Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Me & the big D

As most of you can remember, I am a HUGE workout junkie!  I'm at the gym 5-6 days a week for at least 2 hours a day. I also eat very healthy & "clean".  

Well, back in June I started to gain a little weight....at first I thought nothing of this, I just chalked it up to gaining muscle. But, the weight steadily continued to climb and my clothes started shrinking. This is not typical with weight gain from muscle...usually you gain muscle, but lose fat, and you lose inches....I was gaining them. By October I had gained 12 pounds and couldn't fit into ANYTHING! Needless to say, I started to become very frustrated and fell into a slight depression. I didn't give up though, I was persistent and determined to lose the weight. But nothing I did was working...by the end of December my weight had hit a new all time high....I had gained 22 pounds and I was FED UP!

The end of December I decided it was time to see my doctor. I went in there sobbing like a big baby. I HATED to get on that scale. I explained to him everything that was going on. How I wasn't able to lose weight....I was depressed...My bones ached....I had headaches....I had NO energy AT ALL....it took every bit of energy I could muster up just to get out of bed in the mornings....I had to push through my workouts because I always felt drained. He decided to do a complete blood test. 
After 2 weeks I finally got my results! I had a SEVERE vitamin D deficiency!!! My levels were a 4 and optimum levels are 50-100!! Finally some answers! Every symptom I had was caused by lack of Vitamin D! I was put on 50,000 IU of vitamin D once a week and 5,000 per day. Those were like little magic pills, I tell ya! Within the first 3 weeks I had dropped 10 pounds!! 10 POUNDS!!! My energy soared and my mood was lifting! 

I'm in my 4th month of taking the Vitamin D and I've never felt better. I am down 17 POUNDS as of today! I've lost a total of 10 inches so far. I'm out of the bigger jeans I had to buy....they were a size 13!  The other day I took a pair of my favorite Lucky jeans from a year ago that I had put in a Goodwill pile....I tried them on and they FIT! A size 5!!  I went from a 13 to a 5!!! My bones don't ache anymore, the headaches are far and few between, and I have more energy than I know what to do with.

Thankfully, I had my awesome, wonderful, very supportive husband John! He loved me for me, he would listen to me cry, he would listen to me bitch....and he would just listen. I know sometimes he got sick of hearing me complain but I thank him for always encouraging me to keep going when I wanted to give up!

I tell every woman I know about getting your vitamin D checked. I learned that they only test for that deficiency in women over 40, so if you're younger than that and want to get yours checked, you'll have to ask them to do so. 

I'm happy to be back to the old me! :)

4 comments:

April said...

You know, my doctor always wants to run that test on me, but I've never seen any need for it. Guess I'll listen to him from now on...that's pretty amazing stuff. So happy that you're feeling better and the extra pounds are melting away!

Betty W said...

Wow! I have never heard of that deficiency. But I'm so glad your Dr. found out what you had (or didn't have). So glad you are feeling better.

Susie said...

I am so glad that you found an answer! It's so frustrating when you can't!

Melody said...

I'm glad that you found out what was causing your health problems. So excited for you to lose the hated weight! I need to do the same, in fact, you reminded me to take my evening dose of vitamin D :)