The Mother Load

(Author's Note: The Mother Unload is a new feature on The Mother Load which will follow my 6784th attempt at weight loss.)

So why weight loss? Why again? Why now?

Well, some of you might remember that I had an MRI last month.  I had the test because a previous test had revealed a suspicious spot on my liver (it was hiding behind bushes and scoping out the bank across the street, I think).  Doctors hate spotted things, so the bigger, scarier test was ordered.

The good news is that the MRI found no masses or spots or lumps or nodules of any kind on my liver.  The bad news is that they also didn't find a liver.  In place of my liver, they found a bowl of nacho cheese dip, a Big Mac, and a platter of ribs.

In the spectrum of medical disorders, fatty liver disease is pretty uncool.  People who have heart attacks and some forms of cancer often have contributed to the problem with their poor diets, but some don't, so they can get away with telling people it's genetic, environmentally-caused, or even congenital.  You tell someone you have a fatty liver, and there's pretty much only one person you can blame.  There's no, "Yeah, I have a fatty liver because I lived too close to a power plant as a child."  You did it with your crappy diet. The end.

And then there's the PCOS...or at least, the threat of it.  Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome is a disorder that has afflicted, to varying degrees, several of the female members of my family.  It's the reason my sister Gina struggled with infertility for 16 years before finally having a baby.  Doctors now know the problem is likely caused by insulin resistance, and they treat it with diet and certain medications.  When I started to show symptoms of PCOS over the last year, my sister urged me to get tested.  My levels at this point are borderline, but a fasting insulin test will tell us more.  All I know is that 7 centimeter cysts hurt like a word I don't say on this blog and the belly fat and bloating that come with it make normal clothing impossible to wear, so if my poor diet is what is causing these problems, I'm willing to eat nothing but celery for the rest of my life to avoid dealing with that again.

Also, there is Lagoon, the amusement park about 20 minutes from my house.  We plan to get a season pass for the family this year, and I plan to de-stress on crazy rides as many times as our schedules will allow.  Do you know what it's like going to an amusement park at my weight?  It's terrifying.  Not because the rides are scary...though they are.  It's that awful, ugly fear that you'll take your place, and the peppy teen whose job it is to buckle you in will try with all her might and finally ask you not to ride the ride.  You stand in line with a smile on your face, but the entire time, you're watching for someone, anyone, who might be as fat as you are to face the peppy teen and ride successfully before you have to answer the question of whether or not you can. This is not cool.  Not cool at all.

I won't be eating only celery for the rest of my life.  That would be silly...and stringy...and gassy.  I have started gathering information on diets that help manage and correct the problem of PCOS and which may help turn all that fat under my ribs back into a liver again.  Everything I've read tells me that I need to cut way down on the carbohydrates in my diet, replace simple sugars with more complex carbs, and pair the carbs I eat with lean proteins and fresh fruits and vegetables.

A few days into this new way of eating, and I'm already down 4 pounds.  This is likely water weight, but we'll see how things progress.  Down is better than up, anyway.  I've also bought a treadmill, and I've spent time nearly every day since Tuesday either walking or jogging on it.  Treadmills are beautiful.  I recommend them for every household.

So, there you go.  Sarah is trying, again, to lose weight and keep it lost.  Join me, will ya?  (I don't want to do this alone!)