HAAS is hard

[the_siobhan]

I bought a bathroom scale when I when my gallbladder went south. I was losing weight at a rediculous rate[1] and I wanted to keep an eye on it.

For the last year while I was on the SSRIs I've been pulling it out of the bathroom drawer where we buried it and weighing myself occasionally. They say the new SSRIs don't contribue to weight gain any more, but the feelings of exhaustion and dizziness they did cause weren't exactly conducive to working out. Add to that the fact that I was struggling beforehand because of the depression itself and the result is that now I have been mostly sedentary for well over a year and I feel like physical shit. I have very low energy, I've lost my strength and what little lung capacity I had. Weighing myself is probably the last thing I needed to do while all this was going on, but I wanted to know and yes, my weight went up.

So now I'm not on the SSRIs any more. I'm not as sleepy (although work is ensuring I'm still freaking tired all the time) and the vertigo is mostly under control. My joints are even better. So I'm doing stuff. My lung capacity is the hardest thing for me to improve and the the first thing I lose when I slow down so Axel set up one of our bikes in the living room on a trainer and I use it as a stationary bike. I started taking a yoga class once a week. I'm stiff and I'm sore and I am lamenting just how weak and inflexible I have become. And how much my hands and knees hate being asked to support my weight. And how my boobs are always in the damn way. And, and, and... and it feels awesome just to be able to do this stuff again.

And this week I couldn't resist finding out, so I stepped on the scale again. And it gave me a different number than the last time I stepped on it. And I'm kicking myself because that's going to make it even harder to resist next time.

Maybe I should just throw it away.




[1]Cue rant about the women at work who told me how lucky I was. I shit you not.

Comments

[jo]

Meant to ask - did you stop taking the Cipralex because you aren't feeling depressed anymore, or mostly because they make you feel crap? Jon had his dose upped this fall, from 20 to 30 mg and he's been finding it so hard to do things, not take naps 2-3 times a day, etc. He's now gone back down to 20mg to see if that clears the fog a bit.

[lil_m_moses]

Would it help to think of the changing number as nothing more than verification that yes, your joints getting are just a little less abused as you go about your everyday activities, so it's right that you're hurting less?

On a related note, I think you'd really dig CrossFit and might want to at least try it sometime. It's a great venue for venting a lot of mental energy through physical effort and regularly surprising/pleasing yourself with new (or renewed) things you're capable of. Because it's centered around functional fitness, the strength and agility you (re)develop transfers better to real life than treadmills or weight machines ever will. And as long as you're working hard, where hard is determined only by what _you_ are capable of, whether you're an adonis or couch potato, you'll get all kinds of moral support from your compatriots (assuming the gym's any good). My gym has a free class on Saturdays to encourage people to come and see what it's about; maybe one in your area does something like that too?

[lil_m_moses]

Oh, and it's improved my cardio and lung capacity, too, more and faster than learning to jog distances did.

[the_siobhan]

My depression is specifically episodic with full recovery between episodes, so the doctor felt I was a good candidate for going off the drugs eventually. (She stipulated she wanted me on them for a year, I ended up taking them for about 18 months.) I expect I'll be back on them again if I start to lapse.

My shrink added a small does of Wellbutrin on top of the Cipralex specifically because of the fog, apparently it has a slight "upper" effect. I found it helped quite a bit, but not completely.

[the_siobhan]

Actually the improvement in my joints is specifically diet related, so they started hurting less while my weight was still going up.

I've heard lots of good things about CrossFit from some of my local friends. I would like to try it if I can find a way to fit it into my schedule. (The yoga class is only happening because it's being offered at work.)

[jo]

Interesting. I will mention that to Jon - he can maybe discuss it with his doctor next time. He does have an Rx for ritalin for his ADHD, but he's not been using that at all since he hasn't had anything he specifically had to focus on.