The Incredible Immunity Girl

The Kid never gets sick.  Except, you know, cancer, but even then, she wasn't actually ill with it.

Sometimes I feel bad about it - the other working parents I talk with are always commiserating about the constant stream of bugs their kids pick up from daycare and/or school - coughs, runny noses, tummy bugs, chicken pox, hand foot and mouth - and how many days they end up having to take off or work partly from home.  I nod along sympathetically, but I can't really join in because The Kid has had maybe one day off from daycare, and one day off from school since she first started at nursery just before her first birthday.

Chicken pox swept through her daycare five or six times while she was there, and her best buddy got it.  The two of them were always hanging out head-to-head, so if she was going to get it, she should have got it that time.  But nope, nothing.  I'm vacillating between getting her vaccinated for the pox, and hoping she just has some sort of natural immunity...

The Kid has a book called "The Incredible Book-Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers (which I highly recommend) in which the eponymous character throws up (too many books).  I had to explain to her what throwing up was, because she has never done it!  Actually, that's not quite true. Just before she turned one, we got home after work/nursery one evening and as I got her out of her car seat she threw up straight down my cleavage.  She wouldn't eat that evening, threw up once more (smiling and happy all the while) and by the next day she was fine.  I, on the other hand, spent the next week flitting between bed and bathroom, more ill than I've been in my life. Thanks Kid.

When she was at Preschool she was often upset that she never got one of the coveted iceblocks (ice lollies), which were kept in the freezer for first aid purposes (fevers, tummy bugs etc - it's amazing what flavoured frozen water can cure!)  Once when I was haranguing The Kid to wash her hands after going to the toilet, and said to her "If you don't wash your hands you'll get sick, and you don't want to get sick, do you?" she replied "Yes I do, because then I'll get an iceblock at Preschool!"  Possibly not the effect they were aiming for.  The day she got stung by a wasp on an outing was possibly her best day ever because on returning to centre she convinced a teacher that a wasp sting was iceblock worthy.  When I came to pick her up she came running up to me and said "Guess what Mummy? I got stung by a mosquito and I got to have a WHOLE iceblock!"  She was clearly traumatised.

The Kid certainly doesn't get her immune system from me. I was always getting ear infections and sore throats as a child, although it improved immeasurably once I had my tonsils removed, at age 7.  At 14 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called sarcoidosis of the larynx and spent the next 15 years on steroids to control it.  That is inactive now, but has morphed into another autoimmune condition called uveitis, which affects my right eye.  Uveitis can be one-off, recur sporadically or be chronic.  Mine is chronic (yay, me!)

The Kid's Dad is obviously responsible for her robust health.  He has never been in hospital as a patient, not even when he made his first entrance to the world. He often complains that since meeting me he has spent more time in hospitals than he ever thought possible. I like to introduce people to new experiences... ;)

I do count my lucky stars, touch wood and many other cliches that I have such a healthy child.  It certainly makes the life of a working parent much easier. Speaking of cliches, "famous last words" and "tempting fate" are suddenly coming to mind... ;)

Getting comfortable in my skin again...

Way back in early January 2013 I outlined my plan for a brand new fit and trim me.  So that didn't really happen.  As you'll know if you've read last month's post "The Big News", 2013 was a year of introspection, decision making and finally some big changes.  But I was fairly despondent for a lot of the year while I figure stuff out, so it's probably not a huge surprise that the weight loss and fitness regime fell by the wayside.  It also added to my despondency - despite not really making any changes, I was upset that I seemed to be putting on weight rather than losing it!

So by September/October 2013 I was hovering around about the 70kg mark.  Not overweight for my height (according to my BMI anyway), but near the border.

In early November, when I made some decisions and embarked on major life changes, I also - suddenly and without planning - kicked myself back on the road to being comfortable in my skin.  I am not of the opinion that skinny = happy by any means, and I don't care what anyone else looks like, but for me, being 10kgs heavier than I feel like I should be meant that I really felt uncomfortable in my own body.

The Plan

I'm eat quite well - my diet tends to be rich in veggies, pulses, grains and fruit, so I'm not too worried about that side of things. However, I'm a bit of a grazer so I'm trying to take more notice of what I'm actually putting in my mouth and when (no smutty comments please!).  And trying not to snack on my daughter's leftovers!

My main issue is exercise.  What with work, commuting and studying I spend most of my time sitting, and although I do sit on a swiss ball at work, I know that so much sitting is bad for my health.  So to the plan...

Goal one - to achieve by end of 2013
My long-term aim is to get a treadmill desk. Yes, this is a thing.  The concept is that you walk, slowly, for all or most of the day, while you work on a computer, or on the phone etc.  There is a company in New Zealand who make their own version, the Health Desk, so that's what I'm looking at getting.  It's not particulalry cheap, so I'm looking into my options - if anyone wants to sponsor me, I'm happy to write you a column or be 'researched' so let me know!

Ongoing Goals
Exercise every day.  Current schedule looks like this:
- Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 1 hour walk (at least 5km)
- Tuesday, Thursday: 15mins trampoline (no backwards somersaults!)
- Saturday, Sunday: at least 1 hour walk, increasing

Since I leave the house at 7am during the week, this means I have to get up pretty early to exercise.  So far, though, today is the only day I haven't managed it.  However, as soon as I've posted this, I'm using the rest of my lunch break to walk instead, and I'll try to do something when I get home as well.  I have a calednar on my door at work, and have asked my team to challenge me if there is nothing written in for exercise on a particular day.

Now, although this plan really isn't focussed on weight loss, I do hope to get back to a more comfortable weight.  I don't think I'll ever be my pre-baby weight again, so I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

But I would like to feel comfortable in my skin again.

A short history of my weight - Part Two

Continued from previous post...

My stay in hospital (one week flat on my back, surgery, one week recovery in hospital) and subsequent at-home recovery period left me skinny to the point of looking rather gaunt (so I'm told - I don't actually remember it too well as I was on some pretty good pain killers!) but I soon got myself back to a healthy weight around 60-62 kgs.  Somewhere around this period I also became vegan (but I won't go on and on about that, I promise.  This is not that kind of blog!) and the combination of my diet and the amount of exercise I was doing dropped me down to a steady weight of around 58-60kgs.  This is not overly light, but probably the slimmest I could be, and still be healthy, given my height and frame.

I really liked the way I looked and felt during this time.  I've always been quite broad-shouldered and with a medium-sized bust (boobs? breasts? never sure which term I'm most comfortable with), and had always found it hard to find shirts that fit well and didn't gape at the button over my bust.  During this time (2006 - 2007) though, I was able to wear shirts, finally, and I fit very comfortably into size 10 clothes for the first time.  This might make me seem shallow or appearance-obsessed, but I'm not, I don't think.  Nor do I care how big or small anyone else is, and I don't subscribe to the 'perfect 10' theory. I just felt very comfortable in my skin at that size; I felt healthy and happy and in control of my appearance.  Mum came over from New Zealand in 2007 and we went on holiday to Venice and Greece - the pics from that period are some of the few of myself that I actually quite like.

Life, as it is wont to do, decided to throw an unexpected but very welcome spanner in the works, and I discovered I was pregnant in December 2007.  My husband and I were planning to have children but hadn't quite figured out when would be a good time.  Since there probably never would have been an optimal time, it just happened, and we dealt with it!  I enjoyed watching my belly grow with my baby, although I did feel a little wistful at saying goodbye to the waistline I had worked so hard for...

Ember, our daughter, was born on 10 August 2008, after a long induced labour (a story for another time!) and is now four, and our only child.  I breastfed her for 18 months (at which point she weaned herself) and while this did help shed some of the pregnancy pounds, I've never gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight.

At present I work full-time, with a 45 minute commute each way to work (it's worth it for where we live though).  My job is desk-based, and I am studying part time, so by far the greatest part of my day is spent sitting.  I am vegan again (after a wee regression back to vegetarianism when Ember was born) but find I am more likely to eat junk than I was before, and doing much less exercise, so it's hardly surprising that my weight has crept back up to almost 70kgs.

And so to the present.  I have resolved to improve my health, my fitness and my lifestyle generally.  I have plans and ways to keep myself motivated, and I hope that by putting it out publicly, I will be able to guilt myself into keeping to my resolutions if my willpower fails.

Next post - the details of my plan.  :)

A short history of my weight - Part One

Like many people, or at least many women, I've had a variable relationship with my weight.  I've never really been over weight, but I've certainly been at both extremes of my healthy BMI range.  And yes, I know it's actually mass, not weight, that I'm talking about, but "A short history of my mass" made me sound too much like a priest... Anyway.

I was never one of those skinny kids, but through primary school I was fine.  My family ate pretty well at home and my friends and I spent most lunchtimes at school running around, climbing trees and swinging on the monkey bars.  When I went to high school, age 13, suddenly running around wasn't cool anymore and my new group of friends spent most lunchtimes just hanging around in the quad.  Although my school did have compulsory PE (gym) for the first two years of high school, we girls used to get out of it as much as possible (we considered sweat to be unattractive, and god forbid we looked unattractive!), and I wasn't doing any formal sport or exercise outside of school.

I got to my heaviest at age 14, around 70 kgs.  My Dad was quite overweight, and had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a couple of years before.  He didn't do a lot of exercise, and loved things like fry-up breakfasts, roast dinners, pancakes and ice-cream.  He used to cook for everyone, and it was hard to say no when a plate of food was put in front of me.  We knew he wasn't healthy, but it was still a huge shock when he died suddenly of a heart attack in July of that year (1994), a couple of months after his 49th birthday.

Mum and I made some fairly major lifestyle changes after that, particularly in relation to our diet.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was also in the early stages of developing an auto-immune condition (later diagnosed as sarcoidosis of the larynx), one of the symptoms of which was drastic weight loss.   Within less than a year I went from 70kgs to around 55kgs, without much effort on my part.  With the naivety and obliviousness of youth, I was thrilled!  Naturally though, my family and teachers were somewhat concerned, and I was constantly being sent to doctors and counsellors.  Eventually a paediatrician sent me for x-rays, which led to a CT scan, which led to a two-week hospital stay while they tried to diagnose me.

Once they figured out what was going on, I was put on massive doses of cortisone steroids - and anyone with experience of these will know that one of the most common symptoms is weight gain, and what they call a 'moon face' effect. Thankfully, I escaped this, and my weight simply climbed back to somewhere in the middle of my BMI range.  Despite still not doing a lot of formal exercise, apart from the odd aerobics class, I stayed around the middle of the range for the next few years, even managing to lose a little weight in my first year of university, when most girls put on the 'fresher 14' (14 pounds).  First year uni was also my first foray into vegetarianism, mostly because the food was slightly better (apart from the deep-fried crumbed tofu blocks, which were served still frozen in the middle! *shudder*).

Flash forward a few years to 2006.  I was married, living in London, walking everywhere, taking circus classes and going to the gym.  I was the fittest I have probably ever been, and sitting comfortably at around 62 kgs. Then I landed badly (very badly) during a trampoline routine and broke my back.  Yes, for real.  I crushed my lumbar one vertebrae, and ended up in hospital for two weeks. The food was terrible, and without going into the gory details, when you are stuck flat on your back for seven days, you don't want to put too much in, as you really don't want to deal with how it gets out again...

TO BE CONTINUED...