Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Credit where credit is due please!

A long time ago - about March last year - I decided to lose the chemo weight I've been carrying round for far too long.

According to various people (mostly American hence the lack of metrics) taking a course of taxol is good for an 25 pound weight gain. I've never been an underachiever so I managed to put on 20 kilos. That made me just on clinically obese according to the height and weight charts. Clinically obese is not a pretty term... Also when I am clinically obese my knees hurt in the morning and I have difficulty getting on my horse (and I'm sure she wasn't that impressed with 20kg extra either).

I didn't make a big fuss about it - I just made a conscious effort to eat better and a bit less. And my weight has very slowly drifted down to where I wanted it to be, which I hit about three weeks ago.

I might add that that weight - while healthy - is still 10kg higher than my lightest adult weight and 6 kg higher than my pre-children average weight, so I hardly have bones sticking out here. Skinny wasn't something I was designed to be.

It took 12 months for anyone except my husband to notice I'd lost weight. That's okay I didn't feel any real need to talk about it.

Then my manager (who I don't see very often) rang "I hear you've got all skinny" she said. Apparently one of the other managers who I occasionally drop in for a chat with when time allows had noted my weight loss, and being aware I have cancer was a bit concerned that I was being overworked at a time when I wasn't well. Which was sweet of him but a trifle too PC... I reassured all involved that I'd worked darn hard at it.

The other person I can't convince is my mother. She believes come hell or high water that
1) I am too thin
2) This is entirely due to the cancer which must be taking hold and getting the better of me.
She's felt the need to discuss it with husband on the quiet because she doesn't believe me. He has assured her that I haven't eaten a potato chip for over a year and that he can see how I lost the weight. He doesn't think she believes him either.

*sigh*
So if I get fat it's my own fault
If I lose weight it's something else.

1 comment:

homepaddock said...

Congratulations on the discipline which is needed to lose weight and the courage that's needed to fight cancer & write about it.