Making progress

I finally spent a little time on the bike today. This last week didn't go quite as planned. I was still feeling tired, so there were several days that after work I came home and crashed instead of riding. Since my scan I have lost 11 pounds. I am averaging 5 pounds a week coming off, and I really can't complain much about that. I hope I can do much the same this week, and get somewhere close to 210. I have my diet pretty dialed, and no soda or excess sugar is really helping out. If I can start burning extra calories, I know some good will happen. I also know I was quite bloated going into my scan to drop so much weight. I gave my endocrinologist paperwork so I can get a TUE or therapeutic use exemption. All of the drugs I take are on the banned list. I take Synthroid, Cytomel and Testosterone. I have zero thyroid producing tissue in my body, thus the need for Synthroid and Cytomel for replacement. My total testosterone sits at 100 and many times below it. I am not sure what happened to me, but I got the double whammy of cancer and major low testosterone. When injected, my total testosterone hits around 500-600. It isn't like I am getting some massive amount and have an unfair advantage. I will try two days of training in a row tomorrow. It is all just a big experiment in how much I can take, and how fast I snap back from efforts. I really hope I can keep cutting weight. I really would love it to be easy to get below 200, then I can focus on taking the rest of my weight off slowly over the next 6 months or so. I would love a pound or two per week once below 200.

Day 1 of training

After finishing my last blood test this morning, I was able to take my meds again, and actually see clearly about an hour afterwards. I had been having so many troubles from being off of Thyroid meds, that it had even affected my vision. It is weird to notice that your vision clears up and becomes vivid again. It is nearly like getting new glasses. Late this afternoon I was able to get out on my bike in the warm sun. It was around 80 degrees so I threw on my new kit, helmet and glasses and put in an hour. I had ridden on January 10th a little bit, but today was my first real riding. I actually felt reasonable considering. I focused on spinning, since I need to get my pedal stroke back and become efficient there. I also will gain fitness faster spinning than trying to hammer with power at this moment. With having no thyroid activity, or replacement at all for the last two months my weight went all the way up to 225-227. There was nothing I could really do about that. On Friday everything was so bad that my eyes were nearly swollen shut from retaining so much water. My hands barely worked. It sounds like I am complaining, I really am not, more explaining what it is like to go through something like this. It is not massively painful like a wound, but the aches and pains from nearly every part of the body sure do get your attention. It will take a couple of weeks taking my normal meds to get stabilized again. I will be able to recover from workouts, so that my muscles won't ache as if I did 3 hours hard and in reality I just spun an hour. My heart rate is suppressed at the moment, so my max is very very low, around 160. My normal max is around 200-202 even at my 44 year old age. When my weight comes down fully, and training pays off, I should be able to get to a reasonable VO2max and have great power output yet again. I just have to get there and be patient. I think that is positive, and I appreciate the genetics more now that my mom and dad gave me.

Starting 2013 the right way

I know this has happened several times before. The starting over, or restarting, or whatever to call it. 1/21/13 will be my true start back. On 1/18/13 I had the scan that should have occurred a few years ago that would have cleared me, and proven that Thyroid Cancer was fairly unlikely to happen for the rest of my life. I had been living under a bit of a cloud for the last few years. Since my surgery, I had lost my job, and had no insurance for quite a while. Since I changed vocations and became a teacher, I was able to finally become insured, and with that I planned out late last year into right now to do a radio-iodine pet scan which proves the amount of thyroid tissue left in my body, particularly in the neck area where the vast majority resides. It is weird in that for a long time I really never knew what my status was, I just took my thyroid medications and hoped for the best. I had tried a few come backs, but without knowing, and also having some medical issues that I tried several doctors with, I found only difficulties, and no solutions. I am now set with better doctors, and I am confident that I can get everything correct now. I have the ball rolling in the correct direction as it were. The last two months, from November 2012 to January 2013 were difficult. Getting ready to scan, coming off my medications, and trying to live a normal life was difficult. I got to the point that I could not even see clearly. This morning was awesome, after two days back on the drugs, I was starting to see better! I could concentrate again, and my brain was working a bit better as well. I have a long way to go. In the last month a bunch of weight packed on for me and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. My hands are swollen so badly right now. My face is so puffy that I look like an alcoholic. In the next few weeks I expect 10-20 pounds to come off with much of it being water weight. Then I have the challenge of trying to drop my weight into the 180 range which will be the lightest I have been post cancer. I hope to be there by April, and with that I should start to become competitive racing. This summer I will work to get my weight down even further. I will get back to a 150 range where I belong, and with that become nationally competitive again. That is my goal.