I emptied my wardrobes and drawers a while ago, but today I've finally bitten the bullet and packed up all the clothes I'm donating to charity. It's taken several hours of folding and sorting.
I've kept some nicer items back for when I get around to listing them on Vinted, but the rest are ready to go tomorrow.
My car is full to the brim...
I was so excited today as I'd finally booked an appointment to donate blood.
This is a long story, but I want you to know why I was so excited today.
I used to go regularly back in my university days and enjoyed doing something that helped others.
However, in my early 20s (back in the 1990s) I was having awful trouble with my monthlies and I was soon diagnosed with PCOS, endometriosis, adenomyosis and fibroids.
My periods were so bad that almost all of my attempts to donate blood would have to be abandoned after the copper sulphate test as I was too low on iron.
Eventually the blood transfusion service wrote me a letter saying I could no longer donate until things changed significantly.
Roll on to 2005 and I had a full hysterectomy as it was the only way to deal with all my gynae issues. Once I had recovered I got back in contact with the transfusion service and they signed me back up.
However, my weight had ballooned after the surgery thanks to the ensuing surgical menopause. This created a new problem in that they would really struggle to find a vein... If they did find one deep in my arms the vein would fail after just a few mils of blood has been retrieved.
For the next 20 years all blood tests had to be done by my GP using a butterfly needle (the one designed for babies) inserted into a vein on the inside of my right wrist.
As you can imagine I soon got another letter saying thanks but no thanks as you're too difficult to bleed.
For the last 6 months, the nurses at my GP practice have had no issues getting blood thanks to the weight loss 😁
So a month ago I contacted the blood transfusion service again. Today was my first appointment in many years.
After the medical questionnaire it comes time for the dreaded copper sulphate test... But in a repeat of the 1990s experience, my blood drop refused to sink.
Things have at least moved on technology-wise and so they agreed to take a small veinous sample which they can test with a new handheld system.
I'm feeling fairly confident as I had my FBC done at the end of April and my hemoglobin level was 138. For a female to donate you need your haemoglobin > 125... But mine comes back at 110, so it's dropped by 28 in just 3 months.
A nurse is called over who discusses my results, apologizes and hands me a form that bans me from donating for a year. 😭
He also recommended that I contact my GP on Monday for a few months of iron supplements and an investigation into my levels as he says that's a large drop in 3 months, especially given I'm 20 years post menopause!
So my long awaited NSV was an abject failure and I'm so fed up with my body being difficult.
I guess there's nothing anyone can do, still if you read all this I thank you. I just needed to offload it somewhere as I had been so excited.
Edited to change reference to "iron level" to the correction of "haemoglobin level" for accuracy!
Lesson to self, don't write posts when your half asleep.
Thanks to those that pointed this out.
News story today: from next year the NHS is proposing to give shopping vouchers to people who walk "a marathon a month', they reckon it will be around 30 minutes daily over a month so approximately 26 miles a month.
So I started on this wondrous drug in May 2025.
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At that point I weighed 112.6kg and my body fat was 48.8%
Literally almost half of me was fat 😞
Today I've had my latest review at my gym (they're every 6 weeks) and my PT looks at the results from the fancy scales he uses and suddenly gets this serious look on his face...
He then says, "You're doing brilliantly, but I need to flag your body fat percentage..."
Before he gets to finish the sentence my brain is already completing it for him with how fat I still am and how I'm honestly trying my best and how I do feel I'm not getting great results anymore etc...
You've just gotta love it when you've got a brain that runs at a million miles per hour straight to all the negatives.
Anyway, he realizes I'm spiralling and as he knows about my Autism and how to work with me, he gently grabs my arm and guides me back to the chair to settle me down.
He then says,
"I need to flag it because it's now 20% and for a female over 50 you shouldn't drop any lower!"
My visceral fat is also sitting happily at 6% and I've gained muscle.
So for the first time in my life I'm being told to not drop much more weight 🤣🤣🤣
Yet still my brain turned everything into a negative...
Sorry I can't find a suitable flair.
Can I make a small request to those that still quickly jump to advising people to stop their dose by counting clicks.
I'm absolutely mindful that you're doing this from a place of good intentions.
However, for those unwell enough to get this from the NHS for weight loss or who need it for their diabetes, advising them to count clicks puts them at direct risk of having their medication removed.
I absolutely get that at a guesstimate 95% of folks here sadly need to pay given the extremely high bar the NHS has set. But that does give you the freedom to choose how to use the medication.
So far we've already seen that the NHS has:
Refused people a dose over 5mg purely on cost,
Refused to up doses of glycemic control is good even though people are not losing weight (on the diabetic protocol)
Withdraw the medication once at a healthy BMI (as currently there's no maintenance protocol).
Just as many online providers don't condone click dosing, as it's off label, the NHS has the same ruling but is more likely to act punitively under the guise of safeguarding.
If someone mentions that their GP increased the dose, please assume that means the poster is on one of the NHS protocols.
Again, **I absolutely know you're advising from a place of empathy and concern**, but the bigger picture is important too.