When I was a kid I would eat snacks and ice cream and cookies and crap. As I got older I went cold turkey with all that stuff. I was eating healthy and "normal" but still had a hard time losing weight.

I was my "thinnest" in college (I used quotes because I was never ever really skinny, I looked healthy and average) I had to be super conscious of what I put into my body. I memorized nutrition facts. I knew how many calories were in bread, veggies, candy bars, soups, pizza--you name it I knew it. I was constantly mentally calculating what was going into my body.

I could never just go to a party and scarf down chips, I would place the "suggested serving" on my plate and eat only 5 of them. If I was at a birthday party I would take a single bite out of a cake and put the rest down. I remember one year for my own birthday I refused to eat my own birthday cake (i know I know I'm a turd).

Yeah, it sucks having a very sensitive metabolism, but I have learned to deal with it. I just hate when others judge my body. People assume I eat horribly or that I am super unhealthy, which is exactly the opposite.

Over the past 2-3 years I noticed something really scary. Every few months my clothes would get tighter, and tighter, and tighter. My eating habits didn't change but I assumed that maybe because I was getting "older" my metabolism took another dive down hill (awesome)

I went back on weight watchers (that was how I lost the weight in college. I had lost about 25 pounds in 3 months) I was on WW for 4 months. Over those 4 months I had lost only 6 pounds and gained 4. Again, I assumed that my body needed a different method to drop the pounds since I wasn't in college anymore so I decided to do a high fiber and cardio diet for a few months.

I was eating more grains and wheats to keep me fuller longer. I also added 1/2 hour of cardio 3 times a week to give me body that exta "umph".

I still was not losing weight, in fact I was still gaining.

I decide to try one more method of weight loss before sucking it up and going to the Dr.

I decide to do a low-carb diet (duuuude do you know how hard that was for me?! I AM ITALIAN I BLEED BREAD, PASTA AND MARINARA SAUCE). My only saving grace on this low-carb diet was the fact that I could eat cheese (PRAISE THE LORD BABY JESUS). I was eating limited fruits since some fruits are considered "carbs". I had increased my proteins filling up on chickens and fishes.

I was STILL gaining weight.

Insert panic.

I went to my Dr, he poked me a bunch of times and ran a bunch of tests and everything came back negative.

I started to bawl. I was so scared that I would just keep gaining and gaining and gaining weight. It would be different if I was gaining all this weight because I was scarfing down fried chicken, chocolate covered marshmallows and milk shakes but the truth was I wasn't. If I was gaining all this weight while eating healthy I could not imagine the amount of weight I would be gaining if I was eating junk food.

I had read somewhere that sometimes birth control pills can make you gain weight. I didn't think anything of it because I was on the pill back in college when I had lost the original 25 pounds. What I didn't realize though is that I had switched birth control brands about 2-3 years ago.

Light bulb moment

I begrudgingly stopped taking my pill as a last ditch effort to lose weight. (Side note: I was on the pill for health reasons. My "time of the month" was so debilitating that I would be stuck in bed for 2 days and have a ton of other problems for the entire week. I knew that if I wanted a full time job after college I wasn't going to be allowed to take off from work 1 week every month due to woman issues. So enter the Pill)

I got off the pill about 2 months ago. I also re-started weight watchers. My mom and my friends were trying to convince me for WEEKS to get back on the scale to see my weight, but I just couldn't bare seeing the numbers go up again.

I am happy to report that since going off the pill and doing weight watchers I have lost roughly 10 pounds.

Do you hear that? Thats the sounds of angels singing sweet sweet music.

I don't want to jinx myself juuuust yet, I am hoping the reason behind my weight gain was the pill and not some other medical condition. BUT I need to log this information down to hold me accountable.

Even though I am losing weight while not on the pill my metabolism is still super slow. I eat fruits and veggies for breakfast and lunch (literally fruits and veggies, no bread, no cereal, just stuff that that literally comes out of the ground) for dinner I'll eat pasta or chicken or meat but at the proper service size. If I am still hungry after eating my dinner I try to snack on more veggies and fruits to fill me up.

Just to clarify, yes we believe the pill was preventing me from losing weight, however if I had stopped taking the pill and did NOT do weight watchers on top of it I believe I would still be at the weight I was when I got off the pill, BUT I would stop gaining the weight.

I will never ever be at a point where I can just eat whatever and not care or notice. For my entire life I will always have to count calories and be aware of what is going into my body, at least now I can try to finally lose weight! BRING IT JILLIAN MICHAELS


(ps-this is by no means a paid post by "weight watchers" this is strictly me just putting it all out there)