I am dismayed by people who shame gals for carrying extra weight. OK, those folks are not really monsters, but sometimes they sound like monsters when they shame gals! Someone has to stick up for these gals, and today, that is going to be me! I want to defend you gals, because shame has no place in our lives (Romans 10:11 “Anyone who believes in him {Jesus} will never be put to shame”).
First, I want to state some under appreciated facts about chemistry. Men can more easily lose weight and keep it off. Raw facts about chemistry prove this. The male hormone, testosterone causes the body to make muscle and burn fat. We women have very little testosterone, while men are brimming with it. Conversely, estrogen tells the body to conserve fat. This causes females to have beautiful, curvy bodies. But sometimes we may end up weighing more than we wanted to, and then we feel frustrated with the extra places where our curves decided to show up.
If you have not read it, my earlier post, “Embracing Grief,” describes my journey in crazy sugar over eating. I did this, due to denying my grief and over eating sugar (I could literally eat an entire pie and then feel sick, both physically and emotionally). At my highest, I weighed 50 pounds more than I do today. So I have experienced shame over the weight I gained. I found healing, not by dieting, but by working with a counselor to face the grief I had denied for all of my adult life. I just would not do it on my own. How stubborn I was (but thankful I had the help).
But getting back to gals who have been shamed. No more! We have to defend our gal pals, because they do not have “chemistry on their side.” Not only does estrogen mean we have a harder time staying thin, but add to that the extra surprises of being female. Hypothyroidism is most common in women. I suffer from this. I have a very s-l-o-w metabolism. And many doctors don’t even treat this condition properly (so watch for my future health article about hypothyroidism and the ways doctors miss this, and I will add a note* at the end of this blog about your thyroid). Then add menopause, and a woman is in a place where it is even harder for her to lose weight.
Then what about the medicines women may need to take? Some women have mental health issues or diabetes, and guess what? Some of these meds also slow the metabolism down, and it is really, really hard to lose weight (and so easy to gain it).
Our modern society makes it really hard to remain active, with gals driving long distances, and working at desk jobs. When a woman comes home, she may need to cook for her family and do many house hold chores. When can she find time to exercise?
As a result, I want to start out by saying, “forgive yourself, and appreciate what you ARE doing.” Your boss should be thankful for your hard work. If he or she is not, then I want to say, “Good job.” I bet the same boss would be really sad if you quit. If your family forgets to thank you, imagine how shocked they’d be if you ended up in the hospital, and no one was there to do all those chores! I suspect they would be praying for you to heal and come home soon. So here too, I say, “Good job.” (Proverbs 31:28 “Her children rise up and call her blessed; and her husband praises her too.” I pray for that with your family!)
And as for making any changes in your diet or exercise routine, I want to say, “Slow down and listen to your body.” I really mean that. Before I did the counseling to deal with my grief (which I literally denied suffering from), I tried so many diets and got friends to join me. My “normal” friends (who were not denying any grief) did not fare better than me on the crash diets we chose. We could not maintain the weight loss while making radical changes in our diets. It was as if our bodies screamed, “No!” I think the human body cannot sustain harsh changes in the diet. We eventually rebel. Now, if you really do want to make changes, I am excited for you, because it can be done. Please know I am cheering for you. I just want you to be gentle with yourself.
So I will get back to science—this time biology. Did you know you have some visitors who live inside you who will also resist changes to your diet? Yes, they are called bacteria in the gastro-intestinal tract (usually not in your stomach, but everywhere else in that system). If you are used to any kind of diet, the bacteria in your bowels will thrive when that diet consists of the same type of food consumed daily. Even if you eat junk food, the bacteria in your bowels do not want you to change, and they will act up. This is not the best way to translate the medical journals I read about this topic, but I wanted to simplify the stuff I read about our gastro-intestinal tract. These bacteria do some weird stuff inside us, and our body will begin to crave the foods we had been eating but abruptly gave up for our diet.
But you are not a slave to that bacteria population. Some people have “gone cold turkey,” and succeeded in radically changing their diet. I think they represent about 2 humans in the entire world (OK, I am underestimating that). For the rest of us, I don’t think a radical change is easy. But gradual changes don’t freak out the bacteria population. Here is what I mean, if you simply added a salad to your lunch, but ate every thing the same, your body would not react badly, although you might get full sooner and eat a smaller portion of everything else. This is a gradual change. If you were used to putting two teaspoons of sugar in your coffee and instead only used one teaspoon, your body would probably not react badly.
For all of this fancy talk, I actually can offer hope from my own experience. This was what I did when I discovered I had developed “gestational hypothyroidism” (my thyroid got weak when I was pregnant). Although I was no longer a sugar addict, and I was actually at a healthy weight, I was afraid of hurting myself or the twins in my womb. I had a good reason to fear, because I was 44 years old, and I knew the stats for older pregnant women with deadly sicknesses. Yet I did not “give up sugar.” I cut back. I changed my cocoa smoothie from 100% sugar to 75% sugar and 25% stevia sweetened. I might have been the slowest human in the world to make a change. It took me 2 ½ years, but I finally eliminated all refined sugar from my diet, and I never missed it (this fall marks 10 years, and I still don’t miss it, but please don’t get me started talking about missing big portions of bread).
I share my goofy story about sugar, to show that slow changes don’t have to be painful and probably should not be fast. Furthermore, as we age, it just might be too harsh and unrealistic to expect to be as thin as when we were younger. And while the world may expect all gals to be really thin, body mass index is actually much kinder than many people think. A gal can still be curvy but at a healthy weight.
I did not talk much about exercise, and I can do that another time. Please know that if you have started a new exercise routine, I am thrilled to know this. I just wanted to take a quick dip into this topic, because I cannot stand hearing anyone pressure another person about her weight. They don’t know if the gal has glandular issues, is on meds that cause weight gain or any other reason for the extra weight. And maybe she is not even over weight, but she is being pressured by someone who has a “fetish for skinny” when that might not be healthy for this gal!
I do believe you can make gradual changes, but only if you have time and want to do so. We will encourage you in that step. And if you are not making changes now, the first step is NOT to change a single thing, but to appreciate yourself the way you are. If we don’t appreciate the things we are doing right, I think we will feel burdened by making changes. But if you can see the many, many things you do well, then feel free to consider a small change you can make. And be patient with yourself. You might not lose any weight at first, but your body will thank you for the added benefit in the fiber and nutrients found in that salad or the decrease of sugar in that cup of coffee. Over time, your body will adapt to the small changes, and you can add more. But never accept the pressure of these critics who demand instant and big changes. You be “the you,” God made you to be, and take your time. You are worth the wait.
* note on thyroid: If your doctor only tests your Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), and says it is within the right range, and he insists you are fine, don’t believe him until he tests other things, if you are having weird symptoms. You need the T4 and T3 levels tested too. If you are still concerned, also ask for “reverse T3” and if you are still not satisfied, you can request having thyroid antibodies tested. All of this may sound foreign, but your doctor will know what these things mean. I suggest this if you have symptoms of thyroid deficiency: unexplained weight gain, dry hair and skin (even hair loss), dry/brittle nails, sensitivity to cold (you are cold when everyone else is warm). These are the main symptoms, but there are others.
I did not want you to wait for my post with more details about thyroid, so I am listing this info here, so you can ask your doctor to run these tests. Sadly many doctors assume that if the TSH levels are normal, your body is converting the hormones into the bio-available ones (ones your body can use). Some people have bodies that cannot convert the T4 hormone into the T3 hormone (the one that your body uses actively), and as a result, you may have a “normal” level in the TSH, but not enough T3. I take medicine for the T4 and the T3, so if your levels of T3 are low, make sure your doctor does not just prescribe a medicine for the T4, but also the medicine for T3 (the brand name is “Cytomel”). How do I know all of this? I did the research and also tested this on my own body. I also work with a specialist, because my thyroid is very resistant to change. So wait for my next post and I’ll explain much more of this info.