Trouble with weight loss

Hello,

I’m a woman in my early 40s and have always struggled to lose weight. I have thalassemia minor. I am not overweight but my fat has always been, and more so now, disproportionately in my mid-section while my arms and legs are skinny. I have been trying desperately to reduce my tummy with cardio and weights (5-6 times a week) and dieting, even increasing it over the past two months with little success. I’ve researched all the areas where I might be lacking and still have no results. I do have a tendency towards being a couch potato but force myself to be active during the day.

My sister, who also has thalassemia minor, was told by her doctor that people with this condition have slow metabolism. I’ve never been told this by my own doctor and even discussed my problem with weight loss with her and she informed me it had nothing to do with thalassemia minor and proceeded to test my thyroid and run other tests which were negative.

I’m wondering if anyone else has this problem. Any thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Dax,

That's the first time I've heard this from thal minors, but it may just not have come up. I have heard it and observed it quite a bit in thal major women and have never heard an explanation for the thick midsection.

I'd love to hear any explanations for it that any members may have.

Very  interesting to hear it Dax . If I stop and think about my childhood and all my life I see exactly what you are talking about . I'm also a 39 year old woman, alpha thal minor two delections one from each parent .As a child I always had a not proportional Waist line for the rest of my body I  was always active ,between 15 to 18 It stopped to be  so prominent but I even developed an eating disorder( anorexia)  because I always felt fat  even when I weight 49 kg in a body of 5'8" I never seen my mid section flawless like in other women. After bearing children it got worst cause my abdominal muscles are not strong since early age so I developed  a gap between my abdominal muscles that I have been fighting to correct using girdles ,but my baby is already 5 years old and I still fighting to close it naturally without a corrective surgery that is too expensive and actually dangerous.sometimes looks like is a matter of being bloated some days looks better but looks like if we get any weight just goes on this mid section even if you are active . I never though this could be related somehow to the thallassemia  but it makes sense to gear it. I never discussed if with my thal doctor . What I have been treating for the last 9 months also is adrenal fatigue that is quimical imbalance  of the body I didn't have hormones working properly on my body and my body was shutting down last September so I saw the one of the causes for not loosing my fat midsection was adrenal fatigue also . I will bring it up with my doctor .thanks for pointing this here .

My legs and arms have always been thin but I have had a tummy most of my life even as a thin child. I don't know if it's related could just be a coincidence. Not sure

Yeap Laila83, would be nice to be a coincidence ..but once we lack studies about it and I'm not sure when our Medical doctors will have a deepest interest on people like us we will take a little while to get our answers.

I think at least part of the problem is that activity can be so darned hard.

Early in life I discovered lifting and it's been a godsend for keeping the fat off and the muscle on. Sprinting, too, when younger - in the water and on land. But any form of aerobic exercise is just a complete bust.

My resting heart rate is low 50s (age 45 this year), which fools doctors and friends into thinking I'm really fit. Of course I'm not. It's just that thal minor bradycardic thing. I can't explain how wretched it is to try any form of long-slow exercise, knowing that nomatter how carefully you train, you are never going to adapt like your haematypical* friends. The nausea and slow heart rate recovery this week, will be the same in 6 weeks when everyone else is doing their first 10k. Bleah.

*haematypical I'm proud to have just invented. You're welcome.
 

That is a nice term. And understanding your limits is essential. What people don't understand about thal minors is that it's as if they're running on only half a tank of really low octane gasoline.

Andy,

Thank you for saying that. Recently I have been struggling with low energy - and I'm feeling very disappointed with myself. It's a good reminder for us thals to be a little easier on ourselves. 

Sharmin

Yes, they don't understand it and that's a problem – especially in a work environment. All the people I have been working with so far have only seen a not-so-thin 6'2" male and just assumed that guy was pretty lazy...

Ahhh...this is one of the threads on the site that I can most relate to.

I am the typical thal minor shape with skinny arms and calves but a huge midsection that never shifts. Plus I have Indian heritage so I guess that's quite a stereotypical Indian look!

I would love to know what is going on in my midsection from a medical point of view, because no kind of exercise at all ever shifts this fat.

And I totally relate to the metaphor of running on half a tank of gasoline. And have gone through a lifetime of people assuming I'm in some way stupid or lazy because of that. I did once manage to do the parkrun 5k, (feel very proud of myself for that!) but had to put up with coming last, and that this will probably not change however much I train.

But, my dear fellow thals, what can we do about this? Apart from eating/drinking lots of ginger and trying to rev the metabolism, and generally keeping active? I feel that I have tried everything, and still the same symptoms...