Do you remember those paint by number things? All you had to do was stay in the lines and you could create something that looked like you had mad (albeit uninspired) painting skills. I used to really eat those things up. Um… not in an “I have pica” sort of way… I loved to pretend that I painted those things all from the genius that is my imagination. Never mind the kit sitting in the garbage.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

This post has absolutely nothing to do with those, I just wanted a creative title and it reminded me of that story.

Last week I had a battery of blood tests done because I had hit my 50lbs lost and wanted to make sure that all was well with my body. Last night I got the results to those tests and felt a definite sense of smug satisfaction.

Any overweight ladies and gentlemen will get this 100% I’m sure.

When I go in to a doctor’s office for anything and they take my blood pressure and pulse they are always surprised. They’re surprised because my blood pressure is in the normal to low range and my pulse sits right around 60-65. The “Oh! That’s good!” following the measurement is meant to be encouraging, I’m sure, but it’s actually just annoying. They’re telling me what I already know. I’m wholly unsurprised.

So, I smile and pretend that they didn’t just stereotype me into the “she’s fat so she must be unhealthy” category.

I certainly concede that I’m not yet the picture of health and I still have a lot of work to do, but with the exception of my weight, things are pretty snazzy.

These blood tests, though, were like an extension of this annoyance. My doctor tested for a number of things that he expected to be out of whack. When I told him that I was having trouble sleeping, he attributed it to the possibility of sleep apnea when I clearly knew that it was because of anxiety. The basic idea here was that he thought I didn’t have a clue about what was going on with my body and wanted to blame weight for issues that were not due to weight.

So, when I opened the letter with my lab results, I let out a loud “Boo-ya Motherfucker!” (In front of my family… oops). Why? I have completely normal cholesterol levels, glucose levels, and thyroid function. Win for the fat girl.

On the other hand, I do have extremely low levels of Iron and Vitamin D. That explains a lot of the extreme fatigue and soreness I’ve been feeling over the last few months. Clearly I need to embrace the ways of my half Native American heritage and start hunting wild buffalo. Just kidding, my tribe was a fishing tribe. In northern Maine I don’t think they ever even saw buffalo.

Actually, I’m going to be taking a massive prescription dose of both for the next twelve weeks. I hope that at the end of that time I will be feeling (physically) normal again.

I also hope that I can still poop after all the iron.

That’s a different story.

Papaya enzymes are really helpful for that by the way.

If I’m walking funny I’ll tell my mother it’s because of the iron.

See, this will be helpful in more than one way.