Sorry about my absence but I’m back. Yes, I know. Hell of a way to start a blog. This isn’t the first time this has happened; it’s happened twice now. I have a hard time focusing when it comes to talking about my current weight problem.  I have reconciled my past, but I struggle with the present.

So, to pick up where I left off, I snuggled into Minnesota quite well and spiritually I felt fantastic. It finally felt like all the pieces were coming together, but this weight issue haunts me. It has most of my life.

It started about six months after I got here. I was taking a shower one morning and decided to pop open a container of sugar scrub that I had picked up from a local farmers market. It felt nice and smelled good too. Everything is normal as showers generally go but when I got out to towel dry, I noticed my skin started breaking out with red bumps and I mean everywhere.  They were hot, itchy and unbearable. Almost like a rash; tough to explain. Did I mention they weren’t going away?

I’d been here for about a year and a half when I finally decided to see a doctor. These red bumps and rashes were becoming more frequent and I was gaining weight rapidly. Now, I realize I wasn’t making the best choices, but this was different. I could have an extra helping of spaghetti, not eat anything else that day, and be up on the scale 3-4 pounds the following day. It was excessive weight gain for no reason. I became fearful of eating the wrong thing and it got to a point where it didn’t matter what I ate, I would gain.  WTF 20 times a day.

Couple diagnosis after getting poked and prodded for a few weeks and 10 doctor’s appointments later.  I was allergic to quite a few things.

Let’s start with the hardest things mind you this list is not complete.

• Salt and Iodine allergies. It means that iodized salt is a big no no – otherwise known as common table salt. Which mind you are in almost every kind of processed food and restaurant food.
• Sucrose and Fructose allergies. I suppose an allergy is the easiest way to describe them, but it affects the immune system. In a nutshell, it means my body doesn’t process sugars. It’s a like a foreign object. The liver doesn’t know what to do with it.
• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Basically means my thyroids are ****cked.

Now, before this starts sounding like a pity party, I don’t want it to go in that direction. When I found out what I had and I knew that I needed to make some drastic changes with regard to my diet, I did not do that.  Having the above three come down around the same time was almost too much to handle. Everything in my cupboard and refrigerator had things that I could no longer eat.  Honestly, I was not ready to ditch all the things I loved dearly. Like spaghetti or oooh… the occasional donut.

I didn’t care how smart the Doctor was. I was not going to have another person in my life tell me what I could or couldn’t have. Call it childhood memories, self-destruction, whatever label that is, it’s correct. I basically told the medical community to shove it.

I made the decision to gain all my weight conscious or unconsciously and I take responsibility for that. Living life “my way or the highway” had devastating consequences.

So for the record; it was my fault. Completely.  I fought it; like a fucking soldier. And I lost.