The past year has been a mystery, as we’ve tried to determine what was causing my weight gain. Despite having no major changes in eating or exercise, my weight went up very significantly this past year. For someone who is still struggling with anorexia, this was incredibly hard to deal with. This is the main reason why I’ve done so much intense work in terms of eating disorder recovery this year.
Fortunately, my primary care doctor and I recently decided to do some more labwork, and we discovered that I’ve developed significant insulin resistance (IR). Upon mentioning that to my psychiatrist, the psychiatrist said that a medication I’m on causes that relatively frequently! I’m now off that medication completely, I’m on something to counter the IR until my body hopefully returns to its normal state, and I’m hoping that my weight will return to something more typical for me. (I did a little research that says that the med often causes IR, which then causes weight gain. Going off the med should (*crosses fingers*) fix both.)
It’s really hard, knowing that it’ll take months to get my IR levels back to normal and probably well over a year to get my weight back to what I’m used to. I want to drastically limit my diet and increase my exercise to help the process along. However, I know that’s not healthy for me. I’m already struggling with restriction; I don’t need to add to it. I don’t need to go down that path! Knowing that there’s an explanation and we’ve hopefully fixed the cause is very helpful, and for now, it needs to be enough.
If this had happened a few years ago and I had somehow managed to survive the weight gain without completely losing my mind, I think I’d be in the position where I’d have wanted to “skip ahead” to the part of life where my weight is hopefully back to its more usual level. But you know what? I don’t, right now. I mean, it’s tempting, and it’s hard to go out in public like this, especially given diet culture and knowing that people may be judging me. But I know that the people who judge don’t matter, and I don’t want to miss out on time with my family and friends. I don’t need to stay hidden away until things (hopefully) get back to where I’m more comfortable.
On top of all that, I’ve never really been comfortable with my body. Yeah, this is different. I’m more uncomfortable, and I’m noticing changes that really bother me. But no matter what weight I’ve been, I’ve struggled. I’m not going to let this stop me from enjoying my life.