When women have chronic illnesses, it often is very much out of our control what we weigh. Medications, our diseases, and not being able to exercise because of the pain and energy zapping we feel, all contribute to how much we weigh.

Now I am going to talk numbers, for me personally.  I am 5 feet 6 inches tall.  You may be envious of my current weight but the fact is that I am not happy about it.  Everything is relative, you know?  I weigh the most I have ever weighed, except for being pregnant, 157 pounds. Now, I know that some of it is swelling, but who knows how much weight that is, a couple of pounds? Less?  No one can answer that for me!  I seem to wear it well, and am currently wearing sizes 8s, 10s and 12s.  Sizes are crazy aren’t they?  How can I still wear my size 8s?  Why are some size 10s swimming on me?  I have what I would describe as a Rubenesque figure.  Only we don’t live in the 1600s:-(

For many years I was a solid size 10 with my weight being around 145 pounds, give or take. I got comfortable in my size 10 clothes, I accepted “size 10 me”, finally.  Some people would even praise the fact that my weight never wavered.

Then I had Tyler.  My pre-pregnancy weight was 146 pounds and I gained just 23 pounds as I had Gestational Diabetes and had to be careful.  When I came home from the hospital, my stomach had already shrunk considerably and I had already lost 13 pounds, which really is like the baby and the crap that you carry with the baby.

In one month or less I was down to my pre-pregnancy weight.  And then I just kept going.  I was not on a diet, I was not doing anything.  I had a stomach virus on top of that and so when Tyler was seven months old I weighed a horrendous 117 pounds!  I looked like a heroin chic model.  People at my new job were telling me, “YOU just had a baby?  You look amazing!”

But I hated myself.  This wasn’t ME.  I had gone from years of being a size 10 to a size 4! I would look at myself in the mirror and cry.  I was in shock over my skeletal frame.  While people were praising me for my weight loss and amazing will power, my doctors were flummoxed. My endocrinologist was telling me I was just plain crazy. He said it in a bit nicer way, he said I had post-partum issues and should be seeing a Psychiatrist and therapist, but I already was, the big dummy.  Is it even necessary to say I fired him?  I was being tested for every cancer there was since unexplained weight loss is a major symptom of cancer.  No cancer, thankfully.

I used to test the power of eating anything and everything I wanted.  I used to have half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, sometimes more, every night.  After the stomach virus and a return to a desk job I did stabilize into a comfortable size six.  I started to like being a size six, and who wouldn’t?  Being able to wear trendy or classic office clothes without looking like I was trying to stretch them just to fit into them.  I was always the kind of woman who made it a habit to go the next size up, rather than attempt to fit into the size they weren’t any more.  It was more flattering.

I realize now that Lupus was starting.  It had taken over my metabolism, my endocrine system. Lupus wanted me thin and so I was.  I was finally that willowy amazon that I had thought could only be found in my dreams.  The only thing that I didn’t have was I have always wished I was shorter. Oh, they have such cute things for petite women, don’t they? Well, that probably IS going to happen too since I have Osteoporosis and have already shrunk a few inches.  Be careful what you wish for, right?

Enough with the past, let’s get to how I ended up being 160 pounds.  My meds for my mental illnesses, and my mental illnesses themselves, make me want to eat.  My pain makes me want to eat. Sometimes it is so bad, I don’t want to feel it any more, I want to feel an Oreo cookie, you know? Someone told me that eating releases the same pleasurable endorphins as narcotics or exercise or being happy.  For me the only thing that works is the food as I cannot exercise, I do not get high from my drugs and happiness around here is short lived.  I only have the Oreos!

I also have this weird feeling that I cannot nap or sleep unless I feel full.  The food helps make me sleepy and it is easier to get to sleep.  Or then I have insomnia and I get hungry, being up for two to three hours in the middle of the night, who wouldn’t?

But what really convinced me that I had to do something was the amazing Christine Miserandino, The Spoon Lady, of the amazing But You Don’t Look Sick blog.  I saw pictures of her recently and she is already so beautiful but now she has lost the weight she was lamenting about and she looks fabulous!

I don’t know how Christine did it, but I have decided to go on the ShutMyMouth Diet.  I have decided that I am stronger than Lupus, Depression, or my meds and I DO have control over how much I weigh.  I will not let them have their “weigh” with me any longer.

So far I have lost a pound on the ShutMyMouth Diet but more so, I feel like I am once again the Master of my body, the Queen of my Temple, or whatever you would like to call it.  I am not advocating that YOU should go on the ShutMyMouth Diet, you should consult your doctor before beginning any diet, but for me, what harm could the ShutMyMouth Diet really do?

My goal is to lose a reasonable 20 pounds in how ever long it takes, as I will be eating my usual meals and a treat when I want it, as long as it is within reason.  Maybe I am on to something with this new ShutMyMouth Diet?

The post The ShutMyMouth Diet first appeared on Mama Sick.

Exploiting My Baby by Teresa Strasser is a very…frank book about the author’s experience from conception to birth, and I happened to have loved it.

Thus, I have now been empowered, nay, liberated by Ms. Strasser to…

EXPLOIT MY BABY’S CONCEPTION

and I thank her for that.

I was 35 when my husband and I decided (after consulting a perinatologist, genetic counsellor, 18 viles of blood taken from me, and my husband fainting) to try to have a child.

We had waited a long time due to my health and when I was finally feeling pretty good I wanted this baby thing to work right away.  I charted my basal body temperature daily and peed on ovulation sticks.

The day was Saturday, December 17, 2005.  I knew we were coming close to baby-making time.  The phone rang and on my caller ID I saw that it was one of my aunts whom I had not spoken to in a long time.  As in long time, she was reaching out to me, trying to bridge the gap between our family long time, so I rushed to pick it up.

About five minutes into our conversation my husband came over and started to, you know, do things to me to make me want to get off of the phone.  But I didn’t want to get off the phone, this was a very important phone call and if I blew her off she would think that I was dissing her olive branch!  But it was close to baby-making time!

And so…I. DID. BOTH.

That’s right, I had sex with my husband while I was on the phone with my aunt.  I mean, wouldn’t anyone in my position(s) do the same thing?

I chatted on to my aunt during various maneuvers as my husband tried his best to be quiet (he’s used to this sort of thing from me) and I tried…not to sound like I was having sex.

We completed the act and I still talked to my aunt, for about an hour.  Not the sex, the conversation with my aunt.  Both went very well.

I wasn’t going to be one of those women who bought a million pregnancy tests and tested, like, the day after she had sex.  I waited until my chart showed that I was one day late and bought a test.  And sure enough, I was pregnant.

My husband was very disappointed as he had read about how wild and sexy (and desperate) baby-making sex could be on the side of the woman and he had really been looking forward to it.

But we had succeeded on the first try.  And so, I thank said aunt, for Grant might not have tried to be funny and get me off the phone if it were not for her.

Like Ms. Strasser, we too now have a beautiful son.

The post Exploiting My Baby’s Conception first appeared on Mama Sick.