Life is Healthy

On Aug. 31, 2010, it had been 1,310 days since I’d PMSed.

Now – lucky freaking me – I’m on the 3-week plan.

Maybe my body is making up for lost time, but all I know is that I did NOT miss PMS. I did NOT miss the cramps or the bad mood, the cravings and the don’t-touch-me-unless-you-want-a-black-eye syndrome. It’s like I’m 14 all over again.

When Aunt Flo returned, I wrote about it on Refuse to Regain. (See “The Mystery of Aunt Flo” if you dare.) I complained a little, but mostly I felt pretty good about it. I secretly hoped I’d have at least one more period before menopause (which I’m not facing for another several years, says my doc). I mean, periods have been my life companion every four weeks (give or take the months I was pregnant) since I was 14. You get kinda used to them, you know? They’re part of the flow (no pun intended) of your life (even if you’re a guy and are around women in any capacity).

But getting used to them again is taking some adjustment. It’s only a few days that it makes me hurt, confused and short-tempered and second guess everything I think and feel, but those few days feel like a month. I forgot.

Losing more than 100 pounds comes with a lot of surprises. Surprises no one tells us about mostly because not many people know. Most of the women I know who’ve lost more than 100 pounds have issues with their periods, as in they disappear for months at a time and return whenever they feel like it. It can be confusing and worrisome.

When mine first disappeared, I had an exterior ultrasound and a few rounds of blood work done to make sure I was OK. Now that The Curse is back, my doctor ordered an invasive ultrasound and we found out I have some “issues” with the uterine lining.

While I do not in any way, shape or form regret losing 170 pounds and weighing 130, I am a bit concerned about what it’s done to my body – what losing and gaining and losing and gaining all my life has done to this vessel I call home. If I had it to do over again – if I knew then what I know now – I’d have done my damndest to stay at a somewhat normal weight after the first time I lost weight.

This isn’t a lecture. Just some friendly advice from a 47-year-old woman who’s been around the scale so many times it makes her head spin. If this is the first time you’ve lost weight, please PLEASE make it the last time. Do everything you can to keep it off. If it’s not, if you’ve lost and gained several times, do NOT take my experience as permission to not get to a healthy weight. Just know that you might have some unforeseen issues at the end. Issues you can deal with it. It will be OK.

Just…hey…people, we’ve gotta take our bodies seriously. They aren’t playthings. They aren’t toys. They aren’t meant to bloat and deflate on a subway schedule. They only want to keep us alive, to keep us moving around so we can love and laugh and cry and form relationships and work and go to the movies and stuff.

I simply can’t push the envelope anymore. My body can’t take any more instability. That’s why I’m so committed to staying where I am. Yes, a cookie looks good sometimes, and when I PMS I want to shove Trader Joe’s corn tortilla crackers in my pie hole like there’s no tomorrow. But I won’t. I…in a word…can’t. That was so six years ago. Things are different now. They have to be.

I’m adjusting to the flow of things again, only now the flow might need some medical intervention. Now worries. Nothing my doc can’t fix. But think about it: Our bodies are a wonderland. Maybe not quite the wonderland John Mayer wrote about, but wondrous nonetheless. Treat it right, my friends. Treat. It. Right.