Whats wrong with me?

[sunshineeyes]

Hi all. I'll give u a brief run down on myself. Im female who has just turned 30 this week.Did this diet back in '04 and lost 4st and went on to lost another 4 1/2 myself by changing my life/habits. Managed to keep it off by and large until 2 yrs ago when over the last 2 years I have gained back over 4st. My dilemma is, I don't really know why it has come back on....I did move to the middle east 2years ago for my partners job so when some weight started coming on I put it down to fact that I wasn't as active as b4 because I didn't have a job...I did however have a gym in our compound which I used min twice a week. Ate relatively healthy but most def had not been as ridged as I was before....I carried on gaining weight and went up to almost 16st.
Last Xmas I had decided I had to grasp it and sort it out, so I got a personal trainer 3 pw and went myself 2 other days, i also enlisted a nutritionist , 7 months later on rigorous workouts and eating extremely healthy I still hadn't lost anything. I also stopped mentruating last march so I went to and endocrinologist for some tests, while he was initially skeptical that I was doing the the things I said I was....he told me continue what I was doing, refered me to another dietician who I saw on a weekly basis.

Still my weight wasn't coming off so I decided I would try Cambridge again and sourced a councillor in Dubai where I would fly up and get my products. I did the diet 100% for 6 weeks and in that time I lost a grand total of 3lbs ?. This was devastating as I couldn't understand why it wasn't working so I stopped as naturally I couldn't afford the inflated prices of doing the diet to be losing such little weight. Again, returned to specialist who at this point took me much more seriously and ordered a number of tests. They ruled out cushings disease which obviously was a good thing but did find my adrenal glands for some reason was producing excess cortisol. He put me on metformin to try aid bringing back my menstrual cycle(with no luck, I am still on it) I began a rigorous Bootcamp 4 days a week and literally only ate rabbit food for another few months still nothing.

I have returned home to Ireland now and decided to give Cambridge another go, so on the 23rd jan I started SS again. My first week I lost 1.5lbs, I have now been on diet almost 7 weeks and have only lost 5.5lbs. I'm truly devastated as I don't know why this is happening, I have also seen a specialist here in Ireland and he is just as perplexed and really can't give me any answers as to why my body is behaving this way. All my tests for thyroid etc have come back normal the only abnormal thing was my cortisol level being raised and as I'm sure most of u know cortisol is the bodies natural steroid....what do steroids do, make u gain weight. But my dr does not believe that this is the reason why I can't lose weight.
Medically there appears to be nothing wrong with me but I can't physically understand how if I'm only consuming under 420kc daily and ur body needs between 1500/2000 cals just for ur body to go through its functions which essentially before I do any sort of exercise means i have a deficit of at least 1000 cals before i even go for a walk.I am in ketosis as I check daily with my ketostix.

I don't know what I expect from you guys, but I just am so frustrated with it all and needed to vent as I think my mother is sick of hearing it.
I'd be very grateful to hear if any of u have had anything similar with this or had ideas?

 

[24772433]

I really don't understand myself, yes you should certainly be loing the weight, I hope you get some answers from here, Good luck.

 

[angelupnorth]

I cant answer either but didn't want to read and run as it must be so frustrating for you.
Hope you get sorted soon x

 

[Enough]

well, you've come to the right place to vent, even if we're as perplexed as you are!

Have you tried one of those body composition machine so you can find out if you're gaining/losing muscle, gaining/losing fat, or gaining/losing water.. because of course weight on scales doesn't necessarily mean things aren't changing for you.

Of course it's natural for your nutritionist to be sceptical.. I was wondering if this was a toll post as I was reading.. but don't take it to heart if people don't believe you - it's a fairly natural response, so I wouldn't take it personally.. just take it as evidence of how unusual your circumstances are..

It might be worth getting yourself checked out with a doctor especially full bloods.. just to rule anything else out.

Let us know how you get on - it's a mystery at this stage isn't it?

All the best

xx

 

[sunshineeyes]

Thanks for the comments so far guys! Enough- I have attended an endocrinologist (specialist in hormones-thyrd, diabetes, etc anything to do with endocrin system)both here and in the middle east, my latest visit to him was last Wednesday and he just couldn't answer the question as to why I was in ketosis and having this massive calorie deficit but losing no weight. I have had numerous sets of bloods taken, just 2 weeks ago....whole blood count was normal, thyroid normal. I've literally been a pin cushion for a year. He then said that maybe I'm just "one of those women in the category that can't lose weight and have to accept being obese", I have been thin, I lost weight before- he then suggested I consider gastric band!!!!!!!
That's all well and good for ppl that need it and have emotional attachments to food- but even my mother asked him how could he suggest that when currently I am eating NO food and losing no weight, so how would a band change things????? Aside of the weight issue, I'm not ovulating/menstrating which also means that if I can't conceive naturally and need IVF I won't qualify because my BMI is over 35...so its more important I sort out that problem. Up until I was 29 I always had regular periods. ?

 

[sunshineeyes]

I appear to be a bit of an enigma!

 

[Enough]

you do - must be hard.. but I'm glad you've not got any serious health problems causing the difficulty for you x

 

[lucylu0802]

This all sounds awful! I am so sorry you are going through this. I would honestly say that I don't think a Gastric band would make a blind bit of difference and they need to work out what's actually causing you to not be able to lose weight when you clearly try so hard. After a gastric band isn't the whole point that you are only able to eat liquids? Therefore the CD is pretty similar calorie intake or am totally spouting rubbish!

Out of intererst, what happens now if you don't watch what you eat or excercise? Do you put on rapidly or do you stay the same? I'm just wondering whether the amount of Calories isn't actually affecting your weight loss/gain.

Are there any tests that can be done on your metabolic rate?

I really hope you manage to find some answers soon. It must be horrid to be working so hard with no results.

xxxx

 

[Daisy65]

How awful for you. I did a search for medical conditions which prevent weight loss - includes Syndrome X, extreme stress or grief (can raise cortisol levels) and PCOS. I'm sure you've done more research than me anyway. I hope the mystery is solved soon - must be demoralising.

 

[tizzy51]

How frustrating!!! I do hope you find an answer soon and can treat whatever is going on!

Keep us posted!

 

[SueL]

Do you know what checks they carried out on thyroid? Ie Tsh levels, t3,t4, rt3 and rt4? Antibodies checked to make sure you don't have an autoimmune disorder. Only saying this as I have Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune disease which starts attacking the thyroid gland, once it's destroyed that it moves onto other organs. Do you have any of the long list of symptoms for under active thyroid? Have a browse on line if you aren't sure. It's a long list ! Hope you get to the source of the problem soon. How annoying and frustrating for you ( xx

 

[sunshineeyes]

Sue, this reply has been along time coming but finally I was diagnosed with hashis. I went and got private second opinion, brought my bag of hair that I was losing along and told him my symptoms, within 10 minutes he told me he thought I had hashis so he ordered the anti tg and tpo bloods which had never been checked and lw and behold now I have my answer. I'm in meds now and even though it's only been 2 months I feel sooooo much better! I'm not exhausted all the time, my hair appears to have stopped coming out in clumps and Iv even got some spotting in the downstairs department so I'm hopeful things are on the up from here.
Should have switched docs a year ago.

 

[Bella Rose]

Sorry to hear you been through so much. My initial thought was whether you were drinking enough water. Maybe living in a hot country you needed more than the usual 4 litres a day. But even that wouldn't explain so little weight loss over such a long time. A bit cheeky of me,,, but are you sure you don't eat while sleepwalking lol but seriously sorry to hear of your condition but at least identifying the problem is a step in the right direction. What is hashis? I'd be interested in case i ever come across it again? And here's to a new you

 

[sunshineeyes]

Hi bella. No defo wasn't sleep eating as I was suffering insomnia too so hardly ever slept. Plus even if I was, I never had anything in the house to binge on, only fruit! Hashimotos disease is an auto immune disorder whereby my bodies antobodies basically is are destroying my thyroid. Eventually I will have no thyroid function at all. It didn't show in normal thyroid test initially as they have to specifically test for the antibodies.