Fat Girl Gets Fit

I’ve never really had regular periods.  In fact, until this morning, I hadn’t had one since last October.  Yes, that’s 11 months without a period.  I’d been to several doctors in the past about it, and they had various explanations for it, but no real answers.

It wasn’t until 2007, when I lost somewhere in the realm of 50 to 70 pounds that I made the connection between my weight and the regularity, or lack of, my periods.  Prior to that, I would go months without having a period, and when I had them, they were very light, three-day things.  Barely noticeable at times.

The doctors always passed it off as hormonal.  I’d even asked them if it was my weight, and most of them just brushed that off.  They knew plenty of women way bigger than me who had regular periods.

But ultimately, it is my weight.

I’ve been waiting the last few months of this weight loss journey to see how much I’d have to lose before I started, and how much I’d have to lose before they started to get regular.  I now know how much I have to lose to start.  I’m 212 right now, and have been stuck there for a few days.  I started this morning.  Which makes me feel better about being stuck at 212, because that means when I’m done with this one, I’ll probably weigh a little bit less.

It was finally starting, after 11 months, that reminded me to write this post.  Most people don’t necessarily make the association between weight and fertility, between being obese and not having regular periods, but there is actually a strong connection.

When your fat, your body goes funky.  Period.  You start to produce all sorts of funky hormones, and stop producing other ones.  This combination leads to a state where the body either A) thinks it’s already pregnant, and therefore doesn’t ovulate and doesn’t menstruate or B) decides it’s not healthy enough for pregnancy, and therefore doesn’t ovulate and doesn’t menstruate.  And it’s not really an issue that doctors emphasize when talking about obesity.

The weight at which a woman’s periods will go wonky differs from person to person.  Until today, I couldn’t really tell you what the weight was for me.  In 2007, when I lost a bunch of weight, I had no idea how much I weighed.  I knew that as I was losing weight, my periods were getting more and more regular.  I went from one every 6 months or more to one every 45 days, and that 45 day gap got smaller and smaller and smaller as I lost more and more weight.  Then I started gaining weight back, that gap got bigger and bigger, until finally, last October I had my last period.

I’ve been waiting to see when it would start again.  Because a regular period is a sign of health, and a definite sign of progress in the weight loss department.  It’s just another of those signs, like the scale and the loose pants, that I’m heading in the right direction.

Associated with the lack of ovulation and menstruation are fertility issues.  For years, my then husband and I tried to have a baby, but it just wasn’t happening.  He was convinced it was him; he’d never had a child before.  But I was pretty sure it was me.  When he later had an affair with my best friend and got her pregnant, that pretty much confirmed that theory.  She’s now pregnant with their second child, so it definitely was not an issue with him LOL

I’ve seen many women who are overweight struggle with fertility.  My ex-husband’s brother and his wife have struggled with it because of her weight.  At 5′10″ tall, she weighs over 375 pounds.  She has regular periods, but still cannot get pregnant.  And they’ve tried multiple fertility treatments to no avail.  Until she loses weight, she won’t have a baby, because a fat body is a body full of mixed up hormones.

Fat cells are the bodies storehouse.  They don’t store just fat; they store hormones and other chemicals.  Too much of any particular hormone sends the body’s delicate balance totally off-whack and funky things start to happen.  That’s what diabetes is.  The body’s regulation of the chemical insulin totally thrown out of whack.  Lose the fat, and you lose the excess chemicals stored with the fat.  Your body starts to regulate.  You get healthier.

3 Responses to “Obesity, regularity, and fertility”

Leave a Reply