brownblonde
1 year, 10 weeks post op
Aug 03, 2011
Loss this week: -1lb.Total loss: -120.8lbs.
A couple weeks ago my scale jumped WAY up--like 4-6lbs. in the time of a couple days. Then it started coming down last week, and on Saturday this week I think I was finally back to breaking even. And finally by today I had lost more weight! I do definitely get the feeling that my weightloss has come off cruise control. Now I'm trying to decide what to do about it. I've gone through so many changes over the past 62 weeks and I'm kinda tired of focusing on my weight. I am lucky in that I've had to do very little to really change my eating. I eat very healthily and I've continued to do so, just about 1/4 portions. I have not added exercise and I know that will be a MUST. But I honestly think I can probably keep doing what I'm doing and maintain this weight. Now, that is NOT what I want to do. I want to lose about another 30lbs. max. But I'm growing tired of the process. I'm torn between being satisfied for now and really digging in later, or if later will be too late and I need to keep whatever momentum I have.
So I know you all have missed my ramblings. Well, at least one of you. So I had some more thoughts. When they come up I have to go with them, no matter how verbose I feel afterward :)
LIMITLESS & WARP SPEED:
I just watched the movie Limitless last night. If you have not seen it, maybe you'll recall the story: What if you could tap into all of your brain's potential instead of just the 2% or whatever it is that they theorize we actually use. What if everything you ever saw or heard or learned could be sorted and become available to you when you needed it? You'd be pretty damned smart, that's what! And Bradley Cooper basically lives this Warp Speed life. And it's easy for him to get in over his head. I can sometimes feel like this after WLS. Too much information, too much living, too fast. Is this because I'm younger? Is there some personality trait I have that makes me more apt to experience this? So much of the world felt, at the very least, closed off to me before. Now the flood gates have been opened. Will the levees hold? I can see how people can go a little crazy after surgery. Possibilities begat choices and obstacles and complications. Sometimes I wish life would slow back down for just a second to catch my breath. But then as soon as it slows down, I'm saddened that it's not as fast as it usually is. I also get transfer addiction and how it could be an easy slip. If nothing else, it's fun to go out and party now. And beyond that, I'm thinking there is more control in our loss of control addictions. I can also see how marriages might suffer. We are changing. Very, very rapidly. I think people underestimate what a change WLS really is. I remember asking that before I had the surgery and people mostly stuck with the politically correct answer of "you are still you." Was I really who I was before? Did I act the way I WANTED to act? COULD I act the way I wanted to? No, it was a facade. It had to be. I couldn't be an uninhibited fun girl with the 120lbs. Ain't gonna happen. Now I can be who I want to be. But after years of acting out that part I knew by heart, and now changing so quickly, it's hard for me to know who that is, much less expect someone else to get that. I think patience would have to be the key to these serious relationships in our lives. What doesn't work, I don't believe, is just loving the old person. That person's gone. I killed her because she was killing me. I don't want you to love her. I am over her. I moved beyond her. I GREW. I want you to love me. I made the choice to better myself and I know people are trying to be sweet when they say something like "I loved the old you." But it doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy. It sometimes makes me feel like you had undersold me. You had lower expectations for me. Note: this is all very in general
Onto issue number two:
BITTERNESS:
Maybe this blog should be called DIARY OF A MAD FORMERLY FAT WOMAN. I know bitterness is not good. And yet I don't know how to move past it. You will find that along with all the great new experiences you have as a thin (er) person, comes the bittersweet feeling of all that you'd missed. Some of you may have been thin at some point in your life. I was not. I was shrouded by weight and the emotions that went along with that. My identity was established as a fat child--and let me tell you kids are no jewels when it comes to bolstering your self esteem. That being said, in many ways I'm grateful. Because of my fat upbringing I learned to be content with myself in a lot of other ways. I knew I'd have to be my own best playmate and friend and so I poured myself into music and politics and economics, etc. I like all those aspects about myself. But I still wonder about the things I would have done if I could have. I wanted to be on the pom squad so bad I can still feel it in the pit of my stomach. There was no way. Closest I ever got was probably when I took dance lessons in the 9th grade and weighed about 190--pretty low for me! I still think about those dances, the pep rallies, the football games and cringe that was never and will never be a part of my story. EVER. NEVER. And it makes me very sad all those similar experiences I lost out on. For one main reason. One horribly unfair reason that I worked for YEARS to resolve. It wasn't for lack of effort or desire. Though I certainly have been on the receiving end of much of the blame the victim campaign. Even now I'll see friends who cheer for some silly arena football team or something and wish I could do it. Yeah, ha. No experience, stretch marks, cellulite. Fat chance. Similarly, I think about college. My first semester I went away to school. I went through sorority rush, lived in the dorms, the whole shebang. I *knew* how it would end up for me. I just knew it. But I hoped against all odds I'd be wrong just once. All those highschool teachers who'd promised college would be a whole new world. Well, it wasn't. And the worst part is I know for fact what a difference my weight would have made. I can remember going through rush. Good grades, bright girl, extra curriculars, legacies. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Almost every one of them. I'm not saying weight was my only flaw and now I'm god-like. But for anyone to sit there with a straight face and suggest to me that nearly all of those sororities made that determination not on the basis of weight? Well you're from a different world. I've always commented that if I didn't like people now who didn't like me before that I wouldn't like anyone. Ok, so that's a gross over-exaggeration. But you get the idea. I do have a hard time coming to terms with how much easier life is now. How much nicer people are. And for what? Because my clothing size is smaller?! Sure, I act a little differently, but which came first the chicken or the egg? I acted differently before because I was treated differently, not the reverse order! I'm mad that people suddenly want to hang out with me or date me. Try carrying on a conversation with my -120. Ain't gonna happen because it means nothing. You're taking me out--that same someone you passed over at rush or evaded at a bar. I made the decision to have surgery not for health reasons: I was pretty much a clean bill of health. I made the decision to have surgery not because I thought I'd look better. I made the decision to have surgery because I knew the rules of the game in this world. I HATE THEM. I DETEST THEM. But I knew them. And at the end of the day I knew I couldn't change the world. So I could choose to carry this cause with me, losing out all along the way. Or I could play by the rules of the game. Ultimately, I did the latter and had the surgery. I guess I'm still struggling with hating the game and the rules. And I'm trying to learn to be comfortable with benefitting from it now. Even then, though, I have a really hard time letting go of the missed opportunities and the people who hurt me.
This is from a tea party about 3 weeks back I had with my sister and our gorgeous wonderful beauty pageant queen friend (oh yeah, another thing I'll never do)
