Sleep, Bike, Eat, Work

Not necessarily in that order.... Since finishing my Masters, I have found things a bit liberating so to speak. I can actually concentrate on riding my bike. For some that will sound weird, just go and ride. However, with responsibilities it doesn't always go that way. I was amazed at how school was such a limiting factor.

About a month ago I switched to my previous Endocrinologist, Dr. Barnett in Chandler. I was seeing him when I had no insurance and paying fees out of pocket. I didn't mind because we had intelligent conversations about my care, and would work as a team to try things in order to improve. When I was working as a teacher I finally got insurance. In 2013, it was time for me to do a five year scan to see the status of my cancer. The problem was Dr. Barnett was not the right doctor for these scans and evaluations.

I had to switch doctors. So I switched, and for simplicity stayed with her after the scans. I was happy that I was clear, and thought that my meds were ok, but nothing great. It did get to the point that I was being treated solely based upon my blood work, and I hate that. It takes little into account in how I feel, my exercise performance and a list of reasons beyond that.

I switched back to Dr. Barnett. I was feeling so bad in February I simply stopped taking what was my previous doses, and started putting on weight like crazy. Mind you I wasn't feeling any better. On my first visit we decided to try something different, that we had not tried before, and that my previous Endo would never consider. We designed a dosage of Naturethroid and synthetic Synthroid. Standard Endo's normally prescribe just Synthroid to someone like me. They feel if the body is working correctly, that it will strip the T4 Synthroid down to T3, T2 and T1. Mine will to some effect, perhaps not super efficiently though.

Naturethroid is a natural desiccated thyroid, meaning that it has naturally occurring levels of T4, T3, T2 and T1. This is the best I have felt in a very long time, years in fact. My testosterone seems to be working better (a factor of the T1 availability). Through this week I have been trying to ride and lose weight. I am actually able to lose weight without a supreme struggle. Now this is not to say that I have a normal life and diet, far from that, but I have finally found something working for the time being.

A few weeks ago I was at 230 pounds, and felt that I couldn't do much about it. Short of fully starving, not much was slowing down my weight gain. This week I have been progressing down, and probably will be around 220, maybe lower on Sunday. I was about to hit 222 today in fact. This week has finally showed me that I was never in a reasonable balance with my meds for way over 5 years, I was fooling myself when I felt ok.

I was listening to the Dr. Drew Podcast that had Bald Bryan (Bryan Bishop) as a guest. Bryan works on the different podcasts and radio shows of Adam Carolla. He recently went through a type of brain cancer, and has written a book that I want to buy and read. While we have different cancers, he advocated one great thing: you have to seek out the best care for yourself. He had to switch doctors, and it wasn't a case of being told what he wanted to hear, but to find someone to work as a team with. In his case, he was able to find one of the best doctors in the world in Los Angeles to help him. I agree with Bryan, you have to do what is right for you, find the best, find someone that works with you. It is your life, and you have to Come Back from Cancer on your terms.

Getting back into the swing of things

Last week I rode three times for 91 miles. Not much, but it was a start. I rode a few times in the morning, and did the Saturday ride. I know I need more riding for sure. My goal this week is to ride every day. I rode Monday so far, a few miles in the evening. When I woke up this morning, the wind was gusting pretty badly, and I didn't think I would get much out of riding. I should have went anyways. I guess I am spoiled in AZ with light winds and decent weather year round. If I was in Kansas, there is nothing but wind. I hope to ride twice on Tuesday. About an hour or so in the morning and then an hour in the evening at the Underground Crit. But I realized something today. I am not training right now. I am not in good enough shape, nor do I have my weight down to actually train. With that, I need to enjoy riding and not put pressure on myself. I need to get my 200 miles per week in, watch my weight drop, and have fun. I am not going to get anything out of doing intervals, or something special. I need to save that for a few months from now when 50 mile rides are easy. Then I can actually start being productive on the bike. I wonder if I can get this thin again? 145 pounds?

My body is confused

I am a frequent reader of Steve Tilford's blog. I know I am out of shape, but I feel envious, especially today, when he laments about feeling off and then riding himself into feeling good. I had the opposite happen this morning, and now here at work, I feel worse. I started off pretty well. It was cool out this morning, if just below 60 is cool. It is for Phoenix. I was warming up reasonably well, and holding a decent cadence in the small ring, even uphill. Got out to the first hill on my weekday route that gets me around 25 miles total, and then things went downhill from there. I know I am struggling from lack of fitness and being grossly overweight. My body is confused. It seems to love being out and riding, but is tearing itself up in the process. So now I sit here writing, about 4 hours post ride, and I am a bit tired, and some muscle aches. I also wish that I rode myself into feeling better, but with the wind, and not enough endurance, that is not going to happen. Oh well, I now able to focus solely on riding, and getting back into shape. I have a very long road ahead of me. No big deal, one focus and all that.

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.

More progress

Trying to find positive to build on is difficult for some. Without having an inventory of yourself available, and in constant use, seeing improvement is not the easiest thing. I try to advocate really paying attention to your body, as well as other environmental aspects so that you can judge any number of things as you try to make yourself better.

In the last couple of weeks, I have changed dosages after having spoke with another athlete. I made a case with my doctor, and we adjusted upwards, and have had great results. My heart rates have changed, and moved closer to what I used to experience. A good 10 beat drop overall has been experienced, and my resting HR is moving down. This is quite helpful, and could be seen in last weeks rides. Strava was showing that last Sunday was super fast, perhaps fastest in a couple of years. I was able to stay on, have activity, be in the sprint, and not get into trouble.

Another change was to increase my testosterone. I am not sure where I am at currently, but with mild therapy I was at the bottom of the normal scale. With a bit more of a boost, I should get just above the bottom of the scale. Currently, I am seeing faster recovery. Several times I have tried injections, but had no real results that could be noticed. With my current program, I am actually seeing results that can be documented.

Having ridden over 110 miles this past weekend on two group rides, with some decent efforts, I can see that things are going in the right direction for me. Having a national champion on the ride, as well as other strong riders proved that it was no fluke in speed and quality. I was scared for a bit this year that I couldn't come back. I am now seeing otherwise, and have a chance of being competitive.