Not an Eastern European Fat Old Lady Hunchback. Well not to me anyway.

In case you did not know, SawHole and I have been mates for 20 years,  since we both commenced tertiary education at Charles Sturt University,  where I skipped lectures to watch The Bold and The Beautiful and she went on to get scholarships, be generally fabulous and graduate summa cum laude. (which does have anything to do with getting blow jobs in the hot months then bragging to your friends about it. It means in the top 3% of your class....)

She pens a really important blog about Living with Bipolar and sometimes she writes for me! (because I am probably watching Housewives of Buttfucksville County or something like that.)

During the recent Woogsworld staff meeting, Mrs Woog's eyes began to glaze over.It was not because I was speaking of my new Pilate's routine for her guinea pigs, it was because I was talking about diets.

AGAIN.

 

Mrs Woog has been listening to my diet stories for twenty years. You see, back then in my early 20s it was easy to lose weight, I just cut back a bit and went for the odd walk.

 

Then in my mid-20s I found Weight Watchers and bye bye 10kg of fat. Then I learned how to cheat.

 

Being hideously dumped meant I could not keep food down for most of my late 20s, so that kept me in my healthy weight range for awhile. But I always seemed to bounce back to my previous weight because I just can't keep my mouth shut in social situations or at the dinner table.

 

Now it is a little more serious. I now have bipolar disorder, a name used to describe a set of 'mood swing' conditions, the most severe form of which used to be called 'manic depression'. It is basically shit and means you have to take a truckload of medication or risk death. In my case the drugs are, mood stabilisers, which make me fat.

 

Doctors treat this really seriously because it can lead to type-two diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

 

So far I had dodged the bullet, my cholesterol and blood pressure are excellent, but after I caught myself in the mirror last week looking like an Eastern European widow, I realised something had to give.

 

Who was this fat, old, hunchback?

 

I managed to lose 10kg awhile ago through diet and using a personal trainer but I have fallen off the wagon. Enough!

 

So here's the Anti-Hunchback plan:

Take Topamax, an epilepsy and migraine medication, whose most common side-effect is appetite loss. Hello, baby.

Go back to my exercise physiologist at least twice a week and exercise every other day.

 Carbs only at breakfast.

 

I suppose I could say this is a matter of life and death because it kind of is. According to the Psychiatric Times: "Patients with bipolar disorder suffer a disproportionate burden of cardiovascular illness compared with others in the general population." Lucky, lucky me!

 

Which is why I think it is important not to judge people who are overweight and just assume it is because they have no self-control. They may be trying harder than you will ever know, Ros Reines.

 

Over and out,

 

SawHole xx

 

Living with and supporting others with bipolar disorder. Bipolar resources and bipolar advocacy.
Blog: http://www.madambipolar.com/