I may have mentioned in a previous blog that my longtime doctor died a couple months ago.  This was while he was working at trying to balance out my thyroid meds. This left me with a decision to make: it’s tough going to a new doctor when you have extreme weight issues, because there’s still that ever-present mindset that you’re just not trying hard enough.

I went to a new doctor today.  Thyroid tests have been taken, and we’ll see if there are adjustments needed when the results are in, probably in a couple of days. On the good side of things, he seemed receptive and did the right things.  Plus, my blood pressure, which I have been monitoring since the last visit, has gone down, even though I tend to have white coat hypertension. (See a doc or nurse, and BP goes sailing upward!)

The bad side is that I weighed in this morning at 280.5, which is 9.5 pounds up from my low.  This frustrated me, for more than the obvious reasons; oddly, I have felt like I was losing, not gaining, although I do feel somewhat bloated. I had recently gone down a bra cup size, and here the scale is, reporting that I’m up, not down. WTF, indeed?

And I admit — when I see that number go up despite having stuck to my guns, it makes me want to say “screw it” and enjoy the foods I really like, etc.

You’ll be happy to know that I didn’t do that. Because, really, there has been good news; it’s just that my mind is so focused on weight that I immediately wanted to dismiss all other pluses as secondary, as if the weight gain were a verdict saying “try harder, loser”.   The good things include good progress at lowering my blood pressure without aid of prescription drugs, being otherwise pronounced healthy and “boring”. (I’ll take that kind of boring any old time, thanks.)

Plus, I got a new knee brace this week. It’s another custom brace like my last one; it’s breaking in nicely, and I’ll soon be strolling around the neighborhood with it. I did a lot of walking on Saturday, and had minimal knee pain. Friends, this is what I was hoping for — the alleviation of pain so I can continue to lose by exercising, and by just plain moving.

Alas, I’m going to make a temporary change: and that is, I will be weighing daily for a while, in hopes of seeing enough of a loss on the scale that I’ll be back at my 271 pound low.  At this point, I want to document any trends, and it will perhaps give my doctor more information for finding the keys to solving my hormonal imbalances.

As several friends have pointed out, the solution when you’re not seeing success is never to intentionally fail by giving up.