I’ve been overweight for several years now. Actually, if I look at one of those BMI charts, I fall into the “obese” category and my BMI is awful bad high. I’ve tried diets, joining a gym, blah blah blah. Okay. We know all that. Let’s not get too into it.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer in November, the doctors all told me to be careful and not to lose much weight right now. Because my appetite and taste buds have changed so much lately, I have been losing weight unexpectedly. The doctor says it’s okay, that I can certainly stand losing some weight. Duh. But then the nutritionist says I should be careful not to loose too much too fast because when i do that, I am losing muscle instead of fat and i need the muscle to help my body kick the cancer’s butt. They both say losing no more than 2 pounds a week is okay.

I’ve lost 7 pounds in the past week. I weighed myself at the same time of day (evening) on the same scale. Only difference was, the first time i had clothes on, the second time I didn’t. How much do clothes really weigh? A pound? Maybe a pound and a half?

So now Honey’s worried that I am burning through muscle since I’m not exactly exercising. Though I have been eating way more protein on a daily basis than I ever did before diagnosis. And way less fried foods and carbs. My body craves good stuff like turkey burgers, fish tacos, beans and rice, carrots, celery and peanut butter, etc. But even before I got sick, if I was home alone during the daytime, and lunch time rolled around, I would postpone eating for as long as possible. I don’t know why. Mostly, making lunch was a big fat pain in the butt and we didn’t have much food that was easy to prepare. But we do now so things are different.

Anyway, that weigh in was last night and caused me to lose a lot of sleep actually. I was going to go to a gentle yoga class with Melissa this morning but since I didn’t get to sleep till 2:30am and woke up every hour afterwards, I had to bail. Today, Honey gave me HOMEWORK: to eat as much as possible today! So every time I felt a mild twinge of a hunger pain, no matter how long or short it had been since the last time I ate, I ate again.

At 3am I woke up starving so I ate a Luna bar in the dark. Back to sleep.
At 5am when Honey left I woke up feeling like I was going to puke so I ate 5 saltine crackers. Back to sleep.
At 9 I sat up in bed and ate a mango fruit leather.
At 10 I rolled my lazy ass out of bed and ate a bowl of cream of wheat with lots of raisins and some cantaloupe.
At 1:30 I made myself a turkey burger on the foreman grill, added havarti cheese and some condiments with a side of goldfish crackers and a Powerade.
At 4:00 I drank another blackberry/banana shake I had leftover from yesterday.
At 6 we went out to eat at Wahoos and I had a big bowl of grilled fish, rice, beans, cabbage and tomatoes.

I’m sufficiently stuffed. I was busy eating all damned day long! Oh yeah, and I went for a walk at 4 around the block. I tried taking both dogs but Scarlett was bounding all over the place like a hyena and Dobby was choking on his harness so I had to bring Dobby home and just take Scarlett this time. Don’t worry…Dobby gets to go next time. And tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to the gym with Honey and walking on the treadmill. It’s weird…all of a sudden my goal is the opposite of what it used to be. I’m trying to NOT lose so much weight while I’m trying to get Honey to lose a lot of weight.

But to be perfectly honest, if I could have it my way, I’d keep shedding these pounds this way. I know it’s not healthy but it’s an awesome feeling to have my jeans falling off me and my shirts fitting loser, my back doesn’t hurt as much and my “new” bras don’t cut into me as much. It’s not the ideal way to drop the pounds but it’s the only thing that has worked in the past decade!

I’m going to email my doctor and my nutritonist tomorrow to get their opinions for sure. In the meantime, I’m going to increase my activity level so that I keep my muscle mass in tact. Also, I got a great cookbook the other night: One Bite at a Time - Nourishing Recipes for People with Cancer, Survivors and Their Caregivers. There are a lot of yummy recipes in there and although I don’t have the energy to prep and cook many of them, I flagged all the pages that sound tasty to me and I sent it home with my friend Kat who is a great cook and loves trying new healthy recipes! She’s picking a few of them out to make for me/us to try.

Since all of this began back in September, I have lost a total of 20 pounds. Really…I don’t see why that’s a problem!