A Trip To The Nutritionist

Recently I have gained weight. Let me back up some first though.

I have been real lucky. I've always weighed what I should and eaten what I wanted to. After having my Son, I lost all of my pregnancy weight real fast. I do eat fairly OK and I do make a point to stay active and exercise.

Last year I was diagnosed with high cholesterol. Like, total was over 300. Because I'm still in my 30's and both my parents have high cholesterol I got a free ticket to here's a prescription for meds. But the side effect of those meds made me gain 15 pounds over the past few months. I went right back to my doctor who had no problems switching my meds.

However, I have not been able to take it off.
I've upped my exercise and tried to decrease my portions of food. And although my cholesterol levels are decreasing, my weight is not. And this puts me in an another category for 'at-risk for heard disease'. It's a catch 22. I need the meds to lower my cholesterol, but gaining weight puts me at anther risk factor.

Not only am I running out of clothes that fit REAL fast, I feel horrible about myself. I know why I gained the weight - it was for an attempt to become healthier. But I just don't like the way I look. 15 pounds, no matter where your weight was is still 15 pounds.

At my last cholesterol recheck I expressed my concern about the weight gain and the difficulty I am having taking it off. I told her I haven't weighed this much since I was 5 months pregnant - and this time I have no baby coming! A former co-worker had the nerve to comment on this too.

After running some more tests to check some things like thyroid, my doctor referred me to a nutritionist. I loved that she didn't want to put me on additional meds. I love that she took my concern seriously.

I went to my first appointment last week. I had no idea what to expect as I've never been to a nutritionist before. And I hit the jackpot. She is amazing. She gave me some quick surveys to test my knowledge of healthy eating and to access if I was an emotional eater. She also gave me a RMR test to determine my metabolism rate, and a BMI test. With this I now know exactly how many calories I need to sustain my weight, which also means if I eat more, I gain, and if I eat less and/or exercise I lose. And best of all, she gave me sample menu plans with portions, some recipes and websites and articles and healthier versions of my favorite foods.

I now feel empowered instead of hopeless. I have the knowledge where as before I was clueless. I thought I was doing everything right, but obviously I wasn't since I was gaining/plateaued and not losing. I feel like I have a fresh start on this project.