The story of my waist

Dear Reader,

Let me start with my own story though, which will explain why this now all matters to me. I have been able to go on this adventure because I have been fortunate in business in the past year and have had the time and money to invest in my own health and well being.

The first part of this story is that I had polio as a child, diagnosed when I was 7, when we were living on the Navajo Indian Reservation where polio was endemic.  Fortunately I had a mild case, affecting my left leg, which I started to drag rather than lift, which is how it was diagnosed.  My mother, allowed me to run free rather than wear the horrible constraining leg braces that the doctors wanted me to wear, and I recovered fully.  That was the end of that story, or so I thought for years. Well, other than for dealing with the psychic wounds coming from having such an illness. It was traumatic going to medical facilities to see the doctor and seeing people who were paralyzed from polio, and realizing that could have been me.

I grew up, I wouldn't say normally, but into a healthy fully physically functional person.  Of course, I was fucked up, my childhood wasn't ideal, and I had years of psychotherapy and then started on psychiatric drugs, all of which helped enormously with mood and, later as I developed sleep issues, with that as well.  I started on prozac, but when sleep became an issue, changed over trying several different medications until settling on mirtazapine and seroquel at night, low doses.  One of the side effects of mirtazapine I was told was looser bowel movements than you'd normally have.  The drugs did the trick with sleep and mood, for years I was good on both accounts, although mornings I was a little groggy, but that cleared quickly.

Then, a few years ago, after taking this drug combination for several years, I developed muscle weakness and pain in my legs.  Around this time, I saw an article in the New York Times about post polio syndrome, where adults in the 50's and 60's who'd survived and recovered apparently fully from polio, started to develop the symptoms of it again. It is not a re-occurrence of the disease, which is a nerve disease, rather the nerves that took over from the ones killed by polio, poop out and stop functioning, causing the polio symptoms to reappear.  I was certain this is what I had, and while the pain and weakness didn't interfere with my functioning I was aware of it. My regular doctor had no help for this as no one fully understands it, and it would be different for every polio survivor.  I had no idea if it would get worse or not, but imagined myself at some point being weakened to the point of needing crutches or a wheelchair.

The pain and weakness went on for several years, at least 3 or 4.  This past spring, the pain also started to express itself in my bowels, nothing terrible but strange and troubling.  I began to wonder about mirtazapine, and it occurred to me, if it could effect the peristaltic motion, one of the most basic muscle movements in our bodies, perhaps it could effect other muscles.  It was in May of last year, that I did some deep research, courtesy of google of course, and found one of the more complete and deep websites on the side effects of mirtazapine. There, on the physician only pages, I had to google where every other word because they were Latin or Greek, I discovered that mirtazapine causes muscle pain and weakness in a small number of patients.  That was enough for me, I stopped taking mirtazapine and the pain and weakness went away.  But my sleep was all messed up, and I went almost weekly to my psychiatrist trying one medication after the other.  They would work for a few nights, and then not work, and I began to despair.  I decided to try alternative medicine and fortunately, here in Hudson, which is blessed with many practitioners of the healing arts, I saw a sign for a naturopathic physician.  I started seeing her, and after acupuncture, homeopathic drops, and herbal supplements, sleep has become better. I still take some meds, on an as needed basis, and have some additional work to do, but things are much better.

At this time, realizing that I was not going to end up in a wheelchair, at least not anytime soon, and being free of pain, I decided to take charge of my body and get back in shape.  I always have done some exercise, but was carrying around a few extra pounds.  I started with what had worked for me in the past, my diet. I cut out carbohydrates and just eat proteins, vegetables, nuts, fruit, cheese, but no bread, no pasta, no rice, no potatoes.  I did start to drop some weight.  I bought myself a digital scale that would sync to an app on my iphone, and so have records of my weight loss.  I started with the scale on June 6, 2013, and I weighed 176.1 lbs.  Every day my weight is a little different and the highest it got was on June 7th, 178.4 lbs.  I found that I weighed the least in the morning after my first elimination, and so have weighed myself then from then on.

This fall, realizing that diet alone wouldn't do it, I decided to get serious about exercise and hired a trainer who works in a small private gym near me. I also started doing some pilates, with private sessions twice a week, and now go to my trainer twice a week and pilates once every other week or so, just for a tune up on my core.

This regime has made an enormous difference, now even after the holidays, I am around 160 lbs.
So basically, while I am not in perfect shape, I have dropped about 20 lbs, and have gone from a 32 waist to 30 inches. The reward for all this work, has been I've had to buy new clothes for my new body! 

While the particulars of my story are unusual, I think that many can relate to it.  We allow ourselves to get out of shape, and it takes real effort to get into shape. The time, effort, and money you need to invest to get into shape, deserves some reward. I think that belts are a wonderful accessory, beautiful in themselves, and they draw attention to your hard won figure.