I Am Going Insane from the Confusion of It All!

Hello there, my name is Sunny and I'm new to this website. I've been calorie counting since May, and I've gained 5 pounds since then. It is driving me nuts!

I am 17 years old, 5'4.5, and I weigh 147-150 lbs. I am borderline overweight and I typically hang right around the middle of the BMI range (120-130 lbs). I currently walk about 14-16 miles per day at a 4 MPH pace (I go outside and enjoy the bike paths when I'm bored rather then jumping in front of the TV...I go out with my friends, my dog or with a book on CD). Sometimes I'll bike instead or do a bit of jogging. I do full-body weight training every other day as well. I don't sit down unless I have to...it really makes my back ache. I might sit for an hour per day going to appointments or eating dinner, but that's it. I sleep 7 hours per night and eat about 2700 calories per day on average. I have calculated the calorie burn of a full day's worth of activity (all 24 hours, including sleep and standing around, housework, etc) using caloriesperhour.com, and it said 3200 calories. In theory, this should be a 500 calorie deficit.

I have quite a few medical issues and allergies/sensitivities: IBS, Acid Reflux, Bile Reflux, Hypoglycemia, Amenorrhea, wheat intolerance, and an extreme sensitivity to fatty/sugary foods. I had my gallbladder removed in 2006, and have developed most of these issues since then. My gallbladder was bad for a long time prior to its removal; it took my doctors 2 years to consider checking my gallbladder for gallstones, inflammation, etc. When they did, they discovered a ridiculously inflamed gallbladder littered was gallstones and basically rotting in my stomach. Black bile was drain from the organ during my surgery, and a cyst and multiple adhesions were discovered growing on my gallbladder. The cyst was huge and had spread to my liver. During the two years of confusion prior to the discovery of my gallbladder, I ballooned up to 200 from 130 lbs within 4 months without any changes to diet or exercise. I then dropped weight insanely rapidly after adding a 1 hour walk to my daily routine and changing nothing else. Eventually I lost my appetite and had to force down meals...some days I just ate nothing and only drank a bit of juice. Eventually I tried drinking Ensure and boost and making high calorie smoothies. I managed to reach about 3,000 calories sometimes. Still, my weight plummeted from 200 to 70 lbs within one year. Once my gallbladder was finally removed, I stopped losing weight, and, though it was painful to eat still, I began a weight gain program and got up to 120 lbs in about 8 months (at this point, it was the late summer of 2007). My doctor explained to me how my ill gallbladder messed with my weight (both the gaining rapidly and losing rapidly--though my lack of eating at times surely didn't help me to avoid weight loss). I still struggle to eat, because it hurts terribly, but I've learned to just tough it out and eat. I plan balanced, light meals and snacks now in order to ensure that I eat enough and that I control my hypoglycemia. I maintained a weight of 120-130 lbs from late summer 2007 to spring of 2009.

Here is the issue at hand. I have had Amenorrhea since soon after I began losing tons of weight (around April of 2006). My GP finally sent me to an OBG/YN in an attempt to figure out why my period was still MIA. After a slew of tests, she found that my progesterone levels were low and put me on Provera for one week. It did nothing. She then decided to try using birth control for one month, which did give me a spotty period in May, but didn't kick-start any more. Between the end of April and the beginning of May I gained 20 lbs in a matter of 2 weeks. I figured that I'd gained a bunch of water weight from the pills, but the pounds stuck around. I continued gaining a bit each week even after stopping the birth control and reached 145 lbs by the beginning of June. I suffer from severe depression, anxiety and stress, PTSD, OCD and mild Bipolar, and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for medication purposes right around that time. After 10 days IP, I returned home on Wellbutrin and Abilify. I was also 10 lbs lighter. However, I gained those 10 lbs back within a matter of 3 days. I do bloat up a LOT (I appear 6 months pregnant), and I wasn't bloated at all when I returned, but once the bloating came back, so did the weight. I've gained another 5 pounds since then and I just keep feeling worse and worse with every day. I feel heavy/weighed down and fatigued. My stomach feels worse than ever and I never have normal bowl movements anymore. I'm getting headaches more often and I'm getting a ton of acne and growing a bunch of excess hair all over my arms, legs, belly...etc. I really DO NOT feel healthy at this weight, and I miss feeling vibrant and alive like I did when I was in my "happy weight" range that I held for so long. I could bike and run, I could participate in all of my acting groups, singing groups and volunteer jobs...I could enjoy myself without feeling bogged down (unless I was in a depressive state, of course-but I was unmedicated then). I want to get back to that place and I just don't know how to. I have been trying so hard, but I just keep gaining more and more weight and feeling more and more ill. All of my doctors are clueless now after running every test that they can think of. I am in perfect health according to every test.

Thanks for reading this all and for any help...:)

Original Post by sunnycmm:

 I'm getting headaches more often and I'm getting a ton of acne and growing a bunch of excess hair all over my arms, legs, belly...etc. I really DO NOT feel healthy at this weight, and I miss feeling vibrant and alive like I did when I was in my "happy weight" range that I held for so long.

 I'm no doctor but those symptoms, hypoclycaemia, irregular periods and the difficulty losing weight have 'PCOS' written all over them.  Have you been tested for that? 

Gi-Jane: I had an ultrasound done a couple of weeks before I began taking the progesterone pills and exhibiting all of these symptoms...they checked my ovaries for cysts (that/s the test, right?).

Thanks for replying. :)

Keep pursuing the doctors for answers ... A lot of the time, they're as much in the dark as anyone else and you have to be persistent to get the answers, seeing fresh doctors if your own have run out of ideas.  I have to say that if I was a betting person the PCOS absolutely ticks all the boxes and I also know that it doesn't always show up on ultrasounds.   So keep at them, keep going with a healthy diet and exercise in the meantime and good luck

Gi-Jane: Okay....they're already getting annoyed with me, but I shall try. We've recently been searching for holistic doctors that will consider side effects or tests outside of the norm in order to figure out what's going on. My family does think that a physical issue is at hand; I'm great at getting them!

So, is my diet and exercise okay, then? Do I just keep using caloriesperhour.com's estimates when I change my exercise routine (I'll be biking and swimming more and I'm slowly taking up running...but I likely will reduce the length of my routine next month when school starts)?

Thank you so very much for your help. :)

sunnycmm, check this site http://www.skepdic.com/holistic.html and http://www.quackwatch.com/ before you take any flyers on "alternative treatments".  You might try to get through to Dr Dean Edell Call-In Line: 800-548-8255 (548-Talk) He is on M-F from 1-2PM PST.  I am not saying he will diagnose you over the phone, but he will give you the straight scoop and try to stear you in the right direction.  His shows are archived here, and they are great. http://www.kgoam810.com/Article.asp?id=49920

CE- Thanks a lot for those links! I will be sure to look into people before visiting them for treatment...

By the way (to anybody reading this), I posted about this subject on another website and they, on top of also suggesting PCOS, told me to try decreasing my caloric intake to 1800-2000 calories per day. One said that my body may have adapted to my active lifestyle, and that walking at a normal pace (4 MPH) is a pretty insignificant exercise in terms of calorie burn. She said that I'm likely gaining weight and feeling sicker from eating too much. My mom, though she is not a doctor or dietitian/nutritionist, told me that it'd be unwise to consume less than 2500 calories per day due to my age and activity level. I'm baffled, and unsure of what to do. Nobody that I know supports the idea of me eating 2000 calories or less, though nobody is trying to stop me, either.

Any insight here? Could a holistic nutritionist help me with this (there are no decent dietitians in my area)?

Sunnycmm, WOW, I was going to research this, but somebody else has done a much better job than I could have.  http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/ id/6381.html

I am a 62 year old 5'9" 172 lb male and I eat 1200-1300 calories a day, without hunger.  My only exercise for the past 8 months has been walking 3-4 miles per day at a 3.5-4 mph pace.  I have lost 40 lbs this year and as you get older it becomes more difficult to lose weight.  I hope to lose another 10-20 lbs this year(which I call my Born Again Year, and I don't mean religion).  I am already setting 2010 up to be my fitness year, when I will return to strength training which I abandoned this year.  When I achieve my weight goal I will only increase my calories to about 1500.  I am doing a moderate form of Caloric Restriction. http://www.crsociety.org/Getting_started

I have heard too many stories of people who exercise extreme amounts and can't lose.  I was the same way until this year.  This is when I started to read articles like this one.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/ c/a/2009/08/27/MN4M19BELM.DTL  This has changed my thinking 180 degrees, and now I believe it is best to exercize moderately, lose the weight and then if you want to pick up the exercise level - Go For It!

CE- That's interesting. I knew that running a mile burned more calories than walking it, but when I calculated my daily caloric burn with 4ish hours of walking each day (I've now tried it on both caloriesperhour and with the burn meter here) it came up with 3200...which is still a good bit. Are you saying then that the burn meters are severely inaccurate? Despite my stomach pain, I can identify hunger, and I'm always hungry for at least 2500 cals a day...

I also wanted to mention that my diet is entirely unprocessed and I eat at least 2 lbs of produce each day (usually MUCH more). Along with that, I eat lean proteins (fat free yogurt, cottage cheese, egg whites/eggs, chicken, turkey, fish, beans, peas, lentils...no red meat or pork--I hate both), very small amounts of healthy fats, oatmeal, buckwheat, barley...etc. I also am carful to be accurate with my serving sizes...espcially with fatty foods and bulky foods (which is basically my entire diet!). I have a food scale and I use that all of the time.

Sunnycmm, I just got back from a 35mn walk at 3.5 mph giving me a total of 1hrs. 45mn today I according to FitDay that comes to 435 calories giving me a total of 2660 for the day.  If I ate 2500 calories I would NEVER lose weight, and I think men burn more calories.  What got me pointed in the right direction was about 3 months on Atkins.  I found it very easy to reduce calories, and from there I migrated to a Mediterranen diet.  I now eat nothing processed and no red meat, and hunger is not a problem.  In the old days I Supersized everything figuring I could exercise it off.  Now I never eat fast food.

CE, I wonder why I am still hungry, then? I started eating 2000 calories yesterday, and today I felt starved ever since 10:30 am. In terms of activity, I've run 4 miles outside, walked 4 miles outside, jogged in place for 30 minutes, weight trained for 45 minutes (10 lb dumbbells, full body), and played a quick game of knock out (basketball) with my brother. I eat exactly as you do, though with more restrictions...this makes no sense to me.

My mom did find a Holistic Nutritionist who works for Standard Process and is coming to the area for a few days. I'm going to visit him on Tuesday. Until then, I guess that I'll just keep feeling hungry...my stomach diesn't hurt *as* bad.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

Sunnycmm, I would run your symptoms past Dr. Edell before I started taking a lot of worthless supplements.  Remember the supplement industry is not regulated to any sensible degree.  Acai Berry is a prime example of Quackery that has a huge market.  It is certainly no better than good old blueberries yet people are suckered into paying $30 for a bottle of it.   Dr Edell calls American Health Sluts who can be sold anything.  "The Road to Wellville" 1994 Godloe Bender "Health! The 'open sesame' to the sucker's purse!"  If you have Showtime watch Penn & Teller's show BS(Abbr) as they tear apart a lot of the myths.

Have you been checked for Celiac disease especially if you can't eat wheat?  You probably won't test positive if you haven't been eating much wheat though.  Gluton is in barley also and tons of other things.  Gluton is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and some oats plus it's in tons of things under other names.  It can cause all of the problems you list.