Month: July 2014

motherhood

~ laurenlivingmindfully ~ Leave a comment

My youngest daughter is about to turn one on Friday.  It’s been tough for me to adjust to being a working mom of two.  I find that I spent so much time this past year just trying to survive and get enough sleep to function the next day that I haven’t had much time to focus on anything just for me. I’m going to try to have more balance this coming year; if I’m happy and feel like I get to do some things that I enjoy, I hope that will rub off on the time that I do spend with my family.

Embed from Getty Images

I took my first non-baby, non-family, non-prenatal, regular adult-only yoga class on Saturday morning, and I loved it! I used muscles I haven’t used in probably two years.  I challenged myself, but didn’t go too crazy.  I’ve been sore for the past two days–even my armpits are sore!  As I pump less and less at work I’m going to try to take a class or two on my lunch break, too.  Maybe Pilates, too.  I’m really looking forward to feeling strong and fit again!  And I just found out my company might start Weigh Watchers at work, which would be convenient and save me money that I could spend on yoga and Pilates classes. 🙂  I do like getting lots of steps on my FitBit walking all the way down to my WW meeting, though…

So, I didn’t reach my goal of losing 5% of my weight by her 1st birthday.  In fact, I’ve almost crept back up (yo-yo-ing) to my return-to-work weight.  On Thursday when I weighed in and saw that I gained back the 1.4 that I’d lost the previous week I was really sad.  I just kept thinking how disappointed I am in myself.  I keep repeating the same negative self-talk in my head: “You were only 7 pounds away from your goal after giving birth, and now you’re 17 pounds away!  What kind of idiot eats so much after having a baby?”  But then Friday I thought, “Enough!” What’s done is done.  I want to reach my goal, and it might take a little more time, but I was busy nurturing my children, returning to work, getting through the baby period, and applying to graduate school, and now I can spend more time on nurturing myself.  I need to stop comparing myself to my sister-in-law and other skinny people at work and on the street.  I am me.  No one else.  I successfully lost weight after my first daughter.  Really it was the most successful I’ve ever been at achieving a healthy weight since college.  I can do it again if I put my mind to it.  There, I said it.  I can do it!

work and school

~ laurenlivingmindfully ~ Leave a comment

I found out last week that I got into a graduate program that I applied to.  I’m really happy, but nervous about balancing it with work, my family, and my weight loss and health goals.  I plan on using Citibike to get from work to school (before it starts snowing), so at least I’ll get some exercise in. We’re working on sleep with my youngest, so hopefully come September, I’ll actually have some time in the evenings to study.  And I have my commute time to read.

Embed from Getty Images

Continue reading →

depression, hormones, and medications affecting weight

~ laurenlivingmindfully ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes I wonder how much my hormones and medications I take affect my weight.  I feel so stressed all the time that I wonder if my cortisol levels are high.  I remember my mom pushing me to get my thyroid tested to see if that was leading to my weight gain in college and then graduate school.  I think my results showed that things weren’t quite average, but not so far out of the normal range.  And then I’ve been on SSRIs and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (NRI, NERIs) for almost all of my adult life, and many of them have side effects of weight gain.  Also while breastfeeding I’ve also taken domperidone (DPD) to help with my milk supply, and weight gain is also a side effect.

depression ozanWhen I had success on Weight Watchers in 2011-2012 and hit my lifetime goal I had been off Zoloft for a few months.  All the other times I was unsuccessful at WW and Jenny Craig I was on anti-depressants.  I’m trying to taper off of Zoloft again to see if that helps, but now I’m feeling more depressed again.  My psychiatrist mentioned a few other anti-depressants with no weight gain side effects, but they aren’t compatible with breastfeeding.  I just tapered slowly off of DPD, but I’m still having trouble resisting my urge to binge.  I feel kind of down and wish that I had more time for myself to exercise and prepare healthy foods.  My youngest daughter is almost one, so I plan on gradually weaning soon.  Now that I’m not breastfeeding her and pumping as much I want to start taking yoga classes again.  I think if we can all get some more sleep in our home that will help too.  I wish I had more success at managing my weight when I was single and childless so that I wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed now.

Has anyone else noticed a connection between their depression/medications/hormones and weight? What can we do to still have success at losing weight even with depression?  Sometimes I feel like there are so many things stacked against me, how can I still succeed?  I feel like I can’t talk about all of these things at my WW meetings, so I need to get some advice elsewhere…

Picture via Ozan