lose weight

A few weeks back, I noticed that my blood flow has gone erratic. Intermittent bleeds are not great for my sanity. It keeps me from going out of the house on days end. I'm aware that there's no predicting how one's period go in a day. But with a condition like mine, the unpredictability is paralyzing. I know this is all a mental game. Thus, in order for me to win the game, I just need to play right. One of the things that I can control is my weight. True, it's hard to control it, but I definitely know that I can watch the food that I eat. Years back when I had this kind of unpredictability, one of the things that I set my mind to doing was losing weight. My OB once told me that one of the things that I could do for my health was to lose weight. According to her, and to the literature I've read, the more fat a person is, the higher her estrogen level is. The high estrogen level in my system is supposedly causing my symptoms. I say supposedly because the medical literature is really not certain as to why a woman develops adenomyosis. My case is also an anomaly in the sense that most women who were diagnosed with adenomyosis are those women who have borne children. I have not borne any nor do I know if I'm capable of conception as I haven't had intercourse before.

There is that old wive's tale that supposedly claim that my disease will be cured if I get myself pregnant and bear a child. A lot has thrown the joke of me getting myself pregnant just to see if it can cure my condition. My partnerless status makes that a complicated approach. I won't lie that I have not considered it before, but my values just won't allow it. I guess I can be described an old maid in this sense. I've held this value way before I became a Christian. My faith in Jesus Christ has all the more sealed that what I value is right. So, I should not be pressured to thinking about getting pregnant as a solution. Heck, partly there's also the fear of confirming another symptom: painful intercourse. Review on other women's accounts state this as a symptom. I'm not talking about irrational fear of the unknown here. Some women diagnosed with adenomyosis complain of this painful problem and has expressed concern of this symptom affecting intimacy with their husbands. This is one of the reasons I'm grateful that I'm single. At least, I don't have to worry about this. YAY!

Anyway, going back to original topic. I will try my very best to lose the weight. Not having a job is also a blessing in that respect. With me, being at home most of the time, I'm away from food temptations. I'm a foodie, and being in the vicinity of food especially fast food is truly detrimental to my health. Also, one thing that I've noticed that I didn't do before was drinking coffee. I'm no coffee drinker, but since staying at home I've been drinking a mug or two of coffee - the instant kind. I don't know if it's related or not, but in my research before, there was a bit about avoiding caffeine. I still have some instant coffee stashed in the house, so I'll just probably finish it off and skip them on my next grocery run.

Over the past days, I've been consuming a lot of breads. In my research before, a lot of women advised to avoid food with "wheat" in it. As more often than not, I get lazy cooking. Thus, I stock bread, crackers, and a few chocolate cookies in my fridge. I have a rule before to not stock on these food items because I know I will have no control. Let's just say, I eat anything that I see available. Thus, the best strategy for me is to minimize the food I see or not stock them at all. I violated this personal rule because I've been feeling real OK in the past months. But I guess my body is reminding me to revisit on my rules again. So yeah, I will try again at controlling the food that I eat. In fact, I will challenge myself to eat 'ampalaya' or bitter gourd. I don't like ampalaya because of its taste. However, I was just reminded this week that one need not eat something because of its good taste. One must eat certain kinds of foods because it's healthy for the body. Eating ampalaya as the reminder goes can be something that can be developed into a habit. The speaker vouched that as a carnivore himself, he loathes eating ampalaya. But because his wife is insistent of eating healthy, he has developed the habit of eating vegetables. In fact, he has developed a taste for ampalaya specifically. Ampalaya is supposed to be good for those with my condition because it has a lot of iron in it.

I'm very much aware that 'taste' for something can be developed. For example, in my early years at my former company I can never tolerate Korean food. I don't like Kimchi, the spiciness of everything Korean. But over the years, I have developed a taste for Korean food. In fact, my benchmark for noodles is now the Korean ramen. I used to like the Filipino instant ramen, but now my preference is the Korean brand. There's not a week that I don't eat Korean noodles. So I guess, developing a taste for ampalaya can be something that I can have, too. I need to do it because if my blood flow keeps at the rate it's going, although they're intermittent, it won't be long that I become anemic again. Based on previous experience, the more anemic I become, the more I will have this heavy flow. So, yeah, the order of business for me is losing the weight and increasing iron intake. If I can't do the ampalaya thing yet, I'll just resort to popping iron supplements for the time being.

If I'm able to do this, don't be surprised if I'm much thinner (hopefully) than what you'd remember. I won't go thin all the way because quite frankly, I like my chubby self! Hehe, with the exception of when I have to buy jeans!