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| Sasha and his personal pizza on our last day in Milano- it has a very thin crust but yes, it's big and yes, he ate the whole thing (minus one piece he gave to his dad)! How does someone with HO eat this much and still lose weight?? |
We just returned from a 2 week holiday in Italy and Switzerland. I could tell by the timing of the holiday that Sasha's oxytocin would expire in the middle of the trip and I didn't want to order more in advance of our trip. I decided that he would just either use expired oxytocin or he would stop using it and it would be a convenient time to do another week-long drug holiday from oxytocin (our second one; the first one occurred in April after he his weight started climbing rapidly). We ended up using expired oxytocin (expired on June 28) until about July 4 and then we just stopped it.
We also decided that we would be less restrictive about food during our trip- usually, we follow a low~ish carb lifestyle and avoid eating processed sugary foods and eat a minimal to modest amount of breads, pastas, starchy vegetables, rice, etc. We knew that we would be walking a lot and hoped that the extra exercise would help compensate for the high carb, fat, and calories that we knew we would be consuming.
When we started the trip on June 27, Sasha weighed 84.5 kg (184 cm tall). After two weeks on our trip, Sasha today (July 11) weighs 81.6 kg. This is not "water weight" because we calculate his weight based on Na level at 140 (the average WNL level for sodium). On our trip, we enjoyed three full meals a day and minimal snacking. We loved the delicious cuisine of Italy (for example, pizza, pasta, breads, gelato) and Switzerland (Rösti, sausages, cheese, chocolate). We didn't go crazy but we definitely ate foods that we would not have eaten at home. Our rule was to limit our dessert eating to only once a day (a chocolate or gelato a day keeps the doctor away!)
We also walked all day long, averaging 12 km (7 miles) per day. I was very pleased that Sasha was able to tolerate the heat (he wore a cooling vest and carried around a spray bottle) and was able to keep up with the vigorous pace of our tourist itinerary. Some families take vacations to rest and relax; we are definitely not that kind of family!
Losing nearly 3 kg (6.5 pounds) is a significant amount of weight to lose in a two week period of time in general and even more significant considering he was eating high carbohydrate, high fat, and high calorie foods through Italy and Switzerland. As far as the rest of us, I can't comment with any precision since I did not pay attention to my weight before or after the trip but I don't believe I lost or gained weight as my clothes are fitting me the same now as they did before the trip.
It's hard to say what exactly caused the weight loss but here are my speculations:
1. The amount of daily walking exercise helped Sasha burn the calories he was ingesting to help him lose weight.
2. In spite of eating higher carb foods, we did not snack much on the trip. At home, Sasha has free access to the snack cabinet and I believe he indulges in more regular snacking (usually nuts, cheese, salami).
3. Pausing the oxytocin may have also contributed to the weight loss. It's possible that chronic oxytocin treatment is optimized when there are drug holidays so that the receptors have a chance to "rest".
4. We increased his T4 just before leaving for vacation so that his T4 would be in a more optimal (top third) range since he was gaining weight and his T4 came in low at his last check up.
He just restarted a new batch of 6 iu oxytocin today so we will see what happens going forward. Of course, it will be difficult to know if any weight or appetite changes we detect now will be due to adding back oxytocin, exercising less than we did while on vacation, resuming his usual snacking, or some other factor that I have not yet considered. For now, we will resume our usual regimen (6 iu of oxytocin/day) and lowish carb food plan. We believe that Sasha is at a healthy weight and that weight loss is not the goal; rather, we would like to see him maintain his current weight by increasing his exercise and perhaps even be able to enjoy more pasta and pizza provided that he sticks to a healthy weight.
