Whole30 and Bikini Body Guide

It's been a while.  An update is in order.   

In February I was so frustrated that I finally broke down and paid for one of those at home testing kits because my stupid insurance doesn't want to do the tests I need.  My sweet mom even pitched in on some of the cost for me.  My weight was still climbing.  I couldn't take it anymore and I seriously needed to try to get some answers.  I needed to do SOMETHING.  By that time my weight had gone up to 139-140 lbs.  Since then it's gone as high as 142 but I am currently at 139 lbs and it's the first time under 140 since the end of February and a handful of days in March.  Ugh.  Disgusting.

I was really happy to see that my cortisol was normal.  That's the one I was most worried about.  My only out of range results was low Estradiol and high TSH.  I don't know how much of an impact the Estradiol would have on weight gain but I know that high TSH is bad, bad, bad.  I was shocked because my TSH has always been normal so I never ever ever even considered that I had a Thyroid problem.  This means that between August when it was last tested and February something happened to cause it to go up.  But what? I scheduled a doctors appointment 2 days after I got my results but the soonest I could get in is April 28th so I'm still waiting for that appointment.  Frantic to do something to "fix" this I ordered a thyroid support supplement but ended up not taking it because I read that sometimes it can do more harm than good.  Since then, I ended up buying a multivitamin that had the same amount of iodine (150 mcg) as the supplement.  Iodine feeds the Thyroid.  Since 150 mcg is the suggested daily amount of iodine and not anything crazy it would probably be okay to take it but since I have the multi I'm not going to.  I'll take it with me to my doctor's appointment to see what she thinks.  After I found out my TSH was high I really wanted to give up.  A  slow Thyroid was the worst possible news I could have gotten and I was devastated for a few days because even before doing research I knew that slow thyroid equals the death of weight loss.  Everything I read says that it will make it really hard if not impossible to loose weight.

I only exercised sporadically with some cardio and yoga in January.  In February I decided to give my body a complete cardio break and only did yoga or pilates.  I was scared to exercise too much because I knew that if my cortisol was high it would only make things worse.  After I got my test results I felt comfortable exercising again.  All research suggests that exercise is good for thyroid so in March I added cardio.  I was consistently either walking, doing yoga/pilates or circuit training type cardio at least 4 times per week.  I watched my intake staying closer to 1,500 and dipping to 1,200 here and there but my weight would. Not. Budge.  Not even a little bit.   

Who wants to put themselves through the misery of cardio for nothing?  It's really frustrating to stick to work outs, deal with sore muscles and painful knees and push yourself when the scale mocks you every day.  I'm losing all hope of ever losing weight again.  I originally planned to do Whole30 when my husband traveled for work mid May. It's a super restrictive diet so I figured it would be mentally easier to stick to with him not around.  Also, it's expensive so I wanted to save it for when only one of us would be using up the grocery budget.  I was actually hoping that some miracle would occur and maybe if I ramped up the exercise I wouldn't even have to resort to Whole30 but it was painfully clear I wasn't going to get anywhere.  I've just been spinning my wheels all this time and I am running out of time to waste.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and with my beach vacation coming up I could not wait.  The first week I cut out all dairy, grains, beans, added sugar and processed foods.  My only allowance was wine and I figured to hell with it because it was my birthday week.  I was already "cheating" by dining out and not inquiring about what kind of oil they were cooking my meat in so I allowed it to be a transition week.  I went out to eat quite a few times and ordered compliant foods with my only cheat being wine.  My official Whole30 started on Saturday with no cheats and I plan to stick with it for the whole30 days on top of my modified Whole30 week.  We are officially 12 weeks out from our Hawaii vacation so I will be doing the Bikini Body Guide also.  The workouts are killer.  I will do my 3rd one today and I'm still sore from Saturday.  If this hard hitting two pronged approach doesn't jump start weight loss for me I'm afraid nothing will.

My diet consists of eggs, meat, vegetables, fruits and nuts.  That's it.  No dairy, no grains, no beans, no alcohol, no sugar, no processed foods.  I can't even drink coffee anymore because I can't find a natural way to sweeten it up that is compliant.  The unsweetened coconut milk was disgusting and I'm not making my own Almond milk.  This diet is less about what you can have and more about what you can't.  I was already eating all of the things on it but now I have to cut a lot of other things out.  No more peanut butter, no more bread, no cheese and no more yogurt.  My only worries going into this is not getting enough fiber and becoming constipated.  I am thrilled that I have been able to have a BM daily for the first time in a long time if ever.  I am used to getting 30 grams of fiber and now I'm down to about 20 per day.  So far my BM's have slowed down to every other day which isn't terrible and I pee a lot.  I'm at about 1,400 calories per day.  I'd like to get it closer to 1,500-1,600 but it's really hard (and expensive) keeping the calories up with these limited foods.  For the first time ever my protein intake is higher than my carb intake.  We grilled about 3 lbs of meat on Saturday and we are already close to running out because I am eating chicken for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I am not hopeful, but I have to try.  This is pretty much my last chance at re-setting my hormones, ramping up my metabolism and losing weight.  I'm all out of ideas.  If this doesn't work I think I'm all out of options.  I will request comprehensive thyroid testing at my doctors appointment and we'll see what comes out of that.  If I have a Thyroid problem I'm probably screwed, but no matter what, I have to do anything and everything I can.

It just kills me that I've gotten this heavy and haven't been able to do a damn thing about it.  My shoulders have filled out.  My arms don't look scrawny anymore.  My butt and thighs are fuller.  God, I miss my bones!!  The weird thing is that I still have visible abs.  I don't even know how that is possible.  It's very confusing for me because I've gained a ton of weight and I can't fit into any of my old clothes.  In my mind I am fat but if I'm fat how can I still have abs?  How is it possible that I'm not buried in fat?  I know that technically I'm not fat, but whatever it is that is going on with my body has got to be brought under control because there are only so many more pounds that my frame can handle before I officially enter the fat zone.

Comprehensive Female Profile-Test Results     Normal Range
Estradiol (Saliva) 1.1 L pg/mL                         1.3-3.3 Premenopausal (Luteal)
Progesterone (Saliva) 117 pg/mL                      75-270 Premenopausal (Luteal)
Ratio: Pg/E2 (Saliva) 106                                 Optimal:100-500 when E2 1.3-3.3 pg/mL
Testosterone (Saliva) 24 pg/mL                         16-55 (Age Dependent)
DHEAS (Saliva) 3.2 ng/mL                               2-23 (Age Dependent)
Cortisol (Saliva) 4.5 ng/mL                              3.7-9.5 (morning)
Cortisol (Saliva) 2.4 ng/mL                              1.2-3.0 (noon)
Cortisol (Saliva) 0.9 ng/mL                              0.6-1.9 (evening)
Cortisol (Saliva) 0.5 ng/mL                              0.4-1.0 (night) 
Free T4 (Blood Spot) 1.6 ng/dL                       0.7-2.5
Free T3 (Blood Spot) 2.7 pg/mL                      2.5-6.5
TSH (Blood Spot) 4.5 H μU/mL                    0.5-3.0
TPO (Blood Spot)* 24 IU/mL                         0-150 (70-150 borderline)