Tall and Skinny

2 words never used to describe me - Tall and skinny. Witty, of course, Charming, indeed, Funny, you know it, talented, have you seen my art? Weight is something I've struggled with (or shall I say dealt with) my whole adult life. I've never really felt like a fat person, I never let my weight stop me from doing anything (well, except wearing a bikini) About 7 years ago, I joined Mountain's Edge, and starting working out and eating a cleaner diet. Over the past few years, I've done many different athletic events; biking the ride at Elephant Rock, long rides on my road bike, got certified to teach Spinning®, teaching 2 classes a week, climbed Mt Sherman (my first 14n'r) and of couse, The Danskin Triathlon. Yet, I could not get my weight to budge. I really wanted to see those numbers on the scale be less than 200. Sure eating healthy is important, and so was working out. But the diet I'd been fairly consistently eating for a few years, combined with increased workouts and even running was not manifesting the change I so desperately wanted to see and feel in my body.

I believe in manifesting your reality and wanted to start running, then in January, I made a new friend, an ultra marathon runner, and he said to me.. "I want to talk to you about your weight." I know that I am not 125 lbs, so sure, let's talk about it. Suddenly, I was talking about "it" with everybody - my friends, my therapist, even just random people in the grocery store. A most interesting change then begin to occur. For the first time in my life, I FELT the weight of my body. It was heavy, I felt very, very slow, tired and overwhelmed, and I wanted change even more.

The beginning of this year I spent on the road, traveling to trade shows, and picking up a few projects in LA. When I went for my annual exam, I was SHOCKED to see the scale tipping at 253 lbs. Lucy, my Dr., said that my weight was my biggest health concern, and we needed to see it come down. I couldn't have agreed more. So I made a renewed commitment - work out a bit harder, eat even cleaner and surely something had got to change. 1 month later I had some blood work done and got a call that afternoon from the office. "Your results are alarming" OK, alarming, great, I am now officially the FREAK OUT GIRL. I called my good friend, Catherine (who is also a Dr) and she calmed me down a bit and suggested a few things that might be going on metabolically that could be factoring into "alarming labs" All that was confirmed with my follow up appointment. I had high LDL's and high triglycerides, and low HDL's. Lucy said I had something called Metabolic Syndrome, and Insulin Resistance.

After crying a bunch, being really scared it was like I suddenly had an answer. I have struggled with this frustration of pushing up against this brick wall (the weight and desire for weightloss) and I hadn't been able to move it, go around it, over it or even budge one singl e brick. These 2 things worked together (and against me) by creating a vicious circle, like a bad merry go round I couldn't escape. With the insulin resistance, it didn't matter what I was eating, my body was over producing insulin. Cheeseburger or a salad my body would send out the signal to produce more insulin which would basically just keep storing everything as fat. Great.. Normally, the first step they recommend is diet and exercise. Lucy has known me for years and agreed that I had already done this step. She recommended that I go on Lipitor, and Glucophage and check back in a month.