I think I mentioned earlier, I had a bad day today.
Nothing earth shattering... just one of those days; for a number of mostly unrelated reasons.
I just felt like blathering on a bit about one of those reasons though.
One thing, is that the hormone therapy that I've been on hasn't really worked. It's helped a lot in some things, not done a thing in others, and although I haven't seen any side efects, the risks of them are pretty high... But... overall it's not working, and it's VERY expensive (over $300 a month even with insurance) and we're going to have to try something else.
Were probably going to combine testosterone injections, with thyroid supplementarion, and antiandrogenics to keep my body from turning the excess testosterone against me... plus maybe some direct metabolic enhancement.
No matter what we do though, it's going to take some time to work through. Were going to have to experiment to figure what works, what doesn't, and how to balance dosages.
However, because we're moving in a couple months, I want to wait until were settled in to our new area, and I find a new doctor; before we start experimenting.
After all, the last thing I want to do is have to switch things up in the middle of evaluating a course of therapy.
...But we knew that a month ago. I've been off it since before thanksgiving.
I also haven't been on a scale since just before thanksgiving.
I don't think I've ever made it totally clear how bad this thing has screwed me up, or how just how much my body is malfunctioning.
Yaknow, in 2003, I got back down to 295lbs, and under 20% bodyfat. I had a 44" waist.
My goal was to get back to my highschool football/wrestling/powerlifting weight of 265-285, at 12% or under, and if not a 38" waist like I had back then, at least a 40.
Then I got a job that was 100% full time travel, and workouts and good eating went by the wayside... But until this hormone thing started I still managed to keep within sight of that number...
Then the hormone thing started, and my weight just went up and up. But still, in 2006-7 I managed to lose 75 lbs with diet and excercise...
Then, at some point, even on the diet, even with the excercise, my weight started going back up. I kept restricting calories more and more, but I still gained weight.
When I restricted down to well below my starvation rate, Instead of losing weight, I would just fall asleep in the middle of the day. Obviously, I stopped restricting that low.
Eventually I settled into 2000-2400 calories a day, as the minimum I could eat withou making myself I'll. I stuck to that for over a year (I got one day a week plus holidays that I was allowed to go over)... And yet I still gained weight.
So obviously something was wrong, and that's why I went on the hormone therapy.
The one thing the hormone therapy I've been on had been successful at, was in arresting my weight gain. I've gained well over 100lbs in the past few years, while reducing my caloric intake, and increasing my exercise; and that seems to be primarily down to the hormone issues.
Going off the hormones, combined with the holidays... Well, I haven't exactly gorged myself. In fact, I've eaten less than I would (or have) in previous years holiday times...
I was still maintaining a diet while I was on the hormones, and although I wasn't losing weight, I wasn't gaining it either. However, from thanksgiving to new years, I know, it's useless to try and keep to any kind of real calorie restriction. I just made sure I ate sensibly and properly, and only had the occasional indulgence.
But I stepped on a scale today for the first time since thanksgiving; and in the past 5 weeks I've gained 35 pounds.
Now, understand, in someone whose body is functioning properly, gaining 35lbs in five weeks would mean I had to eat an extra 3200-3600 calories a day.
For someone my size, even if I were at 100% bodyfat, and did nothing but sleep and eat all day long; if my body function wasn't completely haywire, that would require eating almost 8000 calories a day.
On the "worst" day since thanksgiving, I still ate less than 4000. Most days I I'm in at 2400-2800.
So, it seems there is something seriously wrong with me.
This has nothing to do with diet and exercise. My diet is fine, and excepting when the knees are bothering me particularly badly, I get enough exercise. There is simply some major mechanism of my body that is working completely improperly.
I absolutely have not been eating nearly that much. Maybe averaging an extra couple hundred calories a day over my previous maintenance intake (2400 - 2800 a day); given that I had dessert, and the occasional cookie or piece of chocolate... but seriously, I wasn't eating that much.
It's just that after coming off the hormones, my basal burn went down even further. Which means my thyroid function, pituitary function, and testosterone production are even lower and more screwed up than they were before I started.
There is something seriously wrong with me, neither I nor my doctors understand what it is; and frankly, it has me very worried.
We know I'm not diabetic, I'm not vitamin or nutrient deficient in any significant way (I supplement), and it seems that the ulcerative colitis doesn't have anything direct to do with the problem... and they're sure I don't have Crohns (at least not yet anyway). Other than that, the docs don't know why whats going on is going on.
So yeah, I had kind of a bad day, and that was one of the reasons why.
