////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// WI WEIGH-IN
n o i t a v i r p e D r e v O n o i Moderat
THE FRENCH ARE WIDELY ADMIRED FOR BEING THIN, BEAUTIFUL, AND ALLURING, BUT THEY ARE ALSO WIDELY KNOWN TO CONSUME ALL OF THOSE DIET OFFENDERS. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
By Tiffany Duncan The year is now a little over halfway over, and I’m happy to report that I’ve lost over 10 pounds! Although my original goal was to lose 30 pounds — and I guess tentatively still is — if I start to feel like I’ve reached a weight I feel healthy and good at before that mark, then I will stop to maintain that. Plus, I know that muscle weighs more than fat, so that may start to come into effect at some point also. Either way, I am starting to feel better than I have in a while. I think a lot of that has to do with reaching the right dose of thyroid medicine that’s finally working for me. Back in 2015, after I’d just gotten married, I started to feel very exhausted and lethargic. One factor playing into my exhaustion was that I was working 40 hours a week at a coffee shop that required me to often rise before the sun and sling lattes for eight hours a day on a concrete floor. There was nothing I cared about more after finishing my shift than getting back to our little brown couch and napping for a couple of hours. But it started to get worse. Even on the weekends, I couldn’t get off the couch. As a newlywed, this was more
Experimenting with leeks as per Mireille Guiliano’s guidelines.
62 JULY 2018
than problematic; instead of going on date nights and hanging out with our friends, I just wanted to sleep. I was confused and frustrated by my inability to summon even the smallest amount of energy, or to get excited about anything anymore. I literally felt like a husk of a human, a walking zombie. It took me two years before I finally realized there was something more going on with me than simply being tired from work. When I finally took my exhaustion to my primary care physician in 2017, she immediately wanted to
check my blood work to see if it indicated a thyroid issue, as the thyroid is largely responsible for the body’s energy levels and metabolism. Sure enough, my lab results came back showing my thyroid levels were so off, she told me it was astonishing I was even functioning at all. Since then, we’ve slowly worked to find a supplemental thyroid dosage that works for me. Two months ago was the last time she upped my dosage, and I’m starting to see that we’ve hit the magic number. I wake up with more energy than I can remember feeling
in a very long time, and am able to get excited about things again, hang out with friends more, and work out with some zing again. But most of all, it’s nice to see those numbers on the scale start dropping again. Unfortunately, however, my doctor thinks my low thyroid might also be an indication of PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). PCOS can make it extremely hard to lose weight, among various other uncomfortable side effects. But for now, my thyroid medicine seems to be helping me out, and I’ll just have to deal with everything else as it comes. If you feel irrationally exhausted all the time and have trouble maintaining a comfortable weight, it may be an indication of a thyroid malfunction. Asking your PCP about it might not be a bad idea — I know I’m extremely thankful I did. This month I also came across a book I highly recommend. I’ve heard some chatter about it in the past, but I finally decided to check it out. It’s called French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano. The French are widely admired for being thin, beautiful, and alluring, but they are also widely known to consume all of those diet offenders like bread, cheese, butter, chocolate, and wine. How is this possible?