28 July 2007

Ugh.

Once upon a time, I had terrible heartburn. In my early twenties, I had daily heartburn so bad that I took 2 prescriptions for it, even had a gastroenterologist (that's a tummy doctor) that I visited on a regular basis. I had 2 stomach procedures done, where they were trying to determine if I had stomach cancer or an ulcer or any other reason that I might be having such awful heartburn. Nothing, and I mean NO THING helped, really, when it was bad. The prescriptions eased the pain a bit, but every single thing I ate or drank gave me heartburn.

Then I quit working for the bank, and wonder of wonders, it got better. Enough so that I quit taking the prescriptions. Hm, it just might have been stress after all that was causing the heartburn. Well, that, and the nearly 70 extra pounds of weight I was carrying around.

I figured out when I was seeing the tummy doctor that certain things ARE in fact triggers for me, will give me heartburn, so I avoid those things. Too many red onions; immediate pain. Eating even one small bite of a bell pepper, be it red, yellow, orange, green, or purple, raw or cooked in any fashion at all, even just added to a sauce or a stew gives me heartburn for about 2 days. I like both of those things, but I avoid them like the plague. So too must I avoid a few types of cheap red wine, because those will also make me ill.

The other day when I was complaining about pain in my delts, it ended up being heartburn. And I've got it again today. Bad, really bad. Bad enough that moving my upper body around is painful. I've tried to describe the sensation of bad heartburn to people who don't suffer from it before. About the best I can do is this. Imagine that you've got a huge sack of air pressing upwards and outwards from your diaphragm to your chin. And then someone lights it on fire. Pleasant, yeah? No, not so much.

I would have thought that being 30 pounds lighter would mean that I'm done with heartburn forever, or at least unless I eat something that's going to make me ill. Ugh.

And then THIS is depressing beyond belief. I was wondering what I should be shooting for as my goal weight, because even though I'd like to be about 120 pounds I think that's pretty unrealistic, and possibly unhealthy, and I wondered what the BMI calculators would say. Turns out to have a "healthy" BMI, I need to weigh between 115 and 154 pounds, meaning that I've got between another 15 and 50-some pounds left to lose. I'm doubtful in the extreme that I'll be satisfied with the way I look with just another 15 pounds gone. I don't want to look anorexic, you understand, which I think I would at 115 pounds, but I'd like to look hot. Sigh. Underneath this tough-as-nails feminist exterior is a little girl who still just wants to be "pretty."

Ugh.

Think I'll go back to bed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never had severe heart burn, but I feel for ya. Some times weight has a bit of the blame.

Damn, now that I know you're 5'6", it almost feels like a competition. LOL I'm too competitive for my own good. My goal weight is 140lbs. As much as I'd like to be 120... it ain't gonna happen. There is a time to be idealistic and a time to be realistic. At our age, it is time to be realistic. Not like we're old or anything, just, um, old enough to have fat settled into our bodies. That last 10-20lbs is always extremely difficult to lose.

*sighs* 60lbs to go...

Lucy Arin said...

My goal is around 135-140. Are you 5'6" as well? Sometimes competition is good for the soul, ya know. And yeah, 115? What-the-fuck-ever! Not in this lifetime.