I had my physical yesterday and brought up my favorite topic, weight. Once again I put on a couple of pounds. This has been a very frustrating year for me when it came to weight. My doctor finally made some sense as opposed to just saying it’s your multiple sclerosis. He explained why. Yes, I do swim which is great, but I also sit around quite a bit. As my symptoms have gotten worse, my muscles have atrophied to a degree. I have lost muscle mass. The less muscles you have in your body the less calories your body burns. So now with the less muscles mass, as I sit around, my body is really burning absolutely nothing. It made sense. Yes, it is my MS, but this is the reason it is my MS. Dieting my whole life, this made sense to me. I am eating nothing just to maintain my weight and if I have a misstep I put on weight very easily.

I’ve struggled my whole life with weight. It is just one of those things that I was stuck with having to do. Some people are blessed with a fast metabolism, I’m not. I worked really hard to take off 50lbs and keep it off for many years. That is why the gaining weight has been so difficult for me. I was once a size 18 and ended up a size 8. I was so proud of my accomplishment. I earned that. I use to work out with infusion stints in my hand for steroids. Going back up the scale again breaks my heart. Especially when I really never understood why.

He gave me a really good idea to try. He suggested I get wrist weights. That I keep them on my arms and while am watching TV and I work out a little. This way to build up my muscle mass again. After I do my arms I can put them on my legs and work on them. I’d still be sitting here, I’m still not going anywhere, but at least I’ll get a little more exercise in and hopefully gain a little muscle mass. I bought two 2.5 Lb weight that can adjust lower by 1/2 Lb. They make one that is 8lbs that can adjust as I get stronger. I also decided to walk around my condo for at least 30 minutes on the days I’m either not swimming or not in therapy. I’ll take mini laps every hour or so. Just so I’m not sitting for hours at a time. At least now I feel I have an explanation. To me I was swimming 3-4 days a week, I thought that was enough. I honestly never realized what was happening when I laid still the other days.