How My Body Has Changed As I Got Older

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! This week, there are many interesting writing prompts in the Writer’s Workshop. I am choosing to write about ways my body has changed as I’ve gotten older.

I’m now 38 and I consider this an age at which positive changes can still happen. That is, of course you’re never too old to start a healthier lifestyle, but at a certain age, I assume it will not have as much effect as when you’re younger. In fact, I’ve heard that smokers have until age 35 to quit or their lungs will never be as healthy as those of non-smokers. Thank goodness I’ve never smoked.

In my case, my thirties so far were the decade of getting healthier in many ways. At age 30, I weighed 80kg (176lbs), which is over 20kg overweight for my height. I slowly started losing weight then and got to 55kg )121lbs) last year. Since then, I’ve gained some weight back on, but I’m barely 1kg overweight now at 59kg. I agreed with my dietitian that I should not gain any more weight, but the 55kg I weighed last year is also the lower border of my goal weight.

Weight aside, I got slightly fitter. When I weighed 80kg, my spouse proposed we do a brisk walk for just over half an hour each day to get the weight off, but I could barely do fifteen minutes. Now I must say I don’t usually walk as fast as that brisk walk should’ve been, but then again I couldn’t keep up with my spouse back then either and now I can walk for an hour sometimes.

I do feel that my flexibility and strength have decreased a bit. Not that I ever was flexible or strong at all. In fact, my spouse jokes that a brick is more flexible than me. However, when we tried a game of Twister at the home recently, I noticed I was hardly able to stand on all fours even in a simple position. I’m pretty sure I used to be able to do this.

My mobility also has slightly decreased. I fall when I wear anything other than my orthopedic shoes. I also used to think my shoes get damage a lot easier from the way I walk. That is until I recently looked at the shoes I wore at my wedding and saw these were damaged too just from one day.

When I got married, I was 25 and about at the weight I’m now at. I recently tried on my wedding dress just for the fun of it. The skirt fit, but the top was too tight.

With respect to appearance, I’m told I haven’t changed much over the years. That is, my spouse found my first grey hair when I was 31 and I now have quite a few, but my hair still looks dark overall. I don’t have many wrinkles either. In fact, it feels as though my frown wrinkle has decreased. That probably isn’t possible, so maybe I’m just not bothered by it as much as I used to be. I’m also grateful to report that my hands, which are among the body parts I feel most positive about, are still pretty smooth.

Overall, I don’t think there’s been an age at which I was happier with my body than now. That is, I do get frustrated with my impaired mobility and flexibility. However, when I was thirty, I was probably less fit overall and I wasn’t happy with my appearance at all. Now I feel content enough with my body to wear nice clothes and occasionally jewelry. I in fact reserve my loose-fitting sweaters and fleece vests for when I’m sick now.

No Bad Food #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

This week’s prompt for Stream Of Consciousness Saturday is “food”. I immediately thought of the title for my post: “No bad food.” This is a phrase used in health-conscious communities to clarify that there’s no such thing as a “forbidden” food when dieting. I had the comment that no food is forbidden written at the bottom of my weight loss food plan in early 2022. That is, the goal wasn’t even weight loss for me, but rather, to have a healthier relationship with food.

This is also what health gurus who use the phrase “no bad food” aim to accomplish: for dieters to be aware of their healthy or less healthy choices rather than rigidly stripping foods off of their “allowed” list.

I’d like to take it a step further and say that the only food you shouldn’t eat is food you’re allergic to or food that’s gone bad. And I mean this absolutely. Yes, some food choices are healthier than others, but when you’re already a restrictive eater and you’re limiting yourself even further because, for example, chocolate spread isn’t “healthy”, you’ll end up with worse problems.

I mean, when originally starting my food plan in 2022, my dietitian gave me a standard weight loss plan because I was significantly overweight. I however wouldn’t eat at least 75% of the food on it, especially the foods she recommended for breakfast and lunch. Thankfully, rather than deciding not to eat at all, which my eating disordered self might’ve done, I negotiated foods I found tolerable and that were still considered somewhat “healthy”.

Now I happen to have the privilege of being at an almost healthy BMI, but the fact that I struggled to maintain a healthy eating routine (or any eating routine, for that matter) when trying to stick to a weight loss diet, did convince me that, truthfully, there’s no such thing as bad food.

Indeed, there’s no such thing as a good or bad eating routine. Yes, some choices are healthier than others, but there’s nothing wrong with making “unhealthy” choices when those are the “healthy” choices given your personal circumstances. Honestly, in fact, I believe there’s no moral wrong in eating whatever you feel like eating. Placing the blame for obesity on the individual, is, in my opinion, ignoring the fact that many people are struggling to stay afloat mentally and physically without having to deal with restricting their food intake.

And I don’t mean that people can’t make healthier food choices, or that they shouldn’t be encouraged to do so within the limits of their own personal circumstances. Like, I eventually settled on low-calorie jelly for on my lunch bread rather than chocolate spread and for regular muesli rather than crunchy muesli for breakfast. These are healthier choices and I am glad I made those. However, if I could not have made those choices for whatever reason, it’d still have been better to eat my crunchy muesli and chocolate spread on bread than to starve.

Bulimia (Or Something Like It): My Relationship With Food and My Body (Revisited) #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all and welcome to my letter B post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I’d like to share a more personal piece and describe my history of disordered eating and body image issues. After publishing this post, I saw I did a post on this topic in 2019 too.

I first started struggling with a negative body image when I was about thirteen. I remember writing stupidly specific worries in my diary about food and my weight, such as whether the nails I’d bitten off would cause me to gain weight. All the while, I didn’t realize that I was, in fact, pretty close to overweight if not overweight already from consuming enormous quantities of candy on weekends and daily sausage rolls at the school cafeteria.

I was lucky that I never became significantly overweight until around age 25. By that time, I had developed something at least bordering on bulimia: I ate a full 500g bag of candy, sometimes more, in one ten-minute sitting at least three times a week. I also purged, although I did that after regular meals as much as after bingeing.

In the six years that followed, I gained over 20kg in weight and, by the time I was kicked out of the psych hospital to live with my spouse in 2017, I weighed 80kg. At my height of 1.53m, this is quite far in the obese range.

Yet my body image wasn’t as much of a concern to me at the time. Yes, I hated the way I looked, but at the same time I was too careless and unmotivated to change my habits. I had stopped purging for the most part by the time I moved in with my spouse, although I still occasionally did it as a form of emotion regulation.

Now, I’ve been at a healthy weight for about a year. Don’t ask me how I got here, as honestly I don’t really know. I mean, yes, I’ve been supported by a dietitian since early 2022, but honestly I can’t quite say I follow her advice. I mean, okay, I no longer binge due to my food being locked away, but I do snack on “bad” foods all the time.

My body image, honestly, is still as screwed as it always was. I still swing between underestimating and overestimating my size, between hating my body and not caring about it. I still purge occasionally, though not really out of a wish to lose weight, but more out of a need to self-regulate.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever had a genuine eating disorder. I mean, I might’ve at one point met the criteria for binge eating disorder, but I’m not so sure about that. I think my disordered eating is really more a symptom of my emotion regulation difficulties.

Looking After My Health

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Today’s question for Sunday Poser is how well we look after ourselves, health-wise. Sadje observes that most regular bloggers are over age 50. Honestly, I wonder how they do it, if they also lead an active lifestyle in other respects. But this may be a question for another time.

I really struggle with being health-conscious, as I am quite the impulsive type. Thankfully, I never smoked other than the odd whiff and I don’t care for alcoholic beverages either. Food though is a different story. I’m recovering from disordered eating. In my case, it mostly involved overeating and some purging.

Six years ago, when I had just been kicked out of the psychiatric hospital, I weighed 80kg and could barely walk for fifteen minutes at a time. I am 1.53m in height, so this means I had a BMI of nearly 35, or obesity stage II. My spouse recommended I lose weight for my health. I did, although at the time I only had it in mind to lose the 10kg I was in the obese range. However, I never maintained a weight within the overweight, let alone healthy, BMI range until sometime in 2022. My food addiction was just too strong.

Now, thankfully, I’ve been at a healthy BMI for several months. I was talking to my spouse this afternoon and we were discussing my recent clothing shopping sprees. My spouse said I look after my appearance better, but admitted it was hard back several years ago. I started talking about my being “quite chubby,” only to be corrected by my spouse with “No, you were fat.” That’s what I thought too, so it didn’t come across as offensive at all, but I wanted to downplay things a bit in case my obesity wasn’t as bad and I was making a big deal out of nothing.

Back to ways in which I look after my health. I try to eat enough fruit and veg each day, but this is somewhat of a struggle here at the institution. I also walk at least 30 minutes at the bare minimum everyday. I haven’t had a day gone by since owning my Apple Watch that I didn’t meet my stand goal. Of course, this requires me to only move for a minute each hour, but at least I’m not sitting on my butt for hours on end.

I do take multiple medications. Five, in fact, and that means I’m officially classified as having polypharmacy. This means that I’m at increased risk of health issues due to the number of meds I take. Thankfully, I do get bloodwork done regularly to check for things like kidney function, fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, etc. Only my kidney function has been off, but it hasn’t decreased over the past year and is still within the mildly decreased range (my egfr is 68, if you’d like to know).

I did get a kind of wake up call a few days ago when I found out someone I met at the blindness training center in 2005 passed away recently at the age of 51. We had a lot in common, including obesity, mental health problems and psych medications, etc. I know, I’m no longer obese, but it’s not like my body has magically forgotten the twelve years or so it spent being overweight.

Thankfully, even though I cannot undo the bad choices I made in the past, I can decide to be more health-conscious from now on. Will it make sure that I live till age 83 like my maternal grandma or 94 like my paternal one? No.

There’s no need to blame ourselves for our health issues. I mean, some folks like to call cancer, cardiovascular disease etc., “illnesses of affluence”. This might be so on a societal level, but it’s sick (no pun intended) to blame the individual for falling ill or dying young. I would love to live to age 83 or 94, but it’s only partly within my control.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 14, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Friday afternoon. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had a glass of water and am going to have another one in half an hour or so. Maybe I’m going to ask for a Senseo or treat myself to a Dubbelfrisss, my favorite soft drink. I’m afraid we don’t have the diet variety though. Can I pour you a drink? Let’s have a cup of something and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d share that it’s not as cold as it was last week, but it’s still too cold for my liking. Daytime temps rose to about 7°C most of this week. I did go on one longer walk yesterday, to the supermarket to buy a card for my father. He’ll celebrate his 73rd birthday tomorrow. We also bought some veggies. Oh, and a croissant, because I felt like treating myself. I had just one for lunch instead of bread though. I just looked up how many calories are in one croissant and that’s about as much as in two slices of bread without toppings. Of course, bread contains less fat and sugar and more fiber, but so what?

If we were having coffee, I would go on to share about my dietitian’s appt this morning. It went pretty well. She didn’t admonish me for not wanting to lose the 13kg I need to lose to be at a healthy BMI. I do want to lose the 1.5kg I need to lose to no longer be obese though. More importantly, I want to eat relatively healthily and hopefully quiet the inner conflict about food.

The dietitian gave me some recommendations for healthy meal choices for breakfast and lunch. For example, she said I can have salad for lunch with croutons and a little chicken, tuna or salmon (that last one I don’t really like) occasionally rather than bread. I do need to make sure the staff take care of portion sizes, of course, because I’m pretty sure they’d otherwise throw the entire can of tuna into my salad. For breakfast, I am still allowed yoghurt with muesli, just not the crunchy kind. And thankfully, the muesli doesn’t need to be plain, it can include nuts or raisins or the like.

I did share my disappointment with her at only having lost 0.5kg over the past week when I stepped on the scale yesterday. The dietitian said that this is a pretty great result though.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you I got my benefits payment slip last Monday and am grateful to report I will still get enough money that I can still spend some on fun things like polymer clay supplies or the like. I don’t know whether I shared this in my coffee share posts before, but my long-term care copay will automatically be withheld from my benefits. The copay is income-dependent and, because I’m married, my husband’s income is counted too. Then again, because I’m married, I do get to pay the so-called “low” copay because the government does take into account the responsibility I have for contributing to his household expenses too.

The copay is calculated based on our combined income from two years back, so 2020 for this year. Because my husband earned more money in 2020 than in 2019 and had a lot of tax deductibles in 2019, I was expecting a higher copay by at least €100 a month, but fearing it might be as much as €200 a month. Then again, I was hoping my benefits would also be raised a little. Long story short, my net income was cut by €82 a month. That’s a lot. I realize some people won’t be able to handle this, particularly people on benefits. I am so intensely grateful that I am relatively well off.

How have you been?

Dropping Those Extra Pounds

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts this week asks us what’s sabotaging us in dropping those extra pounds. I remember about six years ago responding to a similar prompt on my old blog. At the time, the prompt asked us specifically about those first five pounds. That would be somewhat fitting for today too, as my weight currently is about five pounds into the obese range.

It hasn’t always been that way. Back in 2015, losing five pounds wouldn’t even get my BMI under 30. In 2017, I had a BMI close to 35. I managed to turn that around and lose almost 10kg or 20lbs in six months, crossing the line back to just plain overweight for the first time in many years.

Now I’ve been back within the obese range for several years already, but my weight has been more or less stable for about two years now. I would really like to lose those first five pounds, but something’s sabotaging me. And that something isn’t binge eating anymore.

In fact, back in 2015, I admitted that the problem wasn’t most likely my emotional overeating either. I’m not sure that’s true, as I considered it a win that I hadn’t had a binge in a few weeks. Now, I haven’t had one in months.

However, I was probably right that it was more my habitual snacking and lack of exercise. Currently, I do try to get in enough exercise at least with my walking, but I still eat just a little too many cookies and chips.

The fact that I get in enough walking, probably keeps me stable, but I could be doing so much better if I just resisted the urge to have a cookie or two with each coffee break. Like my husband once said, if I removed just one cookie from my diet and didn’t make it up with anything else, I would have lost those first five pounds within six months to a year.

Mama’s Losin’ It

June 2021 Health and Wellness Update

Posted on by Astrid

I am feeling kind of worried about my health lately. To get myself a more realistic picture of how I’m doing, I thought I’d do a health and wellness check-in. I am hoping I can make this a monthly habit.

Firstly, the reason I am worried is one abnormal result on the annual bloodwork I had done last week. I get an annual blood test for fasting glucose, cholesterol and other indicators of metabolic syndrome. This is because I take psychiatric medications that can influence this. Last year, my mental health agency ordered it, but this year, my care facility’s physician did. This means I could see my results in the patient portal for my GP surgery that same evening.

The good news is my fasting glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides were all within the normal range. The one thing that wasn’t, is an estimate of kidney function. It should be above 90 and was 81. Because it is an estimate, one abnormal blood test doesn’t say anything. I may need to be retested in a few months.

I looked up what to do about decreased kidney function, hoping to find that if I drank plenty of water, I could get it back to normal. I’m still not sure that’s the case. I mean, I try to drink at least two liters of fluid each day, but can’t figure out whether that should be enough. Other than that, I do try to watch my salt intake more closely. That’s pretty hard, of course – harder than drinking more water.

I do worry that I might not be able to tolerate the topiramate though, because if I remember correctly, that medication is eliminated through the kidneys. I’m not sure though and will leave this to the doctors to decide.

Like I said though, all my other results were within the normal range. My fasting blood glucose was 4.3. It should be between 4 and 6 and was 4.2 the last time, but I’m not drawing conclusions about it increasing as of yet.

Today, I did send off a urine sample for checking for a UTI, because I’ve been having lower abdominal pain. It came back alright. My staff will likely call for an appointment for me to see the doctor, as the pain is still pretty intense.

As for some good news though, I stepped onto the scale this morning and am back at my average weight for the past six months or so. My weight usually goes up or down a few pounds. I’m now 72.1kg, which means 2kg to lose for a BMI under 30. I am unlikely to reach that goal, but it’s okay.

As my husband reminded me when I told him about the abnormal blood result, small steps go a long way. I am already trying to cut back on my snacking on the weekend. I also make sure to eat enough veg and fruit. I mean, the meal delivery company isn’t great on putting veg in its pasta and rice dishes, which I eat most days. However, I make sure to eat some cucumber, tomatoes or raw bell pepper with each lunch. For the upcoming month, I’ve also selected some potato dishes from the meal menu, since they usually are richer in veg.

My husband also pointed out that I get enough physical activity. I could go on the elliptical more often, but my walking is pretty good already.

I did feel a little depressed when my husband told me that it’s obvious that I’m not as healthy as the average woman in her thirties. Then again, he reminded me that I turned the tide on my weight gain in 2018 and am healthier in some ways than I was before. Besides, a century ago I wouldn’t have lived past infancy. That put things into perspective.

Early November 2020 Health and Wellness Update

Posted on by Astrid

Like I said a couple of weeks ago, I had a physical health check-up at the mental health agency. That wasn’t good. That is, my blood pressure was high and so was my weight. Even though the nurse said I might not have gained any weight compared to the last time I stepped onto the scales, as each scale is different, I was pretty alarmed. So was my husband. He asked whether I could be put on a diet. Well, no-one can force me, but I did agree on a food plan with the staff.

Now we’re a little over two weeks on. I didn’t get my blood pressure taken today, as my GP recommended we wait three months and then check it everyday for a week. I did get weighed in though. And guess what? I lost 1kg compared to the last time I stepped onto this scale in early September and 3kg compared to the health check. Only two more kilograms to go and I’m no longer obese.

Overall, I’m doing okay sticking to the food plan. I eat bread rather than crunchy muesli for breakfast, make sure I eat enough veggies and fruit and drink at least 1.5 liters of water a day. That plus coffee, which contrary to common belief does hydrate the body to an extent, and occasionally green tea. I do usually eat a cookie with each coffee break, while my food plan says I can only have a cookie with my evening coffee. However, each day that I skip a cookie, I’m proud of myself for making a healthy food choice. Same each morning with breakfast, which is a real struggle, as I’m not a bread person.

I also make sure I get in enough physical activity. Last week, I felt really lazy, but, according to my Fitbit, still got more than the recommended 150 weekly minutes in active heartrate zones. This week, so far, I got 341. I broke my personal step count record yesterday by getting in over 16K steps. I don’t go on the elliptical as often as I’d like, but that’s because after walking two to three times a day, my legs are often tired.

In other health-related news, I talked to my CPN from mental health about sleep on Tuesday. I usually get enough sleep, but I have very vivid nightmares most nights. They aren’t your standard monster-chasing-me nightmares. In fact, most revolve around my sense of safety here at the care facility. My CPN may talk to my nurse practitioner about it. She said I might benefit from medication to help with this. Thankfully though, having discussed the issue has already calmed things down a bit.

Health Check

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday, I had a physical health check-up at the mental health agency. Because of the risks psychiatric medications cause for your health, they are required to do this every year. Oh well, the nurse told me not to expect another check-up until sometime in 2022.

I had to have bloodwork done to check for vitamin levels, cholesterol, glucose, etc. Everything was within the normal range except for my white blood cell count, which was slightly elevated. That’s probably because I had a cold about four weeks ago. At first, I was tempted to say “No” when the nurse asked whether I’d had a cold because of the coronavirus scare that’d cause. It turned out it explained my high white blood cell count though.

There were also two things that were low, which might indicate anemia. My hemoglobin though was normal and I’m not very tired lately. This is probably nothing to worry about.

Thankfully, my cholesterol, blood sugar, etc. were all normal. I know I run a risk of developing type 2 diabetes because of my weight. The nurse didn’t make a big point about my being obese though. She did chehck my blood pressure. My diastolic blood pressure was 93, which is considered hypertensive. My systolic blood pressure was also a bit high, namely 132, but that wasn’t too worrisome.

The nurse recommended we measure my blood pressure a couple of times over the next few days. It was 126 over 99 this morning. The latter number really worried me.

Right now, I feel pretty awful. My husband is also worried. He asked me to really “lose weight and relax”. I told him that both is not likely possible, but I’d try to at least lose weight. He asked me what options the care facility has to force me to go on a diet. Not many, I think. In fact, the staff are less worried than I am. I am likely mostly myself responsible for restricting my diet.

After I explained my and my husband’s concerns to my assigned staff, she did agree to E-mail the dietitian and behavior specialist to see if I can be put on a diet. Then again, if I nag for food, they say they’re more or less required to give in as I’m a voluntary admission. I don’t think that’s entirely true especially with the new Care and Force Act, but I think the staff feel less able to resist someone verbally pestering them for food versus someone who screams for it without actually asking, as they are non-verbal. After all, at least one of my fellow clients is on a diet and the staff flat out refuse to give her food she isn’t supposed to eat.

I feel really torn. On the one hand, I want to believe the nurse from the health check that losing weight shouldn’t be an absolute top priority, because, well, I don’t want to give up chips and sausages on week-ends. On the other hand, I absolutely don’t want to have to add yet another medication to my regimen. I originally said I wanted to avoid blood thinners at all cost. Then I found out blood thinners aren’t the same as blood pressure medication. Still, I want to avoid needing to add a blood pressure medication too, especially since, once on any medication, it’s hard to get off.

Of course, I want to avoid getting a heart attack or other cardiovascular disease for as long as possible. This means I really need to go on a diet. I’ll start with eating bread instead of cereal for breakfast. It’s hard, but I’m going to do it.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (April 26, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all, how are you all doing on this fine Sunday evening? I just had a drink of my favorite soft drink, called Dubbelfrisss. I had my favorite flavor too, apple and peach. I also had some chips. If you’d still like a cup of coffee, I’m sure I can make some for you. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare.

If we were having coffee, I would tell those of you who follow me from the coffee share linky that I’m rather active in the blogging department. I’m still going strong with the #AtoZChallenge. I in fact still have a long list of things I want to blog about even after this challenge is over. I really hope the writing juices keep flowing.

I did downgrade my WordPress plan from Premium to Personal. I, not being very tech savvy, can’t use most Premium features anyway and I don’t need the upload space, as I hardly ever post images. The only thing I used from the Premium plan, was Google Analytics, which was rather depressing.

Also in the tech department, I’d like to tell you that I’ve been struggling for weeks to get an eHealth app called Minddistrict working. Somehow, the E-mail that should have been sent to me to sign up, didn’t reach me. My CPN from mental health contacted some guy in IT about it, who replied rather bluntly that his role is not to teach clients to look in their spam folder. Well, if that had been the problem, my CPN could have told me. I’m not stupid! I eventually contacted my hosting provider, who want to look into it but need the headers of the bounce message Minddistrict should have received. My hosting provider was trying to be very helpful, but still the whole thing frustrates me to no end.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I reached my 10K steps three out of the seven days of this week. On two more days, I got over 8K steps.

I also got weighed in on Thursday. I didn’t use the same scale I normally use, because that’s at the day center. As such, my results may not be accurate. However, if they are, I lost over 1kg. According to this scale, I just about crossed the line back from obesity to overweight. Yay!

If we were having coffee, I would share that the client who came to our home as an emergency placement two weeks ago, left again yesterday to go to a more suitable home.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I’ve been exploring personality traits a bit more. Like, I’ve joined some Facebook groups for what I think is my MBTI personality type. Most other people see me as INTJ, but I honestly think I’m more INFJ, as the feeler/thinker dichotomy is based on how you make decisions. Note that I learned in psychology class in college that one changes personality type about every month if dichotomous scales are used. I’m a clear introvert, but have no strong preference on all three other determiners. I’ve heard cognitive functions can make the MBTI more reliable, but I find most tests that include that pretty inaccessible.

I also have been exploring the concepts of HSP and empath. I read Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person in Dutch back in like 2006. I downloaded the 2013 English edition on Bookshare a few days ago and got some books by Dr. Judith Orloff too. It does remind me that, when the Dutch translation of one of Aron’s books first came out in 2004, my father read me a skeptical article in the newspaper about everyone needing labels nowadays. He said I was an “asparagus addict”, making a bad pun on the Dutch word for asparagus being similar to Asperger. That got me to stop self-identifying as autistic. Well, I guess I don’t care now.

What have you been up to lately?