Pausing for Six Months

Day 5: The Eating Switch

"It's like I flipped the eating switch, and I can't flip it back."
-Jenna Maroney, "30 Rock"

During the five months that I had daily abdominal pain, I also had nausea and decreased appetite. Somedays I could eat three small meals, but most days I barely ate two. There was just no appetite there.

My appetite had always been with me before, but during those months, it vanished. My whole adult life I've been trying to lose weight, but suddenly I was dropping pounds effortlessly. In three months, I lost twenty pounds, and it certainly wasn't because I was exercising. I was sedentary, actually. Exercise hurt, and even running more than a few errands a day hurt. A big day was making it to Target and the grocery store. (I've since learned that endometriosis pain is worsened through not just exercise, but also normal daily activities.)

What was different was my food intake. I rarely ate breakfast, and most days not even lunch. I looked forward to dinner, since that was the only time of day I had any appetite. I love food and love cooking. Love, L-O-V-E, love. So I tried to make great dinners and try new recipes. I became obsessed with dinner. I would spend hours looking up new recipes to try. When I finally got to eat dinner, it was often the highlight of my day. There were a few days that I ate lunch (maybe meeting up with a friend, or going out to lunch with my husband) and then I couldn't eat dinner. I haven't heard of this symptom being common with other endo patients, but I think it just went hand-in-hand with the pain.

Well, now I don't have much pain to speak of. (I've had a couple of busy or active days when I feel some pain, but I can take two Ibuprofen and it's gone.) What I do have is an appetite. I eat three meals a day now, without fail. So far I haven't gained back much weight, but I'm terrified that I'm going to. This week I've been busy and walked at least 1-2 miles every day, so I'm glad for that. But next week I'm going to start exercising again. It will have been six months since I last exercised, so I'm a little nervous about the fitness of my body. But I'm excited to try this thing out and see if it still works.

In the meantime, I will try not to eat the contents of our kitchen for lunch.

***

By the way, an anti-aging cream commercial just came on: "You may not be able to control menopause, but you can control the way your skin reacts to it."

My husband said "Are you listening?"

"My skin's going to sag? Seriously?"

I mean, seriously?

Labels: appetite is back, more menopasue symptoms, the eating switch

posted by Vander @ 11:05 AM